In the heat of competition athletes face myriad demands. Dr. Vincent Walsh tells us, “If one considers the challenges that elite sport performance presents to the brain, it is difficult to think of any human activity that places more demands on the brain (with the possible exception of combat Soldier).” Competition requires athletes to meet extreme mental and physical demands simultaneously. Athletes need to train the mind and body together. Yet, too often, the mind and body are trained separately.

The Old Way to Train: Mind & Body Separately

Training athletes used to look like an assembly line of exercises. A practice outline looked like this:

• Film Study
• Warm-up
• Skill 1 Repetitions
• Skill 2 Repetitions
• Skill 3 Repetitions
• Scenario 1 Repetitions
• Scenario 2 Repetitions
• Scrimmage
• Strength Training
• Conditioning

The focus was on repetition of specific skills over and over again. For example, after completing 20 repetitions of throwing ground balls to first base, they did 20 repetitions of throwing to second base. This is a simplified example of course, but you get the point. While this approach developed sport skills more quickly, those skills did not transfer well to competition.

Practice was simple and repetitive. Competition was chaotic and variable. Notice the mismatch.

The New Way to Train: Mind & Body Together

I recently worked with a high performance organization in which training time was limited – as it is for almost every sports organization I know of. The mission was to improve physical strength, cardiovascular fitness, and cognitive performance under stress, and avoid injuries in the process.

I’m sure this sounds familiar.
To combat the constraints on time and still meet our objectives, our team employed a more modern approach to athlete training.

Building on previous articles on Athlete Cognition (How Athletes See, Decide, and Execute), I worked collaboratively with our strength staff to integrate neurocognitive performance training into physical training blocks (more on that in a future post).

We designed training sessions to elicit physical and cognitive adaptation to demands (stressors) that mimic the real-world performance environment.

In training we taxed physical and cognitive systems simultaneously. Competition also taxes both systems simultaneously. We created alignment in how athletes trained and competed.

The military has a mantra for this: “Train like we fight.”

Why The New Way is Better:

• We know that athlete decision-making suffers when athletes are fatigued. Many late game mistakes happen because athletes aren’t mentally conditioned for high cognitive demand when fatigued.
• We know that fatigue and endurance are significantly influenced by cognitive fatigue. When athletes are more mentally depleted, they slow down or quit sooner.
• We know that training the mind and body together increases transfer of skills and strategy to the competition surface.

Practical Recommendations

To help you incorporate a more modern approach to athletic performance training, here are a few recommendations:

1. Shrink the court, field, or ice.

Sometimes referred to as small-sided games, these competitive drills force athletes to operate in tighter spaces, make quicker decisions, and react faster than in a normal competition.

2. Include conditioning within practice drills.

Rather than running lines or using a separate conditioning block, build conditioning into skill-based or competitive drills.

3. Incorporate cognitive exercises into strength training sessions.

Cognitive performance exercises can be easily integrated into training blocks for added cognitive stress. Utilize exercises that focus on visual processing, decision making, and reaction time to mimic competition demands.

Free Consultation

Do you or your organization need help training mind and body together? Schedule a free 30 minute call.

We can work together to build a custom program that works for you and your athletes. Schedule your call today so you can lead the pack and not get left behind by the competition.

Help Athletes Train Like They Compete

The word is out that variability in practice helps athletes be better prepared to execute in competition. However, what many training approaches still lack (even at elite levels) is the integration of neurocognitive training. Ultimately, athletic performance relies on an athlete’s ability to see, decide, and execute under pressure. If those are the demands of competition, then athletes need to train like they compete – mind and body together.

Question: What questions do you have about incorporating cognitive training into your on and off field drills? 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
• Training Athlete Cognition: 3 Ways to Improve How Athletes See the Field
• Training Athlete Cognition: 4 Ways to Improve Athlete Decision Making
• Training Athlete Cognition: How to Help Athletes Execute On Demand
• Variability in Practice

The post 3 Ways Training the Mind and Body Together Improves Athlete Performance first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Athlete cognition sets elite athletes apart from the rest. They see, decide, and execute faster and better than their competition. Training athlete cognition is the next frontier of mental performance. In Part 3 of the series, we break down athlete decision making and how to train it.

