Tag Archive for 'Olympics'

Sport psychologist: why not!

I am now convinced that the sport psychologist is necessary in any sport club starting from the age of children. It is not a coincidence that in a sport like football, practiced in Italy by the majority of children, the football federation has decided to enter this professional in the football school.   It’s useful to coaches who need to educate not only the body but also the mind. It’s ‘also useful for the best talents, they must learn to manage themselves  through the daily frustrations. It’s also necessary for world-class athletes, who need to manage their competitive stress effectively. It’s useful to those who want to win an Olympic medal for making their best performance a specific day, at  a specific moment, not minute before or a minute later.

The impossible challenge for Phelps

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?