Sports Psychology Book?

andrewgturnbull

Hi there.

Can anyone recommend me one?

What I want to learn are things like:

- Visualisation: how to walk through every point in a race and manage the good and bad potential outcomes in advance.
- Race Preparaton: why do I pick up imaginary niggles the week before a big event, and become more and more cranky as the day approaches?
- Race Day: why I am very nearly physically sick as I line up on the start line?

I've tried to address these points myself over the last couple of years, and I do think I'm getting better... Maybe everyone is just like me, but they hide it better? Or maybe I put too much pressure on myself - I like to aim high.

I've always done a lot of reading on the physiological aspects of training and racing, and feel that I'm missing a trick by not being on top of the psychological stuff.

Cheers, Andy

andrewgturnbull

ps A cartoon for you:

TCR ISP

andrewgturnbull wrote:

- Visualisation: how to walk through every point in a race and manage the good and bad potential outcomes in advance.
- Race Preparaton: why do I pick up imaginary niggles the week before a big event, and become more and more cranky as the day approaches?
- Race Day: why I am very nearly physically sick as I line up on the start line?

Unless you have an interest in psychology you might be better spending your money on some Neuro Linguistic Programming training. Despite the kooky sounding name it's basically cognitive psychology for the self-help generation. Apart from eye accessing cues indicating primary representation systems it is all supported by the psychological literature though not a huge amount of research has been done on it.

Knowing why you get cranky or why you get nervous are interesting but won't help your performance. You need strategies to modify your behaviour. Find a qualified practitioner (ideally a chartered psychologist rather than someone whose done a 5 day course in NLP).

Good luck.

bill57

Andy,
First, I'm no psychologist - but what you're describing sounds like the normal reactions to an impending stressful event, particularly when it's important to you to perform well (and we know you like to win). One event I'm thinking of is the Job Interview, something I detest, but your description of symptoms would fit completely with my experience!

I suspect that the reactions you describe are commonplace across the whole spectrum of activity when performance is important, and the expectations (or sometimes the perceived expectations) of yourself, your judges and your peers, are high.

Have you ever wondered if it's because of these symptoms that you perform well?

andrewgturnbull

HI there.

Thanks for your responses - nlp sounds intriguing...

Has anyone read this book?

Sport Psychology for Cyclists
by Dr. Saul Miller and Peggy Maass Hill

Cheers, Andy

lateralus

Not a book, but there's an ongoing column on pezcyclingnews which might be of interest:

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=6174

andrewgturnbull

lateralus wrote:

Not a book, but there's an ongoing column on pezcyclingnews which might be of interest:

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=6174

Thanks - I've actually just finished working my way through those article - very simply presented, and seemed to make a lot of sense.

Cheers, Andy

couscous

I bought Sport Motivation: Training Your Mind for Peak Performance (978-0790003351)last year and found it useful.

djaeggi

Just dug out some notes I had - I used to compete at quite a high level in another sport and we had some sessions with a sports psychologist. The Mental Edge by Baum was recommended. It looks a good book but I never got round to picking it up myself.

Sports psychology is really interesting, and we certainly used various tactics (visualisation, body cues, trigger words) to help us that proved very effective. Worth knowing about, and knowing what's possible - at the end of the day, it's about you working out what works for you personally.

Hope this helps,

Dan