Integrative Coaching for Peak Sports Performance

A young man in excellent physical condition sprints along a tree-lined trail

No matter what court, field, course, or track you compete on, no matter what your current proficiency, there’s always room to improve your performance.

Your athletic performance isn’t built on talent alone, nor can it be separated from the rest of your life. Who you are as a person, how you’re showing up and your underlying mental and emotional states impact your performance immensely. Your gametime performance is a snapshot of the state of your life. And when you’re under the gun, any vice will come to the fore along with virtue.

Critical Factors in Integrative Sports Performance Coaching

A graphic model depicting the five factors of Integrative Sports Performance Coaching (ISPC) — Integrative Sports Performance Coaching

Though many factors influence your athletic performance, five top the list and form the nucleus of the integrative sports performance coaching (ISPC) I provide.

Mindpower™

Your capacity to remain focused, calm, aware and relaxed under pressure is critical to your sports performance. In the field of neuroscience, this is known as operating in the “blue zone.” This mental and neurological state does not happen by chance, but is the product of training, particularly in Mindpower™ practices I coach such as:

Bracketing
Breathwork
Concentration
Creativity
Effortlessness (flow)
Game/race readiness
PMA (Positive Mental Attitude)
Problem solving
Relaxation
Sensory acuity
Somatic awareness
Visualization

Emotional Wisdom

Most people can markedly improve their outer game by strengthening their inner game. This involves changing habitual self-talk, impulsivity and emotional sabotaging. Learning how to constructively reframe perceptions and situations while coaching yourself positively from within will dramatically boost your sports performance.

Progressive Training

Some 90% of all strength and conditioning (S&C) training regimens are really maintenance plans, geared to keep your S&C performance right where it’s at. It takes a seismic shift in thinking to structure training with continuous performance improvement (CPI) in mind. ISPC applies advanced planning tools, targeted metrics and purposeful training strategies using a kaizen (small-change theory) approach. It also shifts the focus away from traditional weight-room training that targets muscular endurance and strength toward training that fine-tunes the aspects of athleticism crucial to your sport, position or event. My coaching services include athletic performance testing and evaluation, strength and conditioning program design and modification and sport-specific strength and conditioning for the following performance factors:

Health-Related Performance Factors	Skill-Related Performance Factors
Cardiorespiratory Fitness—ability to perform moderate-to-vigorous movement for a prolonged time. Muscular Fitness—muscular strength (how much you can lift) and muscular endurance (how many times you can lift it). Flexibility—the ability to move your joints through their complete range of motion (ROM), pain free. Body Composition—relative % of muscle, fat, bone, and H2O in your body. Vital Signs—pulse, blood pressure, body temperature, and respiratory rate. Neuromotor Skills—capacity to shift your base of support and center of mass in response to outside cues.	Agility—ability to change your body position in space with speed and accuracy. Balance—maintenance of equilibrium while stationary or moving. Reaction Time—time elapsed between stimulation and the beginning of your response to it. Coordination—ability to use senses such as sight and hearing in concert with multiple body parts to perform tasks smoothly and accurately. Power—the rate at which your muscles can perform work. Speed—your ability to perform a movement within a short period of time.

Health-Related Performance Factors

Skill-Related Performance Factors

Cardiorespiratory Fitness—ability to perform moderate-to-vigorous movement for a prolonged time.
Muscular Fitness—muscular strength (how much you can lift) and muscular endurance (how many times you can lift it).
Flexibility—the ability to move your joints through their complete range of motion (ROM), pain free.
Body Composition—relative % of muscle, fat, bone, and H2O in your body.
Vital Signs—pulse, blood pressure, body temperature, and respiratory rate.
Neuromotor Skills—capacity to shift your base of support and center of mass in response to outside cues.

Agility—ability to change your body position in space with speed and accuracy.
Balance—maintenance of equilibrium while stationary or moving.
Reaction Time—time elapsed between stimulation and the beginning of your response to it.
Coordination—ability to use senses such as sight and hearing in concert with multiple body parts to perform tasks smoothly and accurately.
Power—the rate at which your muscles can perform work.
Speed—your ability to perform a movement within a short period of time.

Regimen

Every sports performance ultimately requires you to convert defined inputs into desired outputs within certain time, distance, quality and energy-cost constraints. But you’d be amazed at how many athletes don’t know what these inputs are for their sport, position or event. Talent and training are not the only vital factors. Sleep hygiene, rest and recovery, nutrition, hydration, scheduling and pregame routine all play vital roles in your sports performance. It’s amazing to see how much better an athlete performs when they zoom in on the functional measures of success—unique to their mind and body—for each of these factors.

