The Peak Performance Expert

As a Red Sox fan, I was sure happy to see my team bash the Rays last night however, as an empathic human I did feel bad for Rays’ pitcher,  Scott Kazmir.  He didn’t seem to have it last night.  Nine straight balls in the first inning set up 3 runs brought in by Big Papi’s homer followed by a solo homer by Mike Lowell.  And it went downhill from there!

So what happened?  Kazmir usually fares much better.  Was it the pressure of being so close to the play-offs? He looked ashen, sweaty, uncomfortable.  After the game Kazmir said, “It felt like my body wasn’t there…I felt flat. I didn’t have the strength.”   And it showed.  What might have contributed to such a state?  Well, anxiety can sure do that. Illness can too but Kazmir never said he was ill, just not mentally present.

It’s always a point of curiousity when an otherwise good performer falters. In my last blog I wrote about Jon Lester’s ability to ward off “bad thoughts.” I’ll never know what Kazmir’s thought process was prior to and during the game but I can conjecture that he felt the pressure of the responsibility of winning the game.  The sensation of feeling like one’s body isn’t there is typical for an anxiety state.  For an athlete especially, being and feeling connected to one’s body is critical.  What could he have done differently?  Well since he started feeling “off” when he was warming up in the bull pen, he could have seen that as a sign that he needed to do one (or all) of the following: (And this holds true for anyone out there who might be feeling “off” just prior to a big performance.)

1. Take a few moments and stop everything and reboot your personal computer, your brain.  This means simply closing your eyes, exhaling slowly 3 times, then saying to yourself, “My mind is a blank screen.”  After a few seconds open your eyes and refocus on the task at hand.
2. Take a few moments and with your mind’s eye, do a body scan, noting where you might be holding tension or - if you re feeling disconnected with your body, you can now re-connect by mentally embracing all parts of your body, noting how important your body is to your performance.
3. Remind yourself of your past successes and your performance goals (which are differnt from outcome goals; we have no control over outcome, only our own performance).
4. Ask yourself what might interfere with the upcoming performance such as unrealistic expectations, negative self-talk, worry, etc.  Then once identified, work to reframe these thoughts into something that is either realistically positive or neutral.
5. Determine if you need to calm down or get revved up.  If the former, focus on exhaling slowly.  If the latter, engage in a brief stint of physical exercise.

These are just a few things Kazmir might have done that could have made a difference.  Of course, I’m happy he didn’t!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 5:08 pm and is filed under Mental Toughness, Negative thinking, Performance anxiety, Red Sox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.