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This book provides an integrative empirical analysis of numerous anecdotal notions and cliches that have permeated sport psychology, including just do it, the ideal performance state, mental toughness, focus, and the idea that sport is mostly a mental game. The author, Dr. Roland A. Carlstedt, travels where no researcher has ventured in quantifying these slogan statements, bringing new insights and data as to their meaning. His Theory of Critical Moments provides a long-overdue, lucid and highly plausible explanation for the dynamics of Zone and Flow states as well as the effects of intrusive cognitions on sport performance. In attempting to quantify the Zone, Carlstedt presents provocative data and perspectives on brain and heart interactions, suggesting that specific parameters of these measures reflect peak performance states. His model has explained up to 44% of the variance in the performance equation that can be attributed to psychological factors - an unprecedented finding that attests to the sensitivity and potency of the predictor and criterion variables Carlstedt has isolated as being crucial and central to peak sport performance.
This book is also a valuable source for applied practitioners. It presents innovative assessment methods and advanced approaches to mental training, including on-the-field measurement and manipulation of cortical states and heart rate variability to improve performance. Carlstedt's applied protocol also advances off-the-field assessment of cortical functioning using brain-imaging methods, intervention efficacy testing, critical moments analysis, and database management, sophisticated approaches to athlete evaluation that will soon be de rigueur.
Dr. Stanley Krippner, the noted consciousness researcher, calls the theories, perspectives, applications and methodologies in this book seminaland a watershed in the annals of research in sport psychology.his is a book that should be read by practitioners, researchers, educators, and athletes who are interested in an integrative approach to peak performance. It will also be of interest to neuroscientists, neuropsychologists, psychophysiologists, methodologists and personality, health and cognitive psychologists.