HPC presents at conferences

HPC traveled to Springfield, MA, last week to attend and present at two conferences. The first conference, lead by Dr. Don Hellison (University of Illinois-Chicago), discussed the implementation and evaluation of Hellison's Taking Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) model, a model used to teach youth personal and social responsibility through physical activity. Since I am using the TPSR model in my dissertation, I presented to the conference the initial findings of my dissertation, using this model with underserved adolescents.

The second conference, the Conference on Counseling Athletes, focused on creating leadership opportunities through sport. I, along with 4 Boston University colleagues, led a workshop centered on our process of collaboration when designing a leadership workshop series for 200 middle school students in New Hampshire earlier this year.

The above picture features past and present Boston University graduate students and professors (far right: HPC owner Laura Hayden).

Athletes should understand their lives to understand their performances

Why are so many professional baseball hitters underperforming this season?

Cafardo published “Stumped by their stumps” in the Boston Globe on June 21st, 2009, an article acknowledging the frustration of baseball athletes, coaches, managers, and team owners at the poor seasons of many top baseball athletes this year. The article highlights a few theories thrown at this concern – from the need for athletes to learn more about opponents’ weaknesses to the natural decline associated with age. One theory is simply that athletes are experiencing down seasons for no apparent reason.

Lets look at this from a different angle.

What about the mental stressors that can affect performance? What about the effects of the current athletic climate in the US? Athletes have received negative attention in recent media surrounding use of performance enhancing drugs and other ergogenic aids. Perhaps these stressors are taking their toll on athletes’ performances.

At least acknowledging the possibility of mental barriers preventing optimal performance allows athletes, coaches, managers and owners to be open to sport psychology interventions. For example, Springer identifies potential mental barriers to performance in “Some think slump is all in Ortiz's head” in the Boston Globe on June 7th, 2009. Springer suggests that Ortiz is experiencing, what we call in the biz, a performance block that prevents him from executing what and how he knows how to execute at the plate. One technique Ortiz has tried to resume his typical power hitting is to tap his bat against his left shoulder, providing a rhythm and routine to narrow his focus on his performance task. This behavioral technique is exactly the type of technique athletes often feel comfortable executing because it is concrete and repetitive. Often, however, behavioral or cognitive techniques are not enough to improve athletes’ performances without additional treatment.

I align with other sport psychologists who acknowledge the importance of understanding the context of athletes’ lives, not just the context of athletes’ sport reality. As I mentioned earlier, often non-sport related concerns interfere with sport performances.

What can we learn from these articles?

If your own athletic performance is on a decline or is inconsistent, rather than adding extra training, new techniques, more stretching, or new weight lifting programs into your routine, take an honest assessment of your current climate. Are you stressed at work? Are you experiencing relationship difficulties? Are you emotionally tired from family demands? What are the prominent factors in your life that may influence your performance? What changes has your life undergone since your performances began to decline? Odds are your performances are spotty due to outside factors, rather than sport specific factors. Once you address your performances as a result of all your life’s stressors and consequences, you can begin to understand why you are performing poorly or inconsistently and make changes in your life specific to your own needs.

Inequalities in Athletic Participation

Thomas’s article “Left Behind: A City Team’s Struggle Shows Disparity in Girls’ Sports” hit the Sports section of the New York Times on June 14, 2009. The article not only highlights the inequalities facing underserved female youth versus male youth, it recognizes the differences between female youth sport experiences in urban schools versus suburban schools. According to Thomas, female participation in sport has increased since the passage of Title IX (renamed in 2002 to the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act) in 1972, growing from 7% of all participants in 1971-72 to 41% of all participants in 2006-2007; however, in suburban schools, the amount of female and male “moderately involved” athletes is approximately equal, while in urban schools, about 36% of females and 56% of males identify as “moderately involved” athletes.

One speculation for the lack of female involvement in sport in urban schools is that female youth are expected to engage in “household” duties. There are more reasons, however, hidden in the creases of society, dissuading or preventing these females from participating in sport. As an adviser of a co-ed youth development program in an urban high school this past year, I noticed the glaring absence of female student-athletes in the program compared with male student-athletes. The program is a mandatory part of the school day for student-athletes. Now, there are 2 concerns here. The first concern is that there are significantly less female than male student-athletes at this school. The second concern is that only a small fraction of the female student-athlete population actually show up for the mandatory youth development program. Where are they? Is it the case that the program, identified as an athletic program, is so unappealing to female student-athletes that the females skip class? Are the female student-athletes fearful of sweating in the program and smelling throughout the rest of the school day? Are they reluctant to participate in physical activity around male student-athletes? What’s holding them back?

Thomas’s article explains that physical education has only recently (in 2004) emerged as a priority at public schools. While the increase in attention to physical education certainly reflects progress over recent years, it appears to have emerged as a response to the health crisis facing America, rather than as a genuine interest in and acknowledged value of physical health and wellness. In 2003-2004, more than 1 in 6 adolescents (age 12-19) were overweight, tripling the amount of overweight adolescents in the late 1970s, according to the Child Trends Databank. It appears that the physical education movement has come too late to serve many of our youth; however, increasingly more organizations are hopping on the wagon, creating and delivering comprehensive health and wellness programs to American youth. When I worked as a school counselor, I was the onsite manager of a project called TEAM Nutrition, a program designed to provide nutrition education to public school students. While this program, and others with similar missions, can certainly succeed in the school systems, the most effective and sustainable way to effect change is to completely integrate health and wellness initiatives into the schools themselves to create a ‘way of living’ that evidences a healthy approach to self awareness and self care. Not only should schools ‘live’ a healthy lifestyle by integrating health and wellness into all disciplines, serving healthy snacks and meals at lunch, and providing structure within the day for required movement, schools should, of course, offer outreach to families and the community to educate on and support healthy living for all members of the community. Many schools are making great strides in supporting health and wellness, but we can never do enough.

So, HPC encourages all readers to reflect on not only why these disparities occur between males & females and urban & suburban youth, but also how we can effect change across all contexts, from the school to the home to the community?

Logo Design by For the Muse

The incredible logo design to the left is the work of Theresa Redmond, whose art work can be found on her blog For the Muse.

I explained HPC's philosophy to Theresa, owner of For the Muse:
Hayden performance consulting (HPC) is dedicated to developing and maintaining optimal athletic performance through facilitating the development of cognitive skills, techniques, perspectives, and processes. HPC incorporates into its practice Arete, the ancient Greek’s notion of striving for excellence with courage and strength. HPC’s goal is to help performers strive for excellence in their chosen craft.

From this philosophy, Theresa took the idea of pursuing excellence and "developed it further to include the ideas of 'reaching goals' and 'striving for unity of mind and body'". From here, the ring concept emerged as a symbol of growth and completeness.

Hayden Performance Consulting (HPC)

HPC is a consulting company designed to help athletes and other performers reach their potential in their given craft through positive mental strength training. HPC offers individual and team sessions, team workshop, and lectures specifically geared to clients' needs. For additional information about HPC, expect the arrival of a HPC website in the near future. The blog is a site to share sport psychology material, update readers on the trends within the field, and answer questions and comments by readers. Enjoy and stay positive!