Gymnasts often have thoughts, feelings, ideas, attitudes, or ingrained ways of behaving that are self-defeating and can obstruct peak performance in competition. This article explains how to recognize and avoid those feelings.
The ability for gymnasts to perform instinctively is critical to consistent execution in competition. The reason for practice is to provide a method you can trust when its time to compete. Dr. Patrick Cohn covers how to do this successfully in this article.
In this article, Dr. Patrick Cohn explains how to keep athletes committed to their training. He lays out 3 ways athletes sabotage their own commitment, and how to recognize these sabotages so the athlete can overcome them.
Are You (or your gymnasts) Afraid to Fail? More and more athletes I work with on the mental game come to me with fear of failure. Fear and fear of failure is a constant source of stress or anxiety that sabotages athletes' mental game and performance. What Is Fear of Failure for Gymnasts? Read on to find out more
Does your performance suffer when you're not "on," you feel uncomfortable, or don't have your "A" game that day? Do you struggle with staying confident and grind out the competition even f your game is off or the competition is strong? Dr. Patrick Cohn gives you a great dose of mental training to overcome this and more in this article.
The mind and body of the athlete operate as a very finely tuned system. When the system is in balance the athlete performs at a very high level. When the system is out of balance, performance suffers. If an athlete suffers prolonged struggles, and physical interventions are not helping, the inner world of the athlete is where we will find answers to performance struggles. There we can find how performance energy is being siphoned off to manage the life stressors the athlete is trying to manage.
If you participate in gymnastics, or any sport long enough, chances are that at some point along the way you will experience an injury. The physical process of rehabbing the injury and getting back to normal training and competition level can be a long and difficult road. However, what is often overlooked is the mental rehabilitation that also needs to take place. Even when the athlete is back to 100% physically, neglecting the mental rehab can prevent the athlete from ever returning to pre-injury form.
Fantastic insight into the mind of an athlete after an injury occurs. This is a must-read for the parent or coach of any athlete going through or coming back from a significant injury.
How much success do you want? Many athletes achieve some success without using formal goal setting, but virtually every great athlete who consistently wins, uses some form of goal setting. The USOC Sport Psychology program believes that using goal setting is as necessary as having a coach.
Many athletes that come to work with me hold back their physical ability because of the fear of failure. Fear of failure can motivate athletes to work hard and improve, but it also can become debilitating when the competition starts and it is time to perform your best when it counts. Typically, highly perfectionistic athletes have this syndrome.
Many athletes and performers I work with often wrongly determine their self-worth by how successful they feel about their career. When an athlete performs well or feels successful, he or she can feel good about him or herself. But the opposite is also true: despair and low self-esteem results when this person does not perform well or view him or herself as a failure.