Team Caletti Cyclocross, Lindsey Collins

Cyclocross, CX, CCX, cyclo-X, or ‘cross is an adventurous form of bicycle racing. According to Wikipedia there are many stories how ‘cross’ began as a sport. One is that European bike racers would race each other to the next town and during the race would creatively take short cuts through farmers fields, over fences and whatever route would assist them in arriving first.

Lindsey Collins is the co-captain of the Santa Cruz based Cyclocross Team Caletti. Collins prefers the term ‘cross’ when describing the nuances and challenges of her sport. When Collins isn’t racing she teaches environmental studies and writing classes for U.C. Santa Cruz.

SZ: Is Cyclocross a serious sport?

LC: Yeah, the great thing about this sport is that there is the element of a serious sport but it’s not in the Olympics. It’s serious enough that the discussion goes back and forth with cycling unions trying to get it into the Olympics. ‘Cross’ is really big in Europe especially in Belgium where thousands of spectators come out and they have ‘cross’ superstars.  Since I began racing back in 2001 it has grown a lot in the U.S. A lot of people were doing ‘cross’ back then as a kind of a fun thing after their mountain bike season ended or as an off season activity before the road racing season. Now ‘cross’ is a primary focus for some racers. 

It’s grown quite a bit and there are now top level athletes competing yet there remains a festive atmosphere. In Portland, Oregon there is a huge ‘cross’ scene. I always compete in at least one race a year up there just because the crowds are so fun. In the women’s race there are often sixty racers competing. They have a Halloween race where everyone competes in costume. It’s unique in that you have a really intense competition but people will be competing in a funny costume.

SZ: What’s your role as a racing member of Team Caletti? Do you have a ranking or overall point standing in ‘cross.’

LC: I am co-captain of the team with Jeremiah Kille. The point/standing thing is changing this year. Our governing body will have an additional governing body. There are certain races that are sanctioned through USA Cycling. If you have a license and  compete in those races depending on how you finish in the race you receive points.

SZ: What do you mean a license?

LC: A racer buys an annual cycling license through USA Cycling, which is the national governing body. This year there’s going to be a new governing body, the U.S. Cyclocross, it’s called USCX. It’s not clear how it’s going to work exactly but basically some races are informal, you don’t receive points for them. The results are for the series standing. For example, a competitor participates in a series of races and at the end of that particular series a racer may be in 3rd place of all the racers. The results won’t give a racer a national ranking but some races are sponsored by USA Cycling and if a competitor has a license and competes in those races it gives them a certain number of points based on their overall standing that contributes to their ranking. 

SZ: Is it tied to any prize money?

LC: Historically women’s pursues haven’t been so great but there are a lot of race sponsors that are trying to make sure at the top levels of ‘cross’ that women’s prize money is the same as the men’s which is great. 

SZ: Describe the sport of Cyclocross. How is it different from other bike races such as mountain bike or road racing?

LC: There’s a lot of overlap. A lot of people who compete in ‘cross’ also compete as mountain bikers and road racers. A ‘cross’ bike looks like a road bike but has knobby tires and doesn’t have suspension like a mountain bike. But you can ride off road on a lot of terrain you would ride with a mountain bike. It’s just a bumpier ride. 

Races are a lot shorter than a road or mountain bike race. They are only forty-five minutes to an hour but sprinting the whole time. Road and mountain bike races can be two to five hours. In ‘cross,’ riders basically ride full speed the entire time. There’s no resting and recovering or drafting off another rider. One aspect of ‘cross’ I love is that the culture is so different from other cycling events. It’s possible to spend $5k on a bike but it also has a culture of it’s okay to cobble together something and just ride what you have. Team Jortz, an all women’s ‘cross’ team out of Oakland is really great. Jortz is short for jean shorts and they ride in jean shorts to playfully communicate, “You don’t need to have a bunch of fancy bike gear. We’re just out there to have fun and ride.” 

SZ: How did you get introduced to ‘cross?’

LC: I entered my first ‘cross’ race when I was living in Durango, CO. after college. Durango is a big mountain bike town and I was into cycling and mountain biking. I started hearing about the sport and back then it was impossible for me, I’m only 5’3,” to find a bike that even fit me. Companies were only making men’s Cyclocross bikes at that point. I eventually found a bike and competed in a race and I was the only person on a ‘cross’ bike. Everyone else was a mountain biker and I came in dead last. But it was so great. I’ve participated every season since then.

SZ: What was the “hook” that inspired you to race in Cyclocross at the level you now compete?

LC: That’s a good question because there’s something about ‘cross,’ It’s such a physically painful sport. I’ve gotten better over the years but the first year I rode a full season I would come home from racing and feel so nauseated I would make myself some tea and get into bed for the rest of the day. It was so physically taxing I wondered why I kept showing up and putting myself through that experience while not doing very well. I think it was one of those things where after the fact I would think back and say, “That was really fun.” Once I got a taste of improving and won my first race I wanted to see how far I could go with this.

SZ: What are the mental challenges of ‘cross’ for you?

LC: There is the mental challenge to maintain the delicate balance of having my fitness remain at a high level for the whole season. If I get sick and am out for two weeks when I return and everyone else kept racing it’s a struggle to get back and be competitive. The challenge for me is to stay healthy over the course of the season which is difficult. If I race on Sunday it often takes until Wednesday to feel pretty good again. Half the week I am still recovering from the weekend. During the race itself the mental challenges are a lot. The physical demands of the race are very intense. Sometimes there are three laps to go and I feel like I am going to heave and my mind begins to wonder what I’m doing. So mentally feeling good during a race and trying to keep my mind in a place where I don’t want to pull off to the side of the course and crawl into a hole is always a challenge to some extent. Over the years I’ve become more experienced and it’s fun to not feel like that. Now I can make strategic decisions about each lap rather than just try and finish the race.

