Preparing for things going wrong

Sometimes things don't go as you expect them to. That is just the way sport goes. However what often happens, is that these changes or things going wrong affects you whole game and can cause your performance to fall apart. This might not even be necessarily anything bad, just different. For instance how often do see a team prepare to play a really tough team, then that team gets unexpectedly beaten the round before. As a result the team loses focus expecting to beat the weaker team easily and as a result doesn't prepare adequately and loses!


So how can you prepare for things going differently to how you expect? The answer is quite simple -

PLAN!

The old saying `Failing to prepare is preparing to fail` is particularly useful here.

As is `Plan for the worst, expect the best`.

An important part of good performances is the expectation of things going well, e.g. not expecting a shot to go on the table has been known to have a negative effect on the likelihood of that shot going on the table! So you need to be confident things will go well. However it is doesn't go as well as you hoped you need a plan B. That plan B is a lot more effective if it is pre-thought out.

So how do you make a plan B?

The simple, effective way is the `If-then` method. IF this happens, THEN I will do this...
spending time doing this before a match or a tournament is a very good way of preparing for the unpredictability of sport. Let`s think of some examples of things that could occur that it would be helpful to have an If-then plan for...

Tactics-
You turn up to a match and the team/player you are playing against is playing completely different tactics. How do you change your game plan accordingly

Conditions-
The day is unnaturally warm. How do you change your nutrition, game plan etc

Equipment-
your racket is slower than usual. Do you change your tactics or just try to take bigger swings etc?

performance-
you make a lot of simple mistakes on your backhand. Do you change your plan, use some mental skills to maintain confidence in it, persevere with that shot?

These show there are so many things that are unpredictable in sport and any one of these things could cause you to lose focus and affect your performance. So having a plan written down beforehand will give you confidence and a plan to overcome these issues.

Here are a few tips to make this planning most effective-

Write it down.
Having a written list (I find 2 columns best- an `if` on the left and its `then` next to it) makes it a concrete plan that you can carry with you. The symbolism of this should not be underestimated!

Think of everything that could possibly happen.
If you make an `if-then` and the `if` doesn't happen you don't lose anything. If you don't make an `if-then` and something happens it could throw you off your game just like before.

Make the plans actionable.
Make the `then` part something you can actively change and measure. `If it is hot, then i will drink more water` is not as likely to be effective as planning specific times when you could drink the water. `If it is hot, then I will drink water during every stoppage of play` Would be more likely to get you to follow through the action instead of being vague.

Spend time doing this before matches/tournaments and you will be able to refer back to these notes should something come up and remember what you planned to do. Even if nothing comes up you can go into it with higher self-confidence because you know you are fully prepared for anything!

If you found this useful check out the other tips on the website. If you try this please comment below with how you found it and any examples or experiences where this was/ could have been used.

Struggles of a Training Athlete. Avoiding Overtraining

In the previous 2 posts, Diagnosing and Monitoring Overtraining we have looked at the issues surrounding overtraining and how we can detect when it is occurring. This is more of a treatment of an issue more than a prevention.

This post will look at how to prevent it from happening in the first place. This is the best course of action as it creates a sustainable environment to ensure training can carry on at full intensity without the athlete burning out and needing to take prolonged rests or unnecessarily miss training through injury.

So what factors are import to avoid overtraining?

Vary training!

If you train one muscle everyday and give it no time to recover it will fatigue. This also occurs mentally, if you are doing the same training all the time, the player will become bored, mentally tired, and lacking in motivation. This will affect training levels and improvement. Varying training styles, exercises, areas of focus will help avoid this. It also makes more efficient training, from muscle standpoints. different types of training will work different muscles and therefore allow some of the muscles to recover. As any bodybuilder will tell you, you never train everything


Keep A Diary!

I mentioned this in the last post for monitoring for overtraining but it is so important that it is worth mentioning again. If you keep a diary of your training, your diet, your emotions you will be able to notice the normal patterns and then plan ahead to suit your training to these patterns. If training in the evening is leaving you consistently over-exhausted then look at if it is possible to train earlier. Focusing on improving weaknesses before matches is consistently leaving you low on confidence in those matches, alter your training plan to work on them earlier and strengths closer to the matches. (Look out for an upcoming post giving an example of training diaries I have used with athletes and better idea of how and what to include)


Train Smarter not always Harder!

