Sports Psychology

We Might As Well Win: On the Road to Success with the Mastermind Behind a Record-Setting Eight Tour de France Victories

On the tour and inside the mind of Johan Bruyneel, the winningest team leader in cycling history and the mastermind behind the success of the world's most celebrated champion, Lance Armstrong

Johan Bruyneel knows what it takes to win. In 1998, this calculating Belgian and former professional cyclist looked a struggling rider and cancer survivor in the eye and said, "Look, if we're going to ride the Tour, we might as well win." In that powerful phrase a dynasty was born. With Bruyneel as his team director, Lance Armstrong seized a record seven straight Tour de France victories. In the meantime, Bruyneel innovated the sport of cycling and went on to prove he could win without his superstar -- in 2007 he took the Tour de France title with a young new team and a lot of nerve, sealing his place in sports history forever.

We Might as Well Win takes readers behind the scenes of this amazing nine-year journey through the Alps and the Pyrenees, revealing a radical recipe for winning that readers can adapt from the bike to the boardroom to life. We witness Bruyneel's near-death crash and comeback as a rider. We are privy to the many ways he and Armstrong outsmarted their opponents. We listen in on the team's race radios to hear the secret strategies that inspire greatness from a disparate team. We learn how to make sure "not winning" isn't the same as "losing" as Bruyneel struggles to prove himself -- post-Armstrong -- with new riders, new strategies, and skeptics around every corner.

Whether mounting a difficult climb, or managing a team of thirty riders and forty support staff from a miniature car hurtling along narrow European roads, or looking a future legend in the eye and willing him to believe, Bruyneel is, and has always been, the consummate winner. Readers will relish this inside tour.

A Champion's Mind: Lessons from a Life in Tennis

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.

The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance

A phenomenon when first published in 1972, the Inner Game was a real revelation. Instead of serving up technique, it concentrated on the fact that, as Gallwey wrote, "Every game is composed of two parts, an outer game and an inner game." The former is played against opponents, and is filled with lots of contradictory advice; the latter is played not against, but within the mind of the player, and its principal obstacles are self-doubt and anxiety. Gallwey's revolutionary thinking, built on a foundation of Zen thinking and humanistic psychology, was really a primer on how to get out of your own way to let your best game emerge. It was sports psychology before the two words were pressed against each other and codified into an accepted discipline.

The new edition of this remarkable work--Billie Jean King called the original her tennis bible--refines Gallwey's theories on concentration, gamesmanship, breaking bad habits, learning to trust yourself on the court, and awareness. "No matter what a person's complaint when he has a lesson with me, I have found the most beneficial first step," he stressed, "is to encourage him to see and feel what he is doing--that is, to increase his awareness of what actually is."

There are aspects of psychobabble and mysticism to be found here, sure, but Gallwey instructs as much by anecdote as anything else, and time has ultimately proved him a guru. What seemed radical in the early '70s is now accepted ammunition for the canon; the right mental approach is every bit as important as a good backhand. The Inner Game of Tennis still does much to keep that idea in play. --Jeff Silverman

The Inner Game of Tennis is a revolutionary program for overcoming the self-doubt, nervousness, and lapses of concentration that can keep a player from winning. Now available in a revised paperback edition, this classic bestseller can change the way the game of tennis is played.

Bloody Confused!: A Clueless American Sportswriter Seeks Solace in English Soccer

Chuck Culpepper was a veteran sports journalist edging toward burnout . . . then he went to London and discovered the high-octane, fanatical (and bloody confusing!) world of English soccer.

After covering the American sports scene for fifteen years, Chuck Culpepper suffered from a profound case of Common Sportswriter Malaise. He was fed up with self-righteous proclamations, steroid scandals, and the deluge of in-your-face PR that saturated the NFL, the NBA, and MLB. Then in 2006, he moved to London and discovered a new and baffling world—the renowned Premiership soccer league. Culpepper pledged his loyalty to Portsmouth, a gutsy, small-market team at the bottom of the standings. As he puts it, “It was like childhood, with beer.”

