No matter your skill level as a player – beginner, league player or professional, there is one mental phenomenon that we all fight from time to time on the course. This phenomenon is the subtle but destructive change in our experience from enjoying the round and playing freely with little thought or tension, to a…
Knowing how to perform at your best more consistently requires astute awareness of what you are focused on, how you feel, and what you are doing when you are performing at your best and your worst. Like baking the ultimate cake, you have to know how to mix together your best performance ingredients. To help…
Showing talent early in sport or studies is a double-edged sword. On one side, your child learns things quickly, initially feeling confident with new skills and activities. On the flip side, there is a mental dilemma young talent often face in learning to cope with achievement. It’s not uncommon for worried parents to call me…
For the age-group swimmer who has to balance study, swimming, and make improvements in the pool, it is essential that you know how to train hard, but more importantly, how to train smart. In a recent post by swimswam.com, Ryan Lochte describes his commitment to training smarter in this Olympic quad., “I’m not just doing…
The final stretch for the school year has begun and it’s the perfect time to knuckle-down in the final block of training before holidays start and then SNAG 2015 will be round the corner for Singaporean elite swimmers. In this article I will present some useful tips for creating fearsome focus in the pool. Working…
The formula for Performance is defined as: Performance = potential – interference. One of the greatest personal dilemmas that interferes with optimal performance and negates an athlete’s true potential in their sport is performance anxiety. Last year, performance anxiety was the number one reason athletes and their parents visited my office. This form of anxiety…
For experienced and novice runners alike, there are many persistent mental challenges to negotiate when running a marathon. For instance, the mind-chatter you go through days before the race that questions how well you have prepared, the doubts that creeps in with 10 kilometers to go, and trying to remain calm when negotiating those unexpected…
Think about your current practice habits. When was the last time you gave your training regime a check-up? As the half way mark in the calendar year approaches, it’s all too common for elite players who practice multiple hours on our daily basis to revert to amateur patterns of practice that prevent them from getting…
Join me at the Singapore Sports Medicine Centre for some great discussion and information sharing with like-minded parents who want the best for their young athletes. May-2015
In the past decade, “mental toughness” has become a hot topic among researchers, sport psychologists, and coaches alike. Prior to the influx of research on the subject much of what was known about mental toughness was based on anecdotal reports and disseminated predominantly through the popular media. The result was a diverse selection of definitions…