Neurocognitive skills combine visual skills and perceptual-cognitive skills. These differentiate good athletes from great because they directly impact on-field performance. While neurocognitive skills are trainable, not all training is created equal. Coaches and athletes want to know, “What actually transfers to the court, field, or ice?”

Why I Learned How to Juggle

In Little League, I was no Aaron Judge. I struggled at the plate. One day my dad handed me a set of juggling balls he had picked up and said figure it out. He told me juggling would make me a better hitter.

I was skeptical, but also desperate. I really wanted to put more balls in play.

Was juggling really going to make me a better hitter? Let’s take a look at the literature.

How to Increase Transfer of Neurocognitive Training to Competition

With advances in neuroscience and technology, there are more innovative ways to train visual and perceptual-cognitive skills than ever before. But which methods or devices truly work? And by work I mean – transfer to real athletic skills and situations. For more information on what neurocognitive skills are check out this article.

Let’s look at what Hadlow and colleagues (2018) referred to as modified perceptual training, which “collectively describes on- or off-field sports training tasks that are specifically designed to develop visual and perceptual-cognitive skill” (i.e., neurocognitive skills).

Part 1: What to Train

Does the Skill Matter?

There are 3 questions you should ask before training a neurocognitive skill:

1. Does the skill differentiate athletes of different skill levels?

• If average athletes are just as good at the skill as elite athletes, then it probably isn’t a contributing factor to improving in that sport.

2. Can the skill be improved through training?

• Review existing research.

3. Does improvement in the skill transfer to improvement on the competition surface?

• Review existing research.

I can’t tell you how many organizations I’ve talked to (at a variety of levels) that didn’t answer these 3 questions first. If the answer to any of these is “No,” then training the designated skill is wasting time.

Visual acuity in baseball is a great example of a neurocognitive skill that doesn’t check all the boxes. This is the eye chart test at the optometrist’s office. While visual acuity is a valid and meaningful measure of basic vision, it isn’t as relevant in baseball where the action is fast moving and dynamic. Consequently, research has demonstrated that while visual acuity can be improved (Yes to Question 2), that improvement doesn’t make a difference on the field (No to Question 3).

Answering these questions can be tough. And knowing how to train these skills can be even tougher. I help teams, facilities, and organizations do just that. And I would love to help you too. Contact me.

Part 2: How to Train

3 Factors to Improve Transfer of Neurocognitive Training

In order to help athletes, teams, and organizations make better decisions about HOW to train these neurocognitive skills, researchers developed the modified perceptual training framework (MPTF).

The MPTF outlines 3 key factors which interact with one another to help us determine the likelihood of a training task to transfer to actual performance in competition. Each factor is represented on a continuum from less to more effective.

1. The skill is being trained – Is it a lower order skill visual skill or a higher order perceptual-cognitive skill?
2. Similarity of the stimuli (i.e., target, ball, etc.) to what an athlete encounters in competition – both visually and how the object moves.
3. Similarity of an athlete’s response in the task to how he responds in competition (i.e., visual tracking, catching, swinging a bat).

First, the target skill needs to score a Yes on the 3 questions in Part 1. Second, the neurocognitive training should be congruent with the sport context to increase the likelihood of skill transfer to competition.

The military units I’ve worked with had a phrase that sums all this up rather well – “Train how we fight.”

An Example.

Let’s look at training information processing speed for soccer goalies defending shots on goal.

Part 1: WHAT

Does the skill differentiate athletes of different skill levels?

• Yes, expert soccer players have a much greater information processing speed than novices.

Can the skill be improved through training?

• The research says yes.

Does improvement in the skill transfer to improvement on the competition surface?

• The research says yes.

Part 2: HOW

A goalie will wear stroboscopic eyewear (i.e., strobe glasses) while defending shots on goal.

1. Which skill is being trained? Is it a lower order skill visual skill or a higher order perceptual-cognitive skill?

Information processing speed is a higher order perceptual-cognitive skill which we are training in a highly sport-specific context. Strobe training forces the athlete’s brain to work harder to process the visual information she uses to identify, track and react to a shot, which speeds up her processing speed once the glasses are removed.

2. How similar is the stimuli in training to what an athlete encounters in competition?

In our training task, the stimuli (a player kicking a soccer ball toward the goal) is almost identical to what the goalie sees in competition. Note: From a training perspective, you may not start the goalie taking full-speed shots on goal. However, a goalie could work up to this level of speed and intensity.