Writing in the vein of perennial bestsellers such as Fever Pitch and Among the Thugs, Chuck Culpepper brings penetrating insight to the vibrant landscape of English soccer—visiting such storied franchises as Manchester United, Chelsea, and Liverpool . . . and an equally celebrated assortment of pubs. Bloody Confused! will put a smile on the face of any sports fan who has ever questioned what makes us love sports in the first place.

Golf is Not a Game of Perfect

One of golf guru Jim Flick's mantras is that golf is 90 percent mental, and the other 10 percent is mental, too. Dr. Bob Rotella, a noted sports psychologist and performance consultant, roots around the golfer's mind to expose--and analyze--the doubts, the fears, and the frustrations that haunt anyone who's ever picked up a club and swung it. Through anecdote and aphorism he suggests how these mental and emotional hazards can be played through, and, regardless of skill level, how teeing off with a more positive and confident outlook will translate into better performance.

Dr. Bob Rotella is one of the hottest performance consultants in America today. Among his many professional clients are Nick Price (last year's Player of the Year), Tom Kite, Davis Love III, Pat Bradley, Brad Faxon, John Daly, and many others. Rotella, or "Doc," as most players refer to him, goes beyond just the usual mental aspects of the game and the reliance on specific techniques. What Rotella does here in this extraordinary book, and with his clients, is to create an attitude and a mindset about all aspects of a golfer's game, from mental preparation to competition. The most wonderful aspect of it all is that it is done in a conversational fashion, in a dynamic blend of anecdote and lesson. And, as some of the world's greatest golfers will attest, the results are spectacular. Golfers will improve their golf game and have more fun playing. Some of Rotella's maxims include:

* On the first tee, a golfer must expect only two things of himself: to have fun, and to focus his mind properly on every shot.

* Golfers must learn to love 'the challenge when they hit a ball into the rough, trees, or sand. The alternatives -- anger, fear, whining, and cheating -- do no good.

* Confidence is crucial to good golf. Confidence is simply the aggregate of the thoughts you have about yourself.

* It is more important to be decisive than to be correct when preparing to play any golf shot or putt.

Filled with delightful and insightful stories about golf and the golfers Rotella works with, Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect will improve the game of even the most casual weekend player.

Foundations of Sport And Exercise Psychology

Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Fourth Edition, the new edition of the best-selling sport and exercise psychology book on the market, continues to provide a thorough introduction to the key concepts in the field. Written by internationally respected authors, it provides students and new practitioners with a comprehensive view of sport and exercise psychology, bridges the gap between research and practice, conveys principles of professional practice, and captures the excitement of the world of sport and exercise.

A supreme effort has been made to meet the increasing needs of professors, practitioners, and students. To further improve the total learning experience, the new edition features
• an online study guide that provides an interactive learning experience for students;
• thoroughly updated material that reflects the latest research and practice in the field to keep students aware of recent findings and hot topics in the field; and
• more contemporary practical examples, case studies, and anecdotes to help students understand various theories and concepts.

Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Fourth Edition, allows students to gain an understanding of the field while learning how to apply sport and exercise knowledge. The book contains seven parts that may be studied in any sequence. Part I introduces students to the field, detailing its history, current status, and the various roles of sport and exercise psychologists. Part II focuses on personal factors that affect performance and psychological development in sport, physical education, and exercise settings. In part III, the authors focus on two major classes of situational factors that influence behavior: competition and cooperation, and feedback and reinforcement. Part IV focuses on group interaction and processes, while part V discusses how psychological techniques may be used to help people perform more effectively. Part VI addresses the various roles psychological factors play in health and exercise. The final section, part VII, deals with main topics of psychological development and well-being that are important to both society and sport and exercise psychology, including childrenÂ's psychological development through sport participation, aggression in sport, and moral development and good sporting behavior in sport and physical activity contexts.

