As a mental toughness Coach I’m usually seeking ways to develop more structure and routine in my coaching counterparts and help them remove their uncontrolled emotion. Similarly, watching my sons play basketball I can recognise their need to stay calm and focus on their regular playbook and not be distracted by the scoreboard, their opponents or the referees.
However, I’m not in the coaches box at match time. Therefore I was interested to watch this short video (5 minutes) by Matt Nein, a lacrosse coach in the USA, and understand his perspective on mental toughness and the training he uses with his athletes at Salisbury University in Maryland.
Although he doesn’t use the Clough, Strycharczyk MTQ 4C’s framework I subscribe to, he does discuss the requirement for a similar mindset.
Here is the introduction and video produced by the US Lacrosse govering body.
Nein notes that athletes need to understand, through preparation, how to handle different situations and challenges in order to be as successful as they can be on the field.
He borrows a model used by Ohio State University’s football coach, Urban Meyer, to stress the importance of mental preparation. Event + Response = Outcome.
“It’s very easy to see, when you start getting into motivation, being able to handle emotions, being able to handle adversity, and all the other things that are thrown at every athlete,” he said. “The mental piece is often not trained enough, but it involves a tremendous amount of the game.”
Nein shared his mental training insights with youth and high school lacrosse coaches during a presentation at the US Lacrosse Convention last month. Highlights from his presentation are shown below as part of the latest installment in the US Lacrosse Medstar Sports Medicine Health & Performance Series.