3. How similar is the athlete’s response in the training task to what she would execute in competition?

In our training task, the goalie’s desired response is to make the stop and defend the goal. Therefore, her movements to deflect or secure the ball would be the same as in a competition.

Conclusion: Based on this analysis, having a goalie use strobe glasses to improve information processing speed while practicing shots on goal has a high likelihood of improving goalie performance in competition.

What about my juggling experiment?

The key here is in the skill being trained. If the skill my dad wanted me to train was eye tracking (following a single object as it moves), then we shouldn’t expect a high degree of transfer. The balls were not baseballs, they weren’t coming at me as in a pitch trajectory, and I was catching and throwing them in a coordinated rhythm, not hitting them with a bat. However, the real intent was to improve my concentration and ability to focus on a single task. And for that, juggling was indeed helpful.

Increase the Transfer of Your Neurocognitive Training to Improve Athlete Performance

By designing exercises and using technologies that closely resemble the natural stimuli and responses within a given sport, we can expect a drill to more likely transfer to the real world performance. Remember, train how you fight. Use the above questions and the MPTF from Hadlow et. al (2018) guides when making important decisions about practice drills, training exercises, and technologies. And if you need a little help, let us know. It’s what we do.

Question: What have you seen work or not work when it comes to neurocognitive training? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Additional Info:

• Post: 9 Neurocognitive Skills that Improve Athlete Performance
• Post: 3 Ways to Integrate Neurocognitive Skills Into Strength Training
• Post: The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training

The post How to Increase Transfer of Neurocognitive Training to Competition first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Time is every athlete’s greatest constraint. When I consult with organizations about neurocognitive training, I often hear that time is a primary concern. They often cite time as the #1 reason athletes don’t invest in training the critical neurocognitive skills that could give them a real competitive edge. However, there is a solution: integrate neurocognitive skills into physical training sessions.

Addressing Concerns When Integrating Neurocognitive Training

In an article on why athletes should train the mind and body together I shared how I helped one organization tackle this very problem. Here we’ll dig deeper into the nuts and bolts of integrating neurocognitive and physical training together.

First, let’s address a couple of common concerns:

1. Time

Integrating neurocognitive training into a strength training period doesn’t require adding time to the training period. However, you can tack on a few additional minutes if you want to or if it is beneficial for hitting your training outcomes.

2. Confusion

As with any other training, familiarizing athletes with the training program and equipment is a key to efficient training and overall success.

3. Distraction

Neurocognitive training is not a distraction from strength training (unless you choose to view it that way). Rather, it forces athletes to utilize cognitive processes that mimic real-world performance such as task-switching, refocusing, and decision making while fatigued.

3 Ways to Integrate Neurocognitive Skills into Physical Training Sessions

While there are a number of ways to integrate neurocognitive training into an athlete’s or team’s practice regimen, here are 3 simple strategies for training neurocognitive skills within a physical training session.

1. Visual Warm-up

The visual system is primarily responsible (80%) for the decisions and reactions athletes make on the field. It also plays an important role in proprioception and balance – key aspects of nearly every physical training program.

Following the RAMP framework, it is just as important for athletes to warm-up their visual systems as it is their bodies.

Examples of neurocognitive drills:

• Eye movement drills that activate the ocular muscles (e.g., saccades)
• Eye teaming drills that require athletes to shift their gaze from near to far and back again
• Eye-hand coordination drills incorporating movement along with simple tossing and catching/kicking

2. Utilize Active Rest Periods

Plugging neurocognitive skills into active rest periods is both efficient (no additional time required) and effective (mimics the real-world demands of competition).

Coordinating with your strength and conditioning staff helps to create a seamless training program that both flows well and maintains the integrity of your (now more holistic) training outcomes. This is a custom service we offer our clients.

Neurocognitive skills can easily supplement active rest within super-sets or HIIT training rotations.

Examples of neurocognitive drills:

• Incorporate simple vision training exercises using heart charts, brock stings, lifesaver cards.
• Include visual processing drills using flashing numbers, shapes, or sport-specific scenes.
• Add Strobe eyewear (link below) to eye-hand coordination drills.

3. Train Decision Making

One of the greatest contributors to poor decisions in late-game situations is a failure to train decision making while fatigued.

By adding choice reaction time, quick decision making, and response inhibition to training, athletes can significantly improve their late-game decision making [link to decision post] and responses. These exercises can be used during active rest periods or between conditioning reps.