How Athletes Make Decisions

Athletes make hundreds (and in many cases thousands) of decisions in a single competition. Pass, dribble or shoot? Go left or right? Move in or stay back? Swing or not to swing? And these are some of the simpler decisions athletes make.

Athlete decision making relies heavily on their ability to process sensory information (e.g., visual, auditory, kinesthetic). You may recall from Part 2 of the series that 80% of information athletes rely on to make decisions is visual. When athletes identify and process information well, that helps them anticipate better, which improves the quality of their decision making.

Decision making is defined as “the ability to plan, select, and execute an action based on the current situation and the knowledge possessed (Williams and Ford, 2013).” Research tells us that in order to make a decision, athletes process the raw data coming in at the present moment and synthesize it with their memory (past experiences) and prior knowledge (sport IQ and scouting reports).

A Model to Help Understand Athlete Decision Making

In practice it is important for athletes to learn how to make in-game decisions. By understanding how athletes make decisions under pressure you can create scenarios that teach your athletes how to make game changing decisions as the action unfolds.

Research psychologist Dr. Gary Klein has studied decision making in numerous high pressure environments. From his analysis of how high performers make decisions under pressure, he published the Recognition-Primed Decision (RPD) model. In the graphic below you can see how it flows.

Here is how athletes make decision according to the RPD model:

1. Athlete’s brain perceives the situation (primarily visual) separating what’s relevant from what isn’t.
2. Athlete recognizes patterns of movement unfolding in the situation. These detected patterns trigger memories of past experiences.
3. Athlete’s brain simulates the success rate (i.e., visualization) of the first option that comes to mind.
4. If the chances of success are good, the athletes commits to the decision and executes. Otherwise, another option is simulated until a suitable decision is found.

Herbert Simon highlighted, “this method helps prevent analysis paralysis in a fast-moving situation.” This model also aids both the speed and accuracy of athlete decision making.

As noted previously, a study of elite youth soccer players revealed that elite players’s first option was the best option 74% of the time (Raab & Johnson). When pressed for time, players considered fewer options and made even better decisions. Too often, athletes overthink decisions rather than trusting their instincts. This tendency turns instructive with the phrase, “take-the-first” as athlete’s first instinct is often the best decision.

4 Ways to Improve Athlete Decision Making

We can clearly see that athlete decision making is a competitive advantage. It is also complex. Here are 4 powerful ways to improve athlete decision making that you can implement immediately.

1. Sleep

Sleep is its own competitive edge. When it comes to decision making, sleep affects an athlete’s alertness, visual abilities, cognitive functioning, and decisiveness. Sleep affects an athlete’s ability to recognize cues and patterns in a game, anticipate, and then react quickly in the moment. A lack of sleep increases mental mistakes – essentially a break down in decisions. Getting more sleep is a decision athletes need to make. Check out this article to convince athletes to get more sleep.

2. Decision Debrief

As a coach, avoid an all-too-common mistake – micromanaging player decisions (in practice or competition). Instead, give athletes freedom to make decisions. Then debrief their decision making using the Recognition-Primed Decision Model (above). The purpose is less about right or wrong and more about the thought process that led the athlete to make that decision.

Ask questions such as:

• What did you see that led to that decision?
• What was your intent in making that decision?
• What was your intended outcome?

These and other questions help you both assess and coach the athlete through finding the best options for the situation and influencing their future decision making process.

3. Strobe Training

By taxing athletes’ visual systems you cause their brains to adapt to less visual information. This stimulates the brain to process information faster, anticipate, and focus on the information that will most influence their decisions. You can use strobe eyewear in simple eye-hand coordination drills involving decision making or during on-field, court, or course skill-focused drills that require quick decisions.

4. Occlusion Training

Occlusion training is a bit more sophisticated, but an excellent way to train athlete decision making. The concept is to show an athlete an unfolding competitive situation (i.e., a play, pitch, serve, or shot) up to the point when a decision needs to be made. For example, a point guard dribbling up the floor and picks up his dribble as teammates and defenders vie for position. Stop the video and have your athlete make the decision as if they were the point guard on the tape.

