WISHING YOU A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, AND THE VERY IN THE BEST NEW YEAR!
COMING SOON
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TENNIS PARENTING
The New Year is a great time to re-evaluate your tennis game and organize your training to maximize your tennis potential. Successful competitive tennis demands great mental and emotional skill sets. Be sure to include mental and emotional training along with your technical and athletic training.
Wishing you the Best, Frank Giampaolo
The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, INNOVATIVE TENNIS CHARTING.
Click Here To Pre–Order through Amazon
PRE-ORDER E-BOOK PRICE: $1.99
The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, INNOVATIVE TENNIS CHARTING.
Click Here To Pre–Order through Amazon
E-Book PRE-ORDER PRICE: $1.99
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!
COMPETITIVE DRAMAS: INTERNAL STRUGGLES
QUESTION: What does emotional conduct have to do with winning? Part 2
Very few athletes have been taught to be aware of their emotional state of being. An athlete’s optimal emotional state is dependent on their ability to spot their under-arousal and the over-arousal states of mind. Let’s dig deeper into these issues.
Under Arousal -Choking
Players drifting into their under arousal state believe that they are choking. Instead of staying on their pre-set performance scripts and simply controlling the controllables, such as their performance goals, athletes in the under-arousal state of mind begin to choke because they choose to focus on the uncontrollables, such as their anxieties, match outcome, or the ranking ramifications.
Because most athletes haven’t been taught their optimal emotional conduct, they start fearing that they are going to blow yet another match, so they begin to unknowingly push versus hit. Their anxieties quickly spiral out of control as their new negative self-image takes control- essentially allowing the “inmates to run the asylum.”
Under Arousal Solutions -Triggers
Triggers are both verbal and physical solutions that are used to snap a player back into their optimal emotional code of conduct. Triggers used to stop choking include:
Verbal triggers: -“come on”, “let’s go”, “you got this”, “right now”, “hit through the ball”, “trust your training”, “Play to win!”…
Physical triggers: – Moving your feet and pumping up the adrenaline, slapping your leg, fist-pumping, taking deep breaths, kangaroo jumps, walking more confidently, walking to the back fence and rebooting the energy, taking a towel break, fixing your hair/hat, changing your racket …
Over Arousal-Panicking
Players drifting into the over-arousal state of mind report the opposite responses of players choking. This is a sense of panic. Panicking is the opposite of choking because it is underthinking. Panicking players are often seen rushing, applying reckless play, trying to play better than the moment demands, forgetting to apply between point rituals, appearing unattached- with a deer in the headlight look on their face, over hitting, trying to end the point too quickly or playing angry and fearful.
Over-Arousal Solutions-Triggers
There are sometimes different triggers for different emotional states. The solutions to snapping out of the panicking, over-arousal state of mind include:
Verbal Triggers: “slow down”, “deep breaths”, “relax”, “re-start right now”, “3- balls in first”, “steady-high and heavy”
Physical Triggers: A player in an over-arousal state of mind must defuse some adrenaline by taking the full 25- seconds between points, taking the full 90- seconds during changeovers, re-gripping the racket, taking towel breaks, changing your racket, taking a legal bathroom break, taking a legal trainer break.
“Maximizing talent under stress requires the athlete to perform in their Optimal Performance state of mind.”
Sport science experts can detect whether an athlete is choking or panicking through psychological and physiological tests by monitoring brain wave patterns, muscle tension, heart rate, and breathing rate. They can also detect when a trained athlete switches “channels” away from or back into their peak performance state of mind.
Emotionally educated performers maintain a reduced level of neurological activity, less muscle tension, a lower heart rate, and slower breathing. This saves crucial battery life for the later rounds. Emotions play a key role in competition.
“A player’s emotional skill sets control the internal climate that allows the athlete
to perform comfortably for longer periods of time.”
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
DOES YOUR CHILD NEED MENTAL/EMOTIONAL TRAINING?
Understand mental/emotional training is the practical application of finding solutions to common pitfalls. We often hear, “My child has trouble closing out a 5-2 lead”, “My child plays terrific in practice but horribly in matches”, “My son can’t beat a moonball, pusher”, “My daughter can’t handle cheaters!”, “My son has trouble focusing for the whole match!”
Essentially, the mental component consists of the X’s and O’ of strategy. The emotional component refers to the athlete’s ability to navigate through performance anxieties that many athletes see as challenges. Often, these two-component are intertwined.
