Sports are an amazing environment in which to raise children. The benefits they gain from athletic participation are many, including physical, personal, and social. Yet, there is also a dark side to today's youth sports culture, as an emphasis on winning has made what was once fun become a burden for many young athletes. As a result, parents can't always be certain their children's athletic involvement will be safe and enjoyable. In Raising Young Athletes: Parenting Your Children to Victory in Sports and Life, Dr. Jim Taylor-an internationally-recognized authority on sport psychology, child development, and parenting-offers a guiding hand to help parents ensure their children's sports participation encourages positive attitudes and promotes healthy developments as they move toward adulthood. The role of parents in shaping their children's sports experience has never been more important, and Dr. Taylor shows parents how to send the right messages to their young athletes with clear and practical advice. Whether playing sports just for fun or with aspirations to play professionally, Raising Young Athletes helps parents steer their children toward a healthy, positive experience. As such, their participation will become an impactful part of their lives that will prepare them to be victorious both in sports and in life.

Written by a leading mental skills coach and contributing writer to Runner's World (US), this is a practical guide to building the psychological resilience that athletes need to recover from injury and rebound stronger.

Injuries affect every athlete, from the elite Olympian to the weekend racer. In the moment, a traumatic crash, a torn muscle, or a stress fracture can feel like the most devastating event possible. While some athletes are destroyed by the experience, others emerge from their recovery better, stronger, and more confident than ever.

The key to a swifter, stronger comeback is the use of mental skills: psychological tools that enable an athlete to take control of their recovery and ultimately use the experience to their advantage. Injury and other setbacks are inevitable - but with training, overcoming them skillfully and confidently is possible.

This book will provide a clear, compelling explanation of psychological recovery from injury and a practical guide to building mental resilience. Weaving together personal narratives from star athletes, scientific research, and the specialized clinical expertise of mental skills coach Carrie Jackson Cheadle, it will contain more than 45 Mental Skills and Drills that athletes can use at every phase of their recovery process. These same strategies can help athletes who aren't currently injured reduce their vulnerability to injury, and enable any individual to reach new heights within their sport and beyond.

Mixed methods research techniques, combining both quantitative and qualitative elements, have become well established throughout the social, behavioural and natural sciences. This is the first book to focus on the application of mixed methods research in the movement sciences, specifically in sport, physical education and dance. Researchers and practitioners in each of these fields are concerned with the study of habitual behaviour in naturalistic contexts, and of the concurrent and sequential nature of events and states, precisely the kind of work that multi-method research design can help illuminate. The book is arranged into four sections. The first provides a thorough overview of mixed methods procedures and research design, and summarizes their applicability to the movement sciences. The remaining sections then offer detailed case studies of mixed methods research in team and individual sports (analyzing hidden patterns of play and optimising technique); kinesics and dance (analyzing motor skills behaviour in childhood, and the complexity of motor responses in dance); and physical education (detecting interaction patterns in group situations, and optimizing non-verbal communication by teachers and sports coaches). Mixed Methods Research in the Movement Sciences offers an important new tool for researchers and helps to close the gap between the analysis of expert performance and our understanding of the general principles of movement science. It is important reading for any student, researcher or professional with an interest in motor control, sport and dance pedagogy, coaching, performance analysis or decision-making in sport.

Mental toughness is one of the most common terms used in sport by athletes, coaches, spectators and the media. However, it is also one of the least understood terms. This book examines the characteristics and development of mentally tough sport performers, and presents the cutting-edge research in this area. Within these chapters, the author proposes that mental toughness is a personality style and mindset, and presents a compelling case for its inclusion within the positive psychological paradigm.

This second edition has been updated to include new material on the characterisation, conceptualisation, measurement, and development of mental toughness. As in the first edition the book includes a historical overview of empirical research, and also describes the conceptual arguments behind this research.

Now packed with even more rigorous scientific evidence and bang up-to-date anecdotes from the world of sport, the book presents a fascinating explanation of why some athletes are successful, and how and why they stay on top. Mental Toughness: The Mindset Behind Sporting Achievement will be essential reading for all sport psychology, sport science, sport studies, and coaching students.

Motor Learning in Practice explores the fundamental processes of motor learning and skill acquisition in sport, and explains how a constraints-led approach can be used to design more effective learning environments for sports practice and performance. Drawing on ecological psychology, the book examines the interaction of personal, environmental and task-specific constraints in the development of motor skills, and then demonstrates how an understanding of those constraints can be applied in a wide range of specific sports and physical activities.

