For centuries, the game of golf has captivated everyone from the poor working class to the upper crust of society. There is something enigmatic about the game that sets it apart from all other sports. Rife with strict rules on etiquette, yet often played in solitude, golf truly tests the body, mind, and spirit.In this collection of 18 short stories, "The Guru of Golf" celebrates perhaps one of the most widely popular of athletic pursuits. Thomas Moore shows us how golf can be a perfect metaphor for life itself--endlessly mysterious, joyful, and fascinating; while at times frustrating, infuriating, and unbearable. From the tee to the green, Moore intertwines modern and classical tales that illustrate the challenges players face--both on and off the course.Humorous and insightful, "The Guru of Golf "captures the range of emotions associated with its players' ardent determination; searches for meaning behind quiet moments; and reveals the struggles that try our patience, as well as the victories that make the game--and life--worthwhile.

Why should we exercise? When should we exercise? Why don't we exercise? The Psychology of Exercise separates fact from fiction, delving into key theories, ideas, and the impact of life stages on when, why, and how we exercise. It explores the barriers and motivators to exercise for children, teenagers, adults, and retirees as well as for those living with a chronic health condition. It shows how when we personalise activity programmes, exercise becomes a life-affirming, life-lengthening habit. Using real-life case studies from those who work with exercisers at all levels, The Psychology of Exercise shows us the huge value that comes from exercising in every stage of our lives.

Sport psychology is the study of a person's behaviour in sport. It is also a specialisation within the brain psychology and kinesiology that seeks to understand psychological/mental factors that affect performance in sports, physical activity, and exercise and apply these to enhance individual and team performance. This book presents current research in the study of sport psychology including such topics as the social and environmental influences on athletic motivation; superstitious beliefs on athlete's cognitive and affective responses; socio-psychological risk among at-risk student athletes; and mental toughness in sports.

Before 1970, scientific research in swimming was poor and anecdotal, and the improvements of performance were linked firstly to the swimmer's experience and, secondly, as a result of permanent research for speed. Before and after the Second World War, scientific studies were conducted by pioneers and marked the beginning of research in stroke mechanics and swimming physiology exercise. This book reviews research on the body of knowledge available for the improvement of sports coaching and training practice in swimming, which seems to be relevant, numerous, and diversified enough to help swimming coaches bridge the gap between theory and practice.

This book captures the contributions of world-wide experts, based upon earlier special editions of a peer reviewed sport psychology journal titled Athletic Insight. Most often sport psychology books either contain similar chapters across books pertaining to theoretical concepts or applied practices. On occasion, textbooks also contain a special topics section placed at the very end of the compendium with a few contributions regarded as a special topics issue. The present compilation is built entirely of special topics, where the focus is to forefront diverse perspectives through three distinct sections, each with contributions pertaining to research and practice. Section One is comprised of practical application. Within Section One the reader will find contributions pertaining to applied practice with Olympic and professional athletes based upon the first-hand experiences of elite practitioners from several continents. The intent through Section One is to propose strategies, reflecting several national perspectives that applied practitioners might employ as they enter the field or seek positions with elite sport organisations in the global sport community. Section Two reflects contributions about Cultural Sport Psychology (CSP). CSP is a burgeoning research and practice trajectory within sport and exercise psychology, launched formally through a special instalment of Athletic Insight. Most recently the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, the peer reviewed journal for the International Society of Sport Psychology has also featured a devoted instalment to the topic (Autumn, 2009). Section Two provides the reader with the most current work on CSP written by several highly creditable researchers a the forefront of the trajectory. Section Three is devoted to the intersection of sport psychology and ethics. Within Section Three the authors provide their respective views on the topic, carrying from the role of student practitioners struggling with matters of ethic to consultants of high-risk Olympic and professional sport teams faced with the ethical implications they encounter when working in the field.

