NEURO PRIMING FOR SUCCESS
An athlete’s routines and rituals define their success….or failures. Anything we focus on, on a consistent basis, will most likely manifest. The challenge is that, all too often, focusing on problems will attract more….problems. It’s called the laws of attraction.
“Tournament success or failures aren’t the results of a singular performance, but rather the results of the athlete’s routines and rituals.”
I hate to say it but only conditioning an athlete’s strokes will most often result in competitive disappointment. Competitive success demands purposeful conditioning of not only an athlete’s fundamentals but also their mental and emotional states. Match tough athletes understand that overcoming performance crisis, found in every tournament, demands character.
The holy grail of tennis tips for struggling tennis players isn’t hitting another basket of backhands, it’s developing and believing in with absolute certainty “their” game.
Parents and teaching pros routinely say to the athlete before a competition, “Just play your game!” Then I ask the athlete: “What’s your game?” they reply “Haven’t a clue!”
Let’s use acting as an analogy. In acting, they call it “getting into character”. In tennis it’s morphing into an athletic warrior, understanding their best system and style of play. In acting, they call it memorizing their script. In tennis, the athlete’s script is their most proficient patterns including serve, return, rally and net rushing shot sequences. (Note: Often, an inexperienced athlete’s favorite patterns aren’t their most proficient patterns.)
The athletes I see have serious potential. But most don’t take correct action. Yeah, they rally back and forth for hours a day but disregard mental rehearsals. So they don’t apply neuro priming and therefore never achieve the results they’re capable of achieving.
Here’s the light bulb moment: Success truly begins by adding mental rehearsal to lock in the absolute certainty of one’s skills. This is done nightly by visualizing to perfection each of their strokes, shot sequences and emotional protocols to handle performance anxieties faced in heated competition. Once again, it’s simply the laws of attraction. Studies show that visualizing peak performance patterns nightly attracts the correct motor programs and mindset athletes seek. Then along with on court pattern repetition, athletes become confident in their skills and with confidence comes peak performance potential under duress.
With my clients, we customize a series of mental, emotional and stroke scripts. The athlete then reads their solutions into their cell phone’s digital recorder. This allows them to listen to their script, in their own voice, and visualize to perfection with mental rehearsals. By visualizing perfect performance, the athlete attracts positive belief. And as positive belief develops, the athlete is better equipped and motivated to make the appropriate changes needed in modifying their course of action to maximize their potential. As I stated at the beginning, an athlete’s routines and rituals ultimately define their success.
Frank Giampaolo
Amazon #1 Best Seller: Emotional Aptitude in Sports
Frank provides a Customized Match Video Analysis Service. To receive a detailed assessment of your athlete’s performance under stress- Frank: FGSA@earthlink.net
