HomeTherapySport and performance
It comes out in training. On the day, something else turns up.
You train well and then compete differently. Or you moved, and everything that used to hold your training together stayed behind.
What we work on
- The day itself. What you notice before competing, and how to answer it without reading activation as evidence that you are not capable.
- The first mistake. What you say to yourself after failing, and how much of the rest of the event it decides. That gets worked on with your sport and your calendar in front of us, not in the abstract.
- Coming back from injury. Medical clearance says the tissue holds. It does not say that you trust it. Those are two different recoveries and they do not finish on the same day.
- Structure you have to build yourself. A move, or remote work, takes away the club, the fixed session and the people who noticed when you did not show up. Whatever replaces them has to be built deliberately.
Performing worse in competition than in training has an explanation
That the movement comes out midweek and not on the day is one of the most common things in sport, and it is almost never a preparation problem. Competition adds a variable training does not have: consequence. The body activates more than the task needs, attention narrows, and something you had automated goes back to being thought about. A thought-about automatic movement comes out worse. That is not a failure of character; it is how attention works.
The second place a competition gets lost is the first mistake. What you say to yourself in the following five seconds decides a good part of what is left, and athletes are not separated there by talent but by what they do with an error while still competing.
Doing all of this in a new country removes the scaffolding. No club expecting you on Tuesday, no training partner, often no coach you share a language with, and a season built around a calendar you are still learning. The drop then gets read as lost ability when a large part of it is lost structure. I competed at a high level myself, so I know from the inside what over-demanding looks like.
What actually changes
Not a guaranteed result. Less of the week spent on the event, and more of the event available to you.
- The nerves stop being read as a verdict on your ability and start being read as activation you can work with.
- A mistake stops ending the competition in your head while your body is still in it.
- Coming back from injury stops being an argument between what the scan says and what you feel.
- You have a structure that does not depend on a club you no longer belong to.
Who it is for
Athletes, and people who perform at the edge of what they can sustain: the movement is there midweek and on the day it is not. Also if you have moved country and the club, the coach and the routine that held your training together stayed where you came from.
- The nerves on the day of the race, the match or the trial.
- The first mistake, and what you say to yourself in the five seconds after it.
- Coming back from injury while demanding the level you had before it.
- Training or working somewhere new, without a structure you did not have to invent yourself.
Who it is not for
I do not promise you will perform at your best every time, and this does not replace training. It is not coaching for your sport either: your coach does that, and I do not touch it.
When it makes sense to get in touch. When the event occupies the entire week before it, when you are demanding the level you had before an injury, or when the structure you took for granted disappeared with the move and your performance went with it.
The first consultation is free. It is there for you to tell me what is going on and for me to see whether I can help, with no obligation to continue.Book the free consultation →
Frequently asked questions
Are sessions on sport and performance online, or at my home in Granada?
Whichever suits you: by video call from wherever you are, or at your home if you live in Granada. The session is the same; only the place changes. If you are not sure which fits, we look at it in the first consultation.
Is this coaching?
No. Your coach plans your training and I do not go near it. What gets worked on here is what happens to attention, nerves and confidence around it, and both jobs work better for being kept apart.
Can we meet by video call when I am away competing?
Yes. Working by video call is the usual arrangement for anyone whose season moves them around, and it does not change what we do.
I am not a professional athlete. Does this apply to me?
Yes, if you are demanding something of yourself under pressure: an amateur race you have built a year around, a trial, a return after injury, a body that used to be reliable. The mechanism is the same; what is at stake is yours to weigh.
I have been cleared to train again but I do not trust my body.
That is one of the most common reasons people come, and it is not irrational: your body is doing what it is supposed to do after an injury. The work is on the gap between what you are cleared to do and what you can do without bracing for it.
Can we work in English if my coach and my club are Spanish?
Yes. What we work on is yours and does not need translating for anybody. Where something has to be said to a coach in Spanish, we can prepare that particular sentence.
What is the first consultation like?
The first consultation is free and we do it by phone or by video call. It is there for us to meet, put some order on what is going on and see whether I can help. You do not need to arrive with an answer, or to be able to explain exactly what is wrong.