Tight Mind Monday: Spreading the Olympic Flame

Doc Ali’s Tight Mind Monday 7-11-16: Spreading the Olympic Flame

The Olympic fire is contagious! Coaches are pushing their athletes further than ever, athletes are overcoming fears and blocks, and even us mental toughness coaches are thinking, “I wonder, if I got back in shape, could I try and throw a yurchenko?”

We all know that when athletes are mentally activated they are more focused, efficient, work through blocks, and try and make corrections the FIRST time! Introduce that Olympic energy in your gym and light it on fire! Here is a tight mind tool that can help.

1. Bring an inspirational Olympic video into the gym. It could be an amazing routine, short interview segment, or an Olympic moment from the past.

2. Have your athletes watch it before practice.

3. Ask your athletes to identify what inspires them most about the video–something they connect with. It might be an emotional quality they see in themselves or something they aspire to be.

4. Boil that quality down to one word (i.e. focused, aggressive, perseverance, positive). That word is their word of the day for the workout.

5. Have them write the word of the day on their hand, forearm, or foot where everyone can see it.

6. At the end of practice, ask them to give themselves a gold, silver, or bronze medal rating how much they embodied their word.


Do the above exercise several times this summer and watch how many Gold Medal Moments happen in your gym. Fuel that Olympic fire within all your gymnasts!


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