I have a whole series of seminars based on this principle. Even the top professionals of any sport will not train more than 8 hours a day for any extended period of time. If that is your only job, then you might wonder why more people don't decide to train 9 or 10 hours a day to get an advantage over the others... the reason- because humans only have so much physical and mental capacity to train. Therefore the key is to make those hours more effective than other competitors. Having clear goals to each training session, spending time away from the actual training analysing training and matches, there are many things you can do to train smarter. (Check out the services part of this website to look into booking the TRAIN SMART, PLAY SMART seminars).


Factor sufficient rest into your regular training plan!

Pushing yourself is a key component of improving, in anything you do. However, if you push too far something will break! Instead of working out your rest days/sessions/holidays as and when you feel you need them, plan them in advance. Often you can be swayed by your motivation levels, pressure to improve your poor recent performances, the fact you do not feel `toooo bad` and do that extra training session that you regret the morning after when it means you are too stiff or sore or tired and have to miss twice as many sessions than you had planned to in order to recover.
This is not saying that you shouldn't alter your training plan. The opposite! Your training plan should be constantly evolving to suit your body and mind! But this should be done over a longer period of time. The technical terms some coaches use is macro- and micro-cycles, but basically it means long-term and short-term plans to enable you to play your best when you need to. Changing training plans every week will not provide a sustainable, stable base of training from which to improve most efficiently.



So that is the end of the Overtraining series. Did you find this helpful? Is there anything you have learned from your experience you can add to this? Leave comments below!

As always check out the rest of the website for more tips and also how you can contact me for more individualised performance enhancement training... There is only so much general principles can help unique individuals.

Struggles of a training athlete. Monitoring for Overtraining

In my last post we discussed some of the symptoms of overtraining. These are things to look for incase you are suffering from overtraining. This post now will focus on how to look for these symptoms more effectively.
The aim of doing these things is not just to pick up on when you been overtraining and therefore know when to take a rest but to notice possible overtraining issues as early as possible to minimise the negative effects.
This is why I use the word "monitoring." Monitoring suggests a constant regular process, one that looks continuously for changes and addresses them as soon as they arise. This is how you should be when it comes to overtraining.
So what steps can you take to monitor your training...

• KEEP A DIARY!

Diaries are great ways of keeping track of every aspect of your training. If the word diary brings to mind young girls writing down their new crush before bed, then you can call it something else, perhaps a "training log." Your training diary will not be a long text but instead more of a checklist of items that you will keep track of during your training. You should every day or every session, mark down the list of things in the diary and how they felt/went that time. For instance a rating scale of how well you thought you trained that session.

There will be a more detailed post on the sort of things to include in a training diary HERE

But this will focus on the things to include that relate specifically to overtraining.
Thinking back to the post looking at symptoms of overtraining we want to monitor these in the diary.

• Tiredness, lack of energy - on a scale of 1-10 note down how much energy you felt you had in that session
• motivation - on a scale of 1-10, how keen were you to practice that session
• concentration - on a scale of 1-10, how well did you feel you concentrated in that session
• injuries - note down any little niggles, injuries or pain you felt in that session

Plan regular checks, where you take time to look back over the past few weeks of training and look for any steady decline in energy levels, motivation and concentration. Athletes training regularly will have ups and downs in these but overall there is a general level where these values will be. If there is a steady decline then this shows that the level of training is not maintainable on a long term basis- something which will lead to overtraining problems.
Similarly everybody will have little injuries or the odd big injury but if you look back in your diary and see the amount and severity of injuries building up more and more, or a particular type of injury in one part of the body regularly occurring, then this is a sign that you are perhaps pushing your body too hard and overtraining.

• Discuss regularly with your coach

use your diary and discuss this with your coach. People are subjective when they fill in their diary, this is both a strength and a weakness. It is a strength because nobody knows how you feel better than you. It is a weakness because you might be biased. You may feel like your concentration is good but your coach has noticed it isn't as good as it used to be. Or, because you have steadily improved in training, you don't feel any different but in fact from an outside perspective your concentration and energy has really improved.

Therefore, discussing these things with your coach can be helpful to put your thoughts into perspective and also, if you are regularly discussing these things with your coach, then your coach will be in a better position to know how to vary training accordingly.

So, now we have learned what to look for and how to look for it, how do we fix it?! Find out in the next post Struggles of a training athlete. Avoiding overtraining HERE 

To see the original article that inspired this series of posts check it out HERE.

To see what else will be talked about in this series click HERE.

Setting up effective monitoring processes is just one way which Brain-SPEC can help with your/your team's performance. If you are interested in working with Brain-SPEC check out the Services tab at the top or get in touch via email

Struggles of a training athlete. Diagnosing Overtraining

Overtraining is a dangerous thing that people don't often talk about but is a big potential problem for those taking their training seriously.
People who are suffering from this are often worried about bringing it up as it is perhaps seen as a sign of weakness. It is definitely not a sign of weakness and it can have a lot of very important negative effects both mentally and physically!

