Tag Archives: mental emotional tennis

Coaching Brain Type Performance- Part 5

Posted on June 14, 2021 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.

Click Here to Order through Amazon

Frank Giampaolo

CHAPTER 9: Assisting the 4 NF Typographies

INFP, ENFP, INFJ, ENFJ

 

INFP: Introvert Intuitive Feeler Perceiver

 

Challenge: INFP’s aren’t wired to enjoy analyzing match data. Their P brain design makes them “big picture” athletes versus “students of the game” who enjoy number crunching and quantifying data.

Solution: Trade in detailed date match charts like the typical errors to winners chart and replace it with a court positioning chart. The court positioning chart provides the big picture INFP’s can sink their teeth into and understand. Chart points won/lost when playing behind the court versus points won/lost when played inside the court.

 

Challenge: INFP’s are athletes who are often a bit overly sensitive to criticism. Detailed lists of “Here’s what you’re doing wrong…” stress out this profile more than most.

Solution: Apply authenticity while offering up their strengths versus weaknesses. They see tennis as an expressive game. If they feel their creativity stifled, they shut down, and effort is lost. Feelers are sensitive. Apply extra doses of optimism to their training regimen.

 

Challenge: This rare brain design is warm and kind but at the same time challenging to satisfy. After matches, they are typically their own toughest critics. These students try desperately to please friends, teammates, parents, and coaches which often leaves them drained.

Solution: Motivate the INFP to shoot for daily excellence in their training and match play versus perfection. Athletes in need of perfection in order to be happy suffer foolishly. Assist them in organizing their weekly developmental plan and making themselves the priority during those times.

 

Challenge: These friendly, quiet introverts don’t have the natural spatial design to take in large doses of auditory information. Like a few other cerebral designs, talking at them isn’t in the parent, coach, or student’s best interest.

Solution: Getting into their work requires identifying their preferred learning system. INFP’s are visual learners that prefer to imitate a coach’s actions. When working with this type, demonstrate the skill you are seeking, and they will effortlessly copy the movements. Encourage them to attend college or professional tennis matches and visualize themselves performing in that environment.

Neuro Priming For Peak Performance- Part 3

Posted on March 8, 2021 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, Neuro Priming for Peak Performance

The following post is an excerpt from Neuro Priming for Peak Performance NOW available!

Click Here to Order

 

Designing and Recording Protocolsneuro priming

 

Neuro Priming for Peak Performance is organized into five chapters.  Each chapter is devoted to a distinct tennis skill set. Designing an athlete’s personalized audio recordings is best completed with a high EQ (Emotional Quota) coach or tennis mind. The following is a step by step for guide all five sections. (Sample solutions for all five sections provided in Sample Solutions page 34.)

Step 1

With your coach, discuss each of the audio recording topics and complete your personalized script of solutions. These solutions should result from on-court training and most proficient patterns and tactics. The athlete should be able to perform the solutions routinely.

Step 2

Once solutions are identified, find a quiet space, eliminate all distractions, and get comfortable while you read your customized scripts into your cell phone’s digital recorder. Allow 5 seconds in-between tips to enable time for adequate mental rehearsal visualization.

 

Step 3

Begin your mental rehearsals in a calm mental state by breathing deeply, eliminating muscle tension and controlling your wandering mind. While visualizing your physical, mental and emotional skill sets, apply realistic imagery using slow motion and real-time visualization.

 

Key Times for Neuro Priming

  • Nightly before falling asleep, especially before matches.
  • Early morning, when you’re just waking up.
  • Drive time/travel time.
  • Before competitive matches.
  • Between points & change-overs.
  • After competition as a performance review.

Tennis from the Parent’s View- Part 2

Posted on November 19, 2020 by in Preparing for Pressure

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s Amazon #1 New Tennis Book Release, Preparing for Pressure.

 Click Here To Order through Amazon

Preparing final cover 3D

PARENT’S, DO YOU HAVE A PLAN?

 

“Your Weekly Initiative Separates Your Athlete From Their Peers?”

All throughout the history of tennis, we have seen ordinary men and women come from humble backgrounds with nothing but a dream. Most of these athletes weren’t especially gifted or financially wealthy. Yet they were able to become top ATP and WTA professionals. What separates us from them is their family commitment to push beyond mediocrity. It doesn’t take much effort to be average. Follow the crowd, and you’ll reach that level.

Most athletes dream of playing professional or NCAA ball but only a few are destined for greatness. It’s estimated that only 5% of High school varsity tennis players move on to play high-level college tennis. It’s not their lack of athleticism, it’s their lack of a deliberate, customized developmental plan.

 

The tennis success you seek requires a high tennis IQ, well developed emotional aptitude,
and the acceptance of serious weekly growth.

 

Eliminating Internal Judgment- Part 1

Posted on October 29, 2020 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

Frank GiampaoloThe following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis. Click Here to Order through Amazon

Eliminating Internal Judgment

 

My neighbor, Pete, owns Pete’s Home Repair Specialist. He’s a super friendly independent contractor. Due to his excellent soft science personal skills, Pete’s always in high demand.  His decades of experience have taught him that detailed preparation prevents poor performance. Pete’s truck is like an encyclopedia of tools organized by alphabet and ready for action. Though Pete doesn’t need all of his tools at every job, he brings every tool, just in case he needs it.

