Archive for the 'Stress' Category

Jan Vesely Interview and team mindset

Published on April 20, 2018 in Allenatori, Calcio, Generale, Mental coaching and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: Basket, Jan Vesely, pallacanestro.

The interview to Jan Vesely[1] shows the main relevance to have a mindset growth oriented instead to have fixed mindset. He said:

“It’s just concentration. The first year was with Maccabi; it was tough, but it was 3-0. After that I was injured against Real Madrid, so the team changed the mentality to play without one of the important players and they put even more than the maximum in those playoffs and beat Real Madrid. Last year playing Panathinaikos on the road the first two games and having the pressure to win the EuroLeague and play the Final Four in Istanbul, there was big pressure, so we set our mindset to always be much more focused than in the other games and to give our maximum. I think the secret was in our concentration to do the little things until the end, until the referee stops the game or we get the rebound or something. I think all those things are much more important now than in the regular season. I think the mindset is the most important thing.”

These words demonstrate that Jan Vesely but also the team, have not thought: “We have the talent and the skills to win” but they worked to develop their potential through effort, and practice. They understand the difference between to have the potential and to play at the best to achieve the result you want to achieve. Commitment, deliberate practice and strong task orientation are the secrets of this result. Great talent does not transport the players in great performances. The team has to dive itself inside the match, living each moments as it was the most important. This is the meaning of the sentence: “It’s just concentration.” It seems easy because it’s their job but going in deep it means “Do the right thing in the right moment” and in a fast tactical play like it’s top basketball, to play with this approach it’s a very demanding task.

The players with a growth mindset assume on themselves the responsibility that also if we play at our best, the success is not guaranteed because there is the other team that can play better than us. In any case it’s this kind of mindset that lead them to fight each second of the match, they say to them “I don’t think to the final results or how many mistakes I will do but I know that my teammates and me will perform till the last shot with the maximum focus needed to do our best performance.” It could be a thinking little bit rhetoric, but it’s not true. It means, as Jan Vesely said:

“I think the secret was in our concentration to do the little things until the end, until the referee stops the game or we get the rebound or something. I think all those things are much more important now than in the regular season. I think the mindset is the most important thing.”

[1] http://www.euroleague.net/features/interviews/euroleague-2017-18/i/8obkylpgs38hn48s/jan-vesely-fenerbahce-the-mindset-is-the-most-important-thing

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Peacefulness to cope with the competition difficulties

Published on April 19, 2018 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: peacefulness, psychologist, serenità.

Working with athletes from different sports disciplines like shooting, diving, walking and fencing in the days before the race, leads me to think that the peacefulness (serenity) is for them an important factor to compete at their best. I don’t consider peacefulness synonymous with being calm. Is, in my opinion, being aware of:

possess the necessary skills to compete this time at the best
be ready to face with the many difficulties of the race
get into difficulty and get out with success thanks to training and past experiences
have acquired the ability to just live the present moment and not the immediate future

In this sense, the race has to be understood as a succession of instants that run continuously until the end of the performance, but the concentration is always on the present task, not in the past, not in the future.

For all of us there is a lot to think on these issues being spoken too little, sometimes too busy to teach only the psychological techniques to deal with the competitions.

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The Summer Schools in sport psychology are a great reality

Published on April 18, 2018 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments

The Summer School in sport and exercise psychology, like this to take place in Ireland, are becoming a great reality. This shows that our discipline is booming. Find them on the web using as keywords: summer school, sport psychology.

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The coaching social value

Published on April 17, 2018 in Allenatori, Generale, Mental coaching and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: coaching, etica, reinhard stelter, valori.

Today in Roma there will be the Conference of Reinhard Stelter regrading the social individual value connected to the coaching process, I propose again the review of his book about this topic.

A Guide to Third Generation Coaching

Reinhard Stelter

Dordrecht: Springer Science, 2014, p.254

http://www.springer.com/new+%26+forthcoming+titles+(default)/book/978-94-007-7185-7

This book talks about coaching from a societal perspective. Since the beginning coaching has been interpreted as a process to increase managers’ skills and in any case as a system to approach and solve problems. Third Generation Coaching is oriented on values and create meaning underlying aspirations, passions and habits. This concept remember me the Amartya Sen identity idea, when he explains that every day we are part of different groups and in this way we have a multiple identity, build on this different contexts and roles. Thus, Third Generation Coaching talks about our identity, view as interpersonal process continuously in movement. Coachees and coaches live a space of self-reflection not to improve specific competences but to permit to the coachees to know better themselves and may be to see their life in a new perspective. Really, this coaching vision is an invitation to change stride, moving to a different interpretation of our life. For this reason Stelter underlines the main role played by values “as important landmarks for navigating in life.” Today where financial fraud in business and doping in sport are so diffuse, a changing process based on values and ethics became fundamental to guarantee social respect and freedom form illegal actions. In fact, Stelter developed this new coaching approach in a time where values are not very well represented in our society, where at the contrary every day the newspapers published news about bankruptcies or doping cases like the most famous is Lance Amstrong fall. The book talks about the necessity to build in professional or every life meaning-experiences, based on our past stories and the present in order to have a better future. Third Generation Coaching changed also the coach role, he/she became a facilitator of the coachee’s reflections concerning is cultural roots and social relations, very important because determining his/her confidence into the social environments. Third generation coaching proposes a form of dialogue where coach and coachee are focused on creating space for reflection through collaborative practices and less concerned with fabricating quick solutions. Aspiring to achieve moments of symmetry between coach and coachee, where their dialogue is driven by a strong emphasis on meaning-making, values, aspirations and identity issues. Coach and coachee meet as fellow-humans in a genuine dialogue. I can say that also in sport we assisted in an evolution of this kind in the program of athletes’ mental coaching. Till 10 years ago the programs for them were related almost exclusively to increase specific mental skills, to use during the most important events. At this approach, successively, has been added an approach more oriented to reflect about their life style, to the positive role the athletes can play in our society, to doping as negative value for them and for the society because based on deception.

