I’m delighted to speak with Jason Dorland this week. Jason is a former Olympic, Commonwealth Games and World Championship rower and rowing coach.

After his competitive career, Jason went on to enter the teaching profession, where he taught and coached high school for fifteen years. In ten years of coaching rowing, Jason’s crews earned 12 international championship titles.

Jason now works with his wife, former Olympic, Commonwealth Games and World Championship middle and long-distance runner, Robyn Meagher. Their business, Your Mindset Coaching and Consulting, offers workshops, keynotes, and coaching to teams looking to better equip themselves to be their best selves and perform at their highest possible potential for longer.

Jason and I speak about his experiences as an Olympic athlete, what he learned from his competitive career, and how this shaped his coaching and consultancy practice. 

I’m delighted to speak to Dr Alex Auerbach in this week’s episode. Alex is a performance psychologist working with the best athletes in the world in the NBA, NFL, MLB, and Olympians, as well as high-performers in other domains like elite military units, Fortune 5 companies, and venture-backed start-ups. Alex was formerly Director of Wellness and Development for the Toronto Raptors, where he was responsible for all things mental health, mental performance and off-court development for players and staff.

Alex has worked with NCAA Division-I schools in the Pac-12, ACC, Big 12, and Conference USA, where his work has included serving as the performance consultant for a Conference USA bowl-winning football team, ACC championship team, and student-athletes who continued in professional sport and/or the Olympic games. He earned his doctoral degree in counselling psychology with a specialisation in Sport and Performance Psychology from the University of North Texas.

Alex and I discuss his brilliant new book “Called to Greatness: Your Personal Playbook for the Pursuit of Excellence”.  

I’m delighted to speak with Dr Matthew Andrew this week. Matthew is a senior lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University. He previously lectured at Liverpool John Moores University in Expert Performance and Learning. Matthew is interested in skill acquisition and talent identification and development.

In this episode Matthew and I discuss a study he led which examined talent development in female soccer. The study examined developmental activities engaged in by professional female soccer players in England.

I’m delighted to speak with Dr Hillary Cauthen this week. Hillary is a clinical sport psychologist and Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) with over 17 years experience working within the field of sport and performance psychology. She is an active member in her local community and professional associations, such as Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP), and American Psychological Association - Division 47 (Society for Sport, Exercise and Performance Psychology).

Hillary is the Founder and Director of Texas Optimal Performance & Psychological Services (TOPPS) - working with individuals, families, teams, and groups to improve mental health, as well as athletic, social, academic, and professional performance.  

Hillary formerly served as the Director of Organizational Wellness & Performance for Austin FC and was the performance psychologist for the San Antonio Spurs, where she developed their mental performance and wellness programs.

Hillary has developed private businesses that bring mental wellness curriculum to school districts across the nation, as well as an analytics company that helps predict the behavioural risk factors in players for teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, and Premier League. Her work in high performance is breaking down stigma across communities which is highlighted in her book "Hello Trauma, Our Invisible Teammate.”

I’m delighted to speak with Dr Sebastian Harenberg this week. Sebastian is Associate Professor in Sport Psychology at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia and a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC). He also provides mental performance consulting services to athletes and community members. Sebastian and I discuss positional competition, i.e. the competition for playing time in team sports.

 Sebastian completed a combined Bachelor and Master of Education in English and Physical Education at the University of Göttingen, Germany. Sebastian continued his education with a doctoral degree in Kinesiology and Health studies with an emphasis on sport psychology at the University of Regina.

He then worked 2 years as a research scientist at the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region until he joined Ithaca College in New York as an Assistant Professor for Research Methods and Statistics.

 Sebastian’s main research interests lie in two areas: 1. Group Dynamics – his research examines processes that affect team hierarchies (competition within teams, selection, deselection), and 2. Perceptual Cognitive Training – using technology, he examines different technologies to sharpen the cognitive skills of athletes and various other populations. 

I’m delighted to speak to Dr Caz Nahman and Dr Andrew Kirkland in this week’s episode. We discuss the role of language and the environment when considering mental health in sport.

Caz is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. Caz has also completed additional training in sport psychiatry with the ISSP (International Society for Sport Psychiatry) and is currently Deputy Chair of the Royal College of Psychiatry Sports and Exercise Psychiatry Special Interest Group.

Caz has experience working within a general child and adolescent setting as well as working in in-patient and community eating disorders services. She has previously been an elected member of the RCPsych Eating Disorders Faculty and in this role co-edited a book - New to Eating Disorders - designed as a training tool for staff new to working within this field.

Caz’s interests include compulsive overexercise; youth sport; eating disorders in athletes, autism spectrum disorders in athletes, life-style psychiatry and medical education. In addition, she is keen to improve standards of care for athletes with mental health problems.