After a successful career in sports, retirement can lead to confusion and a lack of identity for athletes. It doesn't have to be that way. Athletes have skills and talents that will help them build a new life but often need guidance. In Success Beyond Sport, 2000 Olympian Annette Huygens-Tholen, shares the story of her successful transition to the business world after reprenting Australia in Beach Volleyball for 15 years. Huygens-Tholen shares her 8 Winning Steps that will help professional athletes move into a new life after retirement, whether that retirement was due to injury, declining performance, or by choice. The book offers a fascinating look at the life of a high-level professional athlete as well as life lessons that apply to anyone interested in personal and professional development. Readers will learn how to use the skills lead to sporting success in the professional world, how to create goals that will motivate them as much as competition used to, how to see themselves as more than just their sporting history, and to create a plan for a new life that challenges and fulfills them. Forward by Chris Howard, International Lifestyle and Wealth Strategist and Best-selling Author "Success Beyond Sport is a must-read for any professional athlete who has put blood, sweat, and tears into his or her sport but must, at some point, retire and become a 'normal person." Simon Arkell, Two-Time Olympian "Extremely helpful in creating momentum and direction in the career search process." Erica Wheeler 1996 Olympian

Magical Golf - A Tale of Transformation is told as a story within a story. It is designed to help the reader integrate the information in a way that it can be immediately applied on the golf course. It includes a description of a process which when applied, can't not but, support transformation. It utilizes the game of golf to show the reader how to apply simple, yet profound and powerful principles in their lives as a way to enhance the release of their ultimate human potential (the magic within). This book, though focused on the game of golf, is a brief synopsis of some of the ideas, information and processes that I have learned to incorporate and integrate into my own life and that I share with my clients of whom I am privileged to teach and mentor. It is my hope and sincere desire that this book can, not only help you with your mental approach to improve your golf game (which it will), but can also in some small way assist you in your own transformation and journey through life.

Mentality examines how 16 leading sports personalities in Britain made it to the top. What does it take to perform at the highest level? What can we learn from their experiences? With an enlightening collection of insights by Joe Sillett and summaries from Europe's leading Mind Coach Karl Morris, the book is described by The Daily Telegraph as a "must-read for sports fans and coaches alike." The full list of contributors is as follows: Ben Ainslie, John Amaechi, Geoffrey Boycott, Laura Davies, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Andrew Flintoff, Dr Janet Gray, Alan Hansen, Damon Hill, Georgina Hulme, David James, AP McCoy, Scott Quinnell, Dennis Taylor, Phil "The Power" Taylor and Lee Westwood.

There has been considerable debate on sport psychology about the status and the function of cognition and action in sport. This debate is very relevant since there was a refinement of the different positions, and there were several attempts to integrate apparently contrasting perspectives. A main goal of this book is to put the links between cognition, perception and action into the discussion both oriented towards theory and practice, and thus, cast a new look on cognition and action in sport. The book is organised in three sections. Section I discusses the organisation of action attending to its dynamics and complexity. It shows how multiple levels of complexity are involved in performance and learning. Section II discusses not only what is knowledge, but also how athletes use it during performance. Section III presents different perspectives about judgement and decision-making as well as applications to training.

Human sport performance in recent years has surpassed what many thought was possible. In part these developments are due to development in sports science and strength and conditioning practices. The strength and conditioning arena has also grown dramatically over this period and draws on a range of academic disciplines including Exercise Physiology, Biomechanics, Sport Psychology and Physical Therapy. This book presents recent research in the field that provides a bridge between scientific knowledge and the strength and conditioning practitioner. A range of invigorating articles are included from a collection of international scientists and practitioners that examine areas pertinent to strength and conditioning from a range of perspectives. Research articles featured cover topics such as sport and exercise demands, the effect of training programs on performance, psychological impact of strength and conditioning training, the utility of conditioning exercises in pre and rehabilitation and biomechanical analysis of aspects of strength and conditioning practice.

