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 »»

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 »»

In previous posts, I introduced the concepts or orientation, attributions and other psychological variables to help you think, perform like a champion. The next step is to assess your mentality. Your Competitive Performance Mentality to be precise. It’s a concept I picked up in a great book called The Sport Psych Handbook.

Read More »»

In business, I call it Management By Metrics, but in sport I guess I should call it Mastery By Metrics. The question is “How do you know how well you’re playing?” Today’s post is one of the ways I do it as an elite squash player.

These photos are self-evident, but the question for you is how do YOU know how you’re progressing? What feedback mechanisms do you have in place to gauge progress and development?

Squash Racquet Strings Usage Comparison

You want to consider this on an on-going basis so that whenever the opportunity arises, your Reticular Activation System (RAS) will pick up on it.

Squash Racquet Strings Usage Close Up View

In future posts, I’ll share additional feedback mechanisms I use. Of course if you have some you’ve used in other sports, by all means share them with me so I can share them with our readers!

We’ve all heard it before “drink more water”. What you may not know, is that by the time you’re thirsty, your performance has already been negatively affected. That means if you’re serious about your performance, you have to include drinking more water. I’ll discuss other types of drinks in future posts, but for now, let me give you an additional tip that I have to be honest, really surprised me.

Men’s Health Magazine (November 2009) reported that in The Journal of Sports Sciences a study quoting that cyclists who actually wrote down their drinking strategy consumed 55% more water than those who didn’t. A drinking strategy for a cyclist can be be as simple as “the mouthfuls art the 15, 25 and 35 minute marks or at the 10, 40 and 50 Kilometers.” For a squash player, it could be “drink a full glass one hour prior to my practice/match, then half a glass on my way to the court, then 2 mouthfuls in-between each game, then a full bottle after the practice/match”.

Just having a drinking strategy can make a big difference – try it out and see what happens! Of course it may just improve your performance by a few percentage points, but in squash, that’s 1 point per game and y’know what? I’ll take it!

Too many people are looking for the BIG BANG solution, when very small, easy steps can add up to produce BIG RESULTS.

Stick with me and this blog and you’ll see how easy it really can be if you actually DO THIS STUFF!

A friend sent me a link to a 2-day Squash Bootcamp with Former World #1 and current World #8 David Palmer in Sydney next week, January 6 and 7 2010.

David Palmer Squash Champion

Of course I jumped at this rare, one-time opportunity. The reason I’m blogging about it is because if you know anyone who’s an avid competitive squash player, this is a rare opportunity to spend time ON THE COURT with a WORLD CHAMPION… Send them this blog post link.

That’s it for today – stay tuned for some of the lessons I learn from David…

I know you’re on pins and needles, so I’ll get right to it. I arrived VERY early for a friend’s match that was scheduled before mine… Seriously – the first match started with a lot of nervous energy that is symptomatic of the first and early morning matches. I won it 11-9 which is a little deceptive since I had a comfortable lead throughout the game. I came out with a plan and stuck to it, I was just a little nervous which is normal. I knew I would settle into my rhythm.

Read More »»

Today’s result – a long, well fought 5-setter. I’ll save you the drama. The match was won fair and square by my competitor who was better than me on the day. I didn’t lose, he earned the victory and I learned priceless lessons.

As I keep saying, we’re reasons or we’re results. This match and competition was a GREAT RESULT – it ‘ranks’ me as #12 in Australia, which puts me way ahead of my development schedule and confirms I am training properly as I ascend through the rankings.

Some people (non-champions) think RESULTS means winning, but that’s often not the case. It quite often is about IMPROVING so that you can eventually ‘win’. In my case it’s not even about winning because as I’ve mentioned before, I am not aiming to win the World Championship, but to get into the top “16” in the world. When I get to that point, I will have reached what I consider to be my equitable and optimal ‘RESULT’. In case you didn’t read the blog posts about this – my opportunity costs are much too high to devote the time and effort to trying to beat people who do this for a living and have a 30 to 40 years head start.

Plus – it’s still just a black ball in a white room that you have to hit before it bounces twice…

Anyway, amongst the many lessons (there are more than I list below) I learned, I’d like to share the following with you as my gift for supporting and following me on my journey.

Lesson #1: Read More »»