SZ: What are the athletic skills and personality qualities that are useful in being a contender in this sport?

LC: Just as in most cycling sports I think the ability to suffer on a bike and the willingness to hit that point of suffering and just kind of accepting it’s going to be painful. That’s number one. Having some technical abilities is also helpful. The race course is not all on dirt, some parts are on pavement and a lot of road racers have really powerful legs and are really good at sprinting. But when the weather becomes muddy and the bike starts sliding around, having bike handling skills is really helpful. 

Another important thing is that if you take yourself too seriously it’s not going to go too well. When you are on a bike that is a hybrid of a road and mountain bike, but it isn’t a road or mountain bike and and it’s not going to handle mud and sloppy conditions as well as a mountain bike you are probably going to fall down. You’re probably going to botch some turns and look silly and that’s part of the fun of it. After the race standing around with people and talking about how you totally screwed up and went through the course tape and had to scramble back, having a sense of humor about yourself and the sport is great.

SZ: If something happens to your bike components during the race can you switch to another bike? 

LC: Yeah, there’s usually a designated pit area on the race course. In top races like World Championships and National Championship races competitors will bring a couple of bikes especially when the course is going to be really muddy. In the lower tiers of competition there’s usually spare wheels so if a racer gets a flat they have to run the bike pit for repairs.

SZ: Racers physically pick up the bike and run to the pit?

LC: Yes, exactly. So depending on where the racer gets the flat, it can be a  long run.

SZ: What are the types of strategies at play during a race? Does a team ride strategically as in road racing?

LC: It’s pretty independent. It’s not road racing where a team has a designated domestic who is pulling the rider who is going to win the race. 

SZ: What are the team dynamics of Team Caletti?

LC: This team is fantastic. I’m so happy to be on this team. John Caletti and his wife Cory are super great people. The team likes hanging out together and we are going to plan some training rides in Santa Barbara in June. We attend races together, watch each other race, give each other tips about riding the course and are each others support team. We have a chef, Ryan Thompson who makes us amazing meals after the races like vegetarian coconut rice burritos with fresh beet juice. 

SZ: The ‘cross’ season is Sept-early Jan. How do you prepare for the racing season?

LC: I begin with taking long rides with lots of hills but not sprinting. Just going out to develop nice endurance. Then around June/July I begin incorporating interval training, adding hill repeats and running. I’ll go out for a forty-five minute run and half way during the run I’ll do fifteen hill sprints.

SZ: That’s intense. Cyclocross is an international sport does Team Caletti send riders to compete internationally?

LC: Caletti hasn’t sent any riders internationally just because of the costs. But for the first time the World Championships were held in the U.S. in Louisville, Ky. My co-captain Jeremiah Kille rode in the race which was really cool. A few team members went along to support him as bike mechanics and buddies during the race. It was exciting to be able to send Jeremiah to Kentucky and this year we are talking about going to nationals which is going to be held in Boulder, Co. 

SZ: Where do you see the future of Cyclocross going? 

LC: Ideally I would love to see more and more women participating. There’s so many incredible women Cyclocross racers in the U.S. who compete internationally. I would love to see more money from sponsors to allow for women to compete more internationally. At the beginners level I would love to see more women entering the sport. I hope that as we expand at the top levels of Cyclocross we don’t lose site of the fact that we have historically been really friendly to newcomers and made the entry level races really acceptable and affordable. 

I know that the Olympic committee rules for a winter Olympic sport says it has to be competed on ice or snow. There’s talk of removing that limitation. It doesn’t make sense to have Cyclocross as a summer Olympic sport because ‘cross’ is best when it’s in sloppy, terrible, muddy conditions. I would love to see it in the Olympics and most riders I think would. I didn’t think we’d see a World Championship with all the international racers coming to Kentucky but they did. So I am hopeful that in the next 5-10 years there will be a bigger push to become an Olympic sport. Many cycling Olympians like Georgia Gould, who won a bronze medal in mountain biking in the London 2012 summer Olympics is a top level ‘cross’ racer. I think that as more cycling Olympians compete it’s going to help move our sport forward.

SZ: What would a spectator who comes out to watch Cyclocross for the first time experience? 

LC: It’s really spectator friendly because unlike road or mountain bike racing where racers may ride by once and then disappear for an hour during a ‘cross’ race you can see almost the entire race. It’s really family friendly. There is a kids race which is the cutest thing ever. If you come to watch a race you should probably bring some beer and a cow bell. People like to bring noise makers and the audience heckling the riders is another huge part of the culture of the sport. It’s pretty funny and adds to the festive atmosphere. 

SZ: Are there training events for Cyclocross open to interested participants?

LC: There are a lot of clinics and those usually begin in August. Caletti offers a weekly clinic skills practice. I didn’t mention this earlier but on the course there are wooden barricades and hills that are too steep to ride so you have to jump off your bike, put it on your shoulder and run over the obstacles and up the hills with your bike. So the training and clinics are really good to teach new riders technique. Also a good resource is Cyclocross Magazine they publish a list of all the races and clinics going on. 

SZ: Several times you mentioned the extreme physical and mental challenges associated with Cyclocross. Do you have any favorite quotes, tips or stories that keep your perspective during the tough moments of racing?

