This Is Your Brain On Sports by Drs. David Grand and Alan Goldberg

This is not a book on sports medicine, but on the psychological stresses you can get from sports. While athletics can help reduce stress and improve concentration, they can also lead to muscle, bone, and joint problems. The brain is an organ too, so it’s not unusual for the mind to develop a certain way when you’re an athlete. If you’re a baseball pitcher, you might develop tunnel vision, and if you’re a boxer, you might have an equilibrium problem from constantly moving to one side. But this book goes a step further; it discusses the trauma from sports pressure.

    In the first chapter, he discusses his therapy with Mets catcher Mackey Sasser, who was known for predictable and clumsy throwing. Opposing runners would time themselves to his predictable arm movements and steal bases, which didn’t help. But Sasser’s movements weren’t the result of injury; it was his memory of injuries that created a “block” to his physical movements. Constant injuries as a child, along with some emotional traumas, had left him phobic of doing certain things.

    Child athletes are also a major part of this book. I’m sure you’ve read more than one article on the fanatical sports parent, or perhaps the drill-sergeant coach who pushes adolescent boys to extremes. Child athletes are easily traumatized, according to Dr. Grand, because of the fear factor in children, coupled with “fight-or-flight” responses. Pressure to succeed can drive you, but only for a limited time, after which the pressure wears you out.

   Pressure in athletics has lead to steroid use, and the destruction of careers. But before we can criticize athletes for “cheating” with steroids, think of the other unfair advantages they have. Even in amateur sports, wealthy parents can afford personal coaches for their kids, while the less affluent can’t. The supposedly amateur US Olympic athletes are heavily sponsored, while I wonder if athletes from less prosperous countries?  Are training for an hour after work? What about the sportscasters, with their hair weaves, facelifts, capped teeth, and breast implants? Isn’t that a form of cheating too?

    I would recommend this book for anyone coaching little league or high school sports. It’s a great book on how to avoid the unnecessary and unhealthy pressures that ruin today’s young athletes.