Just wanted to share a quick link today. This is an interesting interview with Bernie Holliday, whom the Pirates hired away from West Point as a mental conditioning coordinator in January.
How can game pressure be simulated?
Bernie Holliday: We’re introducing technology into the process. We will create personalized visualization scripts for the players. They’ll come up with the way they want to play the game, put together the scenario they want to experience and the way they want to perform in that scenario, and we put it on an iPod or iPhone and they can listen to it and rehearse it. They practice that visualization as we increase distractions, increase pressure. First they do it before going to bed, then before a workout, then they find ways to build it into momentary pauses within a ballgame. We’ve got crowd noise. We’ll get them physically exhausted and simulate the level of intensity your body experiences in a big moment.
It will be fascinating to follow Holliday’s work during his time with the Pirates.
Hat tip to thegreatchris.
