Gender Inequality in Sports
When it comes to gender inequity in sports, one blog post cannot do the conversation justice. There are many conversations and threads that must be discussed. Moreover, conversations need to be turned into action. However, we must begin somewhere. This blog post hopes to serve as primer to introduce the topic in hopes of inspiring more conversations and action to bring about lasting change.
What Do Rugby and Artistic Swimming Have in Common? Part 2
Welcome to part 2 in this series about artistic swimming and rugby. Hopefully, last week encouraged everyone to learn more about both of these sports and any associated biases. Now it is time to look at these two sports through the lens of stigma. While these two sports may seem vastly different, how they are impacted by stigma brings them closer together as they are often misunderstood by the general public. These misconceptions include the nature of their athleticism, the intense physical impacts, and the gender-based stereotypes. Let’s begin our exploration on the impacts of stigma on these two sports.
What Do Rugby and Artistic Swimming Have in Common? Part 1
How often do we even think about comparing rugby and artistic swimming? Probably not too often, however, there is an important reason to explore these two sports and next week we will dive more deeply into this topic.
Building Creativity for Athletes
How often do people hear creativity, sports, and athletes in the same sentence? Chances are rare, if at all Yet, creativity can be one of the most essential topics in sports (Fardilha & Allen, 2020; Rasmussen et al., 2019). When we think about athletic creativity from a sport psychology perspective, many minds go to encouraging exploration, varied training, and open-ended problem solving, thus encouraging athletes to expand their flexibility and ability to identify novel solutions. The result is increased confidence and performance from the exposure to the above ideas, in addition to other topics such as the introduction of novel ideas, the use of visualization, and adapting creative mental exercises, like role-playing and including creative non-sport activities. Mouth full! Yep! So let’s break this down a little bit and make it fun.
Sport Psychology and Training Indoors
Chances are that many people dread the thought of training indoors because the experience is not the same. There are not the same cues that people experience when they are outdoors training such as the wind, sights, and a chance to practice cornering. That can make the experience not as enjoyable. We all lack the opportunity to practice certain skills, like cornering, but at the same time gain the opportunity to practice others, like cadence.
Putting the Body Back into Sport and Performance Psychology
What is something that we all have in common? If you guessed the body, you would be correct! We all have a body that we live in on a daily basis. And the several past blog posts have highlighted a few themes: mental health, sport and performance psychology, and the mind-body connection. These themes absolutely stand on their own and are essential. What they can also do together is bridge the gap between athletes and performers, sport and performance psychology, and the body. That may sound funny to say because athletes and performers use their body constantly. And yet, when we look at sport and performance psychology we see a strong focus on the mind
An Introduction to the Stigma Surrounding Sport and Performance Psychology and Athlete Mental Health
Mental health issues affect athletes at prevalence rates that are similar to the general population even with the belief that athletes are protected because of their highly active lifestyles (Petersen et al., 2023). And yet, stigma continues to be an issue for athletes when it comes to seeking support from a mental health professional or sport and performance consultant (SPC). Let’s begin our discussion because when we start to talk about mental health and sport psychology consulting we begin to break the stigma.
What is Sport Psychology? What Sport Psychology is Not?
In a previous blog post, we discussed mental health and mental health stigma. Now it seems appropriate that we bring up sport psychology to understand more about what sport psychology is and what it is not. And, yes there still is stigma and misunderstanding surrounding this branch of psychology.
Remember the Importance of the Nonverbal in Athletes: Language of Postures and Gestures
The body is the instrument of the athlete and as such there are many ways the body communicates. We often think of verbal communication first, but what the body conveys in terms of the nonverbal is also an essential element for athletes to consider. So let’s bring the nonverbal back into the conversation.
Mental Imagery or Sport Imagery Practices for Athletes to Enhance Performance
But what about a technique that does not require physical practice that helps improve motor learning? Enter mental imagery, sport imagery or visualization.
Barriers for Sport and Performance Consultants
Sport and performance consults exist within the world of psychology. They also exist within the world of sports. Both of these worlds introduce challenges for how a sport and performance consult can be introduced into the picture to help athletes. What is identified in this post about barriers for sport and performance consults hopes to illuminate some of these barriers and suggests ways that these barriers can potentially be overcome.