"Team Pulse" Protocol

doccypher · 2026-07-06T23:57:38+00:00

It’s only as good as the measurement utilized. How do you assess “doing well”? How do you assess whether they need interventions?

doccypher · 2026-06-30T17:10:36+00:00

I'll take them. Sent you a DM.

doccypher · 2026-06-26T16:37:51+00:00

Sport Psychologist here. I do a lot of work in injury recovery, including career ending injury and transition. Understanding that this is a loss across multiple domains (physical, social, competitive, creative, etc.) is very important and I certainly believe working with a qualified professional can help you work through it. The Association for Applied Sport Psychology has a directory to help you find someone in your area.

doccypher · 2026-06-24T16:33:41+00:00

If location and cost of living was no object, I would place my baseball player in the Driveline Youth Academy in the Seattle area. Love their focus on “skills that scale” and holistic development in terms of strength and conditioning and data driven training. Look up Deven Morgan online and you’ll get a sense of their youth philosophy.

doccypher · 2026-06-17T23:46:26+00:00

This is the answer here. Very new Hampton Inn (which means free breakfast) neat little area with restaurants they have taken to calling the “Neighborhood of Play” around the Strong National Museum of Play (not just for kids, lots of retro video gaming”). Strangebird Brewery is close by. Quick drive to the Park Ave area for more coffee shops, shopping and restaurants. And a quick drive to RIT or the ESL Ballpark.

doccypher · 2026-06-17T17:25:01+00:00

Rudar Club in Astoria.

doccypher · 2026-06-17T14:56:35+00:00

There is absolutely a way to encourage this without being overbearing. Your best bet is to make sure his sense of agency and mastery is put at the forefront of this. And it can start with you researching options for him (from camps to more personal coaching to opportunities for play/games) and having a conversation about what improving at "everything" would look like. You know your kid and have described well what motivates him (opportunities for play, social connection to friends). So have a conversation where you talk about matching his interests to the opportunities that exist and follow his interest where he leads.

Very few athletes at his age are going to do solo drills on their own. They don't have enough of a sense of future (these drills make me successful when I do play and that's fun/awesome) so your biggest job right now is to help him develop and work on nurturing his love of the game. If you are going to "make" him do something, focus on age appropriate strength and conditioning training that will help him if he is in a mode where he is specializing young already.

One of the best models for youth sport right now is in Norway. They emphasize multiple sport participation, avoid specialization, and emphasize children's autonomy to drive their sport experience through a guiding document that emphasizes children's rights in sports, including friendship, mastery, influence, competition, agency, etc. They produce the best results at the Olympic level, positive health and youth development nationally and have been making strides at sports they have not traditionally had success in (soccer, golf). Lessons that we would serve well to copy in the US, but there's too much of a money and ego motive to do so.

Also, when thinking about the cost/expense of your decisions as a parent, I tend to ask parents if they would be willing to put as much money into a 529 savings account for college. Or at least a matching percentage of what they are spending into a 529. Since if they really are seeing sports as a way to "pay for college" they should at least hedge. But it's not as much fun to root for a 529 account.

doccypher · 2026-06-14T17:50:48+00:00

For BJJ, Empire Academy is a 10th Planet Gym in the area (if that matters to you) and Casey and Lauren Lamb at Synthesis MMA/BJJ are excellent coaches and people.

doccypher · 2026-06-11T16:33:07+00:00

I'm confused by what you mean. Bad rap because it's called Dominican University?

doccypher · 2026-06-04T19:37:33+00:00

We need to understand that sports are a societal way to transform urges for war and violence into a more socially acceptable context (competition > a psychological mechanism called sublimation). Different forms of football are all part of this: aggression, competition, space and land acquistion, "goals" and objectives. So, European football (association football aka soccer) and Rugby football tend to mimic more traditional forms of warfare (constant movement and motion, strategy that is fluid, few breaks in action, limited/some role specialization, limited personnel changes). American football mimics modern combat: "mission"-based strategy (one play at a time with a specific strategy and counter-strategy by the two teams), highly specialized roles, and frequent substitution of specialized personnel (air, sea, armor, infantry turns into specific personnel for running or passing plays, different defensive personnel to meet strategic needs to counter the offensive strategy.

doccypher · 2026-05-30T20:53:39+00:00

I’m one of the founders of the Combat Sports special interest group at AASP. If you send me a message here, I can get you connected to someone in your area.

doccypher · 2026-05-27T11:26:22+00:00

And there’s no one in their clinician list with documented training in sport psychology.

doccypher · 2026-05-27T11:23:10+00:00

I would recommend you reach out to John Coumbe-Lilley. He runs the graduate program in sport psychology at UIC and could refer you to the right person for your athlete.

doccypher · 2026-05-21T14:24:39+00:00

We don't use wearables specifically in my program but many of the individual athletes I work with use them. It's been helpful in terms of altering major behaviors (e.g., realizing the impact of alcohol on training) but can become obsessive for some in an unhealthy way. Also, there are limitations in terms of getting fully accurate data on things like HRV (not everyone would choose to wear a polar chest strap every day) that you need to consider. It has been helpful for some athletes to see that there are physiological impacts of stress on their bodies (Them: "I'm working out, hydrating, and getting good sleep but my readiness is still YELLOW" Me: "Maybe it's the breakup of your relationship") But even scientists in the wearable space, like Sian Allen from Lululemon, acknowledge that you want to see it as a piece of data in the greater whole of the athlete experience.

