Inner Strength: The Mental Dynamics of Athletic Performance

With the enormous prestige and financial rewards that come with athletic success, it's inevitable that no stone will be left unturned to learn how to develop a world champion or an Olympic gold medalist. In recent decades, attention has focused on the mental dynamics of athletic performance. The cornerstone of all these approaches has been visualization, i.e.the use of all the senses to create, simulate or re-create in one's mind, successful and effective performance. Now, we have an author capable of delivering a more expansive approach,though his chapter on visualization is quite good. Ralph Vernacchia is a PH.D who developed his approaches not solely through academia, but by combining rigorous academic study with real life experience. Mr. Vernacchia was first a high school and college miler, who later coached college cross country and track for 22 years. Following his teaching and coaching, he worked directly with some of the USA's finest coaches and experts in applied sport psychology. All this has been distilled into the remarkably lucid and practical text, "Inner Strength". Mr. Vernacchia first presents the psychological profile of the elite athlete,ability to moderate worry, concentrate, maintain confidence, mentally prepare. Traditionally, these characteristics have then been drowned in platitudes and homilies, diluted beyond usefullness. What seperates "Inner Strength" is its ability to take these characteristics and analyze how they can be developed in the athlete. In addition, there are other chapters of particular benefit to a coach."The Values and Beliefs of Athletic Excellence" chapter is an excellent resource to create a foundational basis for a program that is not limited to a training schedule. Another chapter, "Fueling Your Dream, Understanding Athletic Motivation" is an excellent starting point for a coach despairing about what to do with his less committed performers.The book's strength is its practicality. Passages such as Three Principles of Quality Practice, Goal Attainment, Recommendations for Beating Burnout, 10 Ways to Master Pre-Performance Stress,Mental Toughness Training, offer different perspectives on standard challenges. The field on the mental aspects of athletic performance has been dominated since its publication in 1984 by Rich Elliott's " The Competitive Edge, Mental Preparation for Distance Runners." Ralph Vernacchia's "Inner Strength" is an invaluable companion to this volume.