This analogy is very similar to a high-performance tennis player’s tool belt. In matches, they may not need to employ every skill set developed in their tool belt, but they do need to have primary and secondary strokes ready for competition, as well as multiple patterns and plays developed and prepared to be accessed if needed. Life skills, such as preparation improve the athlete’s confidence, inner dialogue, and of course, solution-based self-coaching skills.

 

“In the heat of battle, the voice inside each athlete is their driving force.”

 

In match play, an athlete’s internal dialog is their self-coaching. Internal dialog is the conversation their ego is having with themselves. Athletes have a habitual way they choose to navigate their matches. When they see competition in a negative light, their internal dialog is dark. Conversely, when they “see pressure as a privilege,” to quote Billy Jean King, their self-coaching is more positive, uplifting, and optimistic. The question is: Where did the athlete learn their internal dialog mantras?

An athlete’s negative, problem-oriented inner dialog sabotages their performance by interfering with their quiet mind. To some athletes, negative inner dialog spirals them into a self-defeating, under-arousal state. To others, it pushes them into a panicked, over-arousal state. Both are detrimental to performance. As I mentioned earlier, an athlete’s non-stop inner dialogue is either helping or hurting their performance. Intermediate athletes are known to sabotage their play by criticizing themselves, worrying about losing, and inventing post-match catastrophic conclusions during competition.

 

Tennis Emotional Toughness- Part 3

Posted on May 22, 2020 by in Emotional Aptitude in Sports, Maximizing Tennis Potential

The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude In Sports NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

frank

 

The Real Talent Is Emotional Toughness

 

11. Apply Positive Visualization

Winners use positive visualization by imagining themselves executing their best patterns and plays without hesitation. Less successful athletes are overcome with negative visualization, which of course overwhelms their thought processes with visions of failure.

 12. Train Under Game Day Stress
Athletes need to train much more than just their physical techniques and athleticism in practice. They have to get comfortable… being uncomfortable.

 13.Rehearse Tolerance
Overcome hardships and pain in practice. Simulating stress in practice provides you with the opportunity to conquer your emotional demons. By doing so, reoccurring game day negative thoughts are replaced by positive thoughts such as: “I’ve done this before, I’ve conquered this several times and I know I can overcome this again because I have done it often.”

 14. Learn to Compartmentalize Emotions
Great athletes stay in their optimal performance frame of mind during discomfort by staying on script (pre-set protocol). This entails choosing to mentally focus on the job at hand by overriding the emotional contaminants, thus not letting emotions control the show.

 15. Stop Feeding Negative. Emotions

Flip constantly feeding the problems, worries, and fears with customizing protocols which feeds optimism, courage, resiliency, and fortitude. Athletes should have pre-set triggers (words and actions) that help them focus on positive plays and patterns.

Sports and Optimism- Part 2

Posted on May 8, 2020 by in Emotional Aptitude in Sports

The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude In Sports NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

frank

 

SOLUTION # 1: Say Something Positive

Start and end each day saying something good. Make a great effort to start each conversation with a positive observation. Make it a habit to flip negative thoughts, feelings, and remarks into positive ones. Optimism is contagious, so take the tidbits you learn from this book and empower others, inspire others, and be the optimistic voice everyone respects.

SOLUTION #2: Shift from Negative to Positive Development

In academia, there’s a movement called positive psychology – a commitment to building and improving one’s best qualities.  Instead of focusing exclusively on repairing your weaknesses, the positive psychology movement focuses also on improving your strengths. To succeed at the higher echelons of each sport, major strengths have to be nurtured. Though I am not implying that weakness don’t have to be strengthened, I am suggesting that major gains can also be made by improving an athlete’s strengths.

Research shows that life skills development is a byproduct of an athlete’s mindset. Without the proper mindset, improvement in all areas of life is a constant internal struggle. First, let’s clarify the difference between fixed and growth mindsets.

Fixed Mindset: The belief that talent and intelligence are inborn.

Growth Mindset: The belief that talent and intelligence can be developed throughout a lifetime.

With this concept in mind, let’s expose why a growth mindset is a necessity in high-performance sports.  Throughout this book, I’ll be illustrating both positive and negative developmental strategies by sharing an informal observational study of two of my students, Evan and Jarrod. The teens are identical twins from Southern California. While their genetics and upbringing are indistinguishable, the boys possess very different personality profiles and views of how this world works.

Let’s see how Evan and Jarrod answer the following developmental questions and how nurturing emotional aptitude actually changes one of the twin’s mindsets …for the better.

 

Question: What’s your mindset and does it determine your behavior?

Evan: I think I have a growth mindset. I can’t imagine anyone thinking they already know it all…about everything.

Jarrod: Well, everyone tells me I’m super smart. So I guess I’m special. If you’re naturally smart and more athletic, sports are simple. So that must mean I have a fixed mindset, right?

 

Question: What motivates you to compete at a high level?