Examples of neurocognitive drills:

• Go / No Go is a common yet simple choice reaction drill that forces athletes to make quick decisions with a clear right or wrong response.
• Occlusion training presents sports-specific images or video segments to an athlete, then stops at the critical decision point, forcing her to utilize the cues shown to anticipate the rest of the action (e.g., where a serve will land in tennis) or choose how to respond (e.g., pass to player X as she cuts to the basket).
• Use a simple Stroop, vigilance, or inhibition task where the athlete has to overcome natural tendencies in order to make the correct response.

Bonus Download

To help you integrate neurocognitive skills into your physical training sessions I created a 1-page infographic of the strategies in this post.

Integrate Neurocognitive Skills for Next Level Training

Training athlete cognition is the next frontier in mental performance training. It is important to train the mind and body together to best prepare athletes for the mental and physical demands of competition. Utilize the practical strategies in this post to integrate neurocognitive skills into your physical training sessions and give your athletes the competitive edge they deserve!

If you need additional support, reach out to us. That’s what we do – we build cognitive training programs that work!

Question: What are other ways you are integrating cognitive training?I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Additional Links:

• The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training
• 3 Ways Training the Mind and Body Together Improves Athlete Performance
• Training Athlete Cognition: How to Help Athletes Execute On Demand
• RAMP framework
• Strobe Eyewear (Use Code “UnleashStrobe20” to save $20 at checkout)

The post 3 Ways to Integrate Neurocognitive Skills Into Strength Training first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Athletes make mental mistakes. Hitters swing at bad pitches. Gymnasts over rotate on tumbling passes. Point guards make bad passes. Linemen jump offsides. We might assume athletes aren’t focused but in reality they are too amped up. 

• Excess caffeine
• Expectations peceived to exceed ability
• Pressure from self or others
• Negative interpretation of nervous symptoms
• Over-energized
• Physical and cognitive stress
• Lack of confidence

An Over-Amped Lineman

An NCAA Division I lineman with whom I worked struggled to regulate his activation (physiological energy) level before games.

Part of the problem was his teammates amping everyone up before tip off like Hall of Fame Linebacker Ray Lewis motivated his teammates in the huddle. When he was too amped up he was more likely to draw penalties or miss blocks at the line of scrimmage.

Some athletes need to be amped up to perform at their best; however others don’t. This young man was the latter, performing at his best when he had a relatively low level of physiological activation.

A technique that would have helped him is called diaphragmatic breathing. It is a technique to dial down the body’s natural fight-or-flight response (sympathetic nervous system) and take control of the body’s physiology by intentionally increasing activity in the parasympathetic nervous system.

Diaphragmatic breathing can help athletes manage their physiological (and cognitive) activation and elevate performance.

Benefits of Diaphragmatic Breathing

Here are numerous proven benefits your athletes can receive from using diaphragmatic breathing (based on McCraty and Childre, 2010):

• Enhanced motor coordination (i.e., hand-eye coordination, speed, timing)
• Improved ability to regulate emotions (i.e., composure)
• Increased focus and concentration (i.e., hearing the snap count)
• Faster information processing (i.e., decision making, problem solving, improvisation, discrimination)

Diaphragmatic breathing has powerful benefits for an athlete’s performance.
Click To Tweet

How Diaphragmatic Breathing Works

By practicing this 3 part process athletes can access the powerful benefits of diaphragmatic breathing:

1. Belly Breathing

Diaphragmatic breathing, sometimes called belly breathing, involves intentionally breathing into the belly, not inflating the chest. Inflate the belly as you inhale and tighten the belly as you exhale.

2. Focus on One Thing

Trying to focus on too many things at once increases the fight-or-flight responses. Instead, focus on one thing, such as:

• Counting your breathing rate. Count up as you inhale fully and down as you exhale.
• Focus on the physical sensations of expanding your abdomen as you inhale and feel the tightening in your abdominals as you exhale.
• Notice the continuous flow of air moving through your nose, throat, and lungs as you breathe.

3. Elicit Positive Emotions

Research shows that positive emotions such as gratitude and joy counteract the body’s natural stress response. In fact, positive emotions help activate the body’s rest and digest response. This is the body’s counterbalance to the fight-or-flight response.

To elicit positive emotions athletes can use multiple strategies:

• Think of someone or something you are grateful for.
• Picture a joyful or awe inspiring place or experience.
• Reflect on a past success or achievement, or on how hard he or she worked to get where they are.

By combining this three-part process, athletes can maximize the benefits of diaphragmatic breathing, gain control of their mind and body, and elevate their performances.

