Monthly Archive for October, 2013

Unforgettable Cesare Rubini

Published on October 31, 2013 in Allenatori, Generale and Libri. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

There are individuals who during their life-marking unique and indelible, it’s the case of Cesare Rubini only Italian to be in the Hall of Fame of two different sports, basketball and swimming.

To understand how Cesare Rubini was decisive in sport at the international level there are no better words than those of this article in the Corriere della Sera by Alessandra Farkas :

” Cesare Rubini joined forever in the legend of basketball stars and stripes. In front of 1204 people in smoking and décolleté (who had shelled out $ 100 a head to applaud him ) the seventy years old coach became the first European, Monday evening, to be immortalized in the prestigious temple Use basketball : the legendary “Basketball Hall of Fame .” It’s the first time that an Italian receive this coveted honor” said President Clinton in a tape recorded at the beginning of the ceremony at the Civic Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. “He could not deserve it more”he added. “In addition to putting the Italian basketball on the international map , Rubini has done so much for the friendship Europe-Usa in sport.” From the thunderous applause aroused by the words of the president, it has been realized that the public “who ‘s who” of American basketball shared the choice.” Listen to the speech of Cesare Rubini that evening.

Rubini was a warrior who lived matches as battles. “In the decisive minutes you have to be brave, daring, the desire to win pushes you to force players to fight even if they are so tired . Riminucci remember who went in with fractured apophysis . Sardagna that held together the patches with an ankle almost broken … Gamba left two knees into the fray, but all resisted to the pain, all those of a certain period, then things have changed, some say thankfully, but it is the battle spirit that there is no more. I had not mercy of my players, workouts were definitely harder than a lot of games in the league. If a player of mine said he could not do it I tried to force it, i wanted heroes, I admit, and many were … It’s not possible to train without knowing men and your opponents.”

 

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“Psyching Team” at New York marathon

Published on October 29, 2013 in Corsa and Mental coaching. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

This fall, for the eleventh consecutive year, Ethan Gologor, chairman of the Psychology Department at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, has been appointed captain of the “Psyching Team” for the ING New York City Marathon, the largest in the world. ThePsych Team helps runners mentally prepare for the psychological rigors of running such a long distance.

For more than a decade, Gologor has pounded the pavement and stressed the importance of sports education to the Greater Brooklyn community.  His training and supervision of mental health practitioners, sports psychologists and students, the majority of whom have been Medgar students, has benefited this community from an educational and physical standpoint.  As a teacher for over 40 years, Gologor, while constantly emphasizing the importance of being physically active, also recognizes that something as arduous as running 26.2 miles includes both strong cognitive and emotional skills — principles which he has expounded in three books:  Some “Psyching Team” members have even come away from the experience determined to run the course themselves as Gologor himself has done.
Anche quest’anno e per l’undicesima volta consecutiva, Ethan Gologor, direttore del Dipartimento di Psicologia del Medgar Evers College è stato nominato reposanbile del “Psyching Team” della maratona di New York. Questa squadra di psicologi aiuterà i podisti a prepararsi alle difficoltà mentali che incontreranno in una gara così lunga.
Per più di 10 anni, Gologor ha sottolineato l’importanza dell’educazione allo sport nella comunità della Greater Brooklin. Della supervisione che ha fornito ai professionisti della salute, agli psicologi dello sport e agli studenti. Nel suo lavoro ha costantemente enfatizzato l’importanza di essere fisicamente attivi e ha riconosciuto che un impegno strenuo come la maratona richiede uno sviluppo di alto livello delle abilità cognitive e emotive. Principi che approfondito nei suoi libri: Psychodynamic Tennis, Psychodynamic Running, e Today I Am a Runner.

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Disappointed sports fans increase consumption of fat and sugar

Published on October 28, 2013 in Calcio and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Being fans of a team that wins it may be beneficial to health. So this year the Roma fans should feel much more healthier than last year. It’s what emerges from two studies of North American and French football fans who showed that if your team loses on Monday you eat more fatty foods and sweeter in order to mitigate the frustration resulting from the negative result, while this does not happen if it win. “Although prior studies had shown that sport outcomes influence reckless driving, heart attacks, and even domestic violence, no one had examined how they influence eating,” says Yann Cornil, researcher at INSEAD Business School and lead author of the study. By comparing the outcomes from two seasons’ worth of NFL games with people’s food consumption in over two dozen cities, Cornil and INSEAD professor Pierre Chandon were able to determine the amounts and types of food consumed after victories and losses.

The data do not show what happens to the fans of teams that recede, they are all suffering from liver or after a certain number of losses they put your soul in peace and on Monday they do not eat lasagna?

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Himalayan 100 miles

Published on October 27, 2013 in Corsa and Generale. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

“The Himalayan 100 Mile Stage Race is the most spectacular running course in the world!” said a past winner. During the Race, views of Mt. Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, and Kanchenjunga (4 out of 5 of the world’s highest peaks) are visible. Regardless of your level of ability – whether a 10K, marathon, or ultramarathon runner – you can run at your own pace. There are no age limits or stage cutoff times. Five daily stages of 24 – 20 – 26 – 13 – 17 miles (Oct. 25 – Nov. 01, 2013) are designed for middle distance runners.

