Archive: Focus

Momentum in Tennis

July 20, 2022

Do you think momentum is a real thing in tennis? How about in other sports? I ask this question of you not as a fan, but as a player – as someone who lives through the competitive experience. Because a concept like momentum, whether you believe in it or not, comes down to how you […]

Discipline Equals Freedom – Your Path to Greatness

June 24, 2020

Discipline equals freedom. Have you heard this phrase before? If you’ve read the book Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, then you are familiar with the concept and this post will be a refresher. Otherwise, you may be confused about the relationship between discipline and freedom. On the face of it, discipline and […]

Meditation can help confine yourself to the present

Confine Yourself to the Present to Achieve Victory

January 8, 2020

One of the most important aspects of the mental game is the ability to focus on the moment at hand. To keep your attention on the performance itself and how you are operating within it. Challenging matches can become very stressful if you let them. In these moments distractions and an unruly focus can take […]

Three Ways Stoicism Can Foster The Flow State

October 24, 2019

Can you think back to a past performance where you killed it? I mean, really killed it? Can you remember how good it felt? How effortless it felt to perform so well? Are you struggling to get that feeling back? Are you chasing that state of flow? A “flow state” is when you’re fully immersed […]

50 for 50 Ideas 13, 14 & 15: Visualization

April 4, 2018

When I was a teenager in high school, I would shadow swing my forehand with my right hand while walking down the hallway to my next class. I didn’t realize I was doing this until someone pointed it out to me. It was a completely subconscious action. I was combining an image in my head […]

50 for 50 Idea #3: Stretch More!

January 25, 2018

In my last blog post, I wrote about the value and benefits of beginning a yoga practice. This idea resonated with a lot of people, but perhaps you’re like me and you need to pay even more attention to your joint mobility and flexibility. Many people don’t focus on daily stretching, but as I have […]

50 for 50 Idea #1 – Start a Mindfulness Practice

January 11, 2018

Recently, I turned 50 years old (ouch) and to commemorate that milestone, I sent an email to my blog subscribers with 50 ideas for performance improvement in 2018. The response to the list was very positive, so I thought I could do a little “xtra” and write a blog post about each of the 50 […]

Don’t React, Act!

January 25, 2017

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with a couple of coaches and we were discussing the different types of focus (process goals) that an athlete should have for practice and for a game. One of the coaches has a friend who is a sport psychology professional at a large academy, and he told me that […]

3 Reasons To Have A Positive Physical Response

December 16, 2016

It’s no secret that you need excellent focus to be a great competitor. The best athletes in the world do this well and while they may make it look simple, it isn’t easy to do for long periods of time. There are a lot of things going on that are competing for your attention, and […]

6 skills you need to be the best college athlete

August 27, 2016

This summer, Hayden Steward of St. Michael’s College in Vermont was an intern for PerformanceXtra. As part of his internship, he wrote the following blog post to assist those athletes who are entering their first year of college sports, with some of the challenges they will inevitably face. If you’d like to ask Hayden for […]

4 Strategies For The Player Who Gets Tight

July 20, 2016

Have you ever felt tight or tense while competing? If you’re like most people, myself included, you have probably felt this way at some point in your competitive career. Sometimes it just happens under pressure and at other times, that tight and tense feeling is present from the beginning. Whatever the situation, it doesn’t feel […]

Video – Emotions in Sports: Good or Bad?

January 18, 2016

In today’s video blog, I discuss emotions in sports and their effect on performance. Many coaches and athletes believe in the necessity of showing emotions while you compete, but does that actually help you to perform more consistently? Watch the video for my take on this and learn why I agree with former UCLA men’s […]

Do you want to win?

September 23, 2015

Do you like to win? Of course you do, right? Perhaps you think that’s a silly question for me to pose, but what if I told you that while most athletes say they want to win, their behavior often says something entirely different. It says that mistakes and being perfect are more important to them […]

“Be Quiet!!!” – Develop a Mindset to Deal with Noise

June 2, 2015

Ever find yourself wishing that someone would just be quiet while you’re performing? Recently, several people have asked me about how tennis players can deal more effectively with crowds or an unruly spectator so that performance is not affected in a negative way. In most sports, crowd noise tends to be less of a distraction […]

Dealing With The Expectations Of Winning

July 28, 2014

“I should beat that guy.” “We should beat them.” The above are statements that we have all made in our lives as competitive athletes and in many cases, we were probably correct in our assessment of the match up. Of course there are games and matches in which we are the favorites and we should […]

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