The Mindset Of A Champion Blog

In a previous post, I discussed how much you should train and introduced the concept of overtraining with Olympic training anecdotes. I got quite a bit of feedback with one common question: How can I tell if I’m over training? From The Sport Psych Handbook, here are the physical and psychological symptoms you should look out for. Over course if you see these symptoms in your training partner(s) – let them know!

Overtraining - Don't do it!

Physical Symptoms Of Overtraining Read More »»

I don’t know about you, but I never thought I’d see the day when Mark Spitz’s record of 7 Gold Medals would ever be broken. Primarily because athletes today are so specialised that it would take a super-human to win THAT many medals against the specialists… But Michael Phelps did it with 8 Gold Medals – all in World Record Time in Beijing in 2008.

Sports scientists are suggesting that training loads are increasing by what some estimate as 10 to 20 percent every five years!

Mark Spitz, won his seven gold medals in the 1972 Olympics by swimming 9,000 meters per day. Within 20 years, the average COLLEGE swimmer was swimming more than this and by 1995, Olympic hopefuls were swimming a whopping 36,000 meters PER DAY.

That’s no wonder why elite athletes are complaining. 28% and 10% of 1996 Summer and 1998 Winter Olympic athletes cited overtraining as the reason for their sub-optimal results. Trying too hard didn’t work.

Michael Phelps 8 Gold Medals

It’s not a question of poor sportsmanship, winging or sour grapes. Read More »»

Today’s post is an inspirational half-time speech by Al Pacino in the movie Any Given Sunday. It needs no introduction. The YouTube video says it all – life and sport (football in this case) is a game of inches – whoever is willing to fight for those inches will win the game of life. Enjoy this courtesy of Andrew Powell of Montreal, Canada who forwarded this to me.

In a previous post I discussed the perspective of champions, what gives them the winning edge and ended with an example of Mike Tyson, promising to explain what’s happened after his championship years ended.

The word is accountability. In sport, competitors are held accountable to the sports rules, regulations and rankings. The higher the level, the more exacting and demanding the accountability becomes.

If you don’t hold yourself to that standard, guess what? You lose, you fall in the rankings, game over.

Accountability

It’s brutal and harsh. Read More »»

In a previous post, I discussed the concept of Competitive Performance Mentality. I got a lot of positive feedback from people saying that it was a simple and easy way to ‘extract’ themselves from the self-analysis process. Today’s topic is perspective. Champions have a different perspective than their non-champion colleagues.

Perspective is in the eye of the creator of that perspective!

3 Components Of A Champion Perspective Read More »»