LC: I think I take it one lap at a time, and try to think about being smooth. I’m always telling myself I have more energy in the tank, even though I don’t really feel like it.

SZ: Lindsey thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to talk about ‘cross’ and your racing experiences.

*Featured guests are not current nor former clients of Susan Zaro

*This article can also be read @ examiner.

*Photo by Jeff Namba

Athletes Welfare - Kathy Martin

Kathy Martin is a mental health counselor and sports physiotherapist with twenty-five years experience in sports and tennis. She joined the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) in 1991 as a sport physiotherapist. She is currently the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Player Welfare Officer and Senior Director of Athlete Assistance for the WTA. In her current roles Martin is responsible for overseeing the ITF’s and WTA’s strategies regarding the safety, security and well-being of players. Martin develops and administers ITF and WTA player, player support team and staff education programs relevant to safety, security and abuse.

SZ: What sports did you participate in growing up? What was your highest level of competitive involvement?

KM: That question really interests me because I am not an athlete. It makes me laugh. I am Australian and played field hockey during secondary school and I did play tennis but I wasn’t on the tennis team at school. I pursued tennis for awhile but unfortunately didn’t have the talent and also had a short sightedness problem that was impacting my ability to play. But I did play field hockey right through school and was on school teams although I never progressed further than that. At University I took up running and I continue to run to this day. I’ve kept active all my life but I was never going to be a world beating athlete. I love playing tennis. I still dip in and out of it. I also like playing golf but I very rarely get to do either of these things (tennis or golf) so it’s an ambition of mine for when I retire to take them both up properly. It’s a time thing and when I am not at home it’s very difficult to engage in a sport on a regular basis which is why I’ve stuck to things like running and yoga because I can fit them into my traveling lifestyle. 

SZ: How did you become involved with the WTA? 

KM: In 1988 the new facility where the Australian Open is played, in Melbourne Park opened. Prior to that the Australian Open was played at the lovely Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club. In the days the Australian Open was played at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club the women’s draw was made up of sixty-four players. In 1988 when the tournament moved to Melbourne Park the women’s main draw was extended to one hundred and twenty-eight players, same as the men’s draw. The WTA at that time provided a certified athletic trainer to attend the Australian Open, but as the draw size doubled they needed another physiotherapist to work during the tournament. The physiotherapist who worked the tournament knew me and at that time I was working as the physiotherapist for the Australian Ballet Company, the Australian Ballet School and the Victorian College of the Arts, which was another main dance school in Melbourne. 

During January when the Australian Open is held is a time when the dance companies are on holiday and he knew I was probably taking time off from my work with the ballet and he rang me to find out if I would be interested in working at the Australian Open. I jumped at the chance. I’ve always been an avid tennis fan and have memories as a child of watching Evonne Goolagong and the other great Australian players. 

So I began working the Australian Open in 1988 and was asked back twice more and in 1991 I presume the players and WTA were happy with my work because they asked me to start traveling to events and it grew from there. When the WTA offered me a full time position in 1996 I took it and and haven’t left since. It’s been an interesting journey.

SZ: You’ve seen so much expansion in the WTA in every dimension of the organization. In 2009 the ITF announced your appointment as ITF Player Welfare Officer. The supportive tips and articles found on the ITF Player Welfare page is an excellent resource for players. What is your role and the goal of being involved with the ITF? 

KM: The ITF position is a part of my overall position. It’s not a full time job on its own. When the WTA formalized the Athlete Assistance Program in 2007 I began solely working in Athlete’s Assistance. That position was developed after we began a working group in 2006 that included the ITF to look at if we were providing enough structure around player safety and well being. We discovered that the structure that we had in place at the WTA was solid but we wanted to expand on that base. Subsequent to my physiotherapy training I had gone back to school and completed a graduate diploma in Adolescent Health and Welfare, also a Master’s Degree in Counseling. 

SZ: Which is very important insight for the work you do.

KM: It’s important and I am qualified to do it. The ITF began looking at a similar kind of role (Athlete Assistance) and they searched for awhile to find someone suitable to fill their position but they came back to me because in the tennis universe I was probably one of the few people with this kind of expertise and understanding of the environment and structure of the organizations involved. My work with the ITF is to help them provide policies and procedures around Athlete Welfare and Player Well-Being. Also guidance for best practices that have been researched world wide and to put into place appropriate programs at the ITF level. 

SZ: Does this include parental seminars and coach seminars?

KM: The ITF has a number of different departments which you can see if you go to their website. The main difference between the job I perform with the WTA and ITF is I don’t have direct player contact with the ITF because it’s a much larger universe of people. My job with the ITF is to put some structure around providing information for players and their support teams through things we’ve made available. For example, having some Player Welfare input in coaching education which is something we are just beginning to do now. Some of the resources are made available publicly and other resources are available for players only. The aim is to get information filtering all the way down to the juniors. The ITF junior department is very robust in it’s educational program and we have education through the ITF junior school which is an on-line resource. I also do in person education at ITF junior symposiums. The materials we create for the symposiums are a bit like train the trainer. Other people will take that material and deliver it to other parts of the world. My main purpose at these symposiums is to create the materials and educate people I know who are out in the field on the ITF level. They make sure that players and their teams are aware of the information and can access the material.

SZ: So your role is to contact the providers and create structure to disseminate the materials that are of value to players, parents, coaches, support teams. 

