Preventing Mental Fatigue

We’re often asked the best ways for athletes to avoid mental fatigue.  Our answer tends to be a combination of motivation and focus training. First, we tell athletes to tap into their motivators.  We ask them to remember what drives them in their sport.  We ask them to remember what they love about their sport, what gets them out of bed each day and drives them to perform, and we tap into those core motivators.  That’s what we’re really after: those intrinsic drivers that first brought the athletes to their sport. It’s easy for athletes’ focus to drift to the pressures and expectations of competing.  They want to achieve a […]

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Meet Laina Nelson

Premier Sport Psychology is excited to introduce one of our Summer 2018 interns, Laina Nelson!  Read below to learn more about Laina. Let’s start with a fun fact about yourself. I absolutely love sports, but I also love music and performing. I have been writing music since I was about 13 years old and bought my first guitar. A couple years ago I even got to record my own music in Nashville. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? That is a tough question. I absolutely love to travel, but I have always really wanted to see Niagara Falls or Bora Bora. For real, I […]

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Meet Joe Brinkman

Premier Sport Psychology is excited to introduce one of our Summer 2018 interns, Joe Brinkman!  Read below to learn more about Joe. Let’s start with a fun fact about yourself. I am the oldest of eight kids in my family! It is a crazy household, but I would never trade it to be an only child with a quiet house. That just sounds way too boring. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? I could never pick one place! There are so many different things I want to see and explore in this world. Rome is definitely towards the top, as well as Ireland and […]

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How Sport Psychology Has Helped One Hockey Goalie

“I’d probably say 90% of [hockey] is mental.” -Philadelphia Flyers prospect Carter Hart¹ Carter Hart is the top goaltender in the Canadian Hockey League- earning this title the past two seasons he has played in the league. He is also the top goalie prospect for the Philadelphia Flyers, being called the future cornerstone of the franchise. Not only is he talented as a goalie because of his reflexes and hockey ability, but also because of how strong he is mentally. Like most athletes aspiring to make it to elite levels of their sport, Hart has worked with trainers and goalie coaches since he was 10 years old. What separates him […]

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Olympians: Performing Under Pressure

It takes many qualities to be an Olympian; passion, determination, motivation, commitment, discipline and consistency to name a few. One important mental skill that can often be overlooked in Olympic athletes’ is mental toughness. Mental toughness is described as the ability to cope with pressure, adversity and stress (Bull, 1996). After spending a lifetime of training and perfecting form for a single opportunity to compete in an Olympic games, Olympians can understandably feel an intense amount of pressure and stress when it comes time for their final performance. Research shows that athletes achieve the best performance results when they have more mental toughness, as measured by commonly associated attributes (Bull, […]

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The Super Bowl: Playing to Win or to Improve?

If you live in Minnesota, odds are you know Super Bowl VII will be held at US Bank stadium on February 4th. What you may not know is the driving force behind these teams that makes them so successful. Motivation style plays a huge role in performance outcome. Is it more important to have a drive to win or a drive to improve? Any team that has made it to the Super Bowl would say it is more important to win. What many teams do not know is that performance is linked to motivation style, and according to research athletes are more successful when they are motivated to improve rather […]

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