Peak Performance Every Time

Peak performances should not be left to chance. Rather than hoping that you will perform at your best, why not engineer your performance? Peak Performance Every Time incorporates principles from sport psychology and performance coaching and applies these to all areas of life. Using illustrations and real-world examples from top athletes and business executives, it focuses on the three main components that underpin performance: Confidence Motivation Focus. As well as offering practical strategies to help the reader achieve their optimal mindset, it also explains how to coach others to perform to their potential. Throughout, the book is underpinned by theoretical frameworks, literature and research findings and will be invaluable to anyone trying to reach their full potential, in particular athletes, coaches, managers and executives. It may also be of interest to sports psychology, management and business students.

"A transfixing book on how to sustain peak performance and avoid burnout" —Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Option B, Originals, and Give and Take "An essential playbook for success, happiness, and getting the most out of ourselves." Arianna Huffington, author of Thrive and The Sleep Revolution "I doubt anyone can read Peak Performance without itching to apply something to their own lives." —David Epstein, New York Times bestselling author of The Sports Gene A few common principles drive performance, regardless of the field or the task at hand. Whether someone is trying to qualify for the Olympics, break ground in mathematical theory or craft an artistic masterpiece, many of the practices that lead to great success are the same. In Peak Performance, Brad Stulberg, a former McKinsey and Company consultant and writer who covers health and the science of human performance, and Steve Magness, a performance scientist and coach of Olympic athletes, team up to demystify these practices and demonstrate how you can achieve your best. The first book of its kind, Peak Performance combines the inspiring stories of top performers across a range of capabilities—from athletic to intellectual and artistic—with the latest scientific insights into the cognitive and neurochemical factors that drive performance in all domains. In doing so, Peak Performance uncovers new linkages that hold promise as performance enhancers but have been overlooked in our traditionally-siloed ways of thinking. The result is a life-changing book in which you can learn how to enhance your performance via myriad ways including: optimally alternating between periods of intense work and rest; priming the body and mind for enhanced productivity; and developing and harnessing the power of a self-transcending purpose. In revealing the science of great performance and the stories of great performers across a wide range of capabilities, Peak Performance uncovers the secrets of success, and coaches you on how to use them. If you want to take your game to the next level, whatever "your game" may be, Peak Performance will teach you how.

Most people have good days...and not so good days. When they step back and ask what makes the difference, many conclude that it’s that stuff that happens between their ears. So, how do we engineer our mindset? How do we get our mental game right, so that we can perform at our best, consistently? Peak Performance Every Time provides readers with a detailed look into how to build the critical components of a great mental game. It will help them to hone their focus, control their confidence, master motivation and deliver their best ‘under pressure’. In short, it will help deliver peak performance, every time. The book provides a practical guide to performance psychology, based on approaches and methods that have been tried and tested in the demanding world of elite sport. In addition to applied practice, it provides real life examples and case studies from both elite sport and business, plus the underpinning theory and research. This book will be invaluable to anyone trying to reach their full potential, in particular athletes, coaches, managers and executives. It may also be of interest to sports psychology, management and business students.

Features suggestions and mind exercises to help athletes in many sports, including cycling, golf, running, swimming, tennis, and weightlifting.

"There is a new revolution happening in sports as more and more athletes are basing their success on this game-changing combination: health, nutrition, training, recovery, and mindset. Unfortunately, the evidence-based techniques that the expert PhDs, academic institutions, and professional performance staffs follow can be in stark contrast to what many athletes actually practice. When combined with the noise of social media, old-school traditions, and bro-science, it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction. Peak is a groundbreaking book exploring the fundamentals of high performance (not the fads), the importance of consistency (not extreme effort), and the value of patience (not rapid transformation). Dr. Marc Bubbs makes deep science easy to understand, and with information from leading experts who are influencing the top performers in sports on how to achieve world-class success, he lays out the record-breaking feats of athleticism and strategies that are rooted in this personalized approach.Dr. Bubbs expertly brings together the worlds of health, nutrition, and exercise and synthesizes the salient science into actionable guidance.

