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"Personnel Best" (Page 2)

Someone else focusing on mental and emotional fitness is Aaron Surtees, a fully qualified hypnotist who runs the City Hypnosis practice in London.

“The mind, not the body, often stops sports professionals from achieving their optimum performance. My hypnosis program replaces the mental doubts, fears, insecurities and uncertainties with mental confidence. This enables the mind to remain focused to succeed in the challenge at hand.”

Surtees says the key is to help professionals to successfully transfer what they do every day in training t the actual race, when the pressure is on. As a result Surtees’ hypnosis program can also be tailored to team personnel. “I can apply a similar process to team engineers who might, for example, have pit stop problems. It’s all to do with controlling adrenaline and remaining calm and focused in the heat of the moment.”

Surtees says only three sessions are required before team bosses will see changes: “One of the greatest advantages to hypnosis is that it tends to work quickly. It’s not like a talk shop or other types of therapy that might take longer.”

Andy Barton, sports psychologist, certainly thinks it’s good to talk. Barton, who runs the Sporting Mind clinic in London, says: “I get people to think positively and motivate people to achieve the right results. Essentially, we find ourselves performing badly because we are not using our minds in a positive way.”

He continues: “A team mechanic might not be performing as well as he can during a pit stop because he’s become very conscious of what he’s doing. When one becomes conscious, one tends to lose trust in ability and skills and it’s at that point when a mechanic will not perform to the best of their abilities.”

To overcome such a problem, Barton employs mental rehearsal techniques. He explains: “Helping an engineer to practice in his/her head time and time again what they need to do during a pit stop can be very effective. Take Michael Schumacher: he makes a very vivid mental note of the entire circuit and that’s what has helped him win race after race. The same can be done with team personnel when they are called upon to do their job in a high-pressure situation.”

Getting the best out of your team is not just about stimulating the brain – keeping personnel in top physical condition is just as important.

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