Teams often pose these scenarios in quick succession to improve processing and decision making without having to be on the field. Bonus: To make occlusion training even more effective, have the athlete act out the decision by making the pass, swinging the bat, or otherwise reacting to the scenario with actual movement.

Free Consultation

Do you you or your organization need help training athlete cognition and decision making? Schedule a free 30 minute call.

We can work together to build a custom program that will work for you. Schedule your call today, so you start leading the pack and don’t get left behind by the competition.

Elevate Athlete Decision Making to Give Them a Competitive Edge

Edward De Bono defined an expert as, “someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simply through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.” Athletes make thousands of decisions every game. Training athlete cognition enables athletes to trust their trained instincts, anticipate better, and make faster and more accurate decisions in the heat of competition. How are you training your athletes to see, decide, and execute faster than their competition?

Question: How are you training your athletes’ decision making under pressure? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Links:

• Book: The Playmaker’s Advantage
• Book: The Playmaker’s Decisions
• Part 1 in Series: The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training
• Part 2 in Series: Training Athlete Cognition: 3 Ways to Improve How Athletes See the Field
• Post: Do Your Athletes Know How to Make Visualization More Powerful?
• Post: How to Convince Your Athletes to Get More Sleep

The post Training Athlete Cognition: 4 Ways to Improve Athlete Decision Making first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Training athlete cognition is the next frontier in mental performance. Cognition involves the way athletes see, decide, and execute on demand (Zaichkowsky & Peterson, 2018). In the second of a four-part series, this article will focus on the importance of sports vision and how athletes see the field, court, or course.

How Important is Vision in Sports?

Multiple studies revealed that elite athletes have better visual skills than the rest. Conventional wisdom tells that 20/20 vision is ideal, but that is far from the case when it comes to sport performance. Many sports put a tremendous amount of visual demands on athletes with fast moving objects, complex movements from teammates and opponents, and nearly impossible feats of timing and eye-hand coordination.

A few key stats for you:

• 70% of the body’s sensory receptors are in the eyes
• 80% of athletes’ sensory input (i.e., perception) is visual
• 90% of the brain is involved in vision-related tasks

Visual skills can be divided into two categories: visual hardware and visual software.

Visual Hardware

Visual hardware involves the more static functional aspects of vision such as visual acuity, color sensitivity, and depth perception. These are the visual skills we typically think of when it comes to vision. While visual hardware can generally be improved, it has limited impact on sport performance. Put simply, athletes can still excel in sport without 20/20 vision.

Visual Software

Visual software involves the more dynamic visual aspects of eye movement (also called eye tracking) such as visual search, pursuits, and anticipation time. Athletes’ eye movements allow them to detect and track both objects and movements of teammates and opponents – key skills in sport. These are the skills elite athletes excel in and are linked to achieving higher levels of sport. These more dynamic visual skills are more malleable and thus the focus of effective vision training exercises designed to give athletes a competitive edge.

Why Athletes Should Train Sports Vision

Early research on generalized vision training programs was inconclusive at best. However, recent advances in technology and methodology have shown significant benefit to athlete performance. Specifically, training eye movement (visual software) has shown to improve:

• Reaction time
• Hitting performance
• Putting performance
• Quality of ball contact
• Skill execution
• Reduced incidences of concussion
• Quicker return to play

3 Easy Ways Athletes Can Improve Sports Vision

There are myriad ways for athletes to train and improve their sports vision. These include basic exercises, on-field training, technology-infused training, exercises that can be done in the gym, sport lenses, and even supplements. As a starting point, here are 3 easy ways for athletes to improve their sports vision.

1. Reduce Near-Focus Tasks Pre-Competition

This is probably the simplest vision enhancing strategy, but athletes may struggle to follow through. Research (specifically in tennis) reveals that competitors who focus their eyes on near range tasks (i.e., computer or mobile screens) perform significantly worse on the court. Encourage athletes to refrain from being on mobile devices before competitions and limit time in the hours leading up to game time.