Racing Weight is a proven weight-management program designed specifically for endurance athletes. Revealing new research and drawing from the best practices of elite athletes, coach and nutritionist Matt Fitzgerald lays out six easy steps to help cyclists, triathletes, and runners lose weight without harming their training. This comprehensive and science-based program shows athletes the best ways to lose weight and avoid the common lifestyle and training hang-ups that keep new PRs out of reach. The updated Racing Weight program helps athletes: Improve diet quality Manage appetite Balance energy sources Easily monitor weight and performance Time nutrition throughout the day Train to getand staylean Racing Weight offers practical tools to make weight management easy. Fitzgerald’s no-nonsense Diet Quality Score improves diet without counting calories. Racing Weight superfoods are diet foods high in the nutrients athletes need for training. Supplemental strength training workouts can accelerate changes in body composition. Daily food diaries from 18 pro athletes reveal how the elites maintain an athletic diet while managing appetite. Athletes know that every extra pound wastes energy and hurts performance. With Racing Weight, cyclists, triathletes, and runners have a simple program and practical tools to hit their target numbers on both the race course and the scale.

The coauthors of the bestselling Peak Performance dive into the fascinating science behind passion, showing how it can lead to a rich and meaningful life while also illuminating the ways in which it is a double-edged sword. Here’s how to cultivate a passion that will take you to great heights—while minimizing the risk of an equally great fall. Common advice is to find and follow your passion. A life of passion is a good life, or so we are told. But it's not that simple. Rarely is passion something that you just stumble upon, and the same drive that fuels breakthroughs—whether they're athletic, scientific, entrepreneurial, or artistic—can be every bit as destructive as it is productive. Yes, passion can be a wonderful gift, but only if you know how to channel it. If you're not careful, passion can become an awful curse, leading to endless seeking, suffering, and burnout. Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness once again team up, this time to demystify passion, showing readers how they can find and cultivate their passion, sustainably harness its power, and avoid its dangers. They ultimately argue that passion and balance--that other virtue touted by our culture--are incompatible, and that to find your passion, you must lose balance. And that's not always a bad thing. They show readers how to develop the right kind of passion, the kind that lets you achieve great things without ruining your life. Swift, compact, and powerful, this thought-provoking book combines captivating stories of extraordinarily passionate individuals with the latest science on the biological and psychological factors that give rise to—and every bit as important, sustain—passion.

Follow your own nature to achieve clarity, power, and success The Mushin Way teaches tools and techniques to help you reach peak performance and transform your business and personal life. Regardless of what we want to achieve in business or in life, transformation can be difficult and we tend to be our own worst enemies. We hold ourselves back without even realizing what we are capable of. In this book, you'll learn how to break through the cycle of stress and setbacks to act with clarity, purpose, and direction—achieving peak performance and transformation along the way. You'll look deep inside to discover the natural leadership abilities lying dormant within you; you'll wake them up, make them stronger, and learn to draw on the strengths of those around you instead of muscling through with brute force. You'll discover how making the right choice is an empowering act, and develop the strength and confidence to stop hesitating at every crossroad. With pragmatic advice and wisdom drawn from the guiding principles of the Japanese martial art of Aikido, you'll find your inner warrior and learn that even the most challenging battles can be won—or may not even need to be fought. When you set your sights high, peak performance can feel like a constant uphill battle fraught with failures and disappointments. What if success was more like a transformational river current that carries you along to your goal? This book shows you how to come down off the hill into the refreshing waters of mindfulness to begin your journey to the top. Develop laser-like focus, even in high-stress environments Identify and develop your own innate leadership qualities Turn setbacks into opportunities and defeat into victory Achieve much more than ever before, with far less effort Eastern philosophy teaches us to work in harmony with our own nature instead of fighting ourselves every step of the way. The Mushin Way shows you just where your inner strengths lie, and how to leverage them for success.