KM: Yes, and I do that through the different ITF departments. Because the ITF is a member organization and its members are the Federations by providing information through a variety of ITF departments they can make sure that the information is dispersed. For example, if a coach is attending an ITF coach course there will be an element of Player Welfare in that course. Another example is a few years ago I spoke at a world wide coaches conference where there were seven hundred coaches present. They then can disseminate the information back to their Federation. 

SZ: Main stream audiences follow the biggest names in tennis but there are many levels of players competing and working to have their chance of breaking into the top 200 in the world. What are some common stressors mental/physical you’ve seen through the years for players/coaches? Do you see a shift in the types of mental/physical stressors for players/coaches or do you consider it a natural result of tougher competition and more players competing for spots?

KM: In 1994 the WTA conducted a comprehensive review which formed the foundation for the WTA Age Eligibility Rule and complementary player development programs. The WTA then followed up that research again in 2004 to see if those programs had an impact and we found indeed they had. We found that there was a shift in the stressors that were originally identified in 1994. The stresses had shifted from more external factors such as media, family, and loneliness to things that were more directly sport related that you would expect to see in any professional sport such as injuries, competition, traveling, those kind of things. So the programs implemented were directly targeted at the stresses that were identified early on and we have continued to expand and grow those programs. Athlete Assistance actually grew out of the original player development programs. We do lots of behind the scenes work with our athletes and at the WTA level we have an orientation for players under 18, their parent(s) and coach. We have an on-line series of mandatory lessons for these players, parents and coaches  which provide a grounding in what the WTA is, how the different departments operate, where to go to get help, and then we provide practical training around those lessons. 

The rookie players meet with me so I get a feel of where they are coming from and what sort of things are going on for that young person at the time when she’s stepping into the WTA. The WTA programs are very specific to the environment and targeted specifically to the stresses identified based on research and we are constantly working to improve that. Thankfully  the digital age has provided a new means of getting information out to athletes around the world and a way of directly meeting with people.

SZ: Let’s say if a young player starts on the WTA and they are playing international level or qualifying events do you follow-up with the players after they’ve completed the orientation and their parent and coach have taken the on-line courses? Do you check back to see how they are doing? Or is it up to them to to go forward from there? 

KM: It’s a bit of both. We have a lot of players who may receive a wild card on the WTA but are still building their ranking up at the ITF level so we don’t see them for a period of time. I will still make an effort to check in with those athletes. The WTA has a sort of front of house department called Player Relations and they are pretty much at all the events no matter what level. One of their jobs is to just be the friendly person that the player can come and ask questions of and they will direct players and their support teams to appropriate resources. 

All the WTA teams really do that in many ways because we communicate with each other and we are all concerned that we are having a positive impact on people’s personal, professional and tennis development. After I meet with a rookie player I will tell them to expect that I will probably approach them again. Obviously the ones that make it to the upper levels will be playing more regularly on the WTA and I will interact with them more. Over time as people grow up and become adults and make their own decisions, then it’s like any other service we provide, the athletes are at liberty to choose which parts of the various programs they want to interact with. 

SZ: What basic advice/guidelines do you have for players/coaches/parents regarding a player’s mental/physical maturity before attempting a professional playing career?

KM: This is the focus of the Age Eligibility Rule. The Age Eligibility Rule mandates a certain amount of play at different ages as a maximum. It’s not a target to be hit. Rather, it eases people into the environment so they’re getting a graduated increase in play commiserate with their performance . Along the way they are obligated to participate in player development education programs in order to progress to the next stage. The rule reflects that it’s a very tough and very adult world. There’s a lot more money in the environment than there ever used to be and along with that there is a lot more media scrutiny. It’s a digital age and players are now exposed through social media not just print journalism. Attention might be coming at a player in many different ways and the WTA would advise any player, parent, coach to take their time. The rules we have are structured around performance based merited increases which we see is a much more sustainable way of participating in the game than giving a player who might be identified as being of incredible talent at a young age a whole lot of wild cards into tournaments. Winning at every level (qualifying tournaments, Pro Circuit tournaments etc.) is the preferred course. When I talk to the juniors at the ITF level I often ask them, “Who wants to play on the professional circuit?” Well a hundred out of a hundred will put their hand up. But the reality is that five out of that one hundred might get there. Providing a little bit of reality to that junior level is important as I encourage them that tennis is a great life sport and that they can participate in tennis in many ways. 

Of course they want to play well and to participate at a younger age is fantastic for them when there is a healthy structure and environment around that and that’s what we are trying to facilitate. It’s important that players play through a draw and are able to win in the juniors. Then they get the experience of doing that again on the pro circuit.

SZ: If an agent has a young adult that is a hot prospect and wants the player out there is there some push-pull over WTA rules versus their wants? Or are the rules pretty clear?

KM: The rules are clear. That’s not to say that the rules are not sometimes discussed at length. But the rules are very clear and the good thing is the WTA can back up those rules with evidence gathered through the 2004 Age Eligibility Rule review. Pre-mature retirements of WTA players prior to the age of twenty-two dropped from 7% to less than 1%. It’s statistically significant. The review also showed that players after factoring in advances in racket technology and better training methods etc. are remaining 24% longer on the WTA than they were previously. A WTA player is 73% more likely to have a fifteen year career compared with when we first looked at the statistics. 

Two recent Grand Slam winners have been either thirty years old or close to it. (Italian player, Francesca Schiavone, thirty years old at the time won the French Open Singles in 2010, and Li Na from China, twenty-nine years old at the time she won the French Open Singles in 2011). In the past people perhaps felt if their daughter hadn’t made it by the time she’s twenty years old she was all washed up. That’s no longer the case and the research can back that up with actual data. That’s a fantastic shift. We want these women to have a long and as fruitful a playing career as they deserve. Part of that longevity is through physical/mental health and I believe that the WTA has a very competent and highly skilled science and medicine team who travel to all the tournaments. 