2. Train with Strobe Eyewear

Strobe Eyewear (called stroboscopic training) is a fun and easy way to train sports vision. It may be my favorite way to improve an athlete’s visual system. Athletes can wear them during almost any sport-related training – physical training, ball handling, skill work, etc. They are also great for off-the-field exercises. The best on the market are Senaptec’s Strobes. (More on Strobe training in a future article.) Contact me for more on Strobe training, custom programs, or to get a coupon code.

3. Warm-up the Vision System

High performers are deliberate about warming up their bodies, muscles, and movement patterns. They need to bring the same intentionality to warming up their visual system. A couple of simple ways to do this are:

• Quick eye-hand reaction drills. Toss tennis balls off a wall or with a partner. Do some quick stick handling. Focus on drills that require athletes to focus near-to-far, far-to-near, shift their gaze from one target to another, or track an object in motion. Even add in some agility to increase difficulty.
• Eye tracking exercises. Turning, identifying, and catching, touching, or deflecting the ball or puck. Take easy grounders. Turn and catch. One touch soccer passes. Look down at the ground, then look up to quickly identify the ball in flight to catch or dodge it. These are all great to get the eyes into the action.
• Add Strobe eyewear to pre-game activities. You can combine these with the suggestions above or just add them to your normal pre-competition warm-up. Strobe eyewear helps activate the visual system much like dynamic movements prepare muscles to fire during competition.

Free Consultation

Do you you or your organization need help training athlete cognition? Schedule a free 30 minute call.

We can work together to build a custom program that will work for you. Schedule your call today, so you start leading the pack and don’t get left behind by the competition.

Train the Eyes to Lead the Body to Better Performance

An athlete’s vision plays the largest role in her perception – “the process of identifying, organizing and interpreting sensory cues in order to understand what is happening in our environment” (Sullivan, 2016). It is an athlete’s perception that enables them to process information faster, anticipate, make decisions, and ultimately execute in the moment. Therefore, training an athlete’s vision impacts the whole cognition cycle. Athletes who see, decide, and execute faster than their competition have a significant competitive advantage.

Question: How are your athletes training sports vision? Or, where could you start?I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Links:

• Tech: Senaptec Strobes (Use Code UNLEASHSTROBE20 to save $20)
• Book: The Playmaker’s Advantage
• Post: The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training

The post Training Athlete Cognition: 3 Ways to Improve How Athletes See the Field first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Mental Training isn’t new to the world of elite performance. The Chicago Cubs hired Dr. Coleman Griffith in the 1950s. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point established a long-standing mental training program in the 1980s. The U.S. Olympic and Paraolympic Committee (USOPC) maintains a staff of sport psychology trained professionals to help U.S. athletes excel on the world’s biggest stages. However, there is a new frontier that is transforming the game of athlete performance. Before we dive in let me give you a little background.

The OODA Loop and Athlete Cognition

U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd first published his famed OODA loop in 1976 as a training framework. The intent was to train fighter pilots to think faster than the enemy, so they could ultimately kill and survive.
OODA stands for:

• Observe
• Orient
• Decide
• Act

While developed for fighter aviators, the concept applies to athletes too. Essentially, if an athlete moves through this loop faster than her opponent, she has a competitive advantage. Note that this loop can happen in fractions of a second. And the cycle is continuous.

For example, a baller dribbling down the floor, seeing an open cutter to the basket, and making the pass for a layup. Or a goal keeper picking up on the postural cues from an attacker, anticipating the shot, and making the save.

Today, fighter pilots speak of this as, “perceive, decide, execute,” as the OODA Loop has become too much of a buzzword. Regardless of the language, the principles remain the same. In fact, Dr. Len Zaichkowsky and Daniel Peterson framed the athlete cognition cycle comprising three parts, ” Search – Decide – Execute.”

Where do Mental Training and an athlete’s Cognition Cycle intersect?

The reality is that mental training can significantly influence an athlete’s cognitive efficiency – how quickly she or he progresses through the cycle (Search – Decide – Execute).

• A athlete who is confident [link] will move through their cycle quicker.
• An athlete who is anxious [link] will move through their cycle slower.

Make sense?

