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Scientific Content & Thoughts

It's Not Easy For the Lower Level Pro

9/19/2019

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I've worked a lot in niche sports or with those scrapping at the bottom trying to find their way up. It's hard, very hard. He's a wonderful example of what it's like from a firsthand experience of a tennis player trying to achieve her potential. I encourage you all to take the time to read it.
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Importance of Core Values

9/12/2018

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The Serena Williams tirade at the US Open has been a hot topic in my class recently. Here's an article looking at some of the data associated with penalties in tennis. As a former international referee, I know how hard it is to get it right all the time. In fact, it's impossible because we are human! But in this instance, it appears that the rules were enforced correctly. The issue becomes whether these rules are being consistently enforced across tournaments, tours, and gender. Thanks to Dr. Sean Mullen for sharing this article with me.


GSP Core Value #4: I respect everyone including my opponent and official.
GSP Core Value #11: When I win, I am gracious: when I lose, I demonstrate dignity.
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Mental Challenges are for professional athletes too

5/30/2018

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It's great to see professional athletes recognizing the mental battle that goes on between their ears. In this situation it's tennis pro John Isner. Yet, I can only imagine how he could have been helped throughout his junior, college and young professional career to change some of his failures into successes.

"As a professional athlete, you want to feel so strong and impervious to everything, but that wasn't the case for me and I let him know that," Isner told me in Houston at the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships last month. "I let him know what I was feeling in the big moments. I let him know sometimes how scared I was."

"I'd find myself seizing up, not freeing up," Isner said. "And just wanting to win so badly that I didn't want to go after it myself, I was a little afraid of that. With how I'm built, it's the absolute wrong thing to do. When other players get nervous and get tight, say, be it a Nadal, a Djokovic, a Murray -- they can rely on their wheels. I can't. I'd just find myself hoping my opponent would miss. I knew what was holding me up was myself."


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age is just a number

8/7/2017

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Think you're too old to be competitive? Have a team you think is too old to be competitive? Think again! In this video I explain how and why age can lead to wins when it should be the younger competitor/team that claims success.

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GOAT Status requires balance

7/16/2017

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Today, Roger Federer took another step in becoming his GOAT, winning his 8th Wimbledon title. Tennis legend Boris Becker suggested that it wasn't just time on the court that helps him succeed.

"We thought it's impossible to win 18 Grand Slams - then he won his 18th and 19th Grand Slam. The secret is his family life - they are a great supportive base. Maybe the struggles with other players is that they try to please everybody."

Becker's words are worth considering. Improvement and success cannot be obtained by just hard work and talent alone. It requires external support. Do you have the support you need to become your own GOAT?

Federer's win in numbers

8 - his record eighth Wimbledon title
19 - more Grand Slam wins than any other man
35 (and 342 days) - the oldest man to win Wimbledon in the Open Era
5 - years since his previous Wimbledon win
3 - the third man to win multiple Slams without dropping a set

Quotes and photo source: http://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/40625069
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tactics vs strategy

6/12/2017

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Here's my first vlog on the difference between tactics and strategy courtesy of 9-time grand slam champion Helen Jacobs, who wrote the book Tennis in 1941. 

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Reading Past Sensational Headlines in Sports Science

5/17/2017

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An article appeared recently in a variety of news sources making bold claims: “Good Sports: Longer Lives Linked to Swimming, Racquetball” said one headline I saw. It wasn’t long before similar headlines bounced around social media as a means to justify participating in one sport or not participating in others. Essentially, the news article I read suggested that playing racquet sports and swimming leads to a longer life than if playing other sports such as soccer or participating in fitness classes.
 
But we have to be careful how we interpret journalistic headlines and we need to understand the background behind the scientific discovery. Having written so many scientific articles and seen journalists and others create “eye-catching” headlines from my work to manipulate what I wrote to catch the attention of their audience, I understand how dangerous this can be!
 
This is why athletes, coaches, and those working in sports organizations need to utilize the services of experts and scientists to take what science has discovered and interpret it and apply it correctly. Without doing so, mistakes or misinterpretations are made that can be costly. Although this headline above is just an example that I’m using, headlines like this show up all the time.
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Let’s go back to the headline that I just mentioned. One would assume that the article then mentions racquetball right? Well, no, it doesn’t. At no point in the article did the writer reference racquetball again. Yet many people will assume that longer lives are linked to swimming and racquetball because of the headline. But that isn’t what the original research said!
 
Here is a link to the original scientific article. Within the article there are several mediating points that should be noted (there are more but these are the main ones in my opinion):

  1. At no point in the original article is racquetball mentioned! The reference to “racquet sports” included badminton, tennis, and squash.
  2. The study was conducted in the United Kingdom so its findings may be different in another country with a different climate or health system, for example.
  3. Recall of physical activity (i.e., asking participants to describe their activity the four weeks prior) was limited to 4 weeks, and the authors note that it might not have been long enough. For example, if the survey was done in January, chances are that the participant didn’t cycle in the previous four weeks, but maybe they consider themselves to be a summer cyclist. Maybe they play squash in the winter months or don’t exercise at all. To their credit, the authors do mention this limitation.
  4. Some sports, particularly racquet sports, are traditionally played by those with a higher socioeconomic status than those in other sports (e.g., they have to pay club memberships). Therefore, these participants may have more leisure time, access to better food and better healthcare, and simply live longer because of other factors not associated with the physical activity they engage in.
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It’s difficult to make wholesale conclusions from one study, but media outlets do have a tendency to do this. They sensationalize information without clearly placing the information within the specific parameters in which the study was conducted.
 
My point is not to suggest that some sports are bad for you or that others are better for you. Really, the study’s actual findings aren’t that important for the point I’m trying to make. My point is to highlight how necessary it is to have scientific experts in your corner to provide guidance when you, your athlete, or your organization is trying to perform at an elite level.
 
Headlines are everywhere, especially when it comes to diet and nutrition, and taking information at face value can be detrimental to performance. Sports performance should be based on science, but it should be based on science that works and can be applied within the context of the experiment.
 
Be careful how you interpret headlines. Search for the facts, and if you need help, contact someone who can help you get it right, which ultimately leads to better outcomes. That’s what GOAT Sports Performance is all about: becoming the best you’re capable of becoming.
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