SZ: Do you travel with the WTA week to week? Describe a typical day of your professional duties during a Grand Slam event?

KM: No I don’t travel week to week on the WTA. I very much have to apply my own rules to myself. It’s all about balance, resilience and recovery. Being able to withstand the rigors of the traveling and traveling life is not easy. I normally work at bigger draw size events because there is a higher target number of athletes who are around. For example prior to a Grand Slam event there is a qualifying event and often we may get a lot of younger players attending. Also Grand Slam events have junior Grand Slam events at the same location. There may be some juniors to whom we are reaching out to and those tournaments are good catchment areas to be at. 

For example recently I was at BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, CA then traveled to Miami for the Sony Ericsson Open. Both of these tournaments are big draw sizes. So that means I am going to be more effective at being available for the players and their support teams at these events. I do travel to most continents where there are WTA tournaments so I’m not targeting one particular demographic. 

In between when I’m home I’m available for players if they need to talk to me. I am available via e-mail, Skype and phone.

A typical day at a tournament is hard to define. It looks different every day. However, for example before I arrive at an event I’ve got a copy of the entry list. I know who is eighteen and under, and who is participating in the tournament. From those lists I can work out which players I know and which players I’ve not met with. If they are in the rookie program they have to meet with me. If they are not in the rookie program but I haven’t met them I still try to reach out to them even if they are twenty-five or twenty-six years old. These players may have been in college and are just beginning to play on the WTA. I sit down and meet them and make sure they know what resources my department can offer them, and where to get help should they need it. 

My day will consist of players coming to find me because they want to talk to me about something. I try to remove any stigma associated with being a mental health counselor. I have an open door policy. If my door is open I don’t mind if a player just pops in to have coffee or just say hello. If at a tournament location my office is tucked away where coaches and others can’t get to me easily, I’ll spend time in the players lounge talking to players and their support team. My day at a tournament is really a mixed bag of activities.

SZ: If you assess that a player could benefit from talking with a mental health provider do you provide a referral for the player back in their own country? Obviously if there is a crisis you have crisis management protocols in place. But if it’s not a crisis do you then suggest referrals?

KM: Very good question. Yes, I make that very clear to players because from time to time they will come to see me about issues and I am qualified as a counselor but I cannot run a clinic on the road. In the process of talking with players if I detect that they are going to need more extensive or specialized help, absolutely I have a fairly good international network of health providers in most countries. Through the Athlete Assistance provider we use I can also access other referrals. So yes, that is part of my job and the good thing about having me in that position is that I can help a player identify the right fit for them. I can get quite specific about the type of therapist that I am looking for and as much as possible try to provide that contact. It’s challenging sometimes because we get players from an amazing collection of places. But I’ve got a very good network of people who assist me.

SZ: What are the most enjoyable aspects of your job?

KM: I like helping young women succeed in what they desire to do.  Part of the challenge, as it can be for many people, is dealing with emotional stress and related issues such as the  complex dynamics of  the people around the athletes, then I like being able to help people with that. I enjoy learning from all the young women that I meet. They come from such eclectic, diverse educational, cultural, religious and socio-economic backgrounds. Their life stories are often fascinating and I’ve always enjoyed that. I love learning about people’s home countries. I enjoy traveling or I wouldn’t still be doing this job after all this time. I love seeing different places. I just think that people are amazing and I love working with the human condition. I look for similarities in people. At the end of the day we are all human beings and these young athletes are incredibly gifted young women. It’s a privilege to work with such gifted people who are often highly intelligent, highly articulate, often highly creative. It’s extraordinary to me what some of these young women are able to achieve and I find that stimulating and exciting. There are days when I go home and think, “Oh my goodness” but that’s why I need to keep my own balance. I try to exercise when I am on the road and I have fun. I have good friends that I work with and that’s another bonus of the job.

SZ: You’ve been with the WTA quite awhile and seen a lot. Do you have any favorite quotes, stories or tips that help influence your professional prospective?

KM: I have always been on the balance and recovery bus. People who become injured need to take time to re-evaluate and even if that means time out I think we can all pay attention to that. Trying to avoid becoming so swept up that I’m working constantly and that is a challenge for us all I think. Human beings have feelings and I work with that every single day. When young athletes are quite driven and maybe perfectionist and place high expectations on themselves, it’s okay that they are human beings too. I think that’s something we can all stop for moment and remember because we have much more in common than we have apart. 

SZ: Kathy thank you so very much for taking time out of your busy schedule for talking with me about your job at the WTA. The tour has made amazing changes over the years.

*Featured guests are not current nor former clients of Susan Zaro

*This article may also be read @ examiner

  www.susanzaro.com

EMDR-PEP in the Sports Arena

Jennifer Lendl, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist with a clinical practice in Silicon Valley. She specializes in trauma, performance for sports, business, health and the arts. She coauthored EMDR Performance Enhancement for the Workplace: A Practitioners’ Manual. Dr. Lendl was the trauma and performance specialist at the Amen Clinic for six years and continues to consult with them. She is the Sports Psychologist with an interdisciplinary training group called Women Involved In Sports Evolution in Ventura, CA. She presents at conferences nationally and internationally on EMDR, Performance and Psychology.