By equipping athletes with the mental tools, skills, and plans they need to get more out of practice and compete with consistency, mental training also impacts an athlete’s cognition cycle.

The Next Frontier in Mental Training

However, there is more to training an athlete’s brain than equipping them with mental skills. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not discounting the importance of mental performance training. It is my career. But there is more to gain, more to train, and more we can do to unleash an athlete’s potential.

The best part is each of the three components of this cycle (search – decide – execute) can be trained!

Training Athlete Cognition

I was invited to a girl’s basketball signing day event, in which the team’s star point guard signed her letter of intent to a Division 1 University. Afterwards, the coach was lamenting his loss and recounting the characteristics that made this player special. He noted her “court vision” and “ability to anticipate on the floor.” When I shared with him that those attributes were trainable, he nearly laughed in disbelief.

But the research is clear that an athlete’s cognition cycle is trainable. In future articles, we’ll get into more detail. But allow me to give you an overview.

See

Over 80% of the sensory input athletes rely on to compete is visual. Athletes with superior visual skills tend to perform better and achieve higher levels of competition. More importantly, those visual skills can be improved. For example, Clark JF et al. (2012) demonstrated that visual training improved players’ batting averages.

Sports Vision Training (SVT) targeting foundational visual skills such as saccades (quick focal eye movements), depth perception, and pursuits (tracking a moving object) can be integrated into an athlete’s daily training regimen (Mangine, Clark & Hasselfeld, 2016). Today there are a number of effective digital training techniques that athletes and teams can take advantage of (Appelbaum and Erickson, 2016).

Decide

An athlete’s ability to decide relies heavily on how well they perceive (the Search segment of the cycle) within their environment. It takes 284 milliseconds for a baseball player to process a fastball. For context it takes 400 milliseconds to blink. The margins are slim. Only then can a decision be made. Time, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity and risk are all factors that influence decision making.

Williams and Ford (2013) defined decision making as “the ability to plan, select, and execute an action based on the current situation and the knowledge possessed.” While there are multiple theories, research demonstrates that training executive functions such as working memory and pattern recognition speed decision making. However, speed isn’t the only factor to consider.

Accuracy is also paramount in the equation. The more options, the slower athletes are to decide. A 2017 study of elite youth soccer players revealed that elite players chose the best option 74% of the time (Raab & Johnson). When pressed for time, players further reduced their options and actually increased the quality of decisions. Too often, athletes overthink decisions rather than trusting their instincts.

Quick moving, short-sided games are a simple way to speed up the decision making process in practice. Decision-oriented visual-motor training with tools like HECOstix or Blazepod are fun ways to train binary decisions (Go/No Go) with eye-hand coordination drills. Restricting visual input using strobe eyewear is another great way to speed up visual processing speed and thus, anticipation and decision making.

Execute

We often think of reaction time (i.e., execution) as a mechanism of fast twitch muscle fibers firing on command. However, in reality, much of the neurophysiological process of reaction to a stimulus is cognitive. Before an athlete reacts, she must first perceive the trigger, identify the intended target of interest, decide how to react, build the motor program to react effectively, then tell the motor cortex to implement the chosen response (Dudman & Krakauer, 2016).

What speeds up reaction time? If roughly 70% of reaction time is cognitive and 30% is physical, then it stands to reason that targeting improvement in the 70% would yield the greatest gains. In my experience this is countercultural. Yet, also in my experience, it works. For example, training the visual and perceptual (i.e., processing and anticipation) abilities of military operations led to approximately 10% improvement in reaction time. In baseball, that equates to giving a hitter 43 more milliseconds to make a decision and react to a pitch, increasing cognitive efficiency and the likelihood that the hitter puts the ball in play.

Free Consultation

Do you want to know more about how your organization can train athlete cognition? Schedule a free 30 minute call.

We can work together to build a custom program that will work for you. Schedule your call today, so you start leading the pack and don’t get left behind by the competition.

The Next Frontier is Now

“The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways,” stated author Robert Greene. Don’t your athletes deserve to stay ahead of the competition? Are you prepared to equip them to see, decide, and execute faster and more accurately? You can start small or you can go big. Athlete cognition is the new frontier of athlete performance. Give your athletes the opportunities to “see the field” better, anticipate, decide and react faster than their competition. Don’t let your athletes get left behind.