Here are a few signs you may be suffering from overtraining

• after/before each session you are feeling more stiff and tired than the last one. 

This is a sign that your energy resources and muscles are unable to keep up with the training schedule. They are not being given sufficient time to fully recover and get stronger (muscles getting stronger is often one of the main aims of training!)

• you are losing motivation and enjoyment of training

your mind, just like your body, can get fatigued. Everybody has sessions where they don't 100% feel like going- their favourite programme is on TV, its too early/late in the day, you don't feel like putting 100% effort in today. Or they don't fully enjoy training (naturally there are parts of training that few people enjoy- who enjoys that feeling of oxygen debt?!)

But if the overall enthusiasm and enjoyment of training is consistently dwindling then this could be a sign you are overtraining

• you are picking up lots of little injuries and perhaps a few big injuries

Is your wrist consistently swelling up after training sessions? Are your quadriceps consistently sore?Have you had a few muscle strains recently? Picking up injuries are sometimes a part of training and are difficult to be avoided, but if you are getting lots of them it is perhaps time to stop and think about why this could be! Swelling of joints and tightness of muscles is often a sign of muscle overuse, so if you are getting these a lot it is a sign you might be overtraining

• do you find it more and more difficult to focus during training

you used to be able to focus for hours working hard on one specific exercise given in training. Now you're finding 5 minutes of one drill leaves you losing concentration, chatting, messing about, staring at the ceiling. Everybody is different with how easily they can concentrate and you may not find it as easy to focus for as long as your training partner. But, have you noticed that, compared to yourself, you seem to be a lot worse than normal. If the answer is consistently yes, then you could be overtraining!

These are just some of the symptoms of overtraining. One of the important things to note is that in all of these symptoms there is an emphasis on CONSISTENCY. Everybody has natural ups and downs in these things but if it is a consistent downward pattern then it could indicate overtraining.

They can be easily looked for and a number of things can be done to combat overtraining. These are discussed in part 2- Monitoring Overtraining and part 3 - Avoiding Overtraining

If you found this interesting and have comments then please comment below.

Implementing training structures to avoid overtraining is just one of the ways Brain-SPEC can work with you/your club. If you are interested in working with Brain-SPEC then get in touch via email.

Struggles of a training athlete

Recently Sam Priestley, the protege of the Expert in a year project being led by Ben Larcombe, has released his own recent thoughts about his training and his progress in the project. It is a great read and really gives an insight into the thoughts going through his head, the highlights and particularly the struggles that he is going through. A lot of these are common struggles that a lot of athletes go through, both professional and recreational, in their quest to improve.
In the a series of posts I will discuss these troubles in more depth and give some tips to help overcome these struggles and continue to improve your performance.

To understand the starting position for these posts read the words of Sam himself here

So from this here are some of the struggles that he and I am sure many of you have

• Overtraining - Sam got sick of training, lost motivation and his training was suffering

This is a difficult one because lots of people think that not training as much as physically possible to fit in is laziness. But a sustainable schedule is important, as Sam found, your motivation suffers and as a result the quality of training both physically and mentally suffers. Bad habits form, injuries occur, and all of this is definitely bad news in both a short and long term viewpoint. For the in-depth ways to look at if you're overtraining and how to avoid doing this read the full article Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

• Focusing on one thing at a time - Sam was very happy in Denmark and Hungary because he could focus his mind on just the one thing and saw big benefits to his motivation, general mental health and also performance

Not everybody is able to take weeks off from work to train full-time, and even if you can you will still need to balance work/school/family/everyday life with your training. The key is switching off each of those things when you're training and vice versa. This is a difficult thing to do but is key to getting the most out of your training. There are some methods to do this discussed in this article in the series HERE

• Difficulty transferring training performances into matches - Sam had the basic technique and good shots but in matches he is finding it difficult to transfer this and perform well.

This is a very common problem that almost everybody has at some point and few people find a way to truly overcome it. There are a few ways to overcome this including altering your thoughts in both training and matches and altering your training to help transfer these skills into a match. These are discussed in depth in this article of the series HERE

• Being professional in your training when others aren't - Sam found this part of the camps he visited to be very good but this shows the contrast to what happens if these conditions/mentality of others is not as good

Staying focused and training at 100% when other people aren't taking it as seriously is a difficult thing. As humans we are naturally swayed by social interaction and observation, so how do we shut out that and really get the most from our training? Read about a few tips HERE

• Fear of wasting other peoples time - Sam talks about not being good enough at blocking for his practice partner and feeling the need to apologise

The only way to improve is to push yourself slightly beyond your capabilities (read the article I created on the ZPD here) therefore practicing with players better than you needs to happen So how do you keep them happy, while being able to get the most out of it for yourself? I discuss this in this article of the series HERE.

