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Soccer Tip of the Week 
The Importance of Mental SkillsThe best pace to start is to outline why mental skills are so important to performance and why they are often neglected by coaches and athletes. Yogi Bera has been quoted as saying, "sport is 90% mental and 50% physical." You can question his mathematical savvy, but if you're an athlete, coach or fan, you can't question his wisdom. Most of us realize that it is often deficits in our psychological game rather than errors in our physical performance that keep us from performing at optimum levels in practice, games or matches. Both research and anecdotal evidence support the notion that it is not the physical talents or abilities that separate athletes and teams, or successful versus less successful performance. Rather, the psychological dimension in sport is the most frequently cited variable explaining a given sport outcome or individual performance. In fact, when over 600 United States Olympic Athletes were interviewed after the 1996 Olympic Games and asked to list the top ten factors essential for success at the higher levels of competition, mental skills were listed in the to five spots. Not surprising, the single most important quality cited was mental toughness. In sixth place, athletes listed physical talent. What do these elite performers know that the rest of us can utilize to supplement our traditional training methods? They understand and develop the psychological dimension of their game. No matter what sport you play or the level of competition you face, recognizing and developing your mental game plan should be a significant priority.
The Fundamentals
© Dr. Colleen Hacker February 2000
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