Olaniyi Sobomehin’s View On Routines
In this week’s sports psychology podcast, mental game of sports expert, Dr. Patrick Cohn interviews Olaniyi Sobomehin. Olaniyi is a former NFL running back. He played football at Oregon State, and Portland State. He played with some of the best players in the country, and many of them are still playing and excelling in the NFL. His motto is “Success is 20% Mechanics… and 80% Mindset…“
Dr. Cohn and Olaniyi discuss the importance of routines for athletes.
COHN: “One of your areas you’re interested in is the power of habits and routines. I don’t really call it habits, per say, but I use the word routines. Certainly they can become habits. Talk to me a little bit about why are routines so important for athletes and how can they impact or improve performance?”
SOBOMEHIN: “First of all, I can speak directly from my experience as an athlete… I feel really strongly about the way that habits have impacted me in my athletic career and in my life as well. You can get into the way the brain works, but humans beings are wired for efficiency. When you are talking about athletes and the incredible amount of responsibility and all these details we have to remember, it’s really important that you make all those things automatic. That’s what I like to tell my athletes about automating behaviors. So all those things as athletes that we know we should do, we want to make all those things automatic, so when its time to play all those things come naturally…”
“All these great players that we watch they don’t just have one-offs, they don’t have one great game and four bad games. The reason why they are able to have sustainable high level performance is because they have automated all their behaviors. They make sure that all those things they have to do on a daily basis, they are doing. So that when it comes time to play they are right on point… We are limited when it comes to will power and the amount of work our brains can do when it comes to ‘on the go’, so when you’re in a game time situation you want to make sure you’re not having to over-think things and that everything comes naturally.”
Listen to this month’s sports psychology podcast to learn how to improve your performance in sports by creating habits and routines for competitions.
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Related Sports Psychology Articles
- Routines vs Superstitions for Athletes
- How Routines Help You Get into the Flow
- Why Warm up Routines Help You Perform Better
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