Practicing the 3-step diaphragmatic breathing process will enhance an athlete’s performance.
Click To Tweet

Diaphragmatic breathing is one of the 4 essential tools we equip athletes with in our premier online course, Mental Training Academy and a key ingredient for developing the critical skills every athlete needs to get more out of practice and compete with consistency. Find all the details here.

Free Download

To help your athletes learn diaphragmatic breathing and practice it, I created this free downloadable poster.

Dial In Optimal Activation

To be successful in sports, athletes need to learn to manage their emotions and physiology. One aspect of this skill is knowing how to dial down the body’s activation when necessary. Even the smallest changes can make a big difference in an athlete’s performance. Help your athletes get into their optimal activation state by teaching them the technique of diaphragmatic breathing. Like anything else, the more they practice it, the more they can count on it when they need it the most.

Question: How could diaphragmatic breathing help your athletes? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Post: How to Empower Athletes to Embrace Their Nerves
• Post: How to Stay Loose Under Pressure by Practicing PMR
• Post: How to Coach Your Team Through Anxiety on Opening Day
• Video: How To Help Athletes Embrace Nervousness

The post Why Should Every Athlete Practice Diaphragmatic Breathing? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Top athletes meticulously shape their pre-game routines. They want to be ready physically, mentally, and emotionally to perform their best when the competition kicks off. Unfortunately, few are as intentional about what they do after the game. How well athletes wind down will ultimately impact the quality of their training or performance tomorrow.

Winding Down is a Struggle at Every Level

Brandon Parsons, clinical deputy director at Neurodezign was part of a team who supported the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks. In one of his initial conversations with one of the team’s leaders in the locker room he heard a familiar gripe, “I don’t feel rested the next day. I don’t feel like I sleep well.”

In Parsons’ experience, “Athletes in general absolutely suck at being able to shut off after a game. They go home, it’s eleven thirty, midnight, and their brains’ still wired, still going a hundred miles per hour. And they gotta calm down and relax.”

Unfortunately, athletes try to combat this with seemingly mindless activities like watching Netflix or playing Xbox. While not physically taxing these activities keep the brain activated and the blue light inhibits melatonin production in the brain, which we need to fall asleep. Worse yet, older athletes may have a couple of drinks which only interferes with sleep. Consequently, they struggle to wind down and the quality of their sleep suffers.

• Risk of injury
• Physical Strength
• Reaction Time
• Information Processing
• Concentration
• Decision Making
• Emotion Regulation
• Athletic Performance

If you want more details, check out this post.

3 Step Routine to Help Athletes Wind Down to Increase Recovery

Athletes can set the conditions to facilitate winding down and falling asleep. They can adjust the lights, put down the electronics, and turn down the thermostat. However, what they do post-game may be just as, if not more, important.

Here is an easy-to-implement routine that every athlete can use to help them wind down after competitions to reduce insomnia and facilitate recovery:

1. Find a quiet place.

This will look different for everyone. Some athletes can put on their headphones, cue up some calming music, and tune out the rest of the locker room. Others need to leave the locker room and find a more secluded place where they aren’t distracted. This might be a conference room in the field house or in their cars before driving home. The point is to find a distraction-free space where he or she can relax and slow down.

2. Do 5 minutes of mindful breathing.

In that quiet place, invest 5 minutes in a mindful breathing exercise (also known as diaphragmatic breathing). This 3-part process has tremendous benefits for an athlete’s performance but also aids in the recovery of mind and body. It also can assist athletes in getting better sleep.

1. Belly Breathing: take slow deep breaths inflating the belly as you inhale and tightening the belly as you exhale.
2. Focus on One Thing: simplify your thinking by focusing on a calming word, phrase, or mental video.
3. Elicit Positive Emotions: Use the thoughts or images in part 2 to experience a positive emotion which counteracts the body’s stress response.

3. Keep it mellow.

It is hard for athletes to wind down when they continue to replay clips from the competition in their minds, over and over. At this point in the post-game process, further critiques only activate the body’s stress response. No more shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Athletes need to unwind, focus on enjoying family or friends, and relax their minds and bodies. This will help them ease into bed and maximize their quality of sleep and recovery.

---

Athletes should be as intentional about winding down after a game as they are about psyching up.
Click To Tweet

---

Bonus Download

To help your athletes wind down using diaphragmatic breathing, I created this free downloadable poster to coach them along.

Encourage Athletes to Wind Down with Purpose

When athletes become intentional about winding down, they can accelerate their performance. Winding down increases the quality of athletes’ recovery. It will help them sleep better. Ultimately, it will help them train harder, play smarter, and perform better when it counts.

