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You are here: Home / Mental Coach Articles / How To Introduce Mental Training to Athletes

How To Introduce Mental Training to Athletes

May 1, 2016 By Patrick Cohn Leave a Comment

Starting Mental Training

How do you work with athletes that have no idea that mental training can help improve their performance or consistency?

I received a question recently from a mental coach who works with shooters. Here’s the question:

“In the shooting sports, you need full concentration and a clear mind. How do I start with students who have no knowledge of how to accomplish this or even know that mental training can improve their game?”

Education is always the first step towards introducing mental training with a group of athletes.

Athletes avoid what they don’t understand. In addition, you have to address the myths about working with a mental game coach.

How do you educate athletes about mental coaching? You want to help them identify with the challenges they might experience. You might give them a short self-test by asking questions:

  • Do you become distracted during your preshot routine?
  • Do you dwell on the previous shot you missed and then can’t focus in the moment?
  • Do you even think ahead about the score for the round when in the middle of the round?
  • Do you over think your shooting skills by becoming too mechanical?

When you help your athletes identify with a specific mental game challenge they might have, they immediately understand how the mental game might interfere with their performance.

Helping athletes with concentration is the easy part once they feel the need to embrace mental coaching.

I have a simple formula for this, which is very straightforward:

  1. Teach them the proper performance cues to focus on
  2. Help them understand their top distractions
  3. Teach them how to refocus when they are not fully engaged in the process.

Of course I’m over simplifying the formula, but athletes already know how to concentrate. The problem is that their focus gets displaced on the wrong things, such as thinking about the past or future stuff.

Your most difficult challenge is to help your students buy into mental coaching. Once you have their full attention, teaching the process and strategies is the easy part –at least in your situation.

If you want to learn my entire system for mental coaching—from contact to assessment to mental skills—enroll in the mental coach certification course (MGCP). We offer 3 courses a year, spring, summer, and fall. Learn more about the Mental Game Coaching Professional Course here.

Filed Under: Mental Coach Articles, Sports Psychology Certification Tagged With: Mental Coach Career Issues

MGCP - Sports Psychology Certification Course

  1. The MGCP 20-chapter workbook including exercises to teach you how to identify mental game challenges and obstacles that influence performance; develop mental skills individual and team members; and improve teamwork and communication.
  2. The Athlete's Mental Edge workbook system to help you stay organized and accelerate your athletes learning and progress with mental skills.
  3. 12+ Real-life video and audio case studies to accelerate your learning of mental game coaching.
  4. MGCP Summaries, outlines and flow charts to help you understand the over mental coaching process and the phases of mental coaching taught by Dr. Cohn.
  5. Examples of mental imagery programs (hockey, dog handling, and golf) including how to create imagery scripts and audio programs for your athletes.
  6. A series of sports psychology e-books on goal setting, confidence, focus, pregame and preshot routines.
  7. Use of Dr. Cohn’s Athlete’s Mental Aptitude Profile (AMAP) and several sport-specific versions to help you identify an athlete’s or team’s mental game strengths and weaknesses.
  8. Use of the Team Cohesion Aptitude Profile (TCAP) to assess team cohesion; and a sports parent’s profile to use with sports parents.
  9. Examples of pre-seminar questionnaires to use before you give a seminar to a group to help you identify mental game challenges and areas to teach.
  10. How to do team mental game assessments efficiently using an online assessment tool.
  11. Over 160 mental game coaching “handouts” or one-page summaries and worksheets you can use to help you stay organized during sessions and as summaries for your student or team.
  12. 18 real-life case studies focusing on a different challenge in sports psychology and Dr. Cohn’s solution to each. You understand the real-life issues with athletes and how to address their mental game barriers.

Apply for sports psychology certification today!

Resources for Mental Game Coaches

Please browse our programs for mental game coaches and sports psychology professionals below. With the purchase of each program, you can upgrade to the Self-Paced Course or the Full MGCP Certification Course. Contact us at Peak Performance Sports, LLC for more details: 888-742-7225

AMAP Assessment System

The AMAP System licenses to you our exclusive mental game assessment. You learn how how to easily identify your athletes’ mental game challenges, what mental game issues to look, and how to do a summary of the AMAP. The AMAP has several purposes beyond its use as an assessment tool.

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Mental Game Assessments

Athlete's Mental Edge Workbooks

The Athlete’s Mental Edge workbook system 2.0 is designed for both mental coaches and sports team coaches. And no matter if you are a 20-year mental coach veteran or just starting your career as a mental coach, you’ll love the simplicity of the workbooks, and your athletes will appreciate your organization.

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Workbooks for Mental Coaches

Mental Coaches' Playbook

The Mental Coach's Playbook is a tool for mental coaches to help them improve efficiency and success as a mental game coach working with sports parents and their young athletes. Learn the top issues for young athletes and their parents. Learn how to be more successful when working with young athletes. Digital Download Only.

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Working with Sports Parents

Improving Credibility for Mental Coaches

This program helps new and experienced mental coaches gain credibility in your field of expertise. In “Improving Credibility,” sports psychology professionals learn how to get organized with your business documents, how to harness social proof from athletes and coaches, and learn the top tactics to improve your credibility as a mental coach.

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Mental Coach Credibility Program

Call 888-742-7225 for More Information

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