The first section of the book contains two chapters that offer an overview of the key theoretical concepts that underpin the constraints-led approach. These chapters also examine the development of fundamental movement skills in children, and survey the most important instructional strategies that can be used to develop motor skills in sport. The second section of the book contains eighteen chapters that apply these principles to specific sports, including basketball, football, boxing, athletics field events and swimming.

This is the first book to apply the theory of a constraints-led approach to training and learning techniques in sport. Including contributions from many of the world's leading scholars in the field of motor learning and development, this book is essential reading for any advanced student, researcher or teacher with an interest in motor skills, sport psychology, sport pedagogy, coaching or physical education.

Acclaimed sports psychologist Bob Rotella has advised everyone from professional golfers to NBA superstars to business executives on how to flourish under pressure and overcome challenges. "Rotella's philosophy is astonishingly simple...his success rate...is phenomenal" (The New York Times). Now, for the first time, he's distilled his decades of in-depth research and practical experience into a potential-unlocking guide for everyone, from businesspeople to athletes to parents. Most psychology is focused on trying to make abnormal people normal. Bob Rotella's work is to make normal people exceptional. How Champions Think takes readers inside the minds of winners in many fields. It explores how to keep the mind from holding you back, whatever your physical gifts or other talents. It's about how to make a commitment, how to persevere, how to deal with failure. It's about how to train your mind to create a self-image that promotes confidence and accomplishment. Any successful life starts with how you see yourself. And with these pearls of wisdom from the nation's preeminent sports psychologist, you can learn to achieve the success of your dreams. "Straightforward and simple...Do the math. Read Rotella" (The Wall Street Journal).

A strong relationship between sport fans and teams is an essential component for the success of the sport brand. This book provides an in-depth examination of the use of Twitter as a tool to enhance and maintain the fan-team relationship. As social media platforms have expanded beyond purely personal use, brands have had to adjust their strategic communication and marketing efforts. Drawing on research and theory from advertising, marketing, mass communication, and public relations, this book uses a mixed methods approach to better understand how online fan engagement using Twitter can help strengthen the fan-team relationship. Findings from this research has implications for the continued scholarly work on online engagement and relationship building as well as practical applications for effective use of Twitter as a strategic communication tool.

• How can the skills of the sport psychologist be put to best use within a football club?
• How can a sport psychologist help elite footballers perform at their maximum level?

In this groundbreaking guide to the role of the sport psychologist within elite and professional football, leading sport psychologist Mark Nesti argues that working closely with coaches and players to create a receptive environment is vital if psychologists are to add maximum value to team and individual performances.

Drawing on a decade's professional experience working at the top level of English football, Nesti offers a detailed guide to delivering sport psychology in an elite team sport environment, from practical drills on the training field to shaping organizational behaviour at club level. The book explores the full range of issues and themes that define the role of the professional sport psychologist working in football today, including:

• mental skills training
• group cohesion and team dynamics
• counselling, trust and confidentiality
• transitions in football
• managerial and coaching philosophies
• structure, communication and organizational psychology.

The book is illustrated throughout with real-world case studies, drawing on research into sixteen professional clubs across five European countries, and concludes by suggesting how other elite team sports can learn from the experiences of professional football. This is the only book to outline a holistic approach to psychology in football and the to offer such a rich combination of theory and practice. It is therefore essential reading for all students of sport psychology and all psychologists and coaches working in elite team sport.

Pure Sport is a practical guide that provides insights on asserting positive mindsets, realising potential, remaining resilient against setbacks and using these experiences to move on to greater success. The book follows the journey of the athlete through six clear steps, creating a logical framework for applied sport psychology or a path you can follow in your own practice. The third edition is fully updated and now more accessible than ever, including new advice on maintaining a resilient attitude and taking care of athletes' mental well-being. Drawing on decades of both practical and theoretical knowledge, the authors deliver practical advice with a thorough grounding in sport psychology, supplemented by case studies, reflection questions, common problems and effective solutions, and useful summaries of key points. Pure Sport is essential reading for all those actively involved and interested in sport, from sports psychologists and academics, to athletes and coaches.

Motor Learning in Practice explores the fundamental processes of motor learning and skill acquisition in sport, and explains how a constraints-led approach can be used to design more effective learning environments for sports practice and performance. Drawing on ecological psychology, the book examines the interaction of personal, environmental and task-specific constraints in the development of motor skills, and then demonstrates how an understanding of those constraints can be applied in a wide range of specific sports and physical activities.

The first section of the book contains two chapters that offer an overview of the key theoretical concepts that underpin the constraints-led approach. These chapters also examine the development of fundamental movement skills in children, and survey the most important instructional strategies that can be used to develop motor skills in sport. The second section of the book contains eighteen chapters that apply these principles to specific sports, including basketball, football, boxing, athletics field events and swimming.