SZ: Were you a competitive athlete growing up? What sports did you participate in and to what level?

JL: I’m from an athletic family. My grandparents on both sides of the family competed athletically. I started swimming competitively around six or seven years of age. My parents had me working individually with an Olympic training coach at age eight. But my body couldn’t tolerate the stress. During high school I lettered in five sports. My freshmen year in high school I played tennis. My sophomore year I attended another high school that didn’t have a tennis team but for three years participated in basketball, volleyball, softball, track and field.

This was before Title IX so there weren’t college scholarships. I attended Stanford University and promised my mom I would at least meet the swim coach once I started school. I ended up competing on the Stanford women’s swim team all four years during college and was honored to be co-captain for three out of the four years. As a team we were really successful. The athletic department even provided us with sweat pants which we had to share with the field hockey team.

SZ: You shared your sweats with the field hockey team? Thank goodness for Title IX.

JL: The basketball coach borrowed the swim team to play basketball. The swim team and hockey team were organized and competed on a national level. The basketball team wasn’t as organized yet but was becoming a more organized sport for the university.

SZ: How would Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing - Performance Enhancement Psychology (EMDR-PEP) have been useful to you as a competitive athlete?

JL: That’s an interesting question. EMDR-PEP would have been useful in many ways. Clearing the memories of working with the eight year old training experience. There would have been two issues to address. One injury and health and two harsh coaching techniques that might be considered bullying today.

Other situations that would have been useful would be loss of confidence due to perceived or real failures, reframing losses from failure to challenge, being able to break the habit of focusing on opponents to the detriment of my own performance, letting go of fear and hesitation in aggressive situations, the value and need for balance and time management to be successful in the long run, the pressure to use banned substances, and discrimination for sexual orientation.

SZ: Interesting.

JL: At Women Involved In Sports Evolution, which is a cross disciplinary team in Ventura, CA. my job has been to use the EMDR approach to clear fears regarding injuries, difficult losses, team personality conflicts and self doubt blocking beliefs. I think people do not really know what EMDR is.

SZ: I agree. Describe EMDR.

JL: Over the past twenty years Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) has progressed from a technique that could be used within existing psychotherapy modalities such as psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive behavioral, integrative approaches to address symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). EMDR has evolved into a distinct integrative approach based upon Francine Shapiro’s, Ph.D., Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) which suggests that EMDR address dysfunctionally stored memory networks. Essentially this means that everything we learn whether it enters our sensory receptors through vision, hearing, taste, touch or smell becomes stored in our brains in a way it can be retrieved when needed and it adapts according to other information coming in through the environment. Learning occurs when new associations are created with material already stored in a persons memory.

For example something that scares a 4 year old becomes less scary as the child grows up. Emotions, thoughts and reactions become age appropriate. However if someone is age 14, 24, or even 64 and are having temper tantrums around a sport activity an EMDR-PEP therapist is going to wonder what is triggering the childlike tantrum and blocking the persons ability to utilize an age appropriate communication style, ruling out a medical condition. After an outburst most people more than likely know better but they had a knee jerk response and just couldn’t hook up to the more useful information to draw on.  

EMDR is designed as an eight phase protocol and targets past experiences that are encoded maladaptively. Therapy addresses current triggers and symptoms (for example an athlete repeatedly losing his/her temper after making an error, even with the knowledge, losing his/her cool isn’t useful). Therapy also addresses future potential challenges. (The athlete is asked to predict other situations that could possibly trigger the adverse response - losing his/her cool).

EMDR-PEP adheres to Francine Shapiro’s work but the emphasis is on performance rather than safety (PTSD). In essence the clinician works backwards by having the athlete visualize expected outcomes and work with them on performance skills such as focus, concentration, emotional management, persistence, relaxation, goal setting, time management, or reprocessing mental, physical blocks if needed. This is different from traditional performance work which teaches new skills and refines old skills but doesn’t work to remove existing blocks so they are no longer triggered.

SZ: What are the age ranges you work with utilizing EMDR-PEP?

JL: I’ve worked with clients as young as six years old.

SZ: Your phone is going to be ringing off the hook from people who will want to mind modulate their child at the age of six.

JL: What we are doing is not mind modulating. We want them to be age appropriate. That’s different.

SZ: Does EMDR help athletes that have received concussions?

JL: I’m glad you asked that question. The concussion issue is in the spotlight. There are several major studies going on and it’s a pet project at the Amen Clinic where I worked for six years as the trauma performance specialist and continue to do outgoing consultations. They have an ongoing NFL concussion study right now. As Sport Psychologists when we work with an athlete we need to be aware of the changes in athletes that call for immediate referral for a medical diagnosis. I would like to go over some of the symptoms we need to be aware of that may indicate an athlete has a concussion these include:

*Confusion or feeling dazed

*Fogginess

*Clumsiness

*Slurred speech

*Reported nausea/vomiting

*Disturbed vision

*Difficulty with balance/dizziness

*Sensitivity to light, noise, smell, taste

*Ringing in ears

*Sluggishness/lethargy

*Concentration/memory difficulty

*Sleep disturbance (plus or minus)

*Behavioral personality change

*Irritability

*Nervousness

*Sadness

These are possible symptoms of an athlete having incurred a concussion. They don’t need all these symptoms but some of them could call for referral to a medical doctor. While EMDR therapy will not heal the physical brain trauma it can address stored emotional charge around the injury experience. Irrational beliefs such as shame or self doubt may arise from the injury experience. Internal dialogue athletes sometimes have with themselves around injury may sound like, “I am weak, I am defective now, I will never be whole again, (or in the professional realm), I can’t do my job.” In this situation EMDR can help with releasing mental blocks to de-stress and support brain health.

