4 minute read
Going the Distance: Integrating Mental Performance
Elle Gilbert ’12 joined the SMS staff as our Mental Performance Specialist in 2020. Elle views sport as a vehicle to develop extraordinary humans. She is committed to building a community that prioritizes healthy, strong, and agile minds by creating an environment where concepts of acceptance, mindfulness, and values-based commitment strategies are widely supported and reinforced. Here, Elle shares her perspective on the impact of the fully integrated Sports Psychology Program at Stratton Mountain School.
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It is becoming difficult to ignore the global conversation around the psychological ingredients affecting our athletes’ performance and well-being. From grassroots programs to the Olympic stage, there has been a widespread call to arms: we must provide athletes with the resources and the support they need, not only to survive as they navigate the challenges and pressures that come with being a performer, but also to thrive as they pursue excellence in their craft.
Last year, Stratton Mountain School firmly solidified its place as a pioneer among the top ski academies by investing in their student-athletes’ lives and sporting success through a new, fully integrated Sport Psychology program. The truth is that our student-athletes, and their supporting networks, devote a prodigious amount of time and energy to pursuing excellence. By expanding the scope of hard work and preparation beyond the physical realm, our athletes can build the knowledge and tools needed to bridge the gap between their current reality and the heights of their potential. This approach also honors the holistic development of our youth, shifting the focus from mastery of craft to mastery of self through craft.
As humans, our brains are wired to make predictions to construct our lived experience by combining context with experience. Meaning, mental training is happening all the time. Through the ways we think, perceive, interpret, react, behave, and relate to ourselves and our world, we are laying the foundation for doing all of these things in the future. In other words, the person we train ourselves to be in every moment of our lives—conscious or not—is the same person who will show up in the moments that matter.
At SMS, we want to change the paradigm from mental training aimed at performance and wellness as an extra or an add-on to something integral to the commitment of what excellence looks like in our current world. To be truly impactful, this needs to be a community-wide initiative—beginning with the investment of our staff and then infiltrating the many aspects of student-athlete life. By offering opportunities to engage in mental performance work on an individual basis, on a team level, through in-class academic perspectives, in training environments, and in on snow competition scenarios, our student-athletes are supported in attending to their psychological training. This gives them the resources to better develop their minds to move towards their goals and values.
Throughout this past year, athletes have explored how the human mind has evolved to function, uncovered their internal barriers, and begun to develop new relationships with their minds. Teams have worked to identify what they stand for, what matters to them, and what shared values make them a team. They have addressed the critical topics of stress, anxiety, and self-regulation, rooted in building self-awareness and understanding pressure, competition, and the nature of the world they live in. They have begun unwinding hang-ups around the idea of confidence—exploring the role of courage and the unwitting power they have given their feelings to determine their actions. They have investigated the influence of presence, the practice of mindfulness, and the ultimate goal of mastering the ability to aim, regain, and sustain focus.
Student introspection led coaches to rethink course inspection procedures, start area setup, and course reports. Athletes reconsidered their routines and experimented with their attention during training sessions. Athletes and coaches alike pursued conversations around goal setting, routines, formulating immediate action plans, and engaging in the process of selfreflection. Additionally, athletes dove into the psychophysiology behind "investing in the process," striving to understand their internal mechanisms of self-reward. They embraced conversations around leadership and the practice of kindness, and they opened their minds to look at the impact of social media and technology on their own lives and on the culture of their sport.
Injured athletes on a Return to Sport progression now prioritize psychological readiness alongside physical rehabilitation as they are prepared to step back into the gym, onto the soccer field, or into their boots. This year, biofeedback technology will allow athletes a tangible window into their physiology, understanding their baseline functioning, the experience of stress, fear responses, and emotional reactivity. For athletes looking for a safe and speedy return to snow after injury and those looking to optimize their physiology for improved living and performance, biofeedback provides a method of training and tracking skill development, to help our athletes manage themselves productively across all situations.
Stratton Mountain School has broadened its traditional commitment to excellence by investing in a resource that says to our athletes, "You are more than your accomplishments" and "Who you are here is more important than what you do here." Student-athletes now have the opportunity to explicitly attend to the development and care of their inner life thanks to a schoolwide curriculum intentionally designed to build character and set our student-athletes up for a life of fulfillment. In a rapidly changing world where the demands and expectations placed on young people are steadily climbing, this is the so-often missing piece of the puzzle our student-athletes deserve—as they passionately pursue their dreams.