(Not all these articles are yet written and will be added as they are completed so, if there is no link where it says there should be, please be patient!)

Don't forget to check out the rest of the goings on at Expert in a year and the rest of my blog, and comment below some more of the problems you are having. I will read each one and look into writing posts on how to overcome these in the future.

If you are interested in working on a more individual, tailored basis, contact me via email at brainspecsports@gmail.com and check out the services page of the website for ideas as to how I could potentially help you to improve you/your teams training and performances.

4 Effective ways to use music for your run

Music is a very powerful tool. It can alter your mood, perceived energy levels, focus, determination and many other things. When used correctly, music can enhance your workout and performance, when used badly it can ruin it. Therefore it is important how to use music in its most effective ways to ensure your run is the best it can be. Here are are a few pointers to how to use music. It is important to point out these are general rules and may not work for everybody but why not give them a try, research has shown these to be effective for a significant amount of people so the chances are you could be like those people!

1. Pick the tempo for your run and match it to your music.
People have a natural call towards rhythm, its what makes people want to dance, its what makes people unknowingly tap their foot along with the beat. If that tap is out of tempo with the music the brain gets confused and feels unnatural. Therefore it will naturally want to join with the beat of the music. This will also happen with your strides. So if you have a set speed you want to run, pick music at that speed and your brain will naturally drag you towards that pace. There are apps available that can help you to do this, but I am yet to personally try them so I don't know how good they are, since I still use my old-fashioned, heavy, non-touch-screen iPod.

2. Pick music that will lift your mood.
Sad, slow music or music with unhappy lyrics can potentially have a negative effect on your mood, which will in turn affect your motivation to push yourself during the run, it can also build up an association between being in an unhappy mood and exercising/running. This means your brain will learn that you are often unhappy when you are running, and therefore start to not want to go running as that makes you unhappy.upbeat, positive music can have the opposite effect and make your subconscious feelings towards running more positive and also help you feel as though you have more energy to push yourself during your run.

3. Have distraction/emergency songs.
use music with a meaning to you or something you really like and save them for later in the playlist or queue them ready to be played when you most need it.It seems obvious but music can distract you from the pain, the boredom, the tiredness of the run. Putting the music that is most powerful at distracting you in the parts of the run you will most struggle with (most likely the end!) will help you to forget those troubles and power through.

4. Have a Get-ready-to-run song. 
Sometimes the hardest part of running is forcing yourself to actually get up, get ready and set-off. Having a Energetic, motivating song that you always play when getting ready to run will put in you into run-mode! It can be as cheesy as you like, for instance the theme tune from the film Rocky is a sure winner, but it needs to be a positive, energetic song that will help get that blood flowing. Continuously doing this will create the link in your brain that hearing that song means it will prepare the body to run... one suggestion here is perhaps not picking a song that is popular at the moment and regularly on the radio... not only will that lessen the effect but also you don't your body to start getting ready to run, e.g. sweating, breathing heavier while you're stuck driving to work in a traffic jam.

These are 4 simple tips that can help to improve your running, so give them a try, see how the work and feel free to comment with your own tips in the feedback. If you would like to work with Brain-SPEC to optimise your training and performance get in touch via the email address for more information.

Brain-SPEC is now on Twitter!

Follow Brain-SPEC on Twitter @BrainSPECsports for regular updates on events happening and interesting articles and tips on how to improve performance

Train Smart, Play Smart comes to Swerve TTC

On Monday 21st July Brain-SPEC will deliver a workshop from the Train Smart, Play Smart series at Swerve TTC in Middlesbrough.
The workshop will focus on how to set effective goals and how to use your imagination to improve your performances.
Everybody is welcome and entry to the workshop is £10. Under 16s can have their parents sit in on the session free of charge. The workshop will start at 6:30pm so people are encouraged to arrive early and enjoy a tea or coffee in the cafe.

For directions to the venue check out their website HERE
For more information feel free to contact Brain-SPEC.

"Train Smart, Play Smart: Adding Quality to your Quantity" Workshops confirmed!