Pete Sampras is arguably the greatest tennis player ever, a man whose hard-nosed work ethic led to an unprecedented number one world ranking for 286 weeks, and whose prodigious talent made possible a record-setting fourteen Grand Slam titles. While his more vocal rivals sometimes grabbed the headlines, Pete always preferred to let his racket do the talking.
Until now.
In "A Champion’s Mind," the tennis great who so often exhibited visible discomfort with letting people “inside his head” finally opens up. An athletic prodigy, Pete resolved from his earliest playing days never to let anything get in the way of his love for the game. But while this single-minded determination led to tennis domination, success didn’t come without a price. The constant pressure of competing on the world’s biggest stage—in the unblinking eye of a media machine hungry for more than mere athletic greatness—took its toll.
Here for the first time Pete speaks freely about what it was like to possess what he calls “the Gift.” He writes about the personal trials he faced—including the death of a longtime coach and confidant—and the struggles he gutted his way through while being seemingly on top of the world. Among the book’s most riveting scenes are an early devastating loss to Stefan Edberg that led Pete to make a monastic commitment to delivering on his natural talent; a grueling, four-hour-plus match against Alex Corretja during which Pete became seriously ill; fierce on-court battles with rival and friend Andre Agassi; and the triumphant last match of Pete’s career at the finals of the 2002 U.S. Open.
In "A Champion’s Mind," one of the most revered, successful, and intensely private players in the history of tennis offers an intimate look at the life of an elite athlete.

"From the Hardcover edition."

Cultural issues have become a significant aspect of the sport psychology field. As clinicians develop their practice to include more diverse athletes and sport psychologists expand to work in multicultural settings, "Cultural Sport Psychology" will prove to be a beneficial reference for the field. It is the first full text to focus entirely on cultural awareness, and its timeliness will spark increased discussion, reflection, and research of cultural considerations in sport psychology practice.

"Cultural Sport Psychology" offers researchers, practitioners, and consultants an excellent starting point for future research and practice. With contributions from a diverse group of established and aspiring experts in sport psychology, the text offers a complete and authoritative look at this developing field. The first two sections of the book will help readers understand the background of cultural sport psychology and how and why it should be studied. Concepts and theories shaping cultural sport psychology are identified and explored, and general guidelines are provided for practitioners to employ a cultural sport psychology approach.

Part III of the text offers rich and varied approaches to the practice of cultural sport psychology. Within this extensive 12-chapter section, contributors offer their firsthand experiences working with athletes in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ghana, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, and the United States. Some contributors offer a national perspective, focus on the influence of religion, or discuss cultural communities within a country and how to work effectively in relation to each. Others focus on cultural communities outside the mainstream, such as specific minority groups within the United States, Canada, and Australia. Case studies, advice, and suggestions in each chapter assist practitioners in engaging in multicultural exchanges within their sport psychology consulting sessions. Each chapter concludes with final suggestions or reflections based on the authors' experiences.

"Cultural Sport Psychology" focuses on important cultural factors such as religion, gender, personal space, and social structure. These factors and many others are laden with cultural assumptions that may contribute--positively or negatively--to athletic performance and an athlete's well-being. As the first compilation on the topic of multicultural considerations in sport psychology, "Cultural Sport Psychology" assists practitioners in creating strategies relative to the culture and context of their clients. This text is certain to stimulate ongoing discourse and encourage increased focus on effective cultural sport psychology practice.

The MACH 4 Mental Training System Tennis Workbook was created to be a supplement to my book titled "MACH 4 Mental Training System A Handbook for Athletes, Coaches and Parents." By implementing MACH 4 during practice sessions, lessons, and matches, players and coaches will have the complete package. Ultimately, the mind is in control and will determine whether technique and physical training will all come together at the same time to produce the best results. The goal of this Workbook is to help players become more aware of their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors (physical feelings) so that they can consistently play their best.

The MACH 4 Mental Training System Tennis Handbook and Workbook II for Coaches, Parents, and Players was created to be a supplement to my book titled MACH 4 Mental Training System: A Handbook for Athletes, Coaches and Parents. In addition to the worksheets for players in my book, I have included worksheets for coaches and parents in this Workbook. MACH 4 is a simple, effective system that provides organization and structure for tennis programs and tennis families by teaching coaches and parent's effective ways to dialogue with their players, conduct practice sessions, and create a winning team. The goal of this Handbook and Workbook is to make coaches, parents, and players more aware of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that hold them back so that necessary changes can be made to produce the best results. By implementing MACH 4 off-the-court and on-the-court during practices, lessons, and matches, coaches, parents, and players will create a winning team that produces winning results.