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Mental coaching in the Romanian football

Published on April 16, 2018 in Allenatori, Calcio, Mental coaching and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: calciatori, consapevolezza, Libertaea, Romania.

It’s not easy to accept that the main limits of the team performance are in the psychological area. Giani Boldeanu talks about this subject in the Romanian football.

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Third generation coaching

Published on April 13, 2018 in Generale, Mental coaching and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: coaching, reinhard stelter.

Interessante conferenza di Reinhard Stelter, Università di Copenaghen, sulle nuove prospettive del coaching.

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International Day of Sport for Development and Peace

Published on April 6, 2018 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments

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#RomaMarathon2018

Published on April 6, 2018 in Corsa, Generale and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: maratona, Roma.

One day at the Rome marathon (www.maratonadiroma.it) and it’s time to free your mind from all the uncertainties about the performance, some ideas:

look back at training period and your commitment to be here
be proud of this journey
enjoy the excitement you feel, including fears that go through your head
thinks that Sunday you go to do just what you like best, running
it is obvious that it will be very tiring
keep your pace
you’re going to do something important for you, otherwise you would not have trained so hard

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#accademiacalciointegrato

Published on March 29, 2018 in Allenatori, Calcio, Generale, Giovani and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: #accademiacalciointegrato, autismo, bambini, disabilità, RomaCares, Rome, sindrome Down, Totti, trend.

Risultati immagini per trendsmap.com/r/IT_ROM_rzwxga

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The free throw impact

Published on March 20, 2018 in Allenatori, Mental coaching and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: Basket, Euroleague, free throw, pallacanestro, tiri liberi.

In basketball the free throw is a technical fundamental showing the leading role of the players’ mind.

At first glance, the free throw seems easy to do: its execution is always at the same distance from the basket, the players are not moving and have the time to prepare the shot following their personal rhythm without any direct physical contact from the opponents. At the contrary, the statistics published by EuroLeague Basketball show a different scenario.

In the current season, in all games only 8.5% of the players made the 90% of free throws, 35% made the 80%, 32% the 70% and 24% have scores below the 70%.

Furthermore, the statistics of the last three games show the 54% of the players made at least the 80% of free throws, while the 40% scored from 69% to 36%.

The points scored are higher than those of all matches for the reason that in this second comparison there are only 22 and not 105 players as in the first: increasing the number of the players, increase also the mistake percentages.

These data clearly tell us that this easy shot, from the technical side, can become very difficult. The reason is in the players’ problems to manage their competitive stress. In other words, the free throw could represent one key index to know how much the players are able to be efficiently focused on a specific task when they are under pressure.

In the last years, the sport psychologists have proposed the free throw could be coached using a more effective routine pre-shot. This approach is useful to learn the management of the extra-time they have before the shot. This time, indeed, can be an advantage or a disadvantage. This free throw momentum will be positive only if it has been build a personal routine to forget the distractions (momentum of the match, score, pressure of the opponents, individual worries and fear, personal confidence in that situation, fans’ screams). Otherwise the risk is that the emotions become too strong and difficult to get out from the mind and the players will increase the probability to choke under this psychological overload.

The EuroLeague Basketball statistics confirm the free throws very often represent a problem to cope with also for the best teams, like are who compete in this European tournament, they are the top teams in their countries but less than 44% of the players made the 80% of the shots and 24% made less than 70%. This is not only a European problem. In NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers have had a very bad statistic with the 68% of shots scored and the club sent the players to follow a psychological program to improve the free throws.

The training to improve the free throws can be centered in two different phases. The first regards how to reduce the tension and be focused on a task for few seconds. In this phase, the players practice deep abdominal breathings in a correct way.

This is a fundamental exercise because usually the players are not able to breath deeply and consequently cannot help themselves before the execution of the free shot. After that moment they should notice their breath, don’t change the breath but stay focused on the sensation of air in and out for two minutes, repeating 4/5 times this last exercise.

The final goal of this work is to have an efficient body control – loosing up the muscle tension – and center the attention on the present.

The second phase, is to practice a specific routine when shooting a free throw, following five steps:

Reduce immediately the body tension (through one deep breathing)
Put the body on the line in a comfortable position (feel the body centered in the ground)
Visualize two free shots (mentally rehearsal the shots as you are doing in that moment)
Look on the ring (the gaze must be always oriented in the same point)
Do the shot

The players have to train several times this routine in order to reach an optimal confidence level in this preparation. To reach this kind of proficiency, once the players have planned and established their personal routine, they have to simulate game pressure in practice.

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