James Barraclough
I currently work as a lecturer in sport at the Manchester College. I am also under 14s coach at a Championship football club's academy. My third role is as a sport performance (psychology) consultant specialising in football and mixed martial arts.
@sportpsychjimbo
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So what learning style are you? It should be very easy to find out. You can simply take a number of written or online tests to tell you whether you are: Visual, Auditory, Reader, Kinaesthetic (Fleming, 2001) Concrete, Sequential, Abstract, Random (Gregorc, 1981) Visual, Aural, Verbal, Physical, Logical, Social, Solitary...
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Music Some recent research (Karageorghis et al 2009) has found the following relating to music: Beats per minute (BPM) in music are linked to the desired heart rate BPM in exercise Fast tempo/louder/higher intensity music has been shown to lead to shorter reaction times and higher arousal (also important for...
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Gareth Southgate: “I’ve only taken one penalty before, for Crystal Palace at Ipswich. It was 2-2 in the 89th minute, I hit the post and we went down that year . But I think I’d be far more comfortable now than I was then”, said shortly before England’s penalty shootout...
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Continuing with the theme of penalties, this time I will explore whether there is any skill involved in goalkeepers trying to save them or whether it is pure chance. Firstly, it is important to point out an important difference between amateurs and experts. An amateur performer in ‘ball’ sports tends to focus...
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‘Environmental demands’ can cause stress to fighters in the run up to a bout that can go beyond what is needed to keep them motivated. A certain amount of positive stress (eustress) is needed to drive a performer towards achieving their goals. However, too much can have a negative effect...
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This may seem to be a strange question, surely its obvious what sport psychology is? Not so, as even though it has been around for a few decades now, it is still massively misunderstood and may be even cause fear in some people. As normally happens when people fear or...
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The above is the title of a book by Guy Claxton that I read recently. At the time of publishing the author was Director for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester. After teaching for a few years the book was a revelation about how poor and old-fashioned some practice...
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As with many theories in psychology, those on leadership have taken a few twists and turns before they arrived at their current position. Early psychologists tended to favour trait theories i.e. you are born with certain characteristics that stay relatively stable throughout your life. With regard to leadership this meant...
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Here’s a taster from my book aimed specifically at MMA, but applicable to ALL sports: Foreword Sport psychology has been around in a serious form for only about the last 30 years. As a science it is still very much in its infancy. Sport psychologists are at the stage where...
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Thankfully coaching these days is less about vilifying athletes for every mistake they make and about making them look foolish in front of their peers. Unless of course you still subscribe to the English FA’s “stop, stand still” method of command style coaching. Contemporary thinking is more about actively encouraging...
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Extrinsic motivation is ‘external’: people – in this case athletes – are driven to succeed by factors from outside i.e. money, prizes, acclaim, status, praise. Intrinsic motivation comes from within i.e. an athlete driven by a need to succeed because they want to be the best and are not overly...
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Successful performance in elite football does not usually show itself until the early 20s due to unpredictable factors during a player’s development, particularly the effect that the growth spurt (puberty) will have on them physically and psychologically (although there have been some prodigies to prove the exception (e.g. Wayne Rooney...