Chapter 7: Think better, perform better: Here are some practical techniques in sports psychology that can be used to make real gains in performance. Try asking yourself a couple of questions: What proportion of your performance do you think is due to your mind? What proportion of the training time do you commit to training your mind? My guess is that there will be a discrepancy between the two answers…
Read MoreChapter 6: Longer term (phased) training plans: Once you get into your sport more and more you may start to think about goals that are further in the future. For example you may have done some competitions this year and think it would be good to see whether you can do better next year. To meet these longer term goals it is a good idea to make a longer term plan for success.
Read MoreChapter 5 - Weight, diet and nutrition: The subject of this chapter involves three related concepts that are important to consider if you want to take part in competitive sport. Whilst you won’t achieve sporting success as a direct consequence of your weight, diet and nutrition, it is certainly true that not eating properly will reduce or even negate your chances of success.
Read MoreYou now have a goal and a detailed plan to meet your goal. You can access the earlier chapters of the ebook here if you want to review them. In my experience it is useful for many reasons to use some measures to keep track of progress, fatigue and various other parameters. Don’t be scared if you’re not very technically minded, as it's very easy and there are lots of free tools out there that you can use.
Read MoreChapter 3: The detailed plan: In this chapter we will briefly think about the psychological aspects of sport that can help you meet your goals. Then we will develop a day by day plan to reach your goal.
Read MoreChapter 2: How do I make my goal real? After Chapter 2 you will have: your goal (what you want to achieve at a certain time); a list o things you need to achieve your goal; what you can do in comparison to each of those needs; one physical need that is a priority; and one psychological need that is a priority.
If you don’t have these things you may want to go back to review Chapter 1 and put these in place, alternatively you can go on with this Chapter but it is important to do each step in turn to get a really solid plan.
Read MoreThe basic principles of training for sport are simple and needn’t be complicated. Some of the theories are complicated but it isn’t necessary to understand these to achieve amazing things. What I want to do is produce a simple guide to training and competing that is accessible yet provides the basic requirements for an athlete at any level.
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