What if your “genes” don’t fit?

I just ready an interesting article in the latest issue of Sports Illustrated — Sports Genes by David Epstein. In this article, the author discusses the role of genetics in sports performance and he alludes to the concept of genetically engineering the perfect athlete. An interesting history of human evolution is also presented that examines the role of endurance running, the quest for meat, and the development of bipedal man (cool stuff from an anthropological standpoint).

The author then jumps into genetics, and the concepts of gene therapy and gene doping, the kind of stuff that makes you wonder what the heck we are doing and what lies ahead in our future.

Anyway, the part that struck me was his reference to  a quote by Wayne Gretzky “maybe it wasn’t the talent the Lord gave me, maybe it was the passion.”

Is there such  thing as the perfect athlete?

What if you were not born into this world with the “right” genes?

Should we genetically test our children after birth to see if they are “pro” material.

Or, perhaps we need to look at the other side of the coin and realize that yes, some athletes are born athletes, but a good percentage of pro athletes are playing at that level because of their passion for their sport, their hard work throughout the years, and their ability to develop the mental side of their game. So if you are one of the many that are not genetically gifted, don’t give up on your dreams, you can overcome these obstacles through hard work, passion, and the development of your mental game.

Mental Game in the Majors: Evan Longoria

We know how important the mental game is in all sports, but we never really see a true example of someone using mental training in their game, and then be willing to talk about it at the same time.  Evan Longoria is the perfect story of how the mental game can take you from average to great.  Not recruited by one division I school out of high school, he was barely recruited by division III schools.

After high school Longoria enrolled in community college, and was such a standout that he was offered a scholarship from Long Beach State University, and was moved over to third base.  The most important thing that happened was when Longoria was introduced to Ken Ravizza a Kinesiology professor who preaches mental preparation and structure.  He teaches players how to deal with, not dwell on, failure.  Ravizza says the essence of his teaching is learning to be “comfortable being uncomfortable”.

Ravizza taught Longoria to have a “focal point” where he can focus after he makes a bad swing or feels like he has lost control of his emotions.  All Longoria does is step out of the box and look at the top of the left field foul pole.  If he feels he should have hit a pitch that he missed he will step out of the box and undo his batting gloves to “release” the pitch, and then step back in.

In the video at the end of the post Evan Longoria’s teammate Carlos Pena says, “His ability to be in the present moment makes him one of the best.”  That ability to clear your head and play in the moment makes a great player.  You often hear about players having short memories, and Longoria is the perfect example of this.  He plays the game from pitch to pitch, playing in the moment.  All of these techniques have lead to Longoria becoming a superstar in Major League Baseball.  The video continues on to discuss Longoria’s visualization techniques as well as how his almost zen like attitude has made him one of the best to play the game.

Batting .347 with an On Base Percentage of .407 and Slugging .621 it seems that Longoria is continuing to impact the league on what many view to be the best team in the league right now.

E:60 Evan Longoria from E60 on Vimeo.

Mental Training for Hockey

Start your hockey mental training today. Here is a follow-up on yesterday’s blog post with some simple techniques to begin training your brain.

At the elite levels of most sports, the competition is usually pretty tight, with most participants having a similar level of fitness and skill, and thus, the margin for victory is small.  Coaches and players are beginning to realize that in order to stay one step ahead of their competition, they need to practice more than just skill and technique, they need to train the mental aspect of their game. So when faced with similarly skilled competition, it is the team that is more mentally prepared, more poised, and more confident that will emerge the victor.

Concentration, confidence, composure and commitment are considered the primary mental qualities that are essential for successful performance in sports.  Collectively, these are known as the the 4C’s.

• Concentration: the ability to maintain focus
• Confidence: the belief in one’s abilities
• Composure: the ability to maintain emotional control
• Commitment: the ability to set and work towards pre-defined goals

The techniques of mental imagery, goal-setting, and focus can help athletes achieve the 4C’s.

With mental imagery, players imagine performing a specific movement or skill.  This technique helps activate the same neural pathways from the brain to the muscles that are used to perform the actual movement.  There is a plethora of scientific evidence that demonstrates the concept of mental rehearsal leading to an improvement in performance.

Goal-setting is a motivating technique that simply involves setting short-term and long-term goals for yourself. Think about an ideal future and then set incremental goals to turn your vision of the future into reality. You will learn to effectively use time and resource management to achieve short-term goals, which raises one’s level of confidence and leads to increased levels of motivation.