This is the first book to apply the theory of a constraints-led approach to training and learning techniques in sport. Including contributions from many of the world's leading scholars in the field of motor learning and development, this book is essential reading for any advanced student, researcher or teacher with an interest in motor skills, sport psychology, sport pedagogy, coaching or physical education.

Introductory textbook for sport and exercise psychology courses; ideal for students pursuing a career as a sport psychologist, coach, physical educator, fitness instructor, athletic trainer, physical therapist, or sports medicine professional. Also a reference for libraries and sport psychologists.

What are the most effective tools, techniques and technologies available to coaches and sport scientists in the assessment of player and team performance? This is the first book dedicated to the assessment of performance in field sports such as soccer, rugby, hockey and lacrosse. It provides detailed and clear information about the laboratory and field-based methods that can be used to evaluate improvements in individual and team performance, from basic physiological assessment to the use of video and information technologies. Standing at the interface between sport sciences and sport coaching, the book examines a wide range of performance criteria, including: physiology strength, conditioning and fitness decision-making coordination and motor skills sport specific skills team play. Integrating cutting-edge theory, research and technology with best practice in applied sport science, this book is important reading for all students of sport sciences, kinesiology, human movement science, sports performance, or sports coaching. Christopher Carling is Head of Sports Science at Lille Football Club. Thomas Reilly is Director of the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University. He is President of the World Commission of Science and Sports. A. Mark Williams is Professor of Motor Behaviour at the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University.

Sports are an amazing environment in which to raise children. The benefits they gain from athletic participation are many, including physical, personal, and social. Yet, there is also a dark side to today's youth sports culture, as an emphasis on winning has made what was once fun become a burden for many young athletes. As a result, parents can't always be certain their children's athletic involvement will be safe and enjoyable. In Raising Young Athletes: Parenting Your Children to Victory in Sports and Life, Dr. Jim Taylor-an internationally-recognized authority on sport psychology, child development, and parenting-offers a guiding hand to help parents ensure their children's sports participation encourages positive attitudes and promotes healthy developments as they move toward adulthood. The role of parents in shaping their children's sports experience has never been more important, and Dr. Taylor shows parents how to send the right messages to their young athletes with clear and practical advice. Whether playing sports just for fun or with aspirations to play professionally, Raising Young Athletes helps parents steer their children toward a healthy, positive experience. As such, their participation will become an impactful part of their lives that will prepare them to be victorious both in sports and in life.

This book is a practical resource designed for clinicians, researchers, and advanced students who wish to learn about single-case research designs. It covers the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of single-case designs, as well as their practical application in the clinical and research neurorehabilitation setting. The book briefly traces the history of single-case experimental designs (SCEDs); outlines important considerations in understanding and planning a scientifically rigorous single-case study, including internal and external validity; describes prototypical single-case designs (withdrawal-reversal designs and the medical N-of-1 trial, multiple-baseline designs, alternating-treatments designs, and changing-criterion designs) and required features to meet evidence standards, threats to internal validity, and strategies to address them; addresses data evaluation, covering visual analysis of graphed data, statistical techniques, and clinical significance; and provides a practical ten-step procedure for implementing single-case methods. Each chapter includes detailed illustrative examples from the neurorehabilitation literature. Novel features include: A focus on the neurorehabilitation setting, which is particularly suitable for single-case designs because of the complex and often unique presentation of many patients/clients. A practical approach to the planning, implementation, data analysis, and reporting of single-case designs. An appendix providing a detailed summary of many recently published SCEDs in representative domains in the neurorehabilitation field, covering basic and instrumental activities of daily living, challenging behaviours, disorders of communication and cognition, mood and emotional functions, and motor-sensory disabilities. It is valuable reading for clinicians and researchers in several disciplines working in rehabilitation, including clinical and neuropsychology, education, language and speech pathology, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. It is also an essential resource for advanced students in these fields who need a textbook for specialised courses on research methodology and use of single-case design in applied clinical and research settings.

Now including exercise psychology terms for the first time in its second edition, Sport and Exercise Psychology: The Key Concepts offers a highly accessible introduction to this fascinating subject, its central theories and state-of-the-art research. Over 300 alphabetically-ordered entries cover such diverse terms as:

• 
  
• adherence
• 
  
• aggression
• 
  
• emotion
• 
  
• exercise dependence
• 
  
• home advantage
• 
  
• kinesiphobia
• 
  
• left-handedness
• 
  
• motivation
• 
  
• retirement
• 
  
• self-confidence.