Bishop Auckland Table Tennis Club will be hosting two workshops looking how to improve your mental skills in order to make the most of every training session and bring your best performances into matches. The workshops will be on the 16th and 22nd of July at Bishop Barrington School, Bishop Auckland.
Entrance is £10 per person per session, discount is available if you are a Bishop Auckland TTC club member (Contact Matt Porter), or a Darlington Table Tennis Academy member (Contact Angela Simpson). Parents of players under the age of 16 are able to sit in on the session for free.

Spaces are limited so book early to avoid disappointment!
Book by contacting Brain-SPEC, Matt Porter (BATTC members) or Angela Simpson (DTTA members).

Host a seminar in England in July

Brain-SPEC will be on a rare trip to England in July, if your club is interested in hosting a seminar or two during that time, now is the time to get in touch.

Seminars will be tailored to suit the specific needs of the audience: things such as age, sport, playing level will be taken into account when creating the teaching plan. The seminar will focus on teaching the basics of some of the main mental skills: for example goal setting, imagery, relaxation, emotional control, self talk.

Prices are calculated per person and will vary depending on the size of the group. Opportunities are limited due to the short nature of the trip so get booking early to ensure your club can get the full benefit of a seminar.

Expert in a year: The challenge

A good friend of mine and table tennis coach Ben Larcombe has started a challenge...
to take a novice and turn them into an expert in the space of 1 year.
The way he has defined expert is "the top 1% of active players in the country" in English table tennis, where this project is based that means being ranked in the top 250 men in the country (with 25,000 registered members of the English Table Tennis Association).

Whether you agree with this definition of "expert" or not is not really the point. The point is: people at that level have been training many years, perhaps decades to reach that level, and are of a good standard. To get to that level in a year will be quite an achievement.

It will hopefully show the benefit and prosperity of efficient well-planned training or "Deliberate practice"- a concept talked a lot about in Matthew Syed's "Bounce", Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" and much scientific research over the past few decades. (I would highly recommend those books by the way- fantastic reads).

Brain-spec is proud to be accompanying Ben and his soon-to-be-expert Sam in their quest for success. As part of this process mental skills training will be given to supplement to coaching already being given and also consulting on how best to streamline the training being delivered.

This exciting project can be followed in more detail at: 

www.expertinayear.com

There will be also be some reflections from the player himself on how the mental skills training is affecting his performance and enjoyment.

Do you think Sam can do it? Comment below

Superstitions: do they help? Pre-match routines and their effect. Part 1

Those of you who follow tennis will know that Rafael Nadal has to have things a certain way. His water bottles have to be on certain spots, he has to sprint to the back of the court at the start of every match, he has to correct his hair and bandana before every serve and I'm sure there are many more things he does every time he plays that we do not notice or see.
There are many other famous examples including footballers needing to put one boot on before the other. Clubs trying to change strips at half-time as they determined a certain shirt was bad-luck.
Even as fans, who realistically have no way of altering the result (particularly, even if only watching on TV) have our own little things we do because last time we did that they won. I know of people who decided not to go to any of the games because every time they turned up, despite being one of tens of thousands there, they lost, but if he stayed home they often won.

Some psychologists suggest the way we look at the world is as detectives. We look for patterns and connections in everything because we have this internal desire to link things together into a logical, cause-and-effect world. Coincidences are confusing to humans as it means there is nothing they can change to get the desired outcome in that situation again. Therefore they develop superstitions from wearing lucky pants to not stepping on the lines of the field.

Do these work? The obvious answer would be no, unless those pants were exceptionally comfortable and allowed a greater range of movement that allowed better performance than others then no, wearing specifically those pants will directly affect performance. HOWEVER, if wearing those pants mean he goes into the game feeling more confident, there is a well-researched link between self-confidence and performance. So actually, YES, those lucky pants do help his performance!
 Would I tell these people that their superstitions are stupid? Would I tell Rafael Nadal the way he places his water bottles is silly? No, however, I would encourage anybody with these superstitions to analyse them, do you really believe this helps your performance? If so, then I would not in all cases tell you to stop, but in the long run I would encourage more of a focus on preparation that can have an effect on performance (which may include those superstitions) which I will talk about more in part 2.

If you have none of these superstitions, is this a problem? No! Would I encourage all athletes to search through their results and find a link between one specific thing and all the wins and decide that must be a lucky thing to do, and adopt it as a superstition. No, I wouldn't.
However, are there parts of your preparations you are ignoring that could have a positive effect? Is warming up before the match a superstition or does it actually have a biological or psychological effect that does improve performance objectively?

This will be continued in part 2 where more tips on how to improve your performance using routines will be given.

Working on routines is just one of the ways a sport performance enhancement specialist can help, check out "Services" to see how else one could improve your performance.

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