Building Mental Skills for Better Sports Performance
By Andrew Walker, MPH; NSGA Director of Health & Well-Being
Image via Pexels.com.
The impact of mental well-being on athletic performance was a popular topic during the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, and the world’s best athletes continued to elevate this conversation during the recent Paris Olympics.
Sports influence society, and Olympians spoke up about the importance of managing mental health for human performance. Many courageously created space for others to seek healing while breaking down the stigma around mental well-being.
Consider Simone Biles, the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast, who credited her therapist for her successful return to the Olympics. Or champion swimmer Caeleb Dressel, who shared how he prioritized his mental health during this meet.
At the organizational level, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) has integrated brain health into its athlete services and resources. Mainstream medicine has also embraced alternative and complementary strategies like meditation and mindfulness.
What lesson can we take away from this? Athletes at every level can benefit from developing mental skills for health and human performance.
Key Mental Performance Skills
Sports of all types require deep focus, concentration and relaxation, and success can be improved through mental performance training.
In a presentation for the Lakeshore Foundation, Dr. Artur Poczwardowki, Ph.D., named four cardinal mental performance skills to be mastered, including:
- Productive self-talk (cues/triggers).
- Intensity (energy) regulation.
- Impactful imagery.
- Flexible mental plans and routines; and awareness (mindfulness), which underlies all these skills.
According to Dr. Poczwardowki, the aims of mental skills training are effective execution of your task by staying composed (constructive and positive) and being able to focus and refocus.
This session and others on mental performance can be accessed for free through the Lakeshore Foundation’s learning management system.
Brain-based sports performance training and mental health enrichment can help Senior Games athletes as well as Olympians and Paralympians. In a recent discussion with University of South Florida sailing coach and 1988 Olympian Allison Jolly, she reflected on how brain imagery skills can be a game changer for amateur athletes of all ages. She noted that practicing imagery and visualization contributed to winning her Olympic gold medal in sailing.
Working on the mental performance skills covered here can help you perform and feel your best. Don’t neglect your mental game!
- Published in Health & Well-Being, News and Events
Shuffleboard Will Never Get Old for This Man
August 2024 Athlete of the Month
By Del Moon, NSGA Storyteller
Charles Mikell, 58
Mechanicsville, Virginia
Charles Mikell says his favorite sport is shuffleboard, and that’s no act.
Charles is 58 years old, which doesn’t fit the image many conjure up of senior citizens playing shuffleboard on cruise ships. Ironically, Charles has played shuffleboard on more than a dozen cruises with his parents over the years, but he fell in love with the sport before this.
“I really got into shuffleboard when I was a day camp counselor in my teens,” he says. “The local park I used to go to had a shuffleboard court.” The civil engineer and part-time actor has motivated his wife and son to play the game, and they have traveled to tournaments through the years. “Donovan is now 20. Whenever we can work out the time, he and I travel around the country competing in semi-pro shuffleboard tournaments.”
Crossing over the midlife stripe into his 50s, Charles discovered shuffleboard was a medal sport in the National Senior Games, and he earned a bronze and a silver medal through his first two trips to compete. The former high school track star and college bowler also sampled those sports in Senior Games but realized how much training would be involved. “I’ve always worked out regularly, so I was thinking, ‘Oh, I haven’t touched the track in 40 years. I can go out there and beat all these seniors,’ he says. “Well, I was greatly embarrassed and thought I better stop doing this before I tear something,” he adds with a laugh.
Why Charles Loves Shuffleboard
Credit Maryland Senior Olympics.
Shuffleboard is more of a mental game than one of physical endurance, and the mental part is what hooked Charles. “It’s one of those sports where you don’t have to be super athletic like in tennis or tall and coordinated like basketball. It’s really all strategy,” he explains. “It’s a hand-eye coordination and muscle memory thing. If you can control how hard to push it, block your opponent and knock them off scoring position, it’s a game that can really click.”
While the stereotype is that only older people play shuffleboard, Charles says its popularity is growing across generations. “A lot of people are converting old restaurants or garages into shuffleboard clubs and it’s becoming popular around the country. But for the longest time people only saw it played on cruise ships by older people.”
“I’ve been saying that shuffleboard is becoming the new transition sport that people who have knee or joint problems can do,” he adds. “And it’s a really fun sport!”
A Familiar Face?
If you looked at his photo and wondered if you’ve seen Charles before, it’s because his face has appeared on national TV and many other places. When he’s not pushing the disc with a cue stick, Charles finds time to model and act in photo shoots, commercials and movie extra gigs.
“That just started right before the COVID shutdown in 2019, because I had changed jobs and took a really big pay cut,” he explains. “I was thinking of finding something quick and easy that didn’t take a lot of effort. I assumed with acting, you just submit your headshot and you get booked.” Bookings went slow until Charles got on as an extra for an episode of The Walking Dead.
“While waiting for the next scene I met a couple of others from local Richmond talent agencies and followed up with them. After COVID, I started getting a lot of calls offering good money every month,” he says. “I got my big break doing a Sheetz commercial and I’ve done things for cholesterol drugs, hospitals, rental car agencies and investment firms.”
Charles has changed into a more demanding job which limits how much time he can devote to acting. “I’m doing three to five gigs per year versus 12 to 14 before. Now it’s about making some extra money to splurge with,” he says.
Like going to more Senior Games and other shuffleboard tournaments?
“Of course!”
- Published in Athlete of the Month