Sport psychology recommended reading?

Triathlon Forum
1

Anybody know of any good sport psychology books. Preferrably not too hard core theory, more for the layperson but not dumbed-down.

Here’s the scoop. I am the PFA (physical fitness assessment) coordinator for the ship. We have a fair amount of people who fail to make the cut for the push-ups, sit-ups and 1.5 mile run. If you saw the standards you would see that you do not have to be an elite athlete to pass the PFA. For the most part, depending on your age and gender, you can “run” the 1.5 miles at a 11min/mile pace and pass with time to spare.

I am convinced that a very high percentage of the PFA failures that we see Navy-wide, across all services for that matter, are not due to physical inability. I think most of these people failed their PFA before they even got out of bed that day, they just don’t have the right mindset. I would like to help give them the mental tools they need to get past the PFA, but I don’t want to read a textbook to obtain that info.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

2

Winning, The Psychology of Competition by Stuart Walker, hands down.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393302679/qid=1129670750/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-1452727-3118404?v=glance&s=books

3

Might not be exactly what you are looking for, but my coach recommended Thinking Body, Dancing Mind to me and I have since suggested it to my clients…it really gets you thinking. Good stuff!

G

4

Old book “The Competetive Edge”.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/BookSearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=QC7drB4BEJ&isbn=0131549987&itm=70

It’s geared toward cross country racing. Might have some good cross-over though.

5

Might not be exactly what you are looking for, but my coach recommended Thinking Body, Dancing Mind to me and I have since suggested it to my clients…it really gets you thinking. Good stuff!

GI second that emotion.

6

Thanks for the recommenations. I’ll check them out.

7

Psychling Psychology

http://arniebakercycling.com/books/b_psychling_psychology.htm
.

8

My favorites are below. I think that self-talk is one of the most powerful concepts in sports psychology.

Ken

What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, by Shad Helmstetter, Ph.D., Pocket Books a division of Simon & Schuster, 1982

Flow in Sports, by Susan A. Jackson and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Human Kinetics, 1999

Mastering Your Inner Game, by David Kauss, Ph.D., Human Kinetics, 2001

Creative Coaching, by Jerry Lynch, Human Kinetics, 2001

Sport Psychology: Concepts and Applications, by Richard H. Cox, McGraw-Hill, 1998

9

Hi,

I recently attended a symposium on “performance psychology” which is similar to sports psychology but focusses more on the actual performance i.e.: how you think, etc, during a race or performance. It was taught by a performance psychologist who works with *Cirque du Soleil, *and if you’ve ever seen them, you can understand how focussed they need to be when performing.

Anyway, there are several books which are cornerstones in this area which are very interesting. the first one, which is easy and very informative reading is:

In Pursuit of Excellence, by Terry Orlick. (this can also be purchased on cd)

another major work by one of the gurus of this area (it’s expensive though!) is:

*Emotions in Sport, *by Yuri Hanin

and a more technical one:

Psychology of Sport and Exercise Psychology, by D. Gould, and R. Weinberg

visit: www.zoneofexcellence.com

or for French speakers: www.savoir-sport.org

In Toronto, the Artists Health Center at TO Western Hospital will be having this speaker back this winter for another seminar.Madelaine Halle, is a fascinating speaker on the subject and has worked with Cirque as well as pro athletes, and olympians.

good luck

jrider