Whether you are an elite athlete or just someone looking to maintain their New Year’s Resolutions, motivation is relatively complex and extremely unique. There are multiple forms of motivation, each describing why someone does something, often unconsciously. Essentially it boils down to two main forms of motivation, which lie on a continuum. At one end […]
The development of depression during retirement from professional sport has been highlighted by many athletes and most recently by swimming legend Ian Thorpe. James Cracknell has spoken about his tunnel vision of sport performance and subsequent inability to broaden his horizons in retirement. Alternatively sports stars have often quit a major competition or retired from […]
The question as to why humans require sleep is largely unanswered. Most research focusing around sleep has looked at specifically how humans sleep and it has been found that sleep provides us with a number of physical and psychological functions. There are three main functions which sleep provides us with. The first is a somatic […]
During the last two decades, advancements in technology have allowed music to grow into being an effective intervention to achieve a range of desirable psychological and performance effects among athletes. Lead researcher in the field of music in sport and exercise, Dr Costas Karageorghis has primarily explored the psychological, psychophysical, psychophysiological, and ergogenic effects of […]
We’ve all seen or heard of elite sports people performing ritual movements before competitions, from a 100m runner blessing themselves before a race, to a footballer with his lucky pants or the Golfer with his favourite putter. From the outside looking in it may seem odd and strange; however in all sports, superstitions and rituals […]
“Confidence is contagious” – Vince Lombardi. This article is written in the context of football. If football is not your sport then simply substitute footballer for cricketer or athlete, the concepts are the same and transferrable. I am a BASES Accredited Sport Scientist in sport psychology and I am based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire and […]
Our greatest enemy… and our biggest ally? I recently tweeted a riddle a few days ago. Unfortunately nobody had the answer. The riddle goes like this “I will be your greatest hindrance or your biggest aid. I will clear the road for you or block it again. Who am I?” Somebody intelligently responded “a traffic […]
Reflection on performance plays an important role in athletic development and adherence to training programmes. Therefore our reflection needs to be accurate and informative for athletes, coaches and sport psychologists. Franks and Miller (1991) highlighted that coaches can accurately remember only 40% of performance. This statistic may shock some coaches, and this is not unique to […]
Creating and developing an internal self-awareness within athletes is, for me, the most important job a sport psychologist has within applied work, and is something I care a great deal about when working with others. When it comes down to it, it is not we – the psychologist who will be scoring goals in the […]
Decision making in sport has been a well investigated topic area in Sport Psychology, and it is one that is constantly developing and becoming more important in the world of sport and sport psychology. Decision making is a complex phenomenon in that if you were to ask a professional athlete why they made a decision, they […]