This book is aimed at managing performance anxiety in tennis from a sports psychology perspective. Have you ever found yourself worried and tense about a game you were due to play? On court, have you ever felt your breathing becoming laboured, your legs heavy and butterflies in your stomach? Have you cursed your inability to play simple shots, either under your breath or out loud? In a match, do you ever miss shots that you make consistently in your coaching sessions or practice games? Do you double fault at crucial points?
For most of us, many of these descriptions will sound similar. Would you like to understand why you have experienced them? Would you like to do something to prevent them happening again in the future? If the answer to any of these questions is 'yes', then this book is for you.
This book is unique to the market. Whilst there are several books to help with the general mental side of the game, none focus specifically upon managing anxiety in order to help improve tennis when it matters most ? in a match.
The book is organised into two parts. Part one is theoretical. It explores the meaning of anxiety, how anxious thoughts and feelings can lead to behaviour which inhibits performance, how individuals differ in their propensity to feel anxious and how we respond differently to stressful situations, such as playing in front of an audience.
Part two focuses on specific psychological techniques to manage tennis anxiety. It is full of practical advice on matters such as deep breathing, relaxation, distraction, positive self-talk, visualisation, body language and coping with pressure. If you read this book and put into practice just one or two of itssuggestions, your game will improve; if you practice all of the suggestions, your game will improve further still.

The application of psychology to sport and exercise settings is a relatively new field which is rapidly developing and expanding. This branch of psychology is concerned with understanding the behaviour, mental processes, and well-being of people who are involved in sport and exercise. Practitioners typically specialise in either the sport or exercise branches, though some work equally in both fields. This new book presents invigorating recent research in the field.

What if you could have the FOCUS of Tiger Woods, the CONFIDENCE of Roger Federer or the ENERGY of Maria Sharapova? Now you can. With Game. Set. Life. you will learn the secrets of all the successful people in history. Ed Tseng is a tennis pro (Pro of the Year USTA/NJD 2005), peak performance expert and motivational speaker who has worked with thousands of people from inmates at juvenile detention centers to professional athletes. This exciting new book will inspire you to go from where you are to where you want to be.

The fundamentals are a golfer's most important skills. They are the building blocks of success. While many books address the fundamentals of the physical side of golf, the one-of-a-kind "Why Alligators Make Good Golfers: A Guide to Thick Skin and Mental Toughness" identifies and gives instruction on the fundamentals of the mental side. On the golf course, mental skills are just as vital as physical skills, yet most players spend all of their time working on the physical side of their game, focusing exclusively on grip, stance, takeaway, and downswing. Their physical skills may be up to par, but their mental skills are often in the rough. In this thoroughly useful guide, Dr. Mark Frazier identifies and gives instruction on the mental fundamentals of golf:

• Playing with confidence
• Concentrating completely
• Managing nervousness
• Overcoming frustration
• The pre-shot routine
• Thinking straight In addition, strategies that have been course-tested and proven effective by the world's most successful players assist you in mastering each of the fundamentals. If you're interested in improving the quality and consistency of your game, it's time to develop your mental skills. "Why Alligators Make Good Golfers" will show you how

Experts in their field, the contributors offer their valuable insights into the complex intersection of sport psychology and injury, citing current research as well as real-life experience. New and updated chapters address an array of important topics and are grouped into relevant sections: Preventing athletic injury; Rehabilitating the injured athlete; counselling the injured athlete; Issues for coaches; and Special considerations and case studies.

GRAND SLAM: Coach Your Mind to Win in Sports, Business, and Life is a prescription for winning. Through anecdotes from her storied career in professional tennis and her own personal transformation, winner of 10 Grand Slam doubles and mixed doubles titles Dr. Anne Smith, talks about effective strategies for helping athletes, employers, parents and others develop a winning attitude, reach their maximum potential, and put themselves in the best position to win. Winning is more than the score at the end of the game. The themes that Smith examines - empowering others to be great, being a good role model, being a good teammate, creating a winning environment, having fun, taking risks - pertain not just to sports, but to managing employees and nurturing relationships, as well. Victory is never guaranteed, says Dr. Smith, but the emotional choices we make in competition and life will guarantee that you win - no matter what the outcome. This book is her guide to help you, too, become a "Grand Slam" winner in all that is important to you. 'In her new book, GRAND SLAM: Coach Your Mind to Win in Sports, Business, and Life, Anne provides us with a personal, insider's perspective on competing. Rest assured, Anne is a competitor - and we all know you don't get to be number one in the world in anything if you aren't. She provides us with several key insights in this new book. But, most importantly, Anne reminds us that in order to achieve greatness you must focus on the things you are doing well and make them even better. This approach gives you the skills and the attitude that ultimately allow you to rise above the competition.' - From the Foreword by Billie Jean King

