Being mentally tough is seen as a necessity in sport today. Elite athletes consistently mention that their best performances come from their strong mind, as much as their body. Yet, most athletes that we speak to enter a game or competition without practicing the mental skills necessary to achieve their best performances. With sport becoming more and more competitive, and the margin of victory (vs. defeat) at times being less than a second, the difference between winning and losing often rests above the shoulders. Thus, it has become increasingly important to integrate mental skills into an athlete’s regular training program.
The HeadSet mental skills training program is based upon years of scientific findings focusing on the elements (i.e., the characteristics and skills) that enable athletes to consistently perform at their very best. Within the Headset program rests the underpinnings of a unique set of primary elements that sport psychologists and sport experts believe are essential for better understanding mental performance. These primary areas (also know as Pillars) interact with each other in a unique fashion and only by understanding the interactions of these Pillars can athletic performance be improved and maintained.
Unlike other sport assessments and athlete apps, HeadSet is a “Live” application. The HeadSet terminology of “Live” refers to its daily assessment of how an athlete is feeling and thinking. Most assessments and application in sport only offer a snapshot in time and do not give deeper insights into what the athlete is feeling or thinking long term. It is here that HeadSet is uniquely different. The ability to understand the various facets that are potentially affecting an athlete’s day-to-day can be key to helping him/her attain and maintain an optimal level of performance. This is the edge that athletes seek and Headset provides.
Additional Advantages of Using HeadSet
- Headset provides insight and direction for the development of each athletes Pillars. HeadSet provides a “Customized” series of Mental Workouts to improve the specific Pillar elements needed for performance enhancement.
- Another powerful element of the HeadSet program rests in its ability to provide various learning opportunities for each athlete. Unique to each athlete is their private Mental Expertise Page (i.e., the ME Page). The ME Page is a private webpage that allows each athlete to organize his/her athletic performances and training schedule, an ability to revisit his/her mental workout history and track the time spent developing his/her mental training techniques.
- Athletes can also compare one’s mental training scores (i.e., their Mental Strength Index or MSI) to those of their teammates, competitors in their sport, and other elite groups (e.g., professional athletes, world champions, and Olympians).
- For coaches, HeadSet can help provide an overview report of the time spent by one’s athletes preparing for games and dedicated to improving one’s performances, as well as any roadblocks to improvement.
- The HeadSet program is based upon “Long Term Development” of an athlete, rather than short-term gains. Being able to understand, relate, and improve an athlete’s inner desire to compete and remain focused over time is every coach’s desired goal – HeadSet is the process of achieving that goal.