Question: What prevents your athletes from winding down?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

The post Do Your Athletes Know How to Wind Down to Increase Recovery? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

For better or worse, the environment surrounding your team impacts performance on game day. A talented team in a poor environment will not fulfill its potential. In contrast, a decent team in a positive environment can exceed expectations. Let’s look at how to build a more positive environment around your team.

A Positive Team Movement

As the positive coaching movement begins to flourish, coaches like you want to grow beyond being a supportive and demanding coach. They want to know how to build a more positive team. As Clemson’s Dabo Swinney puts it, “A team can do great things but a positive team can do extraordinary things.”

Admittedly, I don’t love using the term “positive” in this way. It can be misconstrued as soft or touchy-feely by those who aren’t familiar with it. To me a positive team is united, committed, character-driven, selfless, hard working, driven, and resilient.

A positive team isn’t built overnight. It requires discipline, intentionality, and consistency over time. Ask top coaches like Steve Kerr (Warriors), Dave Roberts (Dodgers), or Sean McCoy (Rams). Many more are rising through the coaching ranks, in part because they know how to build a positive team.

4 Strategies to Establish a Positive Team Environment

What coach doesn’t want a positive team environment? You can take your team to the next level by shaping an environment that supports a championship team culture. Here are 4 strategies to get you started.

1. Establish Trust and Safety

A positive team environment begins with trust and safety. When people feel safe being themselves, they are free to take risks within the team without feeling insecure or embarrassed. They can test the limits of their abilities without fear – a key to athletic development and performance.

To infuse your team with a greater sense of trust and safety, lean in and genuinely listen, share gratitude, and invite team member’s input.

For more practical strategies for establishing trust and safety, click here.

2. Set Clear Expectations

Players will rise and fall to your expectations. However, communication breaks down and assumptions fill the gaps when expectations are unclear. Get your team members on the same page.

As the coach, your athletes need to know what you expect of them. The more specific the better. Discuss their roles within the team. Talk to your players about expected positions, their place on the depth chart, and playing time. Discuss strengths and areas of improvement. Share what you expect from players as a teammates, leaders, and students.

Clear expectations empower your athletes to take ownership and responsibility to meet those expectations. This also makes accountability easier.

3. Demonstrate Belief

When coaches consistently communicate their belief and confidence in their players their athletes show greater effort and commitment.

Author Jon Gordon emphasizes this point. In You Win in the Locker Room First he shared, “I’m convinced one of the most important things a leader must do is to be positive and optimistic.” Communicating a positive and optimistic mentality demonstrates belief in your team’s ability to effectively navigate adversity and become successful.

The more you believe in your team, the more they’ll believe in each other and the better they’ll perform together.

As Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski put it, “I believe in you. These four words can mean the difference between a fear of failure and the courage to try.”

4. Praise the Process

Praising the process is calling out the effort, strategy, or skill that led to success or improvement.

When you praise the process consistently with your team, this focuses them on continued learning and development, pointing out what led to past success as the key to further improvement.

Praising the process, rather than criticizing mistakes, helps teammates identify and recognize the hard work everyone is doing to make the team better. This staves off negativity, helping your athletes encourage one another.

A positive team trusts and empowers one another to succeed.
Click To Tweet

Bonus Download

To help you with establishing a positive team environment I created this cheat sheet outlining 10 essentials (including the 4 listed here) you need to focus on to truly transform your team’s environment and culture.

Give Your Team a Positive Advantage

Creating a positive team environment should be a top priority for every coach. It is the everyday actions of maintaining a championship team culture. The difference is in the details. Leverage the 4 strategies above to create a team environment where players can thrive. Help your team fulfill its potential.

Question: What are other strategies to establish a positive team environment?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Book: You Win in the Locker Room First by Jon Gordon
• Post: Is It Better to Be a Supportive or Demanding Coach?
• Post: Why Do Great Teams Focus on Culture First?
• Post: How To Protect Your Athletes From Your Low Expectations
• Post: “Good Job” Isn’t Good Enough: What It Means to Praise the Process
• Post: 3 Reasons Teammates Should Encourage Not Criticize

The post How to Establish a Positive Team Environment first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Creating a safe environment for your athletes is about more than good equipment and safe field conditions. Coaches like Brad Stevens, Dabo Swinney, Doug Peterson, and Gregg Popovich – seen as positive coaches – ensure their teams feel safe enough to take risks and go all out. Ultimately, this emphasis on relationships is a significant component that leads to success.

Who I Trusted

Throughout my years as an athlete, I had great relationships and mutual trust with some of my coaches. Others, I didn’t trust much at all.

