Mind Gym : An Athlete’s Guide to Inner Excellence Paperback – June 24, 2002
Author: Visit ‘s Gary Mack Page ID: 0071395970
Review
“Mind Gym hits a home run. If you want to build mental muscle for the major leagues, read this book.” — Ken Griffey, Jr., Major League MVP
“A great read that helps you understand the importance that your mind plays in reaching the top.” — Michele Timms, WNBA All-Star and Olympic silver-medal winner –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From the Inside Flap
Golfing great Bobby Jones said, “Competition is won or lost on the six-inch playing field between the ears.” How do the best athletes gain an advantage on that playing field? In Mind Gym, noted sports psychology consultant Gary Mack teaches athletes the lessons he’s learned about how the mind influences athletic performance as much as physical skill does, if not more so.
Through forty accessible lessons and inspirational anecdotes from prominent athletes–many of whom he has worked with–Mack shares the same techniques and exercises he uses to help elite athletes build mental “muscle.”
Achieving this inner excellence requires time and effort. The more you work on the inside, the more it shows on the outside. These engaging stories–covering such themes as overcoming adversity, staying motivated, and following one’s dreams–will enable you to perform at your best by choice rather than chance.
Mind Gym will give anyone who spires to be a better athlete the “head edge” over the competition.
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
Paperback: 240 pagesPublisher: McGraw-Hill Education; 1 edition (June 24, 2002)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0071395970ISBN-13: 978-0071395977 Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.5 x 7 inches Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #2,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #7 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Exercise & Fitness > Weight Training #71 in Books > Sports & Outdoors
If you are expecting substantive theoretical sports psychological insights from this book, you will be thoroughly disappointed. While the anecdotes presented by the author are amusing, they provide little to no substance. Often, they are redundant to the point where it seems the author is beating the stain where the dead horse used to be. Each chapter ends with a short 1-sentence summary. In my opinion, the book could easily be condensed to only the chapter headings and the 1-sentence summaries, although it would be much less entertaining that way. The 1-liners do contain good information, but, unfortunately, much of it is what I would consider common sense.
Unless you can relate to baseball and other American sports, don’t bother picking up this book. Most of the anecdotes are from the world of baseball.
That said, the book is a very easy read. I do not question the author’s abilities as a sports psychologist. But I had expected a book with much more substance.
This a well written, concise look into a gammut of psychological skills related to sport performance. It is also a series of short stories from the author’s career as a professional sport psychologist. It is an easy read and well done. What it is NOT is an introduction to sport psychology or a book that can help someone learn sport psychology unless they are already familiar with the topic. Good book, I liked it very much; but not a book from which one can learn sport psychology. It is a collection of stories and within each story there is a skill to be learned.
I found this book because it came up in a search for triathlon books, but I think it was mis-categorized. If you’re into sports like baseball, football and golf, this would be an enjoyable read. Seems like 99% of his examples are in these three more traditional sports. But there are a number of issues that come up for endurance athletes (triathlon, marathon, long-course cycling) that aren’t even touched on in this book.
I think the author could do a second version that touches on how to continue pushing through the pain when you’re 10 hours into a 15 hour effort to complete an Ironman and your head wants to quit. He touches on this in a chapter on determination, but it’s one thing to sit on the sidelines and tell someone "don’t quit!"; it’s another thing to figure out how to manage what’s behind your ears and he doesn’t do a good job of addressing that. Or how to psychologically deal with a mass swim start. Or the psychological issues of training for 6 to 9 months for a single event.
I read this entire book and felt like only about 1/4th could apply… maybe more if I was forced to make the connections myself, but that’s not really what I was looking for. Not saying it’s a bad book, but if you’re looking at this for endurance sports you might pass.
Mind Gym An Athlete s Guide to Inner Excellence Praise for Mind Gym Believing in yourself is paramount to success for any athlete Gary s lessons and David s writing provide examples of the importance of the Mind Gym An Athlete s Guide to Inner Excellence Mind Gym An Athlete s Guide to Inner Excellence and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle Learn moreMind Gym An Athlete s Guide to Inner Excellence by Start by marking Mind Gym An Athlete s Guide to Inner Excellence Published June 24th 2002 Mind Gym An Athlete s Guide to Inner
Download Mind Gym : An Athlete’s Guide to Inner Excellence – June 24, 2002 PDF Free Download
BhanuwatiTadi771