Wellbeing

I have never known anyone whose sports performance didn’t leap commensurate with improvements in her or his wellbeing and life balance. Your relationships, home environment, fitness level—even how much fun and recreation you have in your life—all figure into how well you perform on the court or in the field. A happier, healthier athlete will inevitably be a higher-performing athlete. But wellbeing is no accident. A top priority of ISPC is to help you consciously cultivate it.

Sport-Specific Training Experience

A soccer player on a rainy field prepares to shoot a shot on goal as the goalkeeper awaits in the distance

I have considerable experience in sports performance training for the following sports and events. I work with athletes on a consultive basis to evaluate and refine their current training regimens and on an ongoing basis as their performance coach.

Baseball
Basketball
Cycling
Golf
Jumping and hurdling
Middle and long-distance running
Alpine and Cross-Country Skiing
Soccer
Sprinting
Swimming
Tennis and paddle sports
Throwing (shot, discus, javelin, hammer)
Volleyball
Wrestling

Overhead view of a female tennis player in a ready stance awaiting a shot along the baseline

Each one of these sports and events requires the development of a different type of body, one conditioned to the unique demands of the sport. Each also requires a different approach to periodization, since the phases of training, their sequencing and the time(s) of year to peak is different for each.

Most sports also require specialized functional training activities, not just high-repetition weight training and aerobic conditioning. Specialized functional training programs are fun and interesting and offer athletes lots of variety and challenge. They incorporate movements from other sports and from gymnastics, track & field, playground games, dance, yoga, Pilates, plyometrics, tai chi chuan, qigong, martial arts and more. All athletes benefit by learning to move in more dynamic ways and gain a greater sense of confidence, coordination and mastery.

Tapping the Power of Motivation

A young female prepares to execute a back-squat as she stares into a mirror with the barbell poised upon her shoulders

Through decades of experience as a performance coach, I’ve learned the importance of pinpointing the critical sports performance factors for each athlete. One lesson is indelible: to recognize progress you must first know your starting point—otherwise known as benchmarking. But just measuring things because they’re easy to measure doesn’t help much. The sports performance measures chosen matter profoundly and must be specific, accurate and relevant to your actual game, match or event.

An African-American basketball player exhibits good form on a midrange jump-shot

Valid metrics also are key to motivation and goal setting; however, different goal-setting strategies work for different people. Some people do better with a close-up perspective, focusing on short-term, concrete, measurable goals—a “climbing the ladder” performance orientation. Others do better with a big-picture perspective, a kind of peak performance vision that’s more holistic. Still others thrive when there’s a spirit of competition. And some people don’t respond well to goals at all, preferring to focus on taking care of the present as the best way to take care of the future.

What this means is that your coach must really understand you and your motivational language. This is one of the most important aspects of ISPC.

The Inner Journey of ISPC

A young woman displays good form in executing a plyometric box squat while holding dumbbells

Not everyone will admit they have room for growth in their athletic training, or that they could use some help closing the gap. We men particularly tend to think we already know all there is to know about training and competing. ISPC is ultimately an inner journey that takes courage, honesty and humility. Humble people are inevitably the ones who improve their sports performance the most.

A college baseball pitcher exhibits good follow-though motion on the pitching mound

My approach to ISPC is effective because it’s tailored to your personality, mindset, individual needs, developmental stage and motivational style. I cannot emphasize this point enough. A performance coach must be willing to get to know you well and meet you where you’re at. If they come in believing they already know what you need because you’re like everyone else—a cookie-cutter approach—run the other way.

Shoot for the Stars—and Become One!

A golfer exhibits good follow-though using a wood driver off the T

You can most certainly improve your sports performance, since it’s ultimately a product of conscious and creative design, genuine self-confidence and steadfast effort. You can take your game to heights you might not imagine because, quite possibly, some key drivers of your current sports performance are hidden to you. My purpose is to help you discover and appreciate your performance drivers, where you’re strong, what you’re truly capable of and how to master your sports performance—inside and out—while enacting a perpetual improvement strategy that not only aims for the stars, but takes you there.

Request a Complimentary 30-Minute Coaching Session

If you’d like to discuss how we can work together to take your sports performance—or your son’s or daughter’s—to new heights, please fill out the form below and click submit or simply call or email me and we’ll set up a complimentary 30-minute phone or web conference (Zoom). You’ll come away seeing your athletic performance in a whole new light.

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