SZ: For athlete’s that participate in ice hockey, soccer, basketball, football, boxing etc. and a doctor’s advice is stop participating in contact sports, does EMDR-PEP help?

JL: As human beings we naturally move towards health. If our choice isn’t healthy for us to be in a certain situation how do we move past that? How do we get our brain to recognize that it’s time to move on? Those are things we do in transitioning athletes from one stage to the next and those are things EMDR-PEP could help with. When an athlete says, “I’m not important unless I am number one....”

SZ: Or part of a team.

JL: Yes, or part of an athletic team, or a scholar/athlete or whatever it is, those are considered to be blocking beliefs.

SZ: What resources to you recommend for athletes/parents/coaches to learn about EMDR or EMDR-PEP?

JL: The best resource although it isn’t sport performance specific is Francine Shapiro’s latest book, “Getting Past Your Past.” This book will explain EMDR and has some performance information. Years ago there was some interest in EMDR-PEP but therapists weren’t really interested in becoming trained in this modality. Recently I had a call from the USOC and they are very much interested in EMDR-PEP.

SZ: As a pioneer you helped develop protocol for EMDR-PEP that is utilized in sports, business and the arts. Do you have an favorite quotes, tips, stories that have guided your professional career?

JL: Dr. Daniel Amen, of the Amen Clinic says, “Change your brain, change your life.” It’s absolutely true to focus on brain health. Francine Shapiro frequently says, “What have you learned? Are you having fun?” That carries with me every where.

SZ: Jennifer thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk about and explain some of the general concepts of EMDR-PEP.

*Contact information for Dr. Lendl - 408.244.6186.

*Featured guests are not current nor former clients of Susan Zaro

*This article may also be read @ examiner

*Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images (McEnroe)

"Choke" A discussion with Sian Beilock, Ph.D.

Dr. Sian Beilock’s book, “Choke What The Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting it Right When You Have To” takes a look into the science of why people choke under pressure. Dr. Beilock is a psychology professor at the University of Chicago and one of the world’s leading experts on the brain science behind “choking under pressure” and factors influencing all types of performance from test-taking to public speaking to athletic pursuits. Dr. Beilock runs the Human Performance Lab at the University of Chicago and her work is to ask questions about how people get good at what they do. 

“We are particularly interested, not only in the building blocks of expertise, but why sometimes folks just aren’t able to pull out their best performance when it matters most.” 

SZ: I have to say you have a very cool job. I think it would be a lot of fun.

SB: It is a lot of fun. 

SZ: Growing up you played on an Olympic Development soccer team and in college played lacrosse. Were there any choking events in your life that planted the seeds of motivation to explore this area of cognitive science?

SB: I definitely experienced situations where I didn’t perform up to my best and so I’ve always been very interested in what makes that happen. Why sometimes you can pull out your best performance, why sometimes you can’t, why some people seem to be able to consistently and others don’t. I wanted to better understand how we get to play and perform at our best. 

SZ: What do you believe are the qualities of mental toughness in an athlete?

SB: The first thing I would say is that I don’t think you are born or made mentally tough. I think that we learn how to put our best foot forward when it matters most and that’s something we can all learn to be better at. I don’t think that people walk into the world mentally tough in that way. Just like we’ve practiced the rest of our skills in whatever sport we are playing we get better at performing the mechanics and everything else necessary to be performed. We have to practice being able to pull those skills out in mentally stressful situations. So being able to perform at the same level in all sorts of situations might characterize someone who’s mentally tough. Not being swayed by whether it is a high stakes championship versus a really important practice. 

SZ: Would you describe this as a person that is focused in the moment of the activity they are doing?

SB: I would say the person that is able to pull out what they need to pull out when it matters most. 

SZ: What is the self-affirmation condition? 

SB: There is research showing that when people think about situations and like positive qualities of themselves or can recall situations where they can perform well, it serves to buffer them against stressful situations. Some of this work has been done in school settings where researchers have students think about all different sorts of aspects of themselves that are really important to them and talk about why they are important to them. Maybe they see themselves as a good friend or a good athlete, or a good cook. They like these things about themselves and it turns out when you focus on all these different aspects of yourself that are essentially important to you it often makes you succeed in whatever you are doing. 

SZ: Explain that a bit more. 

SB: If you feel psychologically taxed, or down on yourself because you haven’t performed as well as you wanted to, thinking about other aspects of yourself, where you succeed, that you value, can be enough to buffer you and seep over to benefit your performance in whatever you are doing. 

SZ: Parents of young athletes are frequently seen pacing the sidelines of their child’s sporting event or grimacing when their child makes an error. The child is often aware of what is transpiring on the side-lines. Do you feel that pressure from parents/coaches add to the “choking” issue in youth sports? 

SB: Yeah, there is lots of research showing that you can feel pressure from all situations. Often you feel it most from people who are supportive. It’s great to shine in front of your friends, family and parents but it’s also a lot worse to fall flat on your face. So knowing that they are having some sort of negative reaction can be a lot of pressure. 

SZ: What are some recommended guide-lines for parents and coaches?

SB: As a parent or coach one thing to think about is that this is just one performance in the child’s life. If you can use it as a learning experience and you can express to the child that this how they performed in one particular situation isn’t indicative of who they are as an athlete or as a person. 

SZ: The subpar performance isn’t what the child will necessarily do going forward. It can be improved.

