About this Episode
In episode 139, Julia Eyre, Sport Psychologist and Strength Coach, joins us.
Specifically Julia will be looking at:
- Importance of sport psychology
- 3 key sport psychology tips for all athletes
- Case study: How to apply these tips
We’ve all been there, in a dip and unable to perform. Whether it’s work or sport, if you’re serious about performance, you’ll need some sure-fire ways to improve your psychological state when the chips are down.
That’s why we spoke to Julia Eyre, Sport Scientist, Strength and Conditioning Coach, and Sport Psychologist in episode 138 of the Science for Sport Podcast.
Eyre works with TSG Wieseck in Germany and provides them with the mental skills they need to take their performance to the next level.
But why is sport psychology so important? According to Eyre, psychology is the queen bee of sports performance, which influences other aspects of performance such as technical and tactical skills.
“The fitness, the technical and tactical aspect make 100%, and then the psychology is kind of over that is an umbrella of the brain and the nervous system,” Eyre said.
In addition to psychology’s clear importance to performance, Eyre believes that the role of sport psychology will only increase in the future.
“Sports will become more psychological, a lot more mental and cognitive than anything else in the next years, because things can only get so fast and so physical before they also get mental,” Eyre said.
So with that in mind, it’s important to equip yourself with the skills needed to perform optimally both now and in the future.
What are those skills? Fortunately, Eyre has narrowed it down to a top three, which you can focus on to get an immediate performance benefit.
Firstly you have self-talk. Now the first thing that pops into my head when I hear this is a team of cheerleaders who are there to motivate me all day. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
Instead, there’s a constant monologue in your head, it’s not always under conscious control and it can cause some serious issues. But how do you get it under control?
Before you start trying to use positive self-talk, it’s important to see how much of the internal monologue is already positive.
Eyre recommends using a coin trick. Specifically, you have coins in your pocket, and every time you speak positively to yourself, you move a coin to the right pocket. Negative and it goes left. At the end of a given time period, you check your pockets to see exactly how positive you are.
If you are negative in your self-talk, then you can start to target interventions to improve this. Eyre provides more details in a case study in the podcast as to how you can achieve this.
The second tip Eyre gives is to track and optimise recovery.
This could mean cheap and easy methods like monitoring sleep at the simple end or complex methods like heart rate variability (HRV) at the other end of the spectrum.
How does this relate to psychology? According to Eyre, the integration of the brain and body is essential to long-term health and performance.
“Those things are really important because they keep us mentally and physically healthy over the long run. And that’s a point where psychology really shows itself as being integrated with the brain and the body,” Eyre said.
So with that in mind, a simple start would be to track your sleep time and quality.
The last trick Eyre has up her sleeve is communication. This sounds obvious, but it can have a massive impact on your sporting performance.
Effective communication with the staff around you can help you to get to the bottom of any issues and allow you to work together on improving your psychological state.
“Athletes need to be able to clearly communicate how they’re doing, what they need to focus on, and where they’re struggling. Being able to communicate those things precisely in a way that makes sense so that something can be done about it is essential,” Eyre said.
So there you have it, three focus points that can help you improve your sporting performance in just minutes.
My advice would be to take three minutes for every one of these tips, and scribble down where you currently are with each of them, and how you can improve them in the coming week. By working actively to improve these skills you will not only improve performance in the short term but be robust to psychological challenges in the future too.
If you want to listen to the full podcast, including a case study where Eyre takes you through exactly how she would help athletes through these factors, hit the link below!