I help facilities, organizations, and teams bring mental training and technology together to train this new frontier in athlete performance. Are you ready to create a strength training program for your athletes’ brains? Let’s give them the competitive edge they deserve.

Question: What is holding you back from training your athletes in this new frontier? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Links:

• Book: The Playmaker’s Advantage
• Course: Mental Training Academy
• Post: Does Mental Training Really Improve Performance?
• Post: Are Your Athletes Missing Out on Mental Training?

The post The Next Frontier in Mental Performance Training 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.
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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.

Coaches and athletes look for every legal edge over their competition. However, you may be putting too much emphasis on new innovations. Sleep is a foundation of human performance. It has the potential to fuel or wreck an athlete’s performance. It may not be flashy, but your athletes may not be getting the sleep they need to have an edge on and off the field.

Counting Sheep Is An Athletic Advantage

Why do the Boston RedSox have a “sleep room” in their club house at Fenway Park? Why do the Seattle Seahawks wear Readibands to monitor player’s sleep? And why do MLB starting pitchers travel ahead of the rest of the team on road trips?

“Sleep is probably the most important thing we talk to [players] about,” said Brad Pearson, head athletic trainer for the Boston RedSox. “It’s critical to their recovery. You pick the low-hanging fruit first, the simple things. You create a stable base and build on that.”

If your athletes aren’t getting the right amount of sleep, it will dilute every other aspect of practice, preparation, and recovery.

Proper Sleep Gives Your Players an Edge

Sports science is clear that an athlete’s performance is impacted by the quantity, quality, and timing of their sleep. As a coach, it’s important to understand the impact that sleep (or lack thereof) is having on your players.

1. Risk of Injury

A recent study found that adolescent athletes who get less than 8 hours of sleep per night increase their risk of injury 1.7x compared to those who get at least 8 hours.

Injuries can decimate your roster and your shot at a winning season. If you can’t keep players on the field, you begin every game at a disadvantage.

2. Physical Effects

Studies reveal that inadequate sleep is linked to a reduction in a player’s natural growth hormone, slowed reaction times, and a weakened immune system.

This means that athletes who don’t get good sleep don’t get the full benefits from your strength and conditioning program. They won’t be as big, fast, or strong as competitors who sleep well.

3. Cognitive Effects

Sleep impacts your athlete’s brains, specifically the executive functions of the brain. These functions include decision making, concentration, memory, information processing, planning, and emotion regulation.

This carries a wide variety of on and off-field consequences. For example, athletes who don’t get adequate sleep make more mental mistakes and lose their composure more readily. They are at a greater risk for depression and don’t perform as well in the classroom.

A great example of an elite athlete who understands the cognitive (and physiological) benefits sleep offers, and benefits greatly from it, is five-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady. He seeks every advantage to keep his mind and body operating at peak form, including going to bed at 8:30 PM every night.

4. Performance Effects

By increasing the amount of sleep they were getting, basketball players improved shooting percentages by 9%. The same was true of serve percentages in tennis players.

Athletes who don’t get adequate sleep are more likely to miss shots, drop catches, strike out, and get out hustled by opponents.

According to Sam Ramsden, the Seahawks’ Director of Player Health and Performance, “Some of the best players on the team are the best sleepers.”

Sleep is a foundation of human performance athletes can’t ignore anymore.
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How much sleep do your athletes need?

According to the National Sleep Foundation, the assumed 8 hours per night may not be enough for your athletes.

Bonus Download

To help you encourage your athletes to get more sleep, I created a printable poster you can share with your athletes. It outlines 12 ways sleep effects performance on and off the field.

Put a Premium on Athlete’s Sleep

Coaches, teach your athletes about the importance of sleep. Share the printable poster with them. Hang it in your locker room. Don’t allow a lack of sleep to sabotage the hard work your team is putting in every day in practice. Sleep is just as critical to your athlete’s performance as hydration and good nutrition. Make it a fundamental of your program.

Plus, click here for 5 tips to help your athletes sleep better!

