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5 Secrets to Improve Sports Performance

December 27, 2010 By

How to improve sports performance? Read about psych-up techniques in sports.

Athletes in the same competitive situation can experience different changes in intensity. How to improve sports performance?For example, when within sight of winning, one athlete may have an increase in intensity and feel very nervous because she’s never defeated her opponent before and doesn’t totally believe that she can this time. While another athlete in the same situation might have a decrease in intensity and feel a letdown because she’s already mentally in the locker room thinking about her next competition.

How to calm yourself down?

Or how to increase the intensity?

5 Tips to Improve Sports Performance

1. Intense Breathing
Intensive breathing gets up pumped up. Breathing slower and deep will calm you down.

2. Move your body
Physical activity increases your intensity.

3.  High-energy self-talk
Keep your intensity up by high-energy and positive self-talk.How to improve sports performance?

4. High-energy body language
Use body language to build up your confidence and eagerness to compete.

5. Music
Use music to build excitement and increase energy levels.

To read the full article, go to Psych-up Techniques. You find out how to calm yourself down or pump you up.

Have you checked our sports psychology pages? You may learn some valuable tips to improve your performance in volleyball.

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How to Teach Optimism for Kids Through Sports?

December 27, 2010 By

Are we able to teach optimism for kids through sports? Teaching kids optimism

Can watching and involving in sports make kids believe in themselves?

Can sports teach kids hope and optimism, which often help us to go through tough times in life?

Read a full article post how sports can have a positive influence on kids.
Teaching Kids Optimism

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How to Get Success? The Myth of Overnight Success

November 6, 2010 By

How to get success?  How did the best athletes become so great?

The answer is simple. The best athletes have done hard work and put hours and hours of practice into it.  There is no gene, which makes you automatically good at volleyball or basketball. It is all done by countless of repetitions.Building Confidence in Volleyball. How to Get Success?

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking, there’s really no such a thing as overnight success.

Let’s put it another way, if you want to learn new skills or shift careers – whatever you want to accomplish – you can expect another 10,000 hours of hard work.

Read the whole article by clicking the link below:

How to Get Success –  The Myth of Overnight Success

And make sure you have read our pages about Sports Psychology in Volleyball.  You learn the basics about visualization and self-talk.

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Athletes Need to Stay Focused But What Should I Focus On?

August 3, 2010 By

Staying focused is important for athletes – but what should I focus on?

You shouldn’t just repeat the mantra “stay focused” – you need to have specific things to focus on.

For example when the volleyball player practices skills, she should try to keep her thoughts in the correct form – so she learns to visualize the skill.  When you learn to visualize the correct form, it helps you to repeat the skill correctly one after another.

To read the whole article, visit Staying Focused Is Important for Athletes.

Visit also our website to learn more about visualization and sports psychology for volleyball.

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How to build confidence in sports?

July 30, 2010 By

We discovered a nice article about building confidence in sports.

Prime confidence keeps you positive, motivated, intense, focused, and emotionally in control when you need it most. With prime confidence, you’re able to stay confident even when you’re not performing well (it happens to even the best athletes periodically).

Ultimately, prime confidence enables you to perform at your highest level consistently.

Five Keys to Prime Confidence

1. Preparation breeds confidence
When you have practiced well and make countless successful repetitions in practice, you will gain confidence you are able to repeat those skills in the match also.

2. Mental skills reinforce confidence
Practice self-talk, use body language, etc to gain confidence.

3. Adversity ingrains confidence.
Practice under challenging conditioning – when you are tired or there is windy while playing outdoors. Try to see those conditions as a challenge, which give you motivation instead of anxiety.

4. Support bolsters confidence.
Have people around you who support and encourage you in the times of adversity. There will be times when things are not going so well.

5. Success validates confidence.
Success builds your confidence. This doesn’t necessarily mean winning in competitions.  You can create other kind of victories – learning new skills, learning to listen coaches, digging most balls in defensive drill, not committing errors in the serving drills, etc.

To read the whole article go to Confidence in Sports

To read more about mental training, visit mental training skills section in our website: Sports Psychology in Volleyball

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How to build confidence in sports?

July 17, 2010 By

We discovered a nice article about building confidence in sports.

Prime confidence keeps you positive, motivated, intense, focused, and emotionally in control when you need it most. With prime confidence, you’re able to stay confident even when you’re not performing well (it happens to even the best athletes periodically).

Ultimately, prime confidence enables you to perform at your highest level consistently.

Five Keys to Prime Confidence

1. Preparation breeds confidence
When you have practiced well and make countless successful repetitions in practice, you will gain confidence you are able to repeat those skills in the match also.

2. Mental skills reinforce confidence
Practice self-talk, use body language, etc to gain confidence.

3. Adversity ingrains confidence.
Practice under challenging conditioning – when you are tired or there is windy while playing outdoors. Try to see those conditions as a challenge, which give you motivation instead of anxiety.

4. Support bolsters confidence.
Have people around you who support and encourage you in the times of adversity. There will be times when things are not going so well.

5. Success validates confidence.
Success builds your confidence. This doesn’t necessarily mean winning in competitions.  You can create other kind of victories – learning new skills, learning to listen coaches, digging most balls in defensive drill, not committing errors in the serving drills, etc.

