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Mindset
Prepare for challenges and stay motivated, focused, and in control with the tips in this blog.
Mindset
The Science of Slumps
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The next time your jump shot is off, your putts won’t go in, or you can’t buy a hit at your Wednesday night softball games, just be thankful that you’re not the Angels’ new $240 million man, Albert Pujols. Currently batting .196 with one home run and 12 RBIs after 35 games, the three-time MVP is in the worst hitting slump of his career. There is no shortage of helpful advice being shared on how to climb out of it, but maybe some recent research from Rob Gray, a motor control researcher, might help Pujols and the rest of us understand these valleys of performance.
Mindset
Step Your Game Intelligence Up
iStockphoto / Thinkstock
For the first time, neuroscientists have found a link between general cognitive abilities and sports success. Swedish researchers concluded that soccer players who possess the ability to process information faster and make quick decisions have a leg up on the competition. The New York Times recently reported on this discovery:
Mindset
Study: Visual Illusions Improve Sports Performance
Fuse / Thinkstock
If you’ve ever experienced the kind of day on the golf course where you feel like you’re putting into a thimble, take a moment to reverse that thinking. Your performance could be related to how you perceive the size of your target, according to new research from Purdue University’s Action-Modulated Perception Lab.
Mindset
Oversharing Can Sabotage Your Goals
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The acknowledgment people receive after sharing their ambitions can actually sabotage their end-goals, according to new research out of the Association for Psychological Science. That conclusion—which can be applied to fitness, diet, and other targets of improvement—is based on a small group of studies that found that university students put in less effort after expressing their academic goals to acquaintances.
Mindset
How to Fight Fatigue During a Race
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No matter how much training and mental preparation goes into an endurance event, there usually comes a time in every race where an athlete will hit the proverbial wall. At that point, with the body and mind wanting to stop, it’s tempting to bow out of the race. An athlete almost always can discover a second wind, though getting to that point can be a challenge. Whether it’s a 5K race, marathon, triathlon, or one of the popular new obstacle races such as Tough Mudder or Spartan Race, it helps to have a strategy to cope with the wall. We recently asked a number of Ironman triathletes from the Team Timex Multisport team how they deal with that challenge.
Mindset
Don’t Let a Mean Boss Make You Miserable
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It’s tough enough to succeed in business without feeling like your manager is an adversary. So when you’re exposed to an abusive boss, your career can become significantly sidetracked. To make matters worse, a new study in the journal Personnel Psychology concluded that mean managers can actually harm the marriages of their subordinates. The finding came from surveys of 280 full-time employees and their partners, which also confirmed the expected rise in personal stress and tension that can result from such a workplace scenario.
Mindset
Can You Limit Sitting and Sleeping to 23 ½ Hours a Day?
We love this question, posed in the video above by Dr. Mike Evans, an associate professor of family medicine and public health at the University of Toronto. The video’s a bit long, but educational and entertaining. Plus: whiteboard illustrations! If you’re a sucker for whiteboard illos like we are, after watching this you may be compelled to 1) walk more, and 2) start using UPS for your international shipping.
Mindset
The Science of Pushing Your Limits
The Detroit Lions' Ndamukong Suh shows off his explosive power and sends Sports Science host John Brenkus flying. (Charles Baus/ESPN.com)
As the executive producer and host of the popular "Sport Science" segments on ESPN, John Brenkus spends a lot of time exploring the limits of human performance.
Brenkus, 40, likes to refer to himself as a “human crash-test dummy.” During the segments, he routinely gets tossed, struck, and otherwise knocked around by some of the biggest names in sports—all in the name of gleaning new insight into athletic performance.
Mindset
Why Do You Race?
Thinkstock Photo
Despite the lingering recession, participation in endurance sports continues to grow. In 2010, more than 507,000 athletes finished a marathon, an 8.6 percent increase over 2009, according to Running USA’s annual marathon report. Membership in USA Triathlon has grown from 85,000 at the end of 2006 to more than 140,000 today. Sports such as stand-up paddleboarding and obstacle mud runs have soared in popularity over the last two years as more athletes, especially in the 35-to-45 age category, look for new ways to test their limits.
Mindset
7 Secrets to Get Motivated for a Workout
Dave Cruz
Maintaining motivation in a training program can be a challenge no matter your experience level. There will be days when you just don’t feel motivated to train and periods where it’s tempting to slack off. Here are seven secrets to get motivated to work out.
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