Question: Where do you see a lack of sleep negatively impacting your players on the competition surface?

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

• Post: Think Smarter, Play Harder, Be Better: Sleep
• Post: Why Should Leaders Encourage Employees to Get More Sleep?
• Post: 5 Powerful Tips To Help You Sleep Better Tonight

The post How to Convince Your Athletes to Get More Sleep first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

In The Power of Positive Leadership Jon Gordon wrote, “Optimism, positivity, and belief are the fuel that positive leaders need to keep moving forward and drive results.” Whether you agree or not, it is hard to deny that athletes play better when they’re having fun, enjoying the moment, and are surrounded by people they genuinely love.

The Positive Movement

You’ve likely encountered the “positive” movement in coaching today. With organizations like the Positive Coaching Alliance and InsideOut Initiative, positive coaching is gaining momentum.

You’ve probably noticed a shift in coaching at all levels. Coaches are moving away from the demanding drill sergeant to become more positive. This doesn’t merely mean having a better attitude and patting everyone on the back. In fact, positive coaching is a blending of scientific fields aimed at generating the best possible performance of your team.

As I shared recently, coaches can be both supportive and demanding. That is a big change in perspective that this positive movement is sharing with coaches today.

However, what good is being “positive” anyway? Can simply being positive help a team improve their results? If you’re like many other coaches, you might be a bit skeptical.

What Being Positive Means

Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson has devoted her career to the study of positive emotions. She has found that positive emotions are powerful, every bit as much as more familiar emotions such as anger and worry. However, they produce a vastly different result.

• Joy
• Gratitude
• Serenity
• Interest
• Hope
• Pride
• Amusement
• Inspiration
• Awe
• Love

Fredrickson’s research carries profound implications for the worlds of sports, coaching, and peak performance.

In fact, Daniel Goleman’s research found that positive teams perform at a higher level than negative teams. Martin Seligman found the same results when comparing optimistic thinkers and pessimistic thinkers.

Positive emotions open the minds of athletes to more creative, flexible, and innovative ways of thinking and acting on and off the field.

As a coach, being positive means infusing your team with more positive emotions throughout the sport experience.

Does Your Team Need More Positivity?

Athletes who experience more positive emotions will think quicker, be more adaptive, and find better solutions to in-game situations.

More specifically, there are 5 game-changing reasons to infuse your team with more positivity.

1. Improved Mental Agility

According to Fredrickson’s Broaden Theory, positive emotions have a “broadening effect on the momentary thought-action repertoire.” This translates to athletes thinking more flexibly under the pressures of competition.

2. Less Stress

Why do players and coaches try to lighten the mood when the team feels stressed? In fact, the reason is scientific. Positive emotions have an undoing effect on the negative effects of negative emotions. This means that athletes who feel tense from nervousness or anxiety would loosen up by feeling positive emotions such as amusement or gratitude.

The Cubs’ Joe Maddon leveraged this truth when he hired a magician to entertain the team and turned a slump into a three-game sweep of the Mets in 2015.

3. Better Problem Solving

When the brain is less stressed and experiences positive emotions, the Broaden Theory tells us athletes are able to choose the best response from a wider array of possibilities. If you want your athletes to make better decisions on and off the court, positive emotions are in your corner.

4. Increased Cohesion

Research shows that teams who experience a positive-to-negative interaction ratio greater than 3:1 are more successful and get along better.

5. Greater Commitment

When coaches praise the process, a way to share constructive positive feedback, that expression of appreciation instills pride in their athletes. This exchange of positive emotions builds a connection and fosters trust between the coach and player. When we feel connected to others, we’re willing to give more of ourselves to the cause.

Positive emotions increase athlete’s cognitive abilities, lower stress & improve performance.
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Bring the Positivity

I’m not saying you need to kiss your players on the cheek like Texas football coach Tom Herman. Nor am I saying you need to give everyone a hug like the Dodger’s GM, Dave Roberts. I simply encourage you to find creative ways to help your team experience more positive emotions. Offer praise. Have fun. Lead with positivity.

Question: What difference do you think more positive emotions would make in your team?

