r/sportspsychology

Hi all, kind of new to reddit and especially this sub, it's my first post.

I work in the applied neuroscience / sport performance space (won't name the product, not the point of this post) and I'd genuinely value perspective from people actually doing this work day-to-day.

The team I work with focuses on measuring nervous system readiness in athletes — cognitive tests on a phone, HRV, sleep, reaction time. The output is essentially a daily "are you ready to train hard or should you back off" signal that coaches use to adapt load.

Something I keep noticing: in most of the teams we're working with, there's a sport psychologist already embedded in the staff. That wasn't really on my radar when we started, and now I'm curious how the role actually works in practice.

So a few honest questions:

1. When you work with athletes or teams, how much of what you do overlaps with what objective readiness data could inform vs. what only shows up in conversation?
2. Have any of you worked alongside data-driven performance tools (HRV apps, force plates, cognitive testing platforms)? Did it help, get in the way, or just get ignored?
3. Where do you draw the line between "this is a sport psych conversation" and "this is a S&C / coach conversation"? Is that line cleaner in pro environments than in semi-pro or youth?
4. If a platform like the one I described wanted to be genuinely useful to sport psychologists rather than stepping on your toes, what would that look like?

Thanks for any thoughts. Just trying to understand the field better before assuming where we fit.

I am a 100m 200m sprinter, I normally run well in practices, but when it gets to running in track meets, I overstride, my legs kick up to my thighs with high heel recovery weirdly so, can't lift my legs high, in short just underperforming. I've tried tons of stuff to deal with pre-race anxiety, like imagining yourself winning, running through the whole race a few times in your mind, masking your anxiety by pretending its excitement, box breathing, even recent attempts at just letting the anxiety go wild. Before I get into my blocks it kind of works, but as soon as I get out of my blocks, finish my acceleration everything goes wrong. Everytime after my race, I normally thought that it was because of my bad running form that caused this but I normally ran a lot faster, this time I started thinking it was because all these methods did not help me manage my pre-race anxiety. Can anyone gimme some advice on this? Maybe some mental training, rewiring or some exercises, routines, anything that helps. Please help. I'm desperate.🥲

The title says most of it. I want to better understand very in depth things along the lines of:

• How a coach can teach athletes that EFFORT will have payoffs
• How a coach can teach the joy of improving your skills
• How a coach can teach athletes a desire to do well (the process) AND to win (the outcome)
• How a coach can teach athletes that they have an impact on how the game can go, it's not just up to luck or what their opponent does. We have some control/influence here.
• The psychology of competitiveness (it's a complex thing; competitiveness can exist in ways that are healthy and unhealthy; it can come down to comparing yourself to others or just to your past self; how much are people born with it vs it's in their genes; etc)
• How age can make an impact on the psychology of all this - middle schoolers will struggle more than high schoolers, but how can I work with that?
• What I'm NOT looking for is just a motivational talk/book that's directed at the reader/listener - I want something that explains HOW a coach can TEACH these skills/mindsets, and goes in depth.
• Also NOT looking for things like brushing off mistakes, having grit in tough circumstances, etc.
• Ultimately just teaching a desire to do well and improve when the athletes just seem casual and/or lazy.

Articles are too short to really cover the info I'm hoping to take in. Books, lectures, online courses, or other long form content are what I'm hoping for. But I'll take whatever I can get!

If you want to go a bit more in depth on my situation:

I coach volleyball - middle and high school. I just finished an 8th grade club volleyball season. Many players on the team gave off this vibe of just wanting to play the game, kind of recreationally. Some examples of the vibe they gave off:

• not really caring about making themselves better
• not showing much focus when being taught a new thing (talking, eyes wandering etc)
• not focusing on the point of the drill (improve footwork or other technique) and just passing/hitting the ball and clearly being bored with it
• Being bored with slower-paced, skill-development activities
• emotions in games seemed rather fun/chill, not intense or focused etc
• lots of just socializing, "here to hang out with my pals" type energy
• constantly forgetting things they've been told and needing reminders (whether it's technique, team expectations, how the drill works etc)

A lot of that is perhaps typical of that age, but that's partly my point. They haven't necessarily been taught the right mindset, and part of my job is to teach that to them. There are definitely players at that age that do have those competitive mentalities!

Hi , I’m considering enrolling in Brian Cain’s MPM Certification during the next window. I’ve seen his marketing and it looks great, but I’d love to hear from someone who has actually finished the course.

• Is the content practical or mostly motivational?
• Do you feel it was worth the price?
• How has it impacted your coaching/career?
• Are there any other certifications you'd recommend over this one?

Thanks in advance!

I am a 17 year old baseball player that wants to play in college and the thing that holds me back is my mental, I’m a big overthinker and recently been doing better with it but idk if I have sports anxiety or what. I always struggled with the mental side of baseball and it gets in the way of how I play. I have big expectations and always put pressure on myself to perform for my team while having fun and I try to not dwell on my mistakes hitting or fielding but when it happens a lot every game it is mentally draining. In bp my swing feels great, struggled with hitting line drives in games recently and in bp I consistently hit them but in games i’ve been striking out, popping up, or lining out. I don’t know if I should be less hard on myself or just have a better approach while hitting but I don’t think I have the best one and it’s really been a big hitting slump this season. Fieldings not the issue it’s just the mental side of hitting creating a metal barrier of stopping me to be me.