To read the complete articles, follow the link:

How to build confidence in sports?

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What is important in recruiting? How to find talents in sports?

May 31, 2010 By

We found a nice article about “how to find talents in sports?”.

Athletes’ performance is not only about physical talents, so why we are so obsessed and focusing often too much on physical testing and physical abilities of potential champions?

The “big six” indicators of a player’s performance potential – the Performance Potential factors are:

  1. Physical abilities;
  2. Personality characteristics;
  3. Playing skills;
  4. Performance abilities;
  5. Pedigree (i.e. genetic makeup);
  6. Preparation ((i.e. environment, family, culture).

To read more, go to how to find talents in sports?

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Volleyball Front Row Attack Becoming Illegal – Is Not April Fools Joke

April 1, 2010 By

Have you heard about volleyball front row attack becoming illegal?

Even though it is the beginning of April – this is not the April Fools’ joke.

Volleyball Front Row Attack and Rules Changes

We are probably used to these frequent rules changes in volleyball, but this could be a little bit upsetting..

International governing body, FIVB wants to increase the length of the rallies, since the name of game is volleyball. They want the ball to stay longer in the air.

It is more difficult to kill the ball after a counter attack (, which is the offense after the defense).  That’s why FIVB has been planning to make it harder to finish the rally after the serve receive. So, if the first attack after the serve receive is defended then rallies will be longer.

Therefore they have proposed to make the front row attack illegal after the serve receive.

Want to Leave a Comment in Discussion?

Proposed New Volleyball Rules And Regulations

Middle Hitters Must Be Upset..

I am sure some middle hitters would be upset about it.  They would not have a chance to hit a quick attack in the front row after the serve receive.

Is this upsetting you?  Comments? Questions? Concerns?

Read More

Read more and join the discussions in Volleyball Forum Q/A in the Basic Volleyball Rules section:

Basic Volleyball Rules – Volleyball Forum Q/A

More Details

More details about the subject:

Rules for Playing Volleyball

Basic Volleyball Rules

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Kids Sports – Do the Kids Have Unhealthy Expectations?

March 26, 2010 By

Kids Sports – Are the Kids Expectations Too High?

Unhealthy expectations, which are not met in competition, may lead some kids very frustrated. How to help kids to have more fun in sports?

Kids Sports Psychology – How to avoid frustrations and unhealthy expectations by the kids?

Take a look at this nice sports psychology advice we discovered:

1. Discover if your kids have high expectations.

Are they thinking: “I have to get a kill every time”, “I have to put the serve over every time”, “I have to get 20 kills in each match”.

2. Help kids get rid of those expectations.

They may set up those high goals themselves.  Or those expectations may come from outside people.

Those expectations could be based on winning and losing – or how well they performed in the match. No more goals in which they are yearning for perfection: “I have to get 20 kills in the match”, “I have to put every serve in”.

3. Help your kids to set up smaller goals.

Set up goals which can be achieved easily.

  • For example they should have a goal to “focus on one play, one serve, one shot or one spike at the time”.
  • Or kids could set up a goal to make “quality serves” – you can define together what this means – for example you could set up a goal to serve with a good top spin what you have been working on in the previous week.

They should focus on something small that they can focus in the process of playing. Focus on small goals in the moment (“Now I am doing the tossing correctly, then following with a nice wrist snap”). Do not think about big goals in the process of playing (“I can’t make any serving errors in this match. I have to serve every serve in”).   The goals should easily achievable.

Those steps help kids to avoid disappointment and becoming frustrated.  Then they perform with confidence – without focusing on the outcome, which they can’t control themselves.

Q/A and Comments about Sports Psychology in Volleyball

Submit your questions and comments in our Sports Psychology Q/A section.

http://www.volleyballadvisors.com/sports-psychology.html#INV

Source:
Cohn, P.  Helping Young Athletes Cope with Frustration in Sports . Retrieved March 27, 2010, from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yBwmR2jeDE

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Kids Sports Psychology – Talent vs. Work Ethic

March 19, 2010 By

Kids sports psychology – which is more important talent or work ethic?

Talent is overrated. A talented athlete without willingness to prepare will not be successful in the long run.

Bringing up work ethic is one of the best things a parent or coach can do for the kids in sports.

We found some good suggestions for parents and coaches to develop a good work ethic in their kids.

How to Bring Up the Work Ethic?

Praise kids’ effort – not the results.

No false praise. Don’t praise, if the effort was clearly lacking.

Let kids know that athletes who have the work ethic will be successful in the long run, over the natural athletes.

Teach kids they often can’t control the outcome, but they can control the effort they put to prepare.

Tell kids you consider them a success, when they have had the will to prepare – no matter what the result is.

To read the whole article copy and paste the link below into your browser:

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/15/2607479/helping-your-kid-develop-a-good.html

NEW! Q/A and Comments about Sports Psychology

Submit your questions and comments in our Sports Psychology Q/A section.

http://www.volleyballadvisors.com/sports-psychology.html#INV

Have you read our article how to use sports psychology to learn some volleyball skills? Click below.

Sports Psychology

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