The Mental Game

Let me tell you about one of the hardest physical things I’ve done in the past few years.  A time when I ran my slowest ever, but one I was most proud of.  A time I looked, and felt, like absolute death afterward…  In the first few years of coaching, I was young & fit,…

“We believe that being elite is not about how talented you are. It is about how tough you are,” wrote Urban Meyer in his 2015 book Above the Line. Toughness has long been held as a fundamental key to achieving peak performance. Famed football coach Vince Lombardi called it “essential to success,” and NBA legend…

At the 1960 Olympic games, a 60-something-year-old man, rail thin, with a full head of white hair, took to the practice track adjacent to the main Olympic stadium and commenced to run as hard as he could. The gangly elderly man grimaced and strained to complete the 3 and ¾ of a lap which makes…

We often hold up elite performers as some sort of superhuman. Impervious to the doubts and insecurities that the rest of us face. We call them tough, gritty, resilient, clutch, to show that they have figured out how to perform under immense levels of pressure. Something, that us mere mortals simply can’t do. Yet, every…

What do you think of when you hear the world adrenaline? Some of you might think of an adrenaline junkie, someone who needs to skydive out of planes to feel alive. Something that feels good to some or may even allow us to perform at our best. Others, might think of fear or feeling overwhelmed.…

She started in the back, where she expected to be, but something changed halfway through the race. She was moving up, and gradually passing one runner after another, keeping a steady rhythm as others slowed. My excitement and enthusiasm grew with each passing lap. “You can PR big! Keep it going!” I’d yell as she…

We all know the clutch athlete when we see them. The Michael Jordan’s of the world who seemingly will their team to victory. The quarterback who comes through time and time again, engineering winning drives as if they’re routine. The athletes who rise to the occasion, improving their performance when the game is on the…

Why power posing works A motto I try to live by is: “Look the other way.” Whenever everyone reaches consensus or heads off in one direction, I remind myself to take a peek over my shoulder and see what the opposite direction offers. I’m not trying to be an intentional contrarian; instead, I’m just building…

The Stress of Life Pain is the name of the game when it comes to performing. We’re all used to dealing with a large amount of effort during our workouts and races. Generally we attribute this to pain coming from the muscles themselves and the effort that it is taking to generate our speed. More…