Using Your Brain for Peak Sports Performance

Dr. G. explains why over-thinking gets athletes into performance trouble and what coaches need to do to keep their players in the peak performance part of their brain!
Dr. Alan Goldberg, internationally known peak performance consultant and director of Competitive Advantage specializes in helping athletes across all sports at every level, bust slumps and overcome performance fears and blocks. Dr. G's website, www.competitivedge.com offers thousands of pages of FREE resources including mental toughness questionnaires for athletes, parents and coaches, articles on every aspect of coaching and parenting in youth sports, as well as a mental toughness blog.

[@redpilldh]

The "hind brain."Very good video for athletes to conquer mental toughness.

[@LornaKleidman1]

Dr. G. is the BEST!!

[@CoachAldiero]

This is a phenomenal video, absolute gold! (Pun intended)

[@TheCompetitivedge]

Glad you liked it Coach!

[@wx811]

In other words, play subconscious. Just play the game.

[@BorrowedLightAndBrokenString]

appreciate the video..I am a pool player and I think some of your stuff will work for me...

[@TheCompetitivedge]

Key thing for you is to keep your focus on what you're doing, specifically the feel of that "just right" shot and away from your thoughts. The way you do this is by focusing completely on your pre-shot routine. You use the steps of your set-up to distract yourself from your thoughts!

[@albertaliji905]

Great Video. Do we use our hind brain also in practice or do we then use our „front brain“ too? Thanks for the Answer!

[@TheCompetitivedge]

In practice you will end up using both the Front Brain and the Hind Brain. Any time you're working on learning new things or correcting bad habits, you have to go through your front brain. That's when you have to think about what you're doing, the corrections, etc. However, you also want to be practicing, in practice, performing from your hind brain, performing without thinking!

[@seres-de-luz]

thanks for the vid but where is ghe rest of it?

[@sebastianpeter7782]

Great video

[@TheCompetitivedge]

Thanks Sebastian! Glad you enjoyed them!

[@hadaryepyepyep123]

but the motor cortex does involves the frontal lobe so why does the video says that it doe not? thanks

[@wx811]

He said the front mid and hind brain weren't exactly anatomically correct. He was oversimplifying in order to keep the presentation simple and clear, so that anyone in the audience could understand it. It's not literal, but an oversimplification to get a point across.

[@romanempire89]

wait so how do you help the students to focus more on the hind brain? thank you

[@tiberiumseeker2422]

By making them focus on the right things (that makes them use the hind brain), and making them avoid directing their focus on technique (only when its not practice) and other things that makes them think which uses their front brain. He mentioned that hind brain uses images/pictures, so I guess by focusing on imagining of hitting that perfect shot for example they will use their hind brain and by focusing on that picture during performance they will do very well. And its true I tried it for myself by imagining a perfect serve during a game and I had the best serve of my life, its amazing. But it has to become habit, a lot of players will probably forget about it after a few days and not use it anymore so you have to remind them constantly until it becomes part of their game.

[@dogtag869]

Tiberium Seeker You have hit the nail on the head. I have been using his techniques and concentrated focus to aid my darts game. It has made a massive difference and gives me an advantage over the old me. Whereas i used to get into a mind set of 'its not happening tonight, im just going to lose' and start preparing myself to lose... The new me says CONCENTRATE on what you are doing in the moment and i imagine a perfect throw and a big score... And they usually follow when i think in positive imagery rather than talk to myself as the old me used to. Once i can perfect the same thing on my doubling out i will rise up to where i once was again. Its coming back though thanks to the information from Alan Goldberg's advice.

[@TheCompetitivedge]

@@tiberiumseeker2422 You're right on! The trick is to keep your focus always on what you're doing! This depends on the sport you're in. In a sport like darts, target sports, swimming, your focus needs to be split between the external, the target, and the feel of what you're doing and NOT on your thoughts! Focusing on your thoughts when they come up keeps you in your Front brain. In other sports your focus needs to be on the action, on "seeing, reading and reacting." Seeing the action and the offense and defense, instinctively reading what to do and then reacting. This involves no thoughts and takes no time!

[@TheCompetitivedge]

They key answer to that is by training yourself to keep your focus on what you are doing, on the action and not on what you're thinking. This doesn't mean you stop thinking! It means that each and every time thoughts come up you want to switch your focus back to the action in your sport! This keeps you in your hind brain!

[@CoachAldiero]

@@TheCompetitivedge hey coach, is this the same thought process as the book “the inner game of tennis” ? When he speaks about self 1 and self 2?

[@zaidal-walid5270]

what is his full name ? Dr G what ? please.. anyone help me

[@libertascanada8539]

Goldberg

[@tiberiumseeker2422]

he has a web site so there should be his name, he even has tons of articles written there that are worth reading

[@Radhakrishnan-ui8th]

There is no front brain or back brain