Cross-referenced, with suggestions for further reading and a full index, this latest key guide contains invaluable advice on the psychology of sport and exercise. A comprehensive A-Z guide to a fast-moving field of inquiry, this book is an essential resource for scholars, coaches, trainers, journalists, competitors, exercisers; in fact anyone associated with sport and exercise.

This book brings together world-class professionals to share theoretical understanding applied to sport, exercise and performance domains. It highlights how to be more effective in developing psychological skills, context and understanding for educators, students and professionals. From both academic and practitioner perspectives, this book takes readers through contextual understanding of this field of study and into a wide variety of important areas. Specifically, the chapters focus on the mind-body relationship and performance challenges, and on core mental skills applied across different sport, exercise and performance examples (including professional athletes, normal exercise populations and military service members). The final section expands the context into the role of relationships and performance in group settings to cover a broad practice of modern day applied performance psychology.

Complex Cases in Sport Psychology offers instructors and students a unique and novel approach to teaching and learning about sport psychology. The book consists of a series of character-driven narratives-set within the context of a university athletic department-which encourage discussion and critical thinking in order to find solutions to issues such as athletes lacking in motivation, introducing mental skills training programs and improving recruitment. The book begins with a section introducing the teaching cases approach (suggesting further reading and methods for its delivery), the university setting and the issues this context provides for the sport psychologist, and the cast of characters involved. It goes on to detail over twenty cases spread across four parts (organizational performance, team performance, individual performance, and injury and recovery), each based around a piece of theory and including clear learning outcomes, tasks and non-prescriptive guidance on reaching a solution. With online resources which include topical cases, further guidance on the teaching cases approach and an instructor's manual, this is an essential supplementary resource for any instructor looking to provide experiential learning and encourage critical thinking in their sport psychology classrooms. Covering a full range of psychological issues in a relevant sporting context, it is also an important, hands-on guide to counselling for any upper-level student of sport psychology.

'Pippa Grange has something to teach all of us when it comes to letting go of perfectionism and anxiety, and living with open hearts rather than clenched fists. Fear Less is a total game-changer.' Brene Brown If we were truly free from fear, what could we achieve? We strive for success, but we are rarely happy. The more we try to win - putting on a brave face for work or family - the more we risk losing ourselves. And even reaching our goals can feel strangely hollow. The culprit? Fear. It makes us anxious, or shameful, or turns us into perfectionists. We pretend to be someone else while aiming for a status that's never truly satisfying. There is another way. A way to find our true voice, to win on our own terms. Building that open mindset is at the heart of this mould-breaking book by Dr Pippa Grange, the psychologist who helped transform the England team, taking them all the way to the World Cup semi-finals in 2018. In Fear Less, Pippa Grange shows all of us how, by starting to live with less fear, we can find our real passions and deeper fulfilment. Her simple manifesto enables us to replace stress with courage, and connect with the people around us on a far deeper level. This type of success isn't about trophies or beating others, it's about winning at the very deepest level: winning from within. It's time to fear less.

Sport, Recovery and Performance is a unique multi-disciplinary collection which examines both the psychological and physiological dimensions to recovery from sport. Including contributions from medicine, neuroscience, psychology and sport science, the book expertly explores the implications for applied and strategic interventions to both retain and stabilize performance, and promote health and well-being. Including chapters written by its leading experts, the book represents an important milestone in this evolving field of study. It covers issues around measuring recovery, the impact of overtraining on sleep and mental health, and addresses topics such as the impact of travel on performance. The book informs not only how managing recovery can improve performance, but also offers insights in how recovery can sustain athletes' physical and mental health. Citing research from a range of individual and team sports, as well as extreme situations and the workplace, this is an important book that will be widely read across the sport sciences.

Laterality in Sports: Theories and Applications summarizes recent research on the neurophysiological foundations of handedness, and how left or right lateralization (affecting primary hand use, foot use, and eye use) affects motor control, performance outcome, skill acquisition, and achievement of sports expertise-both for one-on-one sports and team sports. As laterality research has matured, greater focus has been given to applications in human endeavours and, in particular, sport. The book examines performance within individual sports, and discusses the coaching ramifications of coaching to a specific lateralization preference.

