Mentally Tougher - The Condor Performance Blog

We get loads of people that email us and ask us this question. So many in fact that in recent months we’ve just started to copy and paste a reply. We thought it would be useful to add this advice to the blog and invite you to share your views via the comment box below.

“Various professions are protected by the law such as dentists, lawyers, architectures and psychologists. In other words these titles / labels can only be used by people who have met certain criteria. The regulation of the title psychologist and the word psychology for the promotion of paid services is the responsibility of AHPRA (The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency). In other words using the title of psychologist when you are not one or implying you’re an expert in any area of psychology without being fully registered is illegal and AHPRA have the power to impose large fines for those that do.

NB: AHPRA have only been looking after psychology for a couple of years so it’s probably wise to be patient in terms of the lack of progress that has been made in cleaning up the “cowboys” who take advantage of the fact that the public are easily fooled by clever words (mind coaches) and attractive websites!

The first step therefore for anyone wishing to become a genuine sport psychologist is to get fully registered as a psychologist (the “sport” bit” comes later). The most common pathway is to first do an approved psychology degree (http://www.apac.psychology.org.au) and then specialise for a further two years. This is where it starts to get complicated. Psychology is currently broken down into 9 different specialist areas (clinical, counselling, forensic, clinical-neuro, organisational, sport and exercise, educational and developmental, health and community) and in order to use one of these specialist titles (for example, sport and exercise psychologist) you need to be endorsed by AHPRA to do so. In other words you can’t use the title sport and exercise psychologist if you’re only endorsed as a clinical psychologist. This is relatively easy to police but things become tricky when various psychologists suggest expertise in a whole bunch of different areas that blend in with their own. For example if one of our athletes showed signs of a mental illness (i.e. alcohol abuse) we would refer that client onto a clinical psychologist as in our view their profession (sport) is less important than them being helped by someone who works on that exact issue five or six days a week (we don’t).

The big hurdle facing those that live in NSW and ACT and want to become sport and exercise psychologists is that the only way to get endorsed is by doing a 2 year Masters with the same name and there none available in these states. Furthermore I’m told by reliable sources at universities in NSW that this is not going to change anytime soon as they would lose money.

How do you get around this bazaar flaw in the system? Well one way is to move to VIC or QLD and try and get onto one of their Masters (which I believe are very, very competitive). The other way is to stay in NSW and get fully registered via what is commonly known as the 4+2 pathway. In a nutshell this means instead of a Masters you get provisionally registered after completing your psychology degree and then for 2 years have a mix of “work experience” and supervision from a AHPRA approved supervisor (at Condor Performance we have one such supervisor who supervisors about 2 interns per year). Upon passing all the requirements of the 4+2 pathway you then can call yourself a psychologist.

Luckily when the types of psychology where being discussed the label “performance” was rejected instead of the word “exercise” to go with the word “sport”. The result of this is that those who have done their supervision with us can use the title “performance psychologist”. In other words Condor Performance is a firm of sport and performance psychologists in that some of our psychologists are endorsed to use the word sport (we don’t bother with the word exercise as it’s very misleading) and are sport psychologists whilst others are performance psychologists. Together this forms a group of sport and performance psychologists.

So there you have it. To answer the title question in the simplest way possible move interstate or let us know if you would like to be considered to be one of our future interns.”

Comments / questions weclome below. CP 2012

The concept of mental toughness is so new that there really isn’t an agreed and standard definition yet. The fun thing about that is anyone can pitch in with what they think mental toughness means and create their own definition. Below are some we found on the web but you might like to add your own via the comments box below. Once they’ve all been collected we (Condor Performance) might attempt to submit our own working definition.

“Mental toughness is doing whatever is necessary to get the job done including handling the demands of a tough workout, withstanding pain, or touching an opponent out at the end of a race.” – Jennifer Eberst, Women’s Swimming & Diving

“You can’t be a good swimmer without being mentally tough. You wouldn’t make it through a single workout if you weren’t. Swimmers must have the mental ability to let go of what their body feels and focus on the race, their stroke, or anything else that helps them finish the race.” – Sally Anderson, Women’s Swimming & Diving

“Mental toughness is not letting anyone break you.” – Jimi Mitchell, Football

“Mental toughness is not being affected by anything but what’s going on in the game or competition no matter what coaches, other players, or refs are doing. It’s being able to block out what’s not important.” – Jenny Brenden, Women’s Basketball

I’m always fascinated when the term “Old School Coach” is used – a surprisingly common happening in the Australian sports industry at least. Sometimes it’s used as a positive (“we need an old school coach, these players are soft and need someone to toughen them up”) and sometime as a negative (“she’s an old school coach; she’ll never go with such a radical suggestion”). I’m not sure of where the School bit comes from – I suppose it’s to avoid sounding ageist – but I like to think that it refers to different waves (schools) in the development of sports science. In other words a coach who mostly uses methods suggested by 1960s sport science (did it exist then?) in 2011 might be described as Old School. If this is a correct assumption then I have two disputes with it. First, proper science (sport or otherwise) if adhered to correctly will still suggest the best parts of coaching from 50 years ago but eliminate that which has proved ineffective since then. Second, it over plays the importance of experience. Regardless of if you are a technical, mental or physical coach it’s the combination of the best possible (quantity and quality) experience with the best possible (quantity and quality) qualifications that will ultimately prevail. Outside of our profession of sport psychology our aim is to simply continue to improve at our ability to build mental toughness. Within the profession it’s to establish a critical mass so that everyone can see that Q X E is better than a whole bunch of E. Old School Coaches are overrated.