The online study guide is a trend-setting addition that will allow the subject of sport psychology to come alive to its users. The study guide is written to work directly with the text; mentions of the study guide appear in each chapter to encourage readers to take advantage of the study guideÂ's learning tools. Audio clips feature esteemed experts in the field discussing key course concepts that they have studied and refined during their professional careers. Video clips provide students with a realistic look at how sport psychologists interact and communicate with athletes to improve athletic experiences. These multimedia formats help students understand the research and practice of sport psychology in todayÂ's society. This online study guide also features more than 90 individual and small-group learning activities that may be printed and handed in or e-mailed to instructors for assessment. These activities require students to

• use actual sport and exercise psychology instruments to assess their skills,
• determine how to respond to real-life scenarios (with short answers or essays),
• review and design research studies and experiments,
• search the Internet for relevant information, and
• apply and test their understanding of sport and exercise psychology principles and concepts.

Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Fourth Edition, also supplies in-depth learning aids to help students think more critically about applying the material. These aids include chapter objectives and summaries, informative sidebars, key terms, key points, and discussion questions in each chapter. Even the design, artwork, and photos have been updated to make the material more interesting and accessible to readers. To accommodate a variety of preferences and teaching styles, chapters are written so that they stand alone and can be taught either in or out of order.

In addition to the inclusion of the new online study guide for students, the instructor ancillaries have also been improved. Updates have been made to the presentation package containing more than 900 PowerPoint slides, the test bank of more than 800 questions, and the instructor guide. These resources may all be found at the bookÂ's Web site.

Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Fourth Edition provides a powerful learning tool for understanding human behavior in sport and exercise settings. This new edition continues to ensure that future researchers and practitioners in the field are well equipped and enthused about the possibilities and challenges they will encounter.

Mind Gym : An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence

Drawing on his work with some of the top teams in professional sports, noted sport psychology consultant Gary Mack shares with you the same techniques and exercises he uses to help elite athletes build mental "muscle." These 40 accessible lessons and inspirational anecdotes will help you gain the "head edge" over the competition.

Finding Your Zone: Ten Core Lessons for Achieving Peak Performance in Sports and Life

The first research-based program to offer concise, clear ways to realize your best performance.

As a therapist, physician, and mental coach, Dr. Michael Lardon has dedicated his career to helping athletes understand and better achieve peak performance. In Finding Your Zone, he shares with readers what he’s discovered about reaching the state in which “thoughts and actions are occurring in complete synchronicity,” and how this state is accessible to all, not just the few.

In ten key lessons—illustrated by personal anecdotes from his clients—Lardon teaches readers how to access the zone not only in sports but in all aspects of their lives, by understanding how to:

• Transform desire into will
• Channel emotions to victory
• Trust instincts and keep it simple
• Conquer fear through acceptance
• Perform under pressure

The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance

In this book, authors H.A. Dorfman and Karl Kuehl present their practical and proven strategy for developing the mental skills needed to achieve peak performance at every level of the game.

The Dr. Bob Rotella CD Collection

Dr. Bob Rotella, whose clients include Nick Price, Davis Love III, Tom Kite and Pat Bradley, is firmly established as the premier performance enhancement specialist in the golf world. In Golf Is a Game of Confidence, "Doc" Rotella focuses on the most important skill a golfer can have: the ability to think confidently.

In Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect, Rotella goes beyond the usual mental aspects of the game and creates a mindset about all aspects of a golfer's game, from mental preparation to competition. With a dynamic blend of anecdote and lesson, Rotella helps golfers improve their game and have more fun playing.

In Putting Out of Your Mind, Rotella offers entertaining putting. He reveals the unique mental approach that great putting requires and helps golfers of all levels master this essential skill.

The Golf of Your Dreams offers a programmatic guide for the golfer who is determined to get better but hasn't figured out how to go about it. It is an approach that Dr. Rotella and his clients have tested for over twenty years, one that has been proven to work consistently with all levels of golfers.