Insight

The brain plays an important and often overlooked role in pain and injury.  Here are five things you can do to train your brain when you are injured… 1. Visualise The same parts of your brain are activated when you imagine doing an activity as when you actually do the activity.  Studies show that athletes […]

Short game, short game, and more short game This is not the time to alter your swing.  Juniors typically spend most of their tournament preparation time on the range and neglect their short game.  It’s not surprising that those who score poorly tell me their short game cracked under the pressure, while those who play […]

As many elite athletes are preparing to peak at international competitions in the Northern Hemisphere it’s a valuable time to reflect on how much time is being dedicated to psychological recovery as you prepare to perform when it counts… It’s becoming an increasingly important aspect of elite athlete training and preparation as we ask more […]

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 creep in with 10 kilometres to go, and trying to remain calm when negotiating those […]

In my experience, there are two types of people – those who want to succeed and those who hope to succeed.  Over the years, a lot of athletes have started our work together thinking they don’t need to work on the mental side of their game, hoping that it will happen, only to realise that they […]

In your final moments of preparation for the most anticipated annual event for age group swimmers in Singapore you are most likely starting to experience some stress and nervousness along with thoughts running through your head about how you will perform.  You say certain things to yourself or believe certain thing about what might happen […]

To say that the last few weeks in Australian sport have been heartbreaking and tough would be a massive understatement.  Not only has the Gold Coast professional football community been the centre of serious drug allegations but cricket royalty has also come under fire. When things like this happen, the age-old role model debate comes […]

Over coffee on the terrace, I sat down with Laguna Country Club’s Tour Professional Scott Barr to find out his view on consulting a sport psychologist and how mental skills training has raised his game at various points in his career. When did you start mental skills training and who got you involved? “It was […]

I’ve been meaning to write about breathing since September last year when I co-delivered a workshop at the World Scientific Congress of Golf with the superbly talented Rachel Vickery from Breathing & Performance. I’ve always had a strong interest in psychophysiology however since working more closely with Rachel it’s strengthened because I can see the results […]

The more time I spend on the golf course the more I am fascinated by the decision-making process and the variety of decisions that golfers have to make.  Players have to assess a hole in terms of distance, lie, and obstacles.  They have to then work out what club to use out of their bag, […]