BOOK

The Mental Athlete

The balance of mind, body, spirit and emotions is emphasized throughout Kay Porter's second edition of The Mental Athlete. In this 210 page book, the connection between mental, emotional, and physical competencies is highlighted and elaborated upon by including the spiritual side of athletic training. Spiritual, in this sense, does not imply daily conversations with higher beings, but rather a knowing of one's inner self. It's more of a who you are and what do you want out of sport and life's approach.

The emphasis on self awareness in this book is very well developed. The sections on being ready to change, assuming responsibility, and believing in yourself were definitely our favorite parts of this book. These seem to be areas that are sometimes overlooked in other sport psychology trade books. There are other areas in the book that are related to developing one's self awareness in important key areas such as learning about one's values, facing fears, and managing anger (included in the trouble-shooting section). The inclusion of these topics really drives home the point that participation in sport coincides with experiencing life and that being all you can be doesn't just apply to one's identity as an athlete.

Similar to other literature on psychological skills training, this book contains the basics, including mental log keeping, goal-setting, self-talk/affirmations, relaxation and imagery; Porter refers to these as the Five Simple Tools. For each tool, there are mental trainers and self-tests for athletes to assess their current status as well as exercises designed to give them direction in future pursuits. If readers take the time to complete the mental trainers, they will be able to personalize the book in such a way that they should feel as though the book was written just for them.

The use of imagery was a dominant theme throughout the book. Several imagery scripts were included that emphasized not only physical performance, but also psychological factors such as feeling confident, focused, in control, and being relaxed. These scripts were written for sports ranging from running to football, and Porter also included visualizations for specific positions within a sport. It seems impossible that a reader wouldn't be able to identify with one of these scripts, but if they don't, then Porter included a 10-step method for writing one's own visualization script. The emphasis of imagery was developed further by including imagery scripts for additional uses, such as dealing with anger, fear, letting go, healing, pain control, passion and vitality, etc.

The majority of the book was written for and would appeal to athletes. There are areas in the chapter on mental training for specific needs where the book seemed to be geared more toward a coaching audience. The information presented was excellent, and its noteworthy that Porter included topics such as being female; however, this switch in focus disrupted the flow of the book.

The Mental Athlete will apply to a broad audience. It includes not only what you would expect to see in a sport psychology trade book, but also topics that seem to be rarely addressed in other mental training books. As a result, this book would make a great read for athletes, and especially those who are willing to try unconventional techniques (psychoneuroimmunology anyone?!). The book will probably have a limited role in scholarly application, except perhaps as a supplemental reading for an applied sport psychology course, but that audience wasn't whom the book was written for anyway! Thank you, Kay Porter, for sharing with us your personable and unique approach to inner training for peak performance.

Reviewed by Sandra E. Short and Michael S. Silbernagel, Department of PEXS, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58201

Short Reviews

Here is a book that cooks on all burners. Peak performance coach Kay Porter offers strategies and processes that activate mind, body and spirit in ways that are bound to bring one to levels of performance previously only imagined. This is a wonderful addition to current work in extending human capacities.

---Jean Houston, Ph.D.
Author, A Passion for the Possible

 

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Categories

There are three categories: General Mental Training (12 titles), Specific Sports Training (9 titles) and Running (6 titles) These can be downloaded for use on your computer, iPod or other mp3 player.

 

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