Mental Performance coaching

It has long been understood that all sports have a mental component. In fact, when I ask coaches just how much of their sport is mental I have never heard less than 50% and often get responses as high as 90%. While I do not believe these numbers reflect any form of researched or proven accuracy, I do think they convey a clear picture of how important the mental aspect really is. But if it’s so important then why are mental skills rarely taught to athletes? I believe it’s simply due to a general lack of understanding and experience regarding the topic.

So what is mental performance coaching?

Just like any other aspect of sport (offense, defense, conditioning, strategy), the mental aspect needs to be taught, trained, practiced, and reinforced. But if the majority of current coaches never received any mental training in their own athletic careers, how can they be expected to teach the concepts to the teams they now lead? Well, they can’t be. That’s what a mental performance coach is for.

and what exactly is mental performance?

Relative to any task that you’re involved in, sports or otherwise, your mental performance is how well you handle the associated aspects of mindset, emotional intelligence, and decision making. These are topics I deeply believe should be taught in schools, year round from elementary through graduation. (Maybe one day……fingers crossed!). But in the current absence of such I use sport as the medium to teach these exact topics. And along the way I find any opportunity to apply them to school, relationships, transition, career, and everything else that is intertwined in our lives.

Amanda ClementS
Mental Performance Coach

After 17 years as a competitive gymnast, including 4 at the D1 level, Amanda graduated from Towson University with a B.S. in Anthropology and Sociology. She later completed her CPC with the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching. As the owner of Beyond the Game she has provided mental performance coaching to more than 150 teams and individual athletes ranging from club sports up to the collegiate and professional levels. She also partners with local sports psychiatrist Dr. David McDuff, owner of MD Sports Performance.