Head Games are played when you find ways to motivate yourself to accomplish your goals. After reading about my journey to becoming the 1996 Olympic High Jump Gold Medalist and Olympic Record Holder, you will see that your success is determined on how you play your Head Games.

The principal subject of this modest manuscript is sport. Few subjects are at once more widely acclaimed, touch the popular imagination more deeply, but are less earnestly studied than sport. What little reflective thought has been devoted to the subject has been of a largely scientific (as distinct from a humanistic) type. Most of this thought concerns the biological, psychological, or sociological character of the activity as against its historical or philosophical dimensions. Although rarely spoken of in exacting historical or philosophical terms, an authentic understanding, appreciation, and practice of sport nonetheless depend necessarily on accounts that show its origin and development (on historical accounts) as well as on accounts that reveal its essential nature and purpose (on philosophical accounts). Together, historical and philosophical interpretations of sport -- the so-termed humanistic perspectives of sport -- demonstrate the basic place of sport in human life, the basic place of sport in the full relief of human experience as such. These accounts disclose what sport has been and what it is ultimately for. They reveal the grounding charms of sport in distinctly human terms and they also illumine the wider character of humanity itself (insofar as humanity has expressed itself as persistently as it has in sporting terms). Humanistic interpretations of the sort here advocated demonstrate both that sport forms an integral aspect of human experience and that it is also a fundamental expression of that experience. In the creative flow of human activity, sport has had a conspicuous (if a formally neglected) place and it therefore figures importantly in any serious examinationof genuine human experience.
The purpose of this manuscript is to show, in broad overview, the origin, development, nature, and purpose of sport from its first appearance in the ancient primitive world to its elaborate place in contemporary modern civilization; to give a systematic and comprehensive account of sport as a function of the cultural events that have embodied it throughout its occasion in human affairs; and to do all of this under the interpretive gaze of an organic world view. The result is a synthetic summary of the accomplished historical and philosophical literature's collective judgment concerning sport in the wide context of human culture from the perspective of the organic thesis. The result is an organic philosophy of (world) sport history in which the essential factors (the characteristic and decisive factors, the dominant tendencies) concerning the origin, development, nature, and purpose of human culture and its sporting attributes are dutifully recounted and reflectively interpreted. According to the organic sense of life and sport, it is only by way of such a result that sport can be plausibly connected to the end of distinctly human experience and that human life itself can be waged in full accord with its own most basic and endearing tendencies.
The text works principally off of the encyclopedic and humanistic orientations of Hegel's organic metaphysics and philosophy of history. It thus begins with an account of the development of the physical world and of life in its various forms. It then turns to an examination of the origins and development of human culture in the ancient, medieval, and modern periods with special attention to sport. Thegoverning argument of the text concludes that it is in the organic inclinations of the ancient, medieval, and modern eras that sport comes to its highest realization; it is in these inclinations that sport: overcomes the stylish claims against it as a plastic thing (among other plastic things) that secures strictly instrumental aims; acts in full accord with its own basic nature and purpose, with its own fundamentally playful nature and purpose; gets linked to the mainstream of human life and contributes meaningfully to the living of an authentically human existence; becomes a form of distinctly and uniquely human expression, a form of intrinsic human expression, a form of universal and fundamental human expression, not altogether unlike the arts; becomes an embodiment of our most compelling ideals, an embodiment by which neither our intellectual nor our bodily aspects are either indulged or overcome, but proportionately edified; and thus becomes a form of human fulfillment as such.