• Didn’t know what they were talking about
• Criticized more than they coached
• Had my back and believed I had the ability to get better

It is no surprise which type I trusted more.

A Case for Safety

Trust comes from making your team members feel safe. They feel safe being themselves and when they can take risks within the team without feeling insecure or embarrassed.

Beyond trust is a factor of team performance termed psychological safety. Dr. Amy Edmondson of the Harvard Business School defines psychological safety as, “a climate in which people are comfortable being (and expressing) themselves.” Her research focused on what she calls team psychological safety – taking this concept to a team level where members of a team share the same beliefs, sense of interpersonal safety, trust in one another, and commitment to the team.

In a two-year study at Google, an internal investigation found that the factor that differentiates their top work teams from the rest was indeed psychological safety.

Edmondson’s research found that psychological safety predicts quality improvements, learning behavior, and performance. I would add that it also boosts motivation.

Bottom Line: This means that athletes who feel safe within the team will work harder, improve faster, and reach their potential quicker than athletes in less safe team environments.

Switching Circuits

To take this point a little further, let’s look at how a sense of safety changes an athlete’s brain and improves performance.

Typically the amygdala is known as the stress center of the brain. It continuously scans our environment for threats (real or imagined). The goal is to eliminate threats and preserve safety. When a threat is detected it sounds the alarm – the fight or flight response.

However, when an athlete feels safe among their coaches and teammates, the amygdala changes from a stress center to a connection center. When this happens the amygdala stops scanning for threats and starts to track those within the team seeking to preserve those vital relationships. That athlete now gains strength from the team, increasing his or her commitment to the team.

This means that rather than wasting energy monitoring their status on the team, managing perceptions, and watching out for themselves, athletes are free to be more selfless, doing what’s best for the team.

Coaching for Safety

As we all know, leaders must lead by example. Your team is watching and listening to calibrate their own attitudes and actions based on their leaders.

Coaches who want to promote an environment high in psychological safety should go out of their way to demonstrate these three behaviors:

1. Be Available and Approachable – if you aren’t accessible then it is difficult to build relationships and stimulate discussion within the team
2. Explicitly Ask For Input and Feedback – encouraging open participation, opinions, and the sharing of ideas fosters a safe environment
3. Model Openness and Falliability – if you want your players to demonstrate the vulnerability necessary to push the limits of their abilities, admit to mistakes, and feel comfortable discussing any topic, then you must go first.

Fostering safe and strong relationships is the day-to-day driver of a championship culture.
Click To Tweet

Relationships Drive Culture

“Relationships are the foundation up which great teams and organizations are built,” says author Jon Gordon. For coaches, building strong and safe relationships with your athletes should be the number one priority. Those relationships foster trust, communication, commitment, and teamwork. Relationships drive your team toward a championship culture on a day-to-day basis.

As Daniel Coyle puts it, “Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It’s not something you are. It’s something you do.”

Question: What is the hardest part about creating psychological safety and trust in your team?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Post: How to Foster a Powerful Motivational Climate
• Post: Why Do Great Teams Focus on Culture First?
• Post: 10 Secrets Every Coach Should Steal from Dabo Swinney

The post Why Should You Focus More on Building Trust and Safety? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Dale Carnegie said, “Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn — and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.” As a coach, do you play the fool or demonstrate character in how you interact with your players? Are you wasting your breath, time, and energy on criticism?

Champions Don’t Criticize

The Seattle Seahawks have built a reputation for doing things differently. In the process, they’ve built a consistent contender who won the 2015 Super Bowl.

Feedback is also something they do differently. The Seahawks coaching staff doesn’t criticize players.

Head Coach Pete Carroll says, “We correct people by trying to discipline ourselves as coaches to correct them by telling them what exactly we would like to happen and not what they did wrong.”

Why not? Carroll said, “We don’t have time [to criticize]” The Seahawks don’t ask, ‘What are you doing? What were you thinking?’ or say, “That’s not how I said to do it.’

“We tell them exactly what we desire as quickly as we can instead of wasting airtime with criticism,” Coach Carroll said in Great Teams by Don Yeager.

Stop Wasting Time on Criticism

What does criticism actually accomplish? You punctuate a mistake. You teach a lesson. You vent your emotion. Is any of that truly necessary?