Recently, one of our performance psychologists had an email conversation with the manager of a sporting team in which he (our guy) questioned the logic of using someone with no formal training as their mental coach. The manager made a point that suggested such credentials might be overrated stating that anyone could do goal setting. Here is the reply:

“You’re right with the goal setting stuff; my grandmother could present it too, but the issue is would you want her to? The role of head coach and strength and conditioner and so on, is normally well defined, but the role of sport or performance psychologist is usually not defined at all. Hence, the calibre of person you are looking for to deliver psychological skills to your athletes, if you are looking to compete at the highest level, would not be my grandmother.”

Thoughts?

To get into the spirit of the Rugby World Cup I thought it would be interesting to post a question as a blog now and then post the answer when the touranment ends in October.

QUESTION: Why, according to sport psychology theory, should only some of the All Blacks do their famous Haka?

Many people know (will tell you) that at the elite level it’s about 90 % mental and yet they only spend 10% of their time on this part of their performance. There is a good explanation for this oddity. At the highest level of most sports the reason why the top 10 and the 100th best are most different psychologically is because the technical and physical areas have evened themselves out. In other words everyone at this level does about the same quantity and quality of work on the technical and physical parts.

Therefore the reason why psychological strengths are so dominant at the deciding the very best from the almost best is because this is the only part of performance that hasn’t “plateaued” yet amongst the super elite. I’ve worked with elite athletes who have made it to the top 100 in the world but whose “mental capabilities” are so poor it would be the technical equivalent of an equestrian athlete getting onto the horse facing the wrong way. Of course this also explains why 10% only work on the mental side. Regardless of how keen they are to improve the BIG FIVE (confidence, concentration, performing under pressure, decision making and motivation) very, very few people actually know the science based mental skills that – when delivered appropriately – do this.

Let us know your thoughts, GJM

One of our readers sent us the below link and invited us to comment….which we will do. But before we add our thoughts to what “Beefy” thinks about our profession we thought we’d invite our reader to comment first. Watch this space, GJM

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/ian-botham-sports-psychology–its-the-biggest-con-of-all-time-767077.html

Being realistic is a huge part of what we do as sport psychologists. If 100% equals the maximum that you can bring to a training session or event then it’s unobtainable. At any one time you will have some technical, mental or physical flaws that would mean even if you were at 80% you’d be doing extremely well. One of our regular readers sent us this which sums up the notion of giving 100% quite humorously. Enjoy and pass it on. GJM

Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions: If: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then H-A -R -D-W-O -R -K 8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98% and K -N -O -W-L -E-D-G-E 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But A-T -T -I -T -U -D-E 1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And, B -U -L -L -S -H-I -T 2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

AND, look how far ass kissing will take you. A-S -S -K -I -S-S -I -N-G 1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty, that While Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it’s the Bullshit and Ass Kissing that will put you over the top.

As sport / performance psychologists one of our biggest challenges is people confusing performance psychology with welfare (clinical / remedial) work such as counselling and psychotherapy.

Below are some statistics which not only explain the massive difference between them but is also a clue into why we are confident that in the future every “performer” will use a (good) sport / performance psych!

• About 10 % of Australians will be affected by anxiety disorders at some point in their life and would benefit from psychological treatment.
• 100% of performers will be affected by over or under confidence and would benefit from mental conditioning.
• About 20% of people will be affected by depression and 6% will experience a major depressive illness and would benefit from psychological treatment.
• 100% of performers will be affected by lack of concentration and would benefit from mental conditioning.
• 3% of Australians are affected by psychotic illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar mood disorder at some point in their life and would benefit from psychological treatment.
• 100% of performers will be affected by over or under motivation and would benefit from mental conditioning.
• Approximately 2% of Australians will experience some type of eating disorder at some stage in their life and would benefit from psychological treatment.
• 100% of performers will be affected by over or under arousal (nervous energy) would benefit from mental conditioning.

There is some logic in the argument that the less fortunate are likely to be naturally mentally stronger than the fortunate. If you believe – as we do – that to build mental muscle you have to put your mind under some kind of stress in the same way as you need to put actual muscles under stress to make them grow then it provides a dilemma to those whose everyday lives are not stressful. Naturally seeing a good sport psychologist is one way to get around this but there is another way which went combined with learning mental skills can allow you to ‘bake your cake and eat it’. Go and spend a few weeks or months in a place which is as far outside of your comfort zone as possible and each time you come up against something difficult see it as a chance to increase your mental strength. Cheers, GJM