The Sport Psych Show

Basketball coach Carly Clarke discusses champion's behaviors, coaching through questioning, athlete ownership, team cohesion, managing distractions, learning from losses, and post-training reflection in an engaging conversation.

This week is Clean Sport Week in the UK. Clean Sport week is an initiative run by UKAD (UK Anti-Doping) and is an opportunity to come together and celebrate the important values of clean sport and support the hard work that sport in the UK is doing in the fight against doping. This year the main focus of the week is on Image and Performance Enhancing Drugs (IPEDs), and in particular the use of IPEDs within the gym environment. I am joined by sport psychology consultant Dr Claire-Marie Roberts to discuss all things psychology and drug use in sport. Claire-Marie holds an academic position at the University of the West of England and works for the Premier League in coach and football manager development. She also sits of the board of UKAD. We speak about the motivations behind IPED use; normalising the use of IPEDs; the prevalence of IPEDs; social identity and breaking the cycle of IPED use.

In this episode I speak with chartered occupational psychologist, Sarah Broadhead. Sarah is currently the GB Taekwondo team psychologist and has worked with a range of sports – British Swimming, GB Canoeing, Archery GB, UK Athletics, GB Triathlon, Formula 3 motor racing, European Tour golfers, a world champion 800m runner and CG gold medal winning mountain biker. Sarah was part of the Director team that created Chimp Management with Prof Steve Peters in 2013, shaping the vision of the company. She now has her own company which gives individuals and organisations in sport and business the insight, skills and support they need to perform and thrive. We speak about Compassion Focused Therapy; the complexities of the brain; understanding why the brain does what it does; the differences between the adult and adolescent brain; understanding why someone is doing what they're doing; ownership; normalising feelings; role modelling; motivation; developing a positive inner voice; and threat, drive and compassion.

I'm delighted to be joined by one of the world's leading sport and performance psychologists in this episode - Dr Andrea Furst. Andrea currently works with Surrey cricket and GB and England Hockey as well as having her own consultancy. She has been involved in 4 Olympic and para-Olympic games, specifically in Australian sprint canoe-kayak, 100m hurdles, long jump, triathlon, as well as sailing and swimming for Singapore. Andrea was psychologist to the gold medal winning Great Britain women's hockey team in Rio 2016. We speak about cultural differences in sport and in athletes; working with Olympic teams as a sport psychologist; the importance of not being results focused; talking about failure as well as success; identity; vulnerability and the characteristics of great coaches.

I have the pleasure of being joined by David White in this episode. David is a public speaker, national learning facilitator, consultant and performance coach. He has recently released a fascinating book called Superstitionism - The Psychology of Sport which looks at the role superstition plays for athletes in all sports the world over. And it's this book we focus on during our discussion, specifically: superstition as a belief system; the impact of 'lucky' boots; why athletes have superstitions; the 'actual truth' vs the 'awful truth'; luck vs chance and probability; self-talk; law of attraction and superstitions as a source of comfort.

I'm joined by coaching expert, speaker, educator and author Coach Reed Maltbie in this episode. Reed is the founder of Raising Excellence, a company working with educators, coaches, parents, athletes, and sports leaders to develop more effective sports participation models. Previously Chief Content Officer and Lead Presenter for the Changing the Game Project, Reed has been coaching excellence beyond the game for 26 years and has become an internationally respected expert on youth sports. He has also authored articles and presented webinars on communication, culture, bullying, competitive mindset, skill acquisition. We speak about peak performances; removing fear; competency; the importance of feeling valued; the significance of significance; allowing players to explore and coaches being afraid of change.

In this episode I'm speaking with inspirational consultant, coach and facilitator Paul Z Jackson. Paul devises and runs training courses and development programmes in change, strategy, leadership, teamwork, performance improvement and innovation and he's actually been a big influence on my career since I attended one of his courses back in 2005. Paul's Solutions Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) courses have led hundreds of people and organisations through positive processes of change. And in this podcast, we focus on SFBT, specifically we speak about focusing on solutions not problems; what confidence looks like; scaling; learning from success; drawing attention to the things that players are doing well and using clear not complicated language.

I have the pleasure of being joined by Dr Mustafa Sarkar and Clara Swedlund. Mustafa is Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Nottingham Trent University. His background is in teaching and research with most of his research focusing on the psychology of sporting and performance excellence, specifically looking at resilience in high achievers in sport and business. Mustafa works with coaches and organisations helping them to develop resilience in athletes and teams. Clara is currently undertaking her Masters degree in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Loughborough University. Clara competes as a body builder and talks about how she applies the techniques she studies to her training and competitive mindset. She also runs a blog that documents her journey to becoming a qualified sport psychologist and on it, she wrote a blog post that was based on an article Mustafa had co-written about resilience which is why they've come together on the Sport Psych Show. We look at what resilience is; personality characteristics; the significance of environment; high challenge, high support environments; Cognitive Behavioural Theory (CBT) and psychological safety.

I have the pleasure of being joined by sport and performance scientist Elliott Newell on this episode. Elliot is currently Senior Performance Pathway Scientist at the English Institute of Sport. Specialising in psychological support, Elliott works in high performance sport with an emphasis on talent development. His focus is on supporting sports in using psychological knowledge and strategies to maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of performance pathways. We speak about British canoeing; considering the performer, the athlete, and the person; balancing learning, well-being and performance; Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE); Formulation Analysis; and the importance of integrating sport psychology into the environment.

I speak with The Wall Street Journal's leadership columnist Sam Walker on this episode. Sam founded the Journal's prizewinning daily sports coverage in 2009 and is a former reporter, sports columnist, and sports editor. Sam also consults with companies and teams about building better leadership cultures and has authored the hugely popular book "The Captain Class" which looks at the link between the seventeen most dominant teams in sports history. And it's this book that we mainly focus on during our chat. We speak about the relationship between a captain and the coach; the culture of winning; Sir Alex Ferguson; the role of a coach; the traits of highly successful captains; delegating leadership skills; and body language and projecting the right emotions.