When you criticize, you are more likely to:

1. Waste time stating the obvious.

Athletes typically know when they’ve messed up. Even when an athlete doesn’t recognize a mechanical issue, telling her what she is doing wrong has limited utility. Don’t you want her to focus on what right looks like, not waste mental energy on the wrong technique

2. Cause athletes to shut down.

When coaches raise their voices and call attention to an athletes’ mistakes, it is likely an athlete will shut down. Communication ceases. Learning stops. The player may begin to play hesitant, and second guess their actions, which limits performance.

3. Erode the player-coach relationship.

Don’t get me wrong. When an athlete messes up, it needs to be addressed. The art is in the how.

Criticizing a player (even just their actions) is likely to yield little return. When a player withdraws from you (i.e., shuts down), this creates a gap in communication. Negativity fills most communication gaps. You are more likely to lose their trust, respect, and admiration by criticizing.

Instead, Make Your Feedback Productive 

Learn to communicate like the Seahawks coaching staff. Be quick to remind the player of the action you want them to do.

I even try to do this with my infant daughter. When she wants to drop food from her high chair I say, “Eat it,” or “Put it back on your tray.” Remember, “Don’t…” doesn’t work. So I avoid saying, “Don’t drop it on the floor!”

Here are 3 reminders to be disciplined in your feedback and stop wasting time on criticism:

• Your athletes aren’t trying to make mistakes.
• Athletes need you to be both supportive and demanding.
• Focus your precious time and energy on what right looks like.

Stop wasting time on criticism. Instead, clarify & teach your players.
Click To Tweet

Discipline Yourself & Your Coaching Staff

Being overly critical of your athletes has no benefits. Rather than becoming disciplined and compliant, they become fearful and lose confidence. This isn’t a recipe for peak performance. Therefore, stop wasting time on criticism. Instead, encourage, empower, and teach your athletes fix mistakes, not dwell on them.

Question: Despite its ineffectiveness, why do so many coaches waste time on criticism?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Book: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
• Book: Great Teams Don Yeager
• Post: One Word that will Sabotage Performance Every Time
• Post: Is It Better to Be a Supportive or Demanding Coach?

The post Are You Wasting Time On Criticism? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Simone Biles, Olympic Gold Medal winning gymnast, said, “Practice creates confidence. Confidence empowers you.” She’s right. The problem is when an athlete can’t translate his or her performance in practice to the competition surface. This can frustrate coaches and baffle players. What is going on here?

Jekyll and Hyde

My college tennis coach probably thought I had dual personalities. One showed up in practice, the other in the match. It was frustrating, to say the least. Perhaps you’ve seen this in your athletes too.

In practice I was loose, confident, and focused. As you’d expect, I played really well. However, no one gets credit for winning practice.

On match day, my game felt like I had one arm tied behind my back. I wasn’t comfortable on the court. My emotions got the best of me, and I was focused on the wrong things.

My coach was out of ideas about how to help me, but he knew I could perform better than what he saw.

I wasn’t reaching my potential. In part, this is what led me to sport psychology. I needed help.

3 Reasons Athletes May Be Better in Practice

Over the past decade, I’ve come across numerous athletes with the same problems I had. The first step to bring about change is identifying why your player is performing better in practice, but not when it counts.

Here are my top 3 reasons why an athlete may be a better practice player than in the game.

1. Fear of Making Mistakes

Athletes who are afraid to mess up often hesitate, hold back, and second guess their decisions during the flow of play. All of these drag down an athlete’s performance.

An athlete’s fear of making mistakes often stems from a lack of trust. She may not trust her coach and fears losing playing time. He may fear embarrassment because he doesn’t feel like an accepted member of his team. Or she may fear retribution and criticism from parents on the ride home.

I tell coaches that an athlete’s fear of making mistakes is usually a symptom of a team culture issue. Either way, it can be addressed and improved with the right approach.

2. Not Focused on the Right Targets

Athletes who aren’t focused on what’s important now struggle to play in the present moment.

When athletes play better in practice than in the game, they are probably focused on more of the right things in practice and more of the wrong things during the game.

To be at their best you want your players focused on the parts of their game that are specific, controllable, observable, and relevant. This helps athletes get locked into the moment and play their best.

3. Poor Emotional Control

When athletes are are fearful, distracted, and not meeting their expectations on the court emotions can run high.

Frustration, anger, nervousness, or anxiety begin to dominate their mindset. These emotions restrict positive thinking and physical movement. When this happens, performance deteriorates quickly.

Athletes need to learn to manage emotions and create an Emotion Control Plan to keep their cool in the heat of battle.

Do you know WHY some athletes play better in practice than in competition?
Click To Tweet

Bonus Download

To help you address this last reason (poor emotional control) with your athletes, you may find this Emotion Control Plan exercise helpful. Use it to help your athletes create a plan for managing their emotions under the pressures of competition.

