I am always reading books and articles on sport psychology.  Some are pretty technical and scientific and others are just good, fun, and informative.  A book I’m reading now is one that I would recommend to parents.  It’s not about cheerleading and as a matter of fact, cheerleading is not mentioned once in the whole book but it is still worth your time. 

The book is called – “Whose game is it, anyway?” and it is written by 2 of my colleagues at Harvard Medical School – Richard Ginsburg and Stephen Durant and Amy Baltzell, a professor at Boston University. 

The authors describe it as “a guide to helping your child get the most from sports, organized by age and stage.”  The book provides detailed information, based on child development research, about what skill sets you can expect from your child depending on the age of the child.  

The first section is called, “Knowing your child athlete” and  looks at child development and sports participation  from the Early Years (Ages 1 – 5) through Young Adulthood (Ages 19 and up).  

Part Two is entitled, “Pitfalls and Possibilities in Sports” and deals with such topics as “Should we push our children? How Much?” and “Quitting, Burning Out, and Moving On.” 

The book is easy and fun to read and provides many valuable insights for parents.  I recommend it!

By the way, if you are on Facebook (and who isn’t!) please join my Confident Cheerleading Center page. If you do, you can get lots of free stuff – questionnaires, worksheets, all designed to help you become a better coach and athlete!

At first glance, this video of cheerleading “bloopers” (well, they’re not all cheerleaders) is kinda funny but the video doesn’t show the aftermath such as the trips to the hospital or people hobbling around on crutches and casts.

If you look closely at the video you’ll see the common denominator in almost all of the bloopers is that the participants were not thinking clearly. They were not focused on their task.  They were distracted by the crowd, the excitement and who knows what else!  This can happen to anyone of course and it does but in these cases the results could’ve been (and perhaps were) dangerous and painful.

Developing laser focus is a skill taught by sports psychologists and it is the hallmark of mental toughness.  Stay tuned to this blog for more on enhancing your focus skills.

It will be happening soon! 

My new CD and workbook will be released very soon and I’m very excited.  The Mental Game of Cheerleading: Training for Competitions will be a 2-CD set accompanied by a nice thick workbook filled with tips, techniques, work-sheets, and questionnaires – all designed to help you get ready for competitions.

As you know, if you’ve been following this blog, sports psychologists have helped many athletes improve their performances and I think cheerleading deserves to learn what other athletes have learned and used.

So…stay tuned!

Cheerleading competitions are high stakes, high pressure events. Competitions – especially Nationals –  are exciting, exhilarating, and for some of you – terrifying! Who can deny the thrill of performing in front of hundreds or thousands of screaming fans? 

Who would want to miss the opportunity to show the world the fruits of your months of hard work? The skills and hard work in your routine weren’t just given to you like free stuff on Gumtree or a present when it’s not your birthday.  And it has been hard work – creating your routine, revising it, and practicing it over and over again until you’ve nailed it! 

But rehearsing the routine repeatedly is only part of being a winner.  What is equally if not more important is the mental game of preparation for cheerleading competitions.  As I mentioned before, most pro athletes and virtually all Olympic athletes work with sports psychologists, so why not cheerleaders? 

Winning is the science of being totally prepared and being mentally prepared is essential.  

So what do I mean by mental preparation?  Mental preparation refers to learning how to control your body and control your thinking. It means training your body and your mind to do what you want them to do at the time of your performance to ensure you perform at an optimal level. 

You know, everything you do is dependent on your brain. You become what you think. Let me explain this a bit more so you have a good framework to help guide you as we proceed. 

A competition, although wonderful and exciting, may be perceived as a threatening event. Why threatening? Well there is risk involved. There is uncertainty involved (you may not win, you may not nail your routine, someone may get dropped, and so forth). Plus you are being observed by judges and a huge crowd; your every move is going to be scrutinized. 

In such situations you naturally get at least a bit anxious. Anxiety is your mind’s response to real or imagined danger. 

In such situations certain physical things happen. The grand control center in your brain, the prefrontal cortex which is located just behind the forehead, alerts certain other structures in the brain to flood your prefrontal cortex with stress hormones and neurotransmitters that short circuit brain functioning.  As a result, your attention narrows and your thinking becomes less flexible. Jumping to conclusions and acting precipitously or freezing are common at this point. 

In other words fear and stress can make you stupid! No offense – it happens to all of us. 

If an event is seen as positive or neutral, the prefrontal cortex will release a different chemical cocktail than if it is seen as negative.  In other words, depending on how you perceive a given situation, you will either perform well or poorly. So if you perceive a competition as a positive event and if you have control over your thoughts, your brain will release a slew of chemicals that will help you perform better.  

So, doesn’t it make sense to control your thoughts to make sure they are neutral or positive?  You’ll hear a lot more about this is future posts, so come back for more!