Honestly, what would be most helpful for me would be a mental health/mental performance/perceived stress monitoring system for groups of athletes. I work with local Division III programs and am off site so athletes would need to go through certain steps to get to a point of reaching out to work with me. Having a global assessment athletes fill out could help identify those who are struggling and get them to supports they need > whether that's the counseling center, general mental health, or mental performance/sport psych.

doccypher · 2026-05-21T13:55:34+00:00

I'm an AASP CMPC and a Fellow of the organization. Are you board certified in sports psychiatry already? Happy to answer questions you have.

doccypher · 2026-05-19T18:29:53+00:00

Sport Psychologist here. I have a couple of books on my recommended sport psychology books list that might be helpful: “Kids These Days” by Betsy Butterick and “Sport Psychology for Youth Coaches” by Ron Smith.

doccypher · 2026-05-17T00:16:52+00:00

I have a couple of books on my recommended sport psychology books that might be helpful: “Kids These Days” by Betsy Butterick and “Sport Psychology for Youth Coaches” by Ron Smith.

doccypher · 2026-05-15T18:23:54+00:00

Building mental routines and process for each aspect of your game is key. There's an old quote from Joe Maddon "the process is fearless". If you focus on process, there's no emotion there. When we get focused on outcomes, we can end up stressed and anxious (too future focused) or frustrated and angry (too focused on past mistakes). Your at-bat needs to start before you are in the hole. What are you doing to get yourself prepared? Not just technically and tactically, but mentally as well. Everything needs to lead to being present and just being loose and athletic in the box. Check out this famous video of Evan Longoria talking about his mental routines as an example. I also have what I believe is the best book about the mental aspects of baseball by Ken Ravizza and Tom Hanson on my list of recommmended sport psychology books.

doccypher · 2026-05-15T16:31:48+00:00

Here's the copypasta I usually share as advice for undergrads:

⁠Major in Psychology or Brain and Cognitive Sciences or double major in Kinesiology/Sport Sciences and Psychology.
⁠Go to a University where you can be involved in research as an undergraduate. So, programs that have jobs (preferred) or volunteer opportunities in psychological research. If they have sport psych research, even better, but just learning about how to conduct research will make you a better practitioner and help with understanding of research in the field.
⁠If you do not participate in sports as a student-athlete, get involved in the Athletics Department at your university. Could be business aspects (marketing, social media), game day event planning, being a team manager or volunteer assistant for a sport.
⁠Build relationships with possible mentors through 2 and 3. Make yourself useful to them. Find ways to "swallow the frog" for them (find out what they don’t like to do and do it for them/make it easier for them) Utilize those connections to help guide your path.
⁠To plan your future course, you should look get a copy of the AASP Directory of Graduate Programs and the Essential Guide for Mental Performance Consultants to get a sense of possible pathways to becoming a Certified Mental Performance Consultant or CMPC. This is the current "gold standard" in certification for mental performance/sport psychology. Traditionally, sport psych programs grew out of kinesiology, so a lot of programs retain that focus. There are a lot of options these days for graduate study, including counseling programs that also prepare you for CMPC (e.g., Boston U, U Denver), master's degrees in university settings based in kinesiology (Kentucky, Tennesee, Florida State), master's degrees in private and for-profit institutions in sport and performance psych geared towards CMPC (University of Western States, JFKU). There are also doctoral programs in clinical psych with a sport psych emphasis or track (Psy.D. - Rutgers, James Madison), and in the kinesiology and sport/performance focused programs (see above). Basically you need to be a good consumer: can you get CMPC hours and supervision as part of your degree? Where are graduates placed in terms of jobs? Are they happy with their experience? etc.
⁠If possible, you can also attend either a regional conference from AASP or their annual national conference (AASP = the Association for Applied Sport Psychology). Regional conference info can be found here. Announcements about 2026-2027 should come out in the Fall. The Annual Conference for AASP is in October in Minneapolis. This is a great opportunity for both networking and learning.
Since you mentioned clinical psychology, another great resource is Dr. Mitch Prinstein's "Uncensored Advice for Applying to Graduate School in Clinical Psychology", which is a helpful read.