Parents are often hesitant and a bit unclear about the role of mental or emotional training. This type of instruction involves more than simple fundamental stroke production. Developing the “hidden” skill set within your child’s game is crucial for peak performance. It is a myth that only children with abnormal behavioral problems need mental or emotional guidance.
Do we have to change primary coaches to begin working on these issues?
No, not at all! A mental training coach can assist your primary coach and become a part of the team. In fact, the most intelligent coaches will encourage their players to seek out such training. It’s a win-win situation for both the client and the professional.
Is a lack of Mental/Emotional training holding your child back from getting the results they deserve?
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
Advance competitive tennis demands more than simply hitting another basket of balls. Parents and players need to recognize and understand that:
The following posts list some common training missteps that competitive tennis players and parents need to acknowledge and refine to maximize performance.
Tough Love Insights to Successful Competitive Tennis
Insight Eleven: Clean strokes will get you into the event, fitness will progress you into the later rounds, but mental and emotional aptitude will win the tournament for you – if you’ve developed it.
Possible Solution: Play practice sets with a specific training goal such as closing out leads, hitting the shot the moment demands, and handling those “creative line callers.”
The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s NEW Amazon #1 New Tennis Book Release, Preparing for Pressure.
Click Here to Order
“I focus the whole match on perfect form. That’s
Correct …right?”
“Athletes nurtured to focus on mechanics in match play seldom perform in the flow state.”
I recommend that athletes save most of the detailed analysis of strokes for the improvement phase, which takes place on the practice court. Biomechanical analysis surely has its place; it’s just not in the midst of competition. Focusing too much on “bend your knees,” “close the racket face 30-degrees and brush up,” and “tuck the left hand in on the serve to block the third link of the kinetic chain” pulls athletes out of the flow state and into their editing, analytical brain.
The week leading into an important event, I recommend trading-in the need for stroke perfection and replace it with practicing picking up relevant cues like proficient pattern play, score management, and opponent profiling. This prepares the athlete for pressure by allowing their judgmental ego to slip away. Performing in the zone requires relaxed contentment, which can’t be found if you’re focused on fixing every micro-flaw.
Preparing for pressure requires the athlete to focus on the art of competing.
The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s NEW Amazon #1 New Tennis Book Release, Preparing for Pressure.
Click Here to Order
“In real matches, I’m so stressed. All I think about is don’t lose …then I lose!”
“Internal dialogue refers to the unspoken conversations we all have …”
Athletes are often unaware of the inner conversation they have through the course of a tennis match. Internal dialog is the conversation our ego is having with ourselves. In match play, inner dialog takes place in-between points and during changeovers. This is when athletes are encouraged to program themselves towards a more constructive mindset. With between point ritual practice, athletes will learn to focus on what they want versus what they don’t want.
It’s true that society propagates a negative bias day in and day out. Athletes would benefit from committing to replacing the typical negative statement, “The problem is …” with “The solution is …”
Positive self-coaching revolves around a reoccurring theme of this book: Gratitude. It shifts our mentality from pessimistic to optimistic. I encourage my athletes to apply the mantra: There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here, right now!
Energy flows wherever their internal dialog goes.
The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s NEW Amazon #1 New Tennis Book Release, Preparing for Pressure.
Click Here to Order
Instruct How to Avoid Counterproductive Behaviors
“Your Academy’s culture is determined by how much counterproductive behavior the coaching staff
is willing to tolerate.”
Counterproductive thoughts and actions are behaviors that go against the interests of the athlete’s progress. Successfully preparing for pressure demands re-routing poor choices. Athletes and parents are often loyal to their counterproductive behaviors simply because they’ve been doing them for so long.
Basic counterproductive behaviors include tardiness, lack of effort, lack of a developmental plan, indifference, pessimistic dialog, anger outbursts, blaming, and accusing.
I’ve found that athletes who possess these unproductive traits are often facing difficulties away from tennis. In these situations, the dysfunctional behaviors should be referred to medical professionals.
Red flags are seen when an athlete’s words don’t match their actions.
The following post is an excerpt from Preparing for Pressure – my book to be released on August 20th. Click Here to pre-order your copy.
Confidence fortifies… but overconfidence and
under-confidence destroys.
Preparing For Pressure EBook
$8.99
THE SOFT SCIENCE OF TENNIS Paperback
$8.99
5 Hour Training Session
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