Psychology for Dancers: Theory and Practice to Fulfil Your Potential examines how psychological theory can be related to dance practice. Aimed at the dancer who wants to maximize their potential but has no grounding in psychology, the book begins with an examination of basic psychological concepts, approaches and methods, before applying theory to dance. The book explores why dance is so important in many people's lives: as a form of fitness, a profession, or visual entertainment. Each chapter then examines a different aspect of psychology related to dance in an applied context. Self-perception is examined as dancers are under great scrutiny; a grounded sense of self will ensure a positive perception of self-worth and body image, and suggestions are made as to how a healthy and motivational climate can be created. The book also places an emphasis on how cognitive skills are as important as technical skills, including the ability to learn and recall steps and choreography as efficiently as possible. Social factors are related to the dance context, with a discussion of effective leadership and communication skills and the importance of group cohesion. Finally, there is a review of the impact of emotions on dance practice and how best to manage these emotions. Each chapter reviews important psychological theories, offering practical suggestions on how they can be applied to dance practice. Psychology for Dancers is an invaluable resource for students, professionals, and teachers of dance.

Performance Excellence: Stories of Success from the Real World of Sport and Exercise Psychology provides concise and effective lessons on a variety of psychological skills and broader concepts within the domains of exercise, sport, and performance psychology. These skills and concepts include team cohesion, dynamics, and leadership; goal-setting, motivation, and adherence; exercise identity, athletic identity, transitions, and self-awareness; mental training; mindset; and facing and overcoming challenges such as anxiety, burnout, and rehabilitation. Each chapter includes a short educational piece that centers on the select concept and subsequent examples that highlight how the concept works in real life. At the end of each lesson a few takeaways are provided. Over 60 stories of real-world examples provide poignant and compelling lessons and make the material come alive. These stories show the reader in an accessible and engaging way how to apply the sport and exercise psychology concepts outside the classroom. Ultimately, Performance Excellence serves as a wonderful resource for students, as well as for sport and exercise practitioners.

Martial Arts and Well-Being explores how martial arts as a source of learning can contribute in important ways to health and well-being, as well as provide other broader social benefits. Using psychological and sociological theory related to behaviour, ritual, perception and reality construction, the book seeks to illustrate, with empirical data, how individuals make sense of and perceive the value of martial arts in their lives. This book draws on data from over 500 people, across all age ranges, and powerfully demonstrates that participating in martial arts can have a profound influence on the construction of behaviour patterns that are directly linked to lifestyle and health. Making individual connections regarding the benefits of practice, improvements to health and well-being - regardless of whether these improvements are 'true' in a medical sense - this book offers an important and original window into the importance of beliefs to health and well-being as well as the value of thinking about education as a process of life-long learning. This book will be of great interest to a range of audiences, including researchers, academics and postgraduate students interested in sports and exercise psychology, martial art studies and health and well-being. It should also be of interest to sociologists, social workers and martial arts practitioners. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315448084, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Emotions are widely acknowledged as an inextricable feature of human behaviour, experience and interaction. They are, arguably, the glue that can bind people together or, alternatively, drive them apart. While social scientists have paid increasing attention to the centrality of emotions in social and pedagogical relationships, the sport coaching literature has remained largely free of emotions. Indeed, there remains a paucity of scholarship exploring how emotions such as excitement, joy, anger, anxiety, guilt, pride and embarrassment may be (re-)produced in, as well as through, the social interactions and contextual relations that constitute coaching. Similarly, we know very little about how these, and other, emotions are embodied in the everyday practice of individuals and groups. The aim of this book was to generate new and exploratory insights into the emotions that are an inherent feature of social relations and individual experience in coaching. Using a variety of psychological and sociological frameworks, the chapters in this book not only explore the interconnections between emotion, identity, cognition and learning, but they also serve as a platform for stimulating further inquiry in this topic area. The chapters were originally published in a special issue of Sports Coaching Review.

Mindfulness- and acceptance-based approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Mindfulness Acceptance Commitment (MAC) are gaining momentum with sport psychology practitioners who work to support elite athletes. These acceptance-based, or third wave, cognitive behavioral approaches in sport psychology highlight that thought suppression and control techniques can trigger a metacognitive scanning process, and that excessive cognitive activity and task-irrelevant focus (self-focused attention such as trying to change thoughts) disrupts performance. Using this perspective, the aim of sport psychology interventions is not to help the athletes engage in the futile task of managing and controlling internal life. Rather, it suggests that sport psychology practitioners should work to increase athletes' willingness to accept negative thoughts and emotions in pursuit of valued ends. Key aspects of such interventions include: teaching athletes to open up and accept, teaching athletes to mindfully engage in the present moment, and helping athletes formulate the values and engage in committed actions towards these values. The goal of Mindfulness and Acceptance in Sport: How to Help Athletes Perform and Thrive under Pressure then is to provide students, researchers, practitioners, and coaches of sport psychology with practical guidance for implementing mindfulness and acceptance approaches in their work with athletes. This book brings together highly experienced practitioners and shares their working methods, exercises, and cases to inspire the sport psychology profession.