Target the Right Reason

I talk with coaches and athletes who battle this Jekyll and Hyde syndrome – translating success in practice to the game. It’s frustrating for everyone involved. Understanding a few of the causes can help you and your athletes target the right solutions.

Most coaches aren’t experts in focus, emotional control, or helping athletes overcome fears. However, you can create a more trusting and supportive environment around your team. And you can point athletes to the right resources (such as the download above) to help them get out of their own way and perform to their true potential.

Question: How have you dealt with athletes struggling from this Jekyll and Hyde syndrome?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Post: Why Do Great Teams Focus on Culture First?
• Post: How to Instill a Winning Focus in Sports, Work, & Life
• Post: How to Help Athletes Keep Cool When Emotions Run High
• Post: How to Coach Athletes to Focus on the Right Thing
• Post: Is It Better to Be a Supportive or Demanding Coach?

The post Why Are Some Athletes Better on the Practice Field? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Everyone is looking for an edge in sports. Coaches seek out any possible advantage that could boost their team’s performance. Athletes will go to great lengths to test to limits of their potential. The qualities that were once lumped together as intangibles are becoming tangible. Quickly emerging as the latest trend in sports science, sport psychology is bridging the gap in evaluating and developing athlete’s “no longer tangibles.” Optimism is one such edge.

Major League Optimism

If there is any professional sports team in recent history who needed optimism, it was the Chicago Cubs. Then, through a thorough rebuilding, the Cubs dramatically ended their 108 year championship draught in a memorable Game 7 showdown against the Cleveland Indians.

Theo Epstein, President of Baseball Operations for the Cubs, was named #1 on Fortune’s 2017 World’s Greatest Leaders list.

Upon taking the helm of the downtrodden ball club, Epstein set a new standard for the kind of players that were going to lead this franchise’s resurrection. He made character a cornerstone. As Tom Verducci put it, “[Character] was essential to Epstein’s blueprint to win the World Series.”

Epstein has Cubs scouts, player development staff, and the manager on the lookout for the intangible qualities of players.

He wants players with resilience, grit, and optimism. It should come as no surprise that the Cubs have a team of professionals focused on evaluating and developing the intangible, mental qualities of their ball players.

Are you paying enough attention to player’s intangibles?
Click To Tweet

Why Is Optimism a Secret Weapon?

The post Why Does the Best Team in Baseball Recruit Optimism? first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Athletes are often sabotaged by their own worries, doubts, and fears. Feeling threatened is among the worst. When athletes view their circumstance as a threat their confidence goes out the window. They get nervous. Consequently they play tight, hesitant, and weak. What if you could help your athletes turn those threats into opportunities?

The Greatest Upset of All Time

In 2007, Appalachian State University (FCS) went up to the Big House and beat the Michigan Wolverines (FBS) on their home turf in the season opener, 34 – 32.

The year before, teams had been approved to add an additional game to their schedules and teams were scrambling to lock in opponents.

When Jerry Moore, then Appalachian State head coach, was asked about playing Michigan, he was all for it. As he recalled, “My first thought was, ‘Whatever it takes, let’s play them.’”

Most people refer to those match-ups as “money games,” but Coach Moore called it an “opportunity game.”

All week leading up to the game, strength coach, Jeff Dillman, played the Michigan fight song in the weight room. He wanted to piss the guys off. He said he had a gut feeling. He told the back-to-back FCS National Champions that they were more explosive, stronger, and faster than Michigan.

ASU safety, Corey Lynch said, “Our confidence level was as high as any FCS team’s could ever be.” They believed in the ability of the guys in their locker room regardless of what was on the other side.

Appalachian State stunned Michigan. When they could have been intimidated, anxious, and threatened, they chose to embrace the opportunity. They chose to compete. And they won.

Optimism Illuminates Opportunities

How can you teach your athletes to turn threats into opportunities?

It all starts with developing an optimistic mentality. Optimism is a secret weapon and carries some huge benefits.

Note that optimism isn’t simply a “glass half full” delusion. Optimism is a demonstration of our beliefs and directs how we interpret the events, successes, and failures in our lives.

Optimism is also the key to helping athletes view potential threatening situations as opportunities instead.

What do I mean by threatening situations?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

• Post: Optimism: Your Secret Weapon
• Post: 2 Simple Questions That Will Make You Happier Today

The post How to Help Your Athletes See Threats as Opportunities first appeared on The Excelling Edge.