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

• Book: Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson
• Book: The Power of Positive Leadership by Jon Gordon
• Book: Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
• Book: Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman
• Book: The Cubs Way by Tom Verducci
• Post: Is It Better to Be a Supportive or Demanding Coach?
• Post: How to Help Your Athletes Avoid Costly Impulsive Reactions
• Post: Good Job Isn’t Good Enough: What It Means to Praise the Process
• Resource: InSideOut Initiative
• Resource: Positive Coaching Alliance

The post 5 Proven Reasons to be More Positive With Your Team first appeared on The Excelling Edge.

Optimal performance is all about consistency. Coaches and athletes know that repetitions build strength. That’s why you train. However, the same principles apply to getting an athlete’s mind and body ready to perform on demand. It is no accident that elite athletes rely on battle-tested pre-performance routines to prime their performance.

An NBA Great’s Secret to Success

Steve Nash played almost 20 years in the NBA. He was a two time league MVP and eight time NBA All-Star. Nash has the most seasons in the 50-40-90 club (at or above 50% field goals, 40% three-pointers, and 90% free throws) in NBA history. Most analysts agree that he will be a first ballot Hall of Fame inductee in 2020.

Nash also has the highest free throw percentage in NBA history, averaging over 90%.

So how’d he do it? He explains in this short video:

• 1-2 Shot Rehearsals
• Dribble the ball 3 times
• Take a deep breath
• Shoot the ball

Its simple, consistent, and clearly effective.

3 Cs Athletes Get from Pre-Performance Routines

Pre-performance routines are simply an intentional set of steps athletes progress through to ensure their minds and bodies are ready to perform their best.

The most effective routines combine mental and physical strategies to get an athlete primed, focused, and ready to seize the moment.

• pre-shot (free throw or tee shot)
• pre-kick (penalty kick or field goal)
• pre-snap (quarterback reads or defensive back getting locked in on his receiver)
• pre-pitch (in the batters box, on the mound, or playing any position)

However, a pre-performance routine can also apply to what athletes do to prepare their minds and bodies right before the competition begins.

Every athlete can elevate his or her performance by leveraging these 3 benefits of creating a pre-performance routine.

1. Controllability

In sports there is a lot outside the athlete’s control. Opponents, officials, and mother nature are all uncontrollable.

When athletes develop and implement a pre-performance routine they intentionally direct attention to what is within their control. Focus is directed to preparing the mind and body to perform well and make the free throw or penalty kick.

This lowers anxiety and stress, allowing the athlete to perform to his or her potential.

2. Comfort

A pre-performance routine brings an element of comfort to the uncomfortable pressures of competition. When an athlete uses the same routine again and again, it becomes second nature.

Think of the routine like a toddler and her baby blanket – bringing familiarity to the unfamiliar situations. Like the toddler, athletes come to know their routines. Through repetition they trust that the routines work and feel comfortable.

Added comfort, like control, leads to less stress and anxiety, which allows athletes to stay calm, relax, and focus on the task at hand.

3. Confidence

Athletes who feel comfortable and feel a sense of control of their minds and bodies in the moment tend to be more confident. As you might assume, research shows that athletes who are more confident perform better than less confident athletes.

Pre-performance routines give athletes a repeatable process that, when used successfully over time, elevate one’s confidence.

This is why hitters who use the same routine every time they are up to bat have better batting averages and on base percentages than those who don’t.

Athletes who consistently use pre-performance routines perform better than those who don’t.
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Bonus Download

To help you coach your athletes in developing an effective pre-performance routine, I created this free PDF poster. It outlines my A.C.E.S. model – the 4 Core Components of Every Pre-Performance Routine. It is great to hand out to your team or hang in the locker room (or both!).

Consistent Routines Lead to Consistent Results

Steve Nash attributes his success at the free throw line to his pre-performance routine. He even says it gives him a sense of control, comfort, and confidence. These are the same benefits your players can gain from developing an intentional and consistent pre-performance routine for the key moments in their sports.

Question: How do you think pre-performance routines would impact your team’s stat sheets?

The post 3 Ways Routines Help Athletes Get Consistent Results first appeared on The Excelling Edge.