Evan: I enjoy the challenge of improving. Competing against the best demands I grow both as an athlete and a person. I see competition as an information-gathering mission. I learn from losses.

Jarrod: I’m just naturally good at everything. I don’t have to work as hard as others, so I guess I am motivated to compete with the best to show them my awesome skills.

 

Question: In competition, what happens to you when you hit a major setback?

Evan: This is where my growth mindset kicks into gear. I love problem-solving. Those moments push me to grow.

Jarrod: My parents think I quit trying when things don’t go my way. They think I’m not motivated to fight. I hate to admit it, but when it seems like my opponent is going to win, I lose interest in competing and I emotionally quit. I guess it’s to protect my ego or something…

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WHY Mental and Emotional Tennis Training?

Posted on April 20, 2020 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book,
The Soft Science of Tennis. Click Here to Order through Amazon

The Soft Science of Tennis

During the past three decades, the business of tennis coaching has become much more scientific. Biomechanics, technique, and technology have changed the hardware (strokes and athleticism) for the better, yet, the software (mental and emotional) has been routinely ignored.

 

frank

I was fortunate to begin my career at The Vic Braden Tennis College as a tennis instructor. Back in the 1980’s stroke production was the focal point. As I opened and directed tennis colleges throughout the country, I had the opportunity to work with top nationally-ranked athletes and touring pros. It was then that I realized that although stroke production was fundamental to the game of tennis, it was by no means the whole story. I found that the athletes with sound hardware (strokes and athleticism) and under-developed software (mental and emotional components) struggled in competition. So, for the past 20 years, I’ve immersed myself in the study of the athlete’s competitive software.

 

When Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded Google in 1998, they believed that only techies understood technology, so they set the companies hiring algorithms to employ computer science students from elite Universities. Fifteen years later Google began Project Oxygen to test their hiring methods. The conclusion of the research project shocked everyone. Among the seven most valued qualities of Google’s top employees, technical expertise came in dead last. Interestingly, what proved more important to their corporate culture was SOFT SKILLS.

The following are the seven essential personality traits Google prioritizes in their hiring process:

  • Effective Coaching Skills
  • Effective Communication and Listening Skills
  • Empathy and Support for Others
  • Effective Critical Thinking Skills
  • Effective Problem Solving Skills
  • Ability to Connect Across Complex Ideas
  • Technical Expertise

Since exposing these findings, Google takes soft skills very, very seriously. Like Google’s search engine business, most of the tennis-teaching industry assumes that hard skills (biomechanics and tennis technical knowledge) are most important.

The Soft Science of Tennis,  shares insights as to why soft skills matter and their significance may be more important than we were led to believe. The beliefs of athletes are directly influenced by their interactions with coaches and parents. After all, great coaching requires great collaborating, which is at the heart of The Soft Science of Tennis.

This book is designed to improve our tennis-specific soft skills that are the behaviors that enable us to connect more efficiently. Soft science characteristics are learned behaviors, and when properly nurtured lead to more effective and harmonious development of our athletes.

In the two years, it took me to research and write this book, the one reoccurring theme throughout this journey was “invest in the person, not just the player.” Whatever industry your athletes choose, whichever position they desire, they’ll take their soft skills with them for the rest of their life.

 

To Order The Soft Science of Tennis. Click Here  soft science

Tennis Growth – Changing Fixed Mindsets- Part 3

Posted on April 18, 2020 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis. Click Here to Order through Amazon

 

soft science

Benefits of Competition for Fixed Mindsets

Many undeniable, positive aspects stem from tournament competition.

Advantages include:

  • Competition keeps us honest: It allows us to assess our strokes and movement efficiencies and deficiencies. Exposing our strengths and hiding our weaknesses is an important function of match play.
  • Competition assists us in the art of opponent profiling. Without match play, there’s no dissecting because there are no opponents.
  • Competition exposes our mental fortitude. The ability to stay on Script (your customized game plan), strategy and tactics the match demands.
  • Competition through failure and success helps us develop a massive list of life skills, positive character traits, and a moral compass.
  • Competition aids in developing consistent quality. Winning a 64 draw event requires peak performance for approximately 15 sets.
  • Competition assists us in customizing our future developmental schedules. It’s not the quantity of on-court time; it’s the quality that counts.

 

Tennis mastery is a process of continuous adaptation and improvement, which is a growth mindset system.

 

“Johnny screams and throws his racket, why can’t I THROW MINE?”

Posted on November 22, 2019 by in Preparing for Pressure

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s NEW Amazon #1 New Tennis Book Release, Preparing for Pressure.
Click Here to Order

Preparing final cover 3D

“Johnny screams and throws  his racket, why can’t I THROW MINE?”

“Attitude and emotions are highly contagious.”

Remember the old saying, Monkey See Monkey Do? It’s human nature for people to model themselves after their sphere of influences subconsciously. Behavior modeling is a form of social learning. It states that most behaviors are picked up through imitating who and what they see.

Preparing athletes for pressure include carefully navigating athletes away from bad influences. Bad influences can sabotage the strong character traits you seek.

It is the athlete’s responsibility to detach themselves from anyone or anything that pulls them away from the progress they seek.

 

Be aware of the behavior of those influencing the athlete.