Monthly Archive for November, 2012

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New paths: The P.A.C.E. Performance Program

Published on November 9, 2012 in Allenatori, Mental coaching and Olimpiadi. 7 Comments Tags: .

The P.A.C.E. Performance Program: Integrating Sport Psychology into Training Programs

Alex Cohen, Ph.D., CC-AASP, Senior Sport Psychologist, United States Olympic Committee

Following Team USA’s successful performances at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, coaches and athletes are already preparing for their upcoming season of competitions. What are the next steps to take in readying your athletes for performance excellence? After competing in the Olympic Games, athletes have consistently reported that, for their next Games experience, they would: a) focus more on sport psychology and mental preparation; b) avoid overtraining/under-recovery and get more rest; c) work with their coaches to optimize their physical training/preparation; and d) find ways to be better prepared to deal with distractions … The P.A.C.E. performance program addresses these concerns by enabling coaches to enhance their athletes’ psychological skills at the same time they are improving their athletes’ physical, technical, and tactical sports skills. Incorporating the P.A.C.E. performance program into the periodized training schedule can help your athletes peak for performance by training them to focus on the right things, at the right time, every time.

Each of the elite coaches I’ve been fortunate to work with incorporate aspects of sport psychology into their training programs, though they may refer to this type of training by many different names. The P.A.C.E. performance program was designed with these coaches in mind, as a simple acronym to organize and teach psychological skills during training. P.A.C.E. refers to “Perception, Activation, Concentration, Execution”. While each of the P.A.C.E. components can be worked on individually, I present the program to coaches as an ordered sequence, to provide a simple and comprehensive overview of psychological skills training for performance excellence.

(Read all the article: 2012 Fall Olympic Coach at http://www.teamusa.org/About-the-USOC/Sport-Performance/Coaching-Education/Coach-E-Magazine.aspx)

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I win for sure

Published on November 8, 2012 in Allenatori, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching and Stress. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

“I win for sure” are not the words of a sport champion. They are the Federica’ words, woman, 30 years old, who is fighting against cancer. She wants to tell us knowing how much is important not hide but to share this experience and to do something every day to win it. It’s an incredible story that one of the persons who have to do chemiotherapy, which takes care of but physically and mentally exhausted those who submit to them. Talking about it is never enough, it needs to us who have not thecancer and it needs to those who have it to share their struggle. This is a race of absolute valuer because at the award is the life.

 

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Mental coaching for adolescents

Published on November 8, 2012 in Allenatori, Giovani and Mental coaching. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

In the last year I have received many requests to work with adolescents to prepare them for the mentallly to face the competition. It seems to me a positive development, as it means that in some individual sports there is the awareness of the youth’s mental aspects. This it has happened in relation to three sports: shooting, golf and tennis; disciplines in which parents must necessarily invest economically on their sons if they want them do competitive experiences and effective training. Just think of the 30 annual tennis tournaments in which a young must participate, rather than the costs of rifle, cartridges and targets in shooting or costs to participate in the golf tournament and training with a good teacher. It becomes clear that when the parents the need for mental coaching, the economic investment becomes one of the items of expenditure that they fdo. I say this because it is very rare in Italy that a sports federation, however, invests on mental training for juniors (that would be his talents). At this age mental coaching is equivalent to the formation of the mental approach more useful to do well. For example, at this age to learn to have a positive self-talk is definitely easier than when you will be adults and educates boys and girls to know how to encourage themselves, to face difficulties with more serenity, or to correct themselves in a positive way and without insult. I wonder why this psychological skills so important in the life of every human being must be taught only in adult age, and many will never learn it. Is it possible that the limit for the adolescents is represented by those (managers and coaches) who should be their teachers?

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The sun inside

Published on November 7, 2012 in Calcio and Generale. 3 Comments Tags: , .

The film tells the story of two long trips between Europe to Africa in both directions.
It ‘s the story of Yaguine and Fodè, two Guinean teenagers who wrote on behalf of all children and young Africans a letter addressed “to their Excellencies, members in charge of Europe”, asking for help for schools, food and medical , “as your children”.
Thus  their extraordinary journey of hope began,  intersecting another trip, this time from Europe to Africa, which takes place ten years later, made by two other teenagers and their ball. It’s the story of Thabo which has thirteen, from N’Dola, an African village that even he knows exactly where he is and where he tries to come back, accompanied by his friend Rocco, fourteen years, from Bari. Both come from the South of that Europe full of contradictions, that attracts and repels people. With the precious letter in his pocket Yaguine and Fodè hide themselves in the compartment of the carriage of a plane to Brussels. The other two boys are victims of the player market,  from which they want to escape. Playing with a ball, their only companion, Thabo and Rocco walk through Africa, in the opposite direction along one of the many “paths of shoes” tracks over the years, thousands of men, women and children, fleeing famine, war, the slow dimming of the dignity of life of an entire continent. When the airbus 300 of Sabena concludes its long flight landing in Brussels, a technician discovered embraced the bodies frozen of Yaguine and Fodè. Besides, the letter addressed “To Their Excellencies”. The long journey of Thabo and Rocco, however, ends with the arrival in N’Dola, where, in a football field dedicated to Yaguine and Fodè, they play their match.

