The Sport Psych Show

I speak with Richard Fryer in this week's episode. Richard is a psychologist working in high performance sport in Australia. Richard works with many of Australia's highest profile sporting teams and athletes and has supported Australians at five Olympic and Paralympic Games. Richard's passion is helping individuals, teams, and organisations achieve their performance potential. Richard is a Senior Consultant with the Australian Institute of Sport, helping national sporting organisations design mental performance programs for athletes and coaches. Coming from a background in rowing coaching, Richard is passionate about helping coaches build their skills in the mental side of coaching performance. In this episode we discuss a paper Richard led which examines coaching under pressure.

I'm delighted to speak with Daniel Coyle in this week's episode. Daniel is the award-winning author of multiple New York Times bestsellers including The Talent Code and The Culture Code. Daniel's work explores how people and groups grow, perform, and thrive. He combines immersive field reporting with behavioural science to create practical frameworks for building skill, culture, and meaningful connection. Daniel has worked as a consultant with the Cleveland Guardians since 2013, and as an advisor to military special forces, professional sports teams, schools, and other organisations. He has written for Outside, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times Magazine, and Play, served as consulting producer on the ESPN documentary series, Enhanced, and worked as an adjunct professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. In this episode Daniel and I speak about his latest book Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy and Fulfilment.

I'm delighted to speak with Andreas Küttel in this week's episode. Andreas is a Swiss former ski jumper who won five World Cup competitions from 2005 to 2007, and placed third in the overall World Cup in 2006. He won a gold medal in the individual large hill event at the 2009 Ski Jumping World Championships. Andreas also competed at three Winter Olympics, earning his best finish of fifth in the individual normal hill event in 2006. After his competing days, Andreas entered academia working in the field of sports science at the University of Southern Denmark. In this episode we discuss a research paper he led on which explores mental health and performance dynamics in elite sport.

I'm delighted to speak with Katja Rewitz in this week's episode. Katja is a second year PhD student at the Dynamics of Human Performance Regulation Laboratory at the University of Hamburg. Her research focuses on human sensations and their influence on decision-making and performance behaviour. In this episode, we discuss a fascinating paper led by Katja which examines the explore-exploit framework related to decision making in sport and exercise. The explore-exploit framework has been instrumental in advancing our understanding of decision-making across fields such as cognitive science, behavioural economics, and clinical psychology. The authors propose that the explore-exploit framework could provide valuable insights into decision-making processes in sports and exercise where decisions naturally occur in dynamic, uncertain environments with fluctuating rewards and inherent costs.

I'm delighted to speak with Dave Webb in this week's episode. Dave is a leading manager and coach who has been at the forefront of elite international and club football for more than two decades. Dave has held various sporting director, coaching, and recruitment roles at the highest levels of the game both in the UK and abroad. He is currently the Georgia National Team Assistant Manager where he helped Georgia make history with qualification to a first-ever tournament as well as reaching the knock-out stages at the European Championships in 2024. Dave holds a master's degree in sport psychology. He also has a UEFA A Licence and is currently working towards his UEFA Pro Licence.

I'm delighted to speak with Dr Robin Owen and Prof Shuge Zhang in this week's episode. Robin is a Senior Lecturer in Sport Psychology at Liverpool Hope University. His research aims to advance our understanding of anxiety, attentional focus, motor control, skill acquisition, statistical prediction, cognitive functioning, and talent identification/development. Shuge is currently a research Professor in Sport & Exercise Psychology at Hunan University of Technology in China. He previously lectured at the University of Derby. Shuge is a chartered psychologist of the British Psychological Society and a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. His research interest is the Person x Environment Interaction in performance and health contexts. In this episode, we discuss a fantastic paper Robin and Shuge contributed to which examined the impact of anxiety on performance in sports players.

I am delighted to speak with Dr Erin Prior in this episode. Erin is a Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist working across a range of sports. Erin has her own sport psychology consultancy practice working with a wide range of athletes, coaches, and parents to enhance their psychological approach to their sport. She has worked with a variety of sporting organisations including the FA, The Wheelchair Football Association, Swim England, West Bromwich Albion, Aston Villa FC, and Leicestershire and Rutland Sport. Erin has also worked as a consultant for various universities including Warwick University, Coventry University, and Birmingham City University. Erin is also a Lecturer in Psychology at Loughborough University. Her research focuses on athlete mental health, specifically sporting staff understandings and experiences of supporting athlete mental health and illness. Erin graduated with a BSc in Psychology from Coventry University, followed by an MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology from Loughborough University. In 2020, Erin returned to the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University as a Post-Graduate University Teacher to undertake a part-time PhD alongside teaching in psychology and sport and exercise psychology. Erin's PhD explored how staff within elite sport conceptualise mental health and mental illness, staff experiences of managing athlete mental health support, and an Olympic athlete's experience of living with bipolar disorder. In this episode we discuss one of the papers from Erin's PhD.

