NLP Sports Training and Coaching Tips for Performance Coaching

Sir Chris Hoy has just won his tenth track cycling gold medal at the World Championships in Copenhagen, the very place he won his first cycling gold eight years ago. In an interview he was asked how it felt to achieve such a landmark victory and spoke reinforced the importance of mental preparation to sports performance:

“I’m delighted. I was aware of the magnitude of a 10th world title…because it’s been in the press and people have been asking me about it…but it was only when someone asked me ‘what does it feel like to have 10’ when I’d finished that it registered because I was so focused on the race itself. That’s the key really, to be focused on the process and not worrying about the outcome.”

Preparing to win

Hoy is renowned for his meticulous race preparation. Setting process goals is just one example of the effective mental skill training tools he uses in his race preparation plan and it’s a practice encouraged by sports psychology 2 for athlete’s at all levels of competition.

His 10th gold medal was perhaps his hardest earned yet. His event, the Keirin, is not for the feint-hearted and competitors expect a bit of rough and tumble as they jostle for position on the track. However, Hoy was dumped on his backside during qualifying rounds by an opponent trying to prevent him from reaching his favourite position as the race started.

“That was out of order,” said Hoy. “It did make me angry, but that’s another emotion you try and keep in check - you don’t want to let the red mist descend and lose the plot, you’ve got to stay controlled and focused.”

Learning how to stay controlled and focused - in every imaginable circumstance - is a major part of Hoy’s race preparation plan. It’s also a huge contributing factor to his sporting success.

“The episode did frustrate the usually placid, gentlemanly Hoy, but - after years under the tutelage of Dr Steve Peters, the British Cycling psychiatrist - he controlled his inner chimp” - Brendan Gallagher, The Telegraph

Perfect preparation, perfect performance

His opponent’s ploy to rob him of his favourite racing position was just one of many deliberate attempts made to unsettle Hoy in all of his  Copenhagen races. He’s the man of the moment, the one to beat, so all eyes are on him. Many of his opponent’s will be studying video recordings of him in action as part of their own race preparation. They’ll study how he rides, research his race tactics, and plan their own races around trying to ‘block’ Hoy.

Studying successful people in action is at the core of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). NLP is essentially a study of what makes great people great, and if you want to be a great track cyclist, who better to study than Sir Chris Hoy! Hoy’s meticulous preparation, both physically and mentally, sets him apart from his opponents - for now. He knows they’re studying him, he knows they’re looking for ways to beat him. His strength remains his ability to prepare and to remain focused on riding and controlling his own race. In effect, by the time Hoy lines up on the race start-line, his preparation is so complete, he’s already won.

“The work’s done, you turn up on the night and do your best” - Sir Chris Hoy

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“Everything is practice” - Pelé

Brazilian born Pelé, arguably the greatest soccer player ever with a career history of 1281 goals scored in 1360 games believed that everything in his life was practice for the game. So what does practice mean to someone with such natural talent lets explore using a NLP Sports Model?

Dictionary definition: practice > verb 1 perform (an activity) or exercise (a skill) repeatedly in order to improve or maintain proficiency in it. 2 carry out or perform (an activity or custom) habitually or regularly.

Coca-Cola once ran an advertising campaign to coincide with a World Cup: ‘Eat football, sleep football, drink Coca-Cola.’ To a soccer player like Pelé, practice means eating, sleeping, and drinking football. In fact, during his career, every thought and every action, every moment of every day remained focussed on what he coined ‘the beautiful game.’ Practice was not something limited to training sessions, practice was a routine habit.

Some of Pele’s talents may have been inherited from his father who was also a professional player but at the age of five he was already practicing his skills and scoring goals in matches he played with other street kids. They had no shoes, and they had no ball either - the soccer ball was a sock stuffed with newspaper, or a melon. So, anyone believing that sports success comes easily to those born into it or from a privileged enough background to have access to all the best equipment, think on! Pelé worked as a shoe-shine boy to save enough money to buy a proper soccer ball - a good example of ‘thinking’ soccer to be able to play soccer.

Practice makes perfect
In his book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell states that it takes 10 000 hours of dedicated practice to become a world class master of a skill, any skill. That translates into 3 hours a day for 10 years, or 10 hours a day for 3 years. Just think about that for a moment - how much training time do you put in on a daily basis? Mind-boggling isn’t it? Pelé’s quote about everything being practice now becomes an important and powerful message for anyone who wants to reach the top of their game.

Mental skill practice
Sports psychology 2 promotes dedicated practice in the form of mental skills training to help get the most out of physical training. Elite athletes not only have to be at the top of their game physically to be competitive but also mentally to have that winning ‘edge’ over others. It also stands to reason that if every hour of training is purely physical, injuries are more likely to occur.

So how did a ‘natural’ talent like Pelé practice? Well, he played a lot of soccer matches for a start! His superior physical skills were the result of practicing what spectators believed to be ‘natural’ talents but the key to his phenomenal success as a player lies with his mindset. Pelé continually strove for perfection, he never sat back and rested on his laurels, he was considered “the best player in the world” throughout his career yet he always looked to achieve more - he maintained a growth mindset.

Mindset
 Fixed mindset : An athlete with a fixed mindset believes they’re stuck with their lot. They see talent or ability as just something they’re born with and, for good or bad, that’s just the way things are. In a fixed mindset, athletes are quick to judge themselves harshly when faced with defeat and will often suffer exaggerated feelings of depression or anxiety. However, if talents are seen as ‘natural gifts,’ a successful athlete might also display an exaggerated sense of superiority, and feel they’re above the need to practice.
 Growth mindset : An athlete with a growth mindset believes that change is always possible and that with dedicated effort and practice, performance can always be improved. It was Pelé’s growth mindset that allowed him to reach his full potential - and to continue pushing the boundaries of what that potential was!

Don’t let your mindset hold you back. Sports psychology 2 can help you discover what your current thinking is and, here’s the really good news, show you how to realise your own ‘Pelé power’ by developing a growth mindset of your own.

“Pelé called me the greatest footballer in the world. That is the ultimate salute to my life” - George Best

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