Andrew is a Lecturer in Sports Coaching at the University of Stirling. He is also a member of the General University Ethics Panel, a Chartered Scientist and a BASES Accredited Sport and Exercise Scientist (support & pedagogy).

Andrew has worked as a sport physiologist and coach developer at British Cycling and supports others in developing performance environments.

Andrew's research philosophy is driven by impact and translation of research into practice. Specifically, he uses Implementation and Behavioural Change Science to explore mental health in sport, 'merging' his practical experience with evidence-based practice with the aim of helping others to develop more effective sporting systems. 

I’m delighted to speak with Dr Sam Thrower and Prof Chris Harwood this week. We discuss parent education and support strategies in youth sport.

Sam is a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Oxford Brookes University. His main research interests lie in the area of youth sport and specifically the psychosocial development of young athletes. He is particularly interested in topics such as parenting in sport, sport-confidence, motivational climates and stress and coping. Sam’s research in these areas has been published in a range of leading international journals including: ‘Psychology of Sport & Exercise’, ‘Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise & Health’, ‘Sport, Exercise & Performance Psychology’, ‘Journal of Applied Sport Psychology’ and 'Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology'. His current research focuses on parent-child interactions and the development, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based sport parent education programmes.

Chris is the Director of the Sport, Health and Performance Enhancement (SHAPE) Research Centre at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). He is a Professor of Sport Psychology at NTU where his research focuses on the psychosocial aspects of athlete development, wellbeing and performance including the roles of the coach, parents, and the wider social and organisational environment. Chris is particularly focused on the integration of psychological principles into youth sport settings and his applied research is characterised by working with the support system around young people. Chris is also prominent in the area of professional development, supervision and training of sport psychologists in the UK and international systems.

I’m delighted to speak with Rusty Earnshaw and Danny Newcombe on this week’s episode.

Rusty is a coach and former professional rugby union player. Rusty has played Premiership rugby with West Hartlepool, Bath Rugby and Rotherham Titans, winning the European Cup whilst at Bath. In 2000 he was selected to play for the Barbarians. And he also represented England on the IRB Sevens circuit.

Since his playing days he has held various positions at the Rugby Football Union, including International Performance Coach. He is now Director at The Magic Academy, which works across sport and business supporting the development of individuals and teams.

Danny is a coach and coach developer. He is currently Senior Coach Development Manager at The Premier League. Until recently, he was a Senior Lecturer in Sport, Coaching and PE in the department of Sport, Health Sciences and Social Work at Oxford Brookes University, UK. He now holds a visiting research fellow post at Oxford Brookes.

 Danny is also an international and domestic national league hockey coach. He is currently the head coach of the Men’s Welsh National Team and works extensively with a number of partners in the coach development space.

I speak with Rusty and Danny about their considerable coaching experiences and we break down some of the skills they use in their own coaching practices.

I’m delighted to speak with Johnny Gorman this week. Johnny is a trainee clinical psychologist and former professional footballer.

 We speak about the experiences of footballers who were released from clubs at a young age and the impact this had on them, a topic Johnny has recently published a paper on entitled “Inside the football factory: young players’ reflections on being ‘released’”.

 There is considerable research on senior players’ mental health outcomes following retirement. However, less attention has been paid to the greater numbers of young players who are deselected each year. Growing research attests to their increased risk of psychological distress including anxiety and depression.

 Every year, most young football players experience deselection and for some, this has profound consequences including drug addiction and even death. Yet little is known about these young hopefuls whose careers are abruptly cut short and who are released into a world they are ill-prepared for. This study brings a social psychological lens to examine how social identity processes underpin these consequences.

 The paper’s findings contribute to calls for deeper consideration and action around football club culture, and clubs’ responsibility to player welfare, including when players are released.

I’m delighted to speak with Dr Thomas Simpson this week. Thomas is a lecturer in Motor Learning and Skill Acquisition at Edge Hill University. He is interested in how motor learning and motor skill acquisition in children can be optimised through attentional and motivational factors. Thomas obtained his BSc in Sport and Exercise Science and his PhD at Edge Hill University.

 In this episode we discuss a paper Thomas co-wrote which examined the use of OPTIMAL Instructions and Feedback in Physical Education Settings. Here, OPTIMAL stands for Optimizing Performance through Intrinsic Motivation and Attention for Learning. It is a theory of motor learning developed by Gabriele Wulf and Rebecca Lewthwaite.

 The paper investigates how PE teachers can use instruction and feedback which promote OPTIMAL theory motor learning factors (e.g., an external focus of attention, enhanced expectancies and autonomy support) to enhance children’s motor learning.