You can improve your ability to focus much like any other skill (ie. with practice and training). The simplest form of meditation can be used to achieve greater focus through concentrating on an object — study the object, focus completely on that object — what does it look like, its shape and color, how does it smell, what is its texture — learn how to control your breathing and focus your mind and energy on the simplest of tasks.

One of the biggest obstacles with mental training lies in overcoming the perceived “silliness and triviality” of some of the techniques used. But hey, this is something that can be done on your own time, in your own space, with no-one else around. Use this time wisely and correctly, and you will notice an increase in your performance, but like the development of any skill, mental training takes time and patient. Learn these techniques and many others by attending one of our summer college hockey camps.

Playoff Goaltending: Skill vs. Mental

Plenty of critics will tell you that goaltending is 90% mental. Is it really?

Any skilled performance has a mental component. At the elite level in any sport, the difference in skill between Player A and Player B is probably minimal, so what makes Player A more successful? If skill levels are equal, then the mental component can be the pivotal difference, perhaps even enough to overcome a disadvantage in skill.   No better example exists than goaltending in the playoffs. Reporters cling to the teams with the “hot goalie” and every year there seem to be prime examples of goaltenders bringing it in the playoffs (Halak with the Habs and Anderson with the Avalanche are current examples).

In Patrick Roy’s words “For goaltenders everything is playing between your ears. If you can believe it, you can do it. If you’re not confident when you start, it makes a difference.” As a young goaltender, how do you develop this confidence? How do you become mentally tough? How can you put yourself in the zone? These are the types of questions we (at EXACT Sports) continually ask ourselves. Our mental diagnostics are designed to provide a unique portrait of who you are and help you learn more about how to improve the psychological aspect of your game. We designed these tools and they are currently used by the NHL and over 100 NCAA programs (Read about EXACT and the sport psychology done at the NHL combine). EXACT’s new summer college hockey camp program (National College Development Clinic) brings these same tools to high school athletes across the country.  In addition, all camps will be led by current NCAA college coaches. Over 25 different NCAA college hockey programs committed to instruct at our hockey camps this summer, including coaches from programs such as Mercyhurst College, Syracuse University, University of North Dakota, Amherst College, Gustavus Adolphus and many others.

Most players I know spend hours everyday working on their physical skills, but very few (actually none really), give much thought on mental training. The main reason is they probably have never been taught how to develop the mental aspect of their game. Now is the time to start! If you want to surpass the player next to you,  you need to start training your brain too. Start your hockey mental training today.

Player Development and Soccer: Benefits Beyond The Pitch

What does “player development” mean? What are the goals of player development? We here at EXACT Sports think about this question all of the time (after all, it’s our job!). The way we see it is that the goal of player development generally takes two forms: 1) developing skills that allow the individual to excel in his or her sport; 2) developing characteristics in the individual that he or she can take with them beyond the sport. While EXACT is well known for its work helping athletes achieve the first goal (e.g., our work with soccer camps, baseball camps, hockey camps, our player development services provided to pro sports groups like the NHL, MLS teams, colleges, etc.), we have also spent quite a bit of time researching and providing services that support the overall healthy development of youth. In a later blog post, for instance, I’ll be sharing a summary of the research we were asked to present at the National Soccer Coaches Association of America earlier this year that discussed these issues.

This post, however, I wanted to share some really interesting research that has been coming out of the scientific journals. I thought it was very compelling and relevant to healthy youth development and it shines a positive light on the value of sports participation… particularly, participation in soccer and participation of females in soccer. In a series of articles published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, researchers found a few very interesting findings:

• For females, participation in soccer resulted in a longer-term commitment to an active lifestyle than did female participation in running/jogging. The reason for this is because soccer created a sense of community and teamwork, whereas running was a more individual-focused sport. Researchers believe the reason that females had a higher long-term commitment to soccer is because the focus of soccer was social in nature, rather than an individual mandate to “get in shape”.
• Males showed less worry when they were playing soccer than when they were running. This is particularly interesting. Soccer was more successful at making its participants feel happier, more motivated, and engaged in playing the game than running/jogging.

These are just a few choice bits of the abundance of research showing how playing sport, and soccer in particular, yields healthy benefits even beyond just the physical fitness component. I thought it was interesting to cite this new research because it dovetails with EXACT’s own work in understanding and promoting healthy youth development.