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Dear colleagues train yourselves in sport psychology otherwise left

Published on October 26, 2013 in Generale, Mental coaching and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I check every day how necessary is that the psychologists who intend to work in sport are competent in sport psychology. Means have good knowledge in this field, have the skills required to make a significant contribution to the sport environment and finally know the sport. Considerations that are obvious for an American, a German or a Norwegian, but not at all for an Italian psychologist. This represents a major limitation to the development of this profession in our country. This is because psychologists know nothing about the  psychology (not just sports ), they do not know the rules of motor learning that are the basis of training, they do not know the needs of sports organizations, they do not know what it means to deal with very intense competitive situations  when the athletes are called to give their best. In relation to stress management they have not developed a specific professional sensitivity to understand and support the athletes. These skills can not be invented, you can only learn from experts psychologists who carry out this work for years. Unfortunately, federations and sports clubs too often rely on untrained and young psychologists or psychotherapists, certainly good at treating psychopathology, but without the minimum knowledge of this world and they usually treat athletes as patients. Every week I meet coaches and athletes who tell me their negative experiences with psychologists . My advice to colleagues, please choice other job or otherwise follow a good training in sport psychology.

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Reached 1.000 blogs

Published on October 25, 2013 in Generale. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

I’ve reached the number of 1.000 blogs, beautiful experience because writing forced me to think in a synthetic way with the aim of elaborating comments and ideas are not trivial and not based simply on common sense. Sport in all its forms, from easy walking to the top level is a serious matter and requires that all participants develop, through their practice, an adequate sports culture founded on two basic ideas:

  1. movement is life and
  2. improve is legitimate but at the same time we have to know how to accept our limits as they are.

If we learn to practice the sport with this attitude it will be easier to accept the difficulties and failures that are part of it. We also need to become aware that sport should promote personal well-being and not being practiced at its expense (doping and culture of the “only who wins has the value”).

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In Italy: obeses are 6.000.000

Published on October 23, 2013 in Generale and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

In Italy there are 6 million of obese costing the NHS 8 billion of euro. It’s a matter with a impressive existential cost  and an economic cost equal to the financial maneuvers of the government. They are not one-off costs, they are annual costs. They are not new data, and the passivity of the Italian governments faced with this problem is not new too. It’s a problem that year on year increased and no one tries to give meaningful answers. While there is much talk about cancer and there are rightly money to research into the causes and therapies to treat and prevent it. There is little talk about obesity, because in everyone’s mind it’s considered as a problem which depends only on the individual willingness to have a different life style. In other words, it does not nothing, because the social stereotypes is that people themselves are the cause of their evil. The same goes for physical inactivity, despite being the fourth leading death cause, itìs experienced as a leisure problem, personal laziness to do the daily movement that it would produce benefits to their cardiovascular system and more generally improve their well-being. So for the reason that anyone cares that we are obese, at least we enjoy eating killing us.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The mental fatigue in football

Published on October 22, 2013 in Allenatori, Calcio, Mental coaching and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Overload from mental fatigue is a cost that athletes must learn to manage for staying at the top. The most successful athletes at the end of the Olympics will take a long rest period to eliminate the stress and to recharge their motivation for the future engagements. In the individual sports choices such as Federica Pellegrini did, to dedicate a season to do lower-intensity activity are common in athletes at international level, because mentally you cannot live each year with the hassle of having to prove that you are always the best. Tiger Woods himself spent three years to recover from this crisis, in which it was stuck and go back to being number 1. Three years are the equivalent of 1,000 days when he lost many, many more times than winning . In team sports, take a rest period is not possible. The strong teams are organized every year to achieve the highest possible goal, in football it’s reflected in winning the championship or at least get in the Champions League. Juventus players are in this state of mind, they are tired and so far have not been able to enter in the field with the attitude needed to win . They have made up for with the skills and with the quality of some players, but it’s not enough. It would take clones of Pirlo and his mates but it’s fantasy and the new one are not necessarily best of theothers. Juventus must, however, reduce the level of fatigue and mental stress to find again that motivation to the effort and sacrifice in training and match, which are behind the successes of the two previous years. Certainly a sport psychologist who could help them to relax and recharge would be helpful.

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Juventus must learn from Aristotle

Published on October 21, 2013 in Allenatori and Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Aristotle said that “We are what we do consistently. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.” By transferring this statement in the football world means, for example, that Roma is building in these first eight matches a positive habit that it’s the basis of excellence. Juventus, on the contrary, having taken 10 goals and lost the fighting spirit that distinguished it from other teams has to change at all costs, because what it does is creating a habit to react insufficiently. Basically habits guide our practices and Antonio Conte’s job must be to eradicate them, because the team is learning not to react collectively and there is nothing more negative.

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Juventus absent, back in other hours

Published on October 20, 2013 in Allenatori and Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

See the interview with Antonio Conte is embarrassing, because he cannot find reasons to explain the absence of Juventus today after the 70th of the second time against Fiorentina.  Trivial errors: first goal on a penalty kick; second,  Buffon error; third, Fiorentina player let alone as if it was a recreational match, and the last, the counterattack. Fifteen minutes in which Juventus was physically present on the field and not mentally. Not only the team did not struggle, it did not really play. It’s hard to see how the team that in the last two years has made of the total commitment its winning key now it’s missing it, not just today, because in this championship it has taken already 10 goals . Players tired and mentally satisfied? It is notpossible to play for three consecutive years always at the best and this is the way in which it occurs? Impatience with a leader who always remember to the players the value of the hard work? The team higher class level of this year were led to believe that you can win by engaging less? Only Conte and the team may know. Waiting for Real Madrid.

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