(From www.ilsoledentro.it Read the letter of Yaguine e Fodè)

 

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The Chuck Pagano fight against leukemia

Published on November 7, 2012 in Generale and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Chuck Pagano, coach of the Indianapolis Colts, who suffers from leukemia, was released from the hospital and he is presented in the locker room to talk to his players. It’s a short speech in which he speaks of his dreams: to accompany his daughters to the altar and win the Super Bowl with his Colts. The sentences show his strength in the fight against the terrible disease that struck him.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baQE_3yHPl4

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The female football

Published on November 6, 2012 in Calcio and Corsa. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The spread of the Italian women’s football does not take off because whoever organizes it continues to hold raise the barriers of entry instead of lowering them. First, it continues to be widespread belief that football is a sport for males only: swollen calves girls and is unsightly to look at. Therefore, only the women-men could play and not women-women. Second, for girls are preferred non-contact sports or graceful sports. Third, parents are so convinced of these ideas leading to the football schools only sons, also for the reason they can become rich while for girls there is not an award so important. Today these ideas cannot longer stand the test of facts, made up of millions of girls happily playing football in the world but unfortunately in Italy they continue to be dominant. Keeping raised barriers as in Italy means continuing to feed three aspects: do not invest economically, in organization and people, not to search for talented girls and show intolerance and lack of respect towards the demand and the choice of a women’s football.
Football is not very attractive to the girls themselves to us because they do not see women or children teams playing in the fields. Let us remember that in Italy the boom in women’s volleyball came when the Japanese cartoons, that all the girls watched on television, showed for the first time stories about the daily life of girl volleyball players, as well as their games. In Germany, however, the barriers have been lowered, the German federation has invested and 5486 were born female football clubs (compared to the 300 that we have in Italy). Moreover, the greater empowerment of women in a country, the greater the tolerance / respect to the choice of a sport, football, which until recently was first practiced almost exclusively by males only. It is no coincidence that a certain point in time, in almost all the countries of Northern Europe, the girls were no longer discriminated against. This means that the barriers to entry have been opened and human capital was valued regardless of their gender. We have not arrived yet.

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Catania-Lazio

Published on November 5, 2012 in Allenatori and Calcio. 2 Comments Tags: , .

Lazio was overwhelmed by Catania. The player Stefano Mauri wrote on his website: “We are not on the field and that’s not good. The team has never been in the match, apart from the first few minutes.” I’ll be rhetorical but my question is always the same: why Lazio does not use a sport psychologist to avoid making these mistakes. Errors that are due to the attitude of the players. Of course, the coach is responsible for this way of approaching the game and I think he would benefit from a consultant psychologist.

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Murray-Lendl

Published on November 5, 2012 in Allenatori and Tennis. 0 Comments Tags: , .
Reading the interviews with Ivan Lendl and Andy Murray are confirmed a few simple rules that are the basis of any success.
  • Lendl has agreed to coach Murray for his working ethic for tennis.
  • Murray recognizes Lendl, beyond the technical skills, for the reason he teached him how to play the Slam and also how to live the tournaments outside the camp, without to lose energy.
  • Lendl enjoys coaching Murray because he really wants to improve.

Murray is a talent, he already was  among the first in the world, but thanks to these teachings on how to use his mind he can realistically play to become the number 1.

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Juventus-Inter

Published on November 5, 2012 in Allenatori and Calcio. 1 Comment Tags: , .
In football  high-level performances  run along two roads, one loser and  one winner, relate to suffer the opponents’ play or impose its own. Juventus-Inter match has followed the same pattern, beginning Juventus have imposed its play for 10 minutes, then mostly dominated Inter. If  we add the Lichsteiner’s uncontrolled nervousness, Giovinco’s selfish racing, the Inter offensive pressure on the Juventus defenders and not viceversa, we understand why Juventus have lost.

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The impossible challenge for Phelps

Published on November 2, 2012 in Generale, Olimpiadi and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: , , .
The impossible challenge for Phelps is to go to the next Olympics as a golfer. This is the last joke of the athlete who won the more medals at the Olympic Games. I do not think Phelps really wants to compete in this sport. The challenge may still be not impossible. In fact, if Phelps might want he could train and play for a total of 1500 hours per year for the next four years. As we know to be a high level athlete need 10,000 hours of training and 6.000 hours as Phelps could do, but it could be sufficient fewer hours because his physical condition and the ability to cope with the stress of competitions are part of the baggage of swimmer and should be maintained and not acquired as a novelty. In other words, the transfer of talent from sport to sport allows the athlete to save those thousands of hours that were required to learn how to train, to accept the monotony of some training, to learn how to feel confident in situations with competitive high stress  or to be able to repeat in the tournament what it has been done in practice. Phelps knows all these situations. The problem is another, and it regards his  motivation, after all he did in swimming still wants to spend 1500 hours a year training. Last but not least issue it is the competition from other American golfers, first of Tiger Woods, Phelps will find his own space between these stars?

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