I'm delighted to speak with Dr Phil Kearney in this week's episode. Phil is one of the world's leading skill acquisition specialists. He is Interim Course Director of the Masters and Applied Sports Coaching course at the University of Limerick. Phil completed his PhD at the University of Limerick, exploring the application of skill acquisition principles to children's learning of fundamental movement skills. He subsequently taught at the University of Chichester, England, where he was programme coordinator for the BSc Sport Science and Coaching, before returning to Ireland. A Fellow of the Higher Education Authority, Phil is passionate about skill acquisition, and inspiring the next generation of sport scientists and coaches to apply the core principles of skill acquisition in the development of athletes. Phil is also co-founder of Movement and Skill Acquisition Ireland. Phil and I speak about what skill is and how it can be developed through session design and coach behaviour.

I'm delighted to speak with Dr Peter Schneider in this week's episode. Peter is an expert in high performance environments and transitions. He was most recently the mental performance coach at RB Leipzig helping them to win 2 DFB Cups and 1 Supercup. Peter's focus is to help create talent development environments in which athletes, coaches, and parents are provided with the necessary information that leads to success at the professional level. Peter's area of expertise includes talent-development environments, transition into professional sport, group processes, coach-athlete relationships, and mindfulness in soccer. In this episode Peter and I discuss a range of psychological topics and Peter shares his experiences working with RB Leipzig in the German Bundesliga.

I am delighted to welcome back high-performance coach Dr Ian Peek in this episode. Ian works with clients to improve performance and well-being, helping them achieve their goals whether that's transitioning to a new level of achievement or maintaining their position at the top of their sport or industry. Ian is a PGA Master Professional - the highest educational level in The PGA - which recognises PGA Members who make a significant effort to improve themselves as golf professionals and maintain the highest degree of excellence for themselves and their operations. In this episode Ian shares his 35+ years' experience as a high-performance coach working with clients with both performance and well-being in mind.

I'm delighted to speak with Prof Mike Wilson in this episode. Mike has over 16 years of dedicated expertise in the mental health field. Serving as both a professor and mental performance coach, Mike has collaborated with international governments, leading international bodies like the United Nations and the World Bank, law enforcement agencies, and a diverse range of global sports organisations. Their impactful work includes championing mental health as a human right, providing psychological capacity building for refugees and lower-income communities, facilitating essential support through hygiene distributions for marginalised groups, engaging in post-war peace-building via sports initiatives, and advancing community development through potable water projects. Mike shares his knowledge and experiences as a sport psychologist touching on areas such as growth mindset, challenge and threat states, resilience and explanatory styles.

I'm delighted to welcome back licensed clinical psychologist and sport psychologist, Dr Scott Goldman in this week's episode. Scott started out at the University of Arizona where was one of the first embedded sport psychologists in an athletic department. He has since served as a clinical and performance psychologist for the University of Michigan and Saint Louis' Athletic Departments. Scott also helped co-author the best practices for the NCAA and was part of their first mental health task force. Scott has worked as sport psychologist for the Miami Dolphins and Detroit Lions NFL teams and NBA teams Washington Wizards, and currently the Golden State Warriors. Scott is also the owner/developer of a test called the The Athletic Intelligence Quotient (AIQ) which measures intelligence that is most relevant to athletic performance. The test is used across all 5 major leagues in the US as well as in other countries around the world. Scott is heavily involved in the NFL Scouting Combine and we speak about the psychology involved in the selection process.

I'm delighted to welcome back coach and coach developer, Dr Jamie Taylor in this episode. Jamie's interests lie in performance enhancement in sport, specifically in coaching, coach development, high performance and talent development. Jamie is Assistant Professor in Elite Performance at Dublin City University and a senior coach developer at Grey Matters, a company specialising in performance enhancement and coaching development for individuals, sporting/cultural organisations and systems. In this episode, Jamie and I discuss his new book, co-edited with Prof Dave Collins, entitled 'Sport Skill Acquisition: Integrating Theory and Practice'. The book carefully and critically considers the expanding knowledge of skill acquisition and motor control, with a focus on application, examining three major theoretical perspectives that dominate the field: cognitive, ecological dynamics, and predictive processing. Jamie and Prof Dave Collins use their combined wisdom as coaches, coach developers, and expert sport psychology practitioners to offer practical advice on blending theoretical approaches, using examples from a variety of sports and activities. For those looking to improve their work with performers, Sport Skill Acquisition provides a road map for choosing the best approach for each unique situation to develop skills for optimal sport performance.