great-coach

The Psychology of Winning: How to Develop a Winning Attitude in High Performance Sport

Ask any athlete or coach about the contribution of the mind to performance and they will respond that it will vary between 90 and 95%! Yet, most of time, coaches and athletes leave their mental skills training to the last minute and often it is in the form of a “motivation” talk from a guru or professional speaker. This article discusses the importance of integrating mental skills into every aspect of preparation by understanding how to help athletes “think” differently about their training and how motivation is such a powerful performance enhancement tool in sport.

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

Losing Lyrics:Ten Things Athletes and Coaches Say When They Lose (and what it tells you about them).

Know what I really love about high performance sport….what you learn a lot about people.

You see people at their very best when they are happy, excited and jubilant about performing well.

You see people at their very worst when they lose, are disappointed and have experienced failure.

And it is on these moments, when people are at their low point, after experiencing failure that this post is focused…Losing Lyrics: What athletes and coaches say when they lose (and what it tells you about them). (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

Performance Science and Why it’s time has come.

 

“In short science has its limitations. Western science is characterised by
reductionist principles; but we reach a point at which the reduction becomes
disassociated from the phenomena it is trying to explain” P.Jones 1998

It’s time.

It’s time for the Sports science industry to seriously change the way we do business.

It’s time we let go of  the outdated, simplistic single cause / single effect model of research and embraced a genuine integrated, multi disciplinary approach to solving performance problems.

It’s time for Performance Science to come of age. (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago

What’s all this Leadership by Empowerment stuff about?

Leadership groups, leadership teams, player leadership teams, team councils………

What’s going on here? Players making decisions? Players leading? Players taking ownership of their training and playing programs?

  • What’s all this empowerment stuff about?
  • What does engagement mean? Is someone getting married?
  • And what the hell is a leadership group?

I thought coaches coached, managers managed, fans cheered, doctors doctored and players played.

All of sudden every AFL, rugby, football, cricket, netball and rugby league team has embraced a player empowerment leadership model. Five years ago, most of us couldn’t even spell it.

Let’s have closer look at what’s going on. (more…)

By Wayne Goldsmith, ago