Tag Archives: Sport Psychology

Mindset of the Olympic Weightlifter

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Carol Dweck is a distinguished professor and well-published researcher in Psychology who has taught at the universities of Columbia, Harvard, Illinois and Stanford where she is still a member of faculty. In 2006 Dweck published an influential book entitled Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Dweck theorised a continuum between believing that one’s abilities are innate and believing that one’s abilities are based on hard work and learning. According to Dweck, if a person believes that their potential is governed by innate factors then they have a “fixed mindset”. Whereas, if a person believes their potential is governed by their individual effort and learning, then they have a “growth mindset”. Importantly, Dweck’s view was that people who are high-achievers have a Growth Mindset. Continue reading →

5 Decisions for High Performance in Sport

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Okay, so you love Weightlifting and you really want to be a part of a future Australian team to the Olympic or Commonwealth Games!

If you have any chance of achieving such a goal, you will need to make some tough decisions.

Decision 1: Can you devote 30 hours a week to this goal?

Before everyone throws up their hands and says “What!”, consider the following. If you want to be a High Performance sports person, then your training is your job. You will need to train 8-10 sessions per week, each of which will take approximately 2 hours. As a more serious athlete, you will spend more time warming up and more time on flexibility. So 2 hours per session is not unreasonable. You will incur a significant amount of travelling in order to attend training. If you live close to the gym, you might be lucky to keep travelling down to around 4 hours per week. The remaining 6 hours a week will be a combination of many factors including visits to the physiotherapist, injury management, planning training, monitoring training, discussions with your coach, and travel to and waiting around at competitions. This does not even take into consideration that you may need extra sleep. Continue reading →