ATHLETES and coaches Programs

are about improving your players attitude and mental game skills to help them perform their best by identifying limiting beliefs and embracing a healthier philosophy about their sport. Below is a list of the top ten ways that your players can benefit from AST’s Mental Skills programs:

1. Grow confidence in athletes who have doubts.  Doubt is the opposite of confidence. If you maintain many doubts prior to or during your performance, this indicates low self-confidence or at least you are sabotaging what confidence you had at the start of the competition. Confidence is what we call a core mental game skill because of its importance and relationship to other mental skills.
2. Develop coping skills to deal with setbacks and errors. Emotional control is a prerequisite to getting into flow.  Athletes with very high and strict expectations, have trouble dealing with minor errors that are a natural part of sports. It’s important to address these expectations and also help athletes stay composed under pressure and when they commit errors or become frustrated.
3. Find the right zone of intensity for your sport. We use intensity in a broad sense to identify the level of arousal or mental activation that is necessary for each person to perform his or her best. This will vary from person to person and from sport to sport.  Feeling “up” and positively charged is critical, but not getting overly excited is also important. You have to tread a fine line between being      excited to complete, but not getting over-excited. We call is "Relaxed Intensity."
4. Help teams develop communication skills and cohesion. A major part of mental training is helping teams improve cohesion and communication. The more a team works as a unit, the better the results for all involved.
5. To instill a healthy belief system and identify irrational thoughts. One of the areas we pride our self on, is helping athlete identify ineffective beliefs and attitudes such as comfort zones and negative self-labels that hold them back from performing well.  These core unhealthy beliefs must be identified and replaced with a new way of thinking. Unhealthy or irrational beliefs will keep your athlete stuck no matter how much you practice or hard you try.
6. Improve or balance motivation (drive, energy and creativity) for optimal performance. It’s important to look at their level of motivation and just why they are motivated to play their sport. Some motivators are better in the long-term than others. Athletes who are extrinsically motivated often play for the wrong reasons, such as the athlete who only participates in sports because of a parent. We work with athletes to help them adopt a healthy level of motivation and be motivated for the right reasons.
7. Develop confidence post-injury. Some athletes find themselves fully prepared physically to get back into competition and practice, but mentally some scars remain. Injury can hurt confidence, generate doubt during competition, and cause a lack of focus. We help athletes mentally heal from injuries and deal with the fear of re-injury.
8. To develop game-specific strategies and game plans. All great coaches employ game plans, game strategies, and course management skills to help athletes mentally prepare for competition. This is an area beyond developing basic mental skills in which a mental coach helps athletes and teams. This is very important in sports such as golf, soccer, and many team sports.
9. And last but not least, for our student-athletes, that not only they improve their performance on the field of play but in life. 

   Specifically:

I. Academic performance-

a. Graduate from high school ready for college, trade school, military or employment.

II. Character Building-

a. Be an engaged citizen involved in the community, register to vote and model strong character and leadership. 

III. Healthy Lifestyles- 

a. Adopt a healthy diet, practice healthy lifestyle choices and make a lifelong commitment to fitness.