SB: Yeah, one thing that parents/coaches can do is use the moment. Often when people perform poorly especially when it’s in a stressful situation or important sporting event they can make it into a testament to themselves, “Oh I don’t play well under pressure. Or I guess I’m not as good as I thought I was.”  But instead think about this as maybe, “I didn’t put in the practice I needed to or maybe there is something I could have changed in this situation.” You can use the experience to think about how you will prepare for and perform differently the next time. 

SZ: In some situations it is useful to think constructive or reframe negative thoughts after making an error. Other times not thinking just reacting to the situation is useful. In either of these situations how important is it to link a physiological response such as, The Quieting Response, or deep balanced breathing?

SB: That’s interesting. Often times I talk about practice situations is the time you really want to think through what you are doing if you need to tweak something like the mechanics of what you are doing. The game situation is when your goal is not necessarily to change how you are performing but to pull out that optimal level of performance. I think there are different ways of thinking often times for practice and games. If you make an error and you have something you do as a way to refocus yourself, like taking a breath, that can be beneficial to the extent that it cues you as to how you need to react to get back into the game. 

SZ: I was thinking of the autonomic nervous system. If I am not breathing or not breathing fully this is going to affect the oxygen level going to my muscles and my brain. It’s going to affect how I think, how my body and mind communicate. I was wondering if your research explored this.

SB: We haven’t looked at that. I think it’s a really interesting issue. Some of my work suggests that one of the most important things is how you are interpreting those physiological responses. For example you can have a rapid beating heart and sweaty palms but if you interpret this as a sign that you are there for a challenge, that you’ve woken up and you are bringing your “A game” to the table that can lead to a completely different performance than if you interpret it as a sign that you are about to fail. A lot of it has to do with how we cognitively interpret these bodily reactions. When you make an error your heart rate goes up. If you can learn to interpret that as “Okay I’m paying attention. I’m ready to change this the next time around.” Rather than, “I’m going down hill.” It can make a big difference. 

SZ: What are your thoughts about virtual reality as a training tool for the future? 

SB: I think it’s an interesting question. We don’t use it in the work that we are currently doing, our lab is mostly focused on cognitive training.  But to the extent that you might be able to better mimic some of the situations you would experience when you are actually in a competitive situation or some other highly stressful situation it could be very useful. 

SZ: Do you predict it as a technology coming into this field?

SB: I think what’s more important than flashy technology is a good theory behind what you are doing with it. There is research showing that you can inoculate people or habituate them to some of the bodily experiences they’ll have in these stressful situations, that can be beneficial. Maybe doing this in virtual reality could be one way to get at this. But I think there are lots of tools we can use to help people perform better. Some of the tools are actually surprisingly simple. 

SZ: Sally is a junior tennis player (14 yrs old) is not seeded. She is playing Carly the fourth seed (14 yrs old). Sally has never beaten Carly but she wins the first set then thinks to herself, “Hey I may beat the fourth seed.” From this awareness she begins to make errors and proceeds to lose the second set. Sally has been in this situation, wins the first set then folds, several times before. What types of refocusing would be helpful for Sally after she has interrupted the flow she had going on in this match? 

SB: This a great situation because it doesn’t have to just happen from Sally’s awareness that she could win. It could happen in all sorts of situations such as “Hey someone may see me succeed or someone may see me fail.”  In my book, “Choke” I talk about lots of techniques players can use in the moment to refocus on what they are doing whether it’s singing a song or focusing on one component of their stroke that incapsulates the entire move which prevents them from over analyzing what they are doing in the moment. One idea is that we are limited capacity creatures. We can only focus on so many things at once so harnessing the focus on the next shot, where you want it to land, or that one key word associated with your stroke means you don’t have as much room to have your thoughts go astray.

SZ: Those specific skills need to occur in practice not just in the moment when the person is competing.

SB: Exactly. You need to learn to use the skills and get used to using them. In an optimal situation you would get to practice under a little bit of stress where you could start using them as a way to get back on your game, or remain focused. 

SZ: A coach working with Sally could set up a practice situation where if Sally’s serve has a tendency to become shaky under pressure create a pressure scenario. For example, she is winning 2-0 in a set but she only gets one serve each time she is the server. 

SB: Yes, or put something on the line that is fun. Something where she would get used to a little bit of stress. We are great at learning by analogy and just a little bit of stress can get us used to the really important situations. 

SZ: Where can people find out more about your book, the research you are working on and upcoming events? 

SB: The best way to find out more information is www.sianbeilock.com

SZ: Do you have any favorite quotes, stories or tips that have influenced your professional career?

SB: Yogi Berra always said, “How can you hit and think at the same time?” It really gets at this idea that when you start paying too much attention to those aspects of what you are doing, which should really just be on auto pilot in the moment, it can be really counter productive. 

SZ: Anything you would like to add?

SB: One thing I’ve really learned from my work and the work of my colleagues, and I said this in the beginning but I’ll say it again, you don’t come into this world a choker vs. a non choker. Performing under pressure is something you learn. I am sure there are exceptional world class athletes that break records in practice but being able to put that best foot forward when it matters most is what really separates those whom we talk about from those maybe we don’t. I think we can learn how to do this and that’s what I talk about in my book “Choke.”  There is a tool box of techniques that we can all employ in whatever we are doing so that we can shine when all eyes are on us.

SZ: Dr. Beilock thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to share your ideas and research performing under pressure. 

*Featured guests are not former nor current clients of Susan Zaro

*This article may also be read @ Examiner