Mind Gym: An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence

Mind Gym is one of my favorite books to pickup whenever I need a little inspiration and encouragement. While the many stories and quotes are derived from the world of professional athletics, the book is really about creating excellence in one's life with applicability to any pursuit and any profession. The main theme is that once one reaches a certain level of competency, the level he achieves in performance will be determined by how well he learns to utilize his mind. With this, the author takes us on a fascinating tour of the minds of some of the world's greatest coaches and athletes; their successes, their challenges, and the mental tools they employed to succeed. To borrow a line from the book, "it takes years of hard work to become an overnight success", Mind Gym is an excellent coach along the way.

I had the fortune of knowing Gary Mack personally when I was playing for the Arizona State's Sundevils men's tennis, back in the 2000. All I can say is that the book was extremely useful to me, both in tennis and private life. The bottom line that we can all learn from it is that it's really all about attitude. May Gary rest in peace.

I had initially planned to give it just a skim, but then could not put it down. It is full of cliches and hoary coaching bromides, and is obsessed with commercial spectator sports; but its overall, can-do message negates any faults.

Gary Mack is the author of the sports psychological book "Mind Gym." I rate this book with 5 stars becuase I feel that it is at the top of its catagory. For the athlete who desires to gain a mental edge over his/her opponent, there is no better book to shed light on that subject. I read this book while I was healing from a broken back and it turned me around about how I thought about my sport of gymnastics. Garys book opened many doors for me in the way I thought about competition, training, and everyday life. I recommend it to every athlete in every sport because the psychological side of sports is often overlooked. Gary does a great job creating motivation, and better yet--sport and life lessons.

As the mild winter weather promises an earlier than usual start to the golf and tennis seasons, I am thinking about equipment, exercises, instructional videotapes and maybe a short "spring training" trip to Florida. But at the top of my list this year will be a re-read of a little book by Gary Mack that will have more impact than all of the above preparations combined. I learned from "Mind Gym" that, for most of us, how we approach our games mentally is the greatest key to improvement. It made a dramatic difference for me -- in attitude, enjoyment and score!