• Psychology of the NBA Finals: Game 5

    Well that’s it! The 2014 NBA Finals are over and it was the San Antonio Spurs who put last year’s defeat emphatically behind them, and prevented the Miami Heat from winning their third straight Championship, or “threepeating” if you will. I don’t think anyone expected the Spurs to win in 5 Games and I certainly don’t…

  • Psychology of the NBA Finals: Game 4

    San Antonio took Game 3 in dramatic fashion to lead the series 2-1. They hit 19 of their first 21 shots, they scored 41 in the 1st quarter, and they had 71 by half-time! It was always an uphill struggle for the Heat, but the Spurs won by being aggressive and doing their thing, especially…

  • Psychology of the NBA Finals: Game 3

    The series was tied 1-1 going into Game 3 in Miami. The Spurs had managed to do a better job of not being distracted by the literally uncontrollable temperature in Game 1, and Danny Green came through with some Short Memory Shooting in the 4th quarter. In Game 2, another uncontrollable factor, the referees, left…

  • Psychology of the NBA Finals: Game 2

    Keeping Cool If the theme of Game 1 was ‘beating the heat’, the theme of Game 2 was definitely ‘keeping cool’.  But this time, it wasn’t a broken air conditioning system that was causing players’ temperatures to rise. It was another one of those damn uncontrollables – the refs.

  • Psychology of the NBA Finals: One game at a time.

    It’s been a while since my last post on here. I’ve been largely trying to avoid the internet while the NBA Playoffs have been happening. People seem unable to resist posting results on social media sites and, since I can no longer stay up until 5am and function adequately the next day, I’ve been recording…

  • Burnout in youth sport: Part 3 – Prevention is better than cure

    In part one of this series of three blog posts, we looked at the characteristics of burnout. In part two, we explored various explanations for burnout, including stress, feeling trapped, lack of motivation, and the culture of performance sport. Here in part three, we’ll think about what we can do to reduce the chances of…

  • Mental Toughness in the Ring

    So I’ve been doing some consultancy work in boxing for a while now, and it’s safe to say that it’s a sport that’s unlike any of the sports that I’ve worked in before.  It’s a brutal sport, there’s no getting away from it.  The aim is to punch your opponent until he/she can’t punch you back any more.  …

  • Coaching under Pressure: Part Three – How Can Sport Psych Help?

    It is well established that coaching can be a stressful occupation and that coaches should really be considered as performers in their own right. In part one, of this blog post, I questioned the availability and accessibility of coaching/psychology research for the coaches that could benefit from it. I also discussed what stress actually is…

  • Coaching under Pressure: Part Two – Stress in Elite Sports Coaching

    Coaching can be stressful. While coaching manuals often talk about the different roles that coaches take on, this doesn’t really cover the complexity of the coaching role. At the end of the day, coaches are performers1.

  • Coaching under Pressure: Part One – What Exactly is Stress?

    Twitter is great. I mean, at first I thought it was an outlet for the self-indulgent, a way for people to let strangers know what they had for breakfast, or that they were annoyed at something on the TV. I kinda still think that’s what it is, but I’ve also started to realise how useful…