The Cycling Mind: The Psychological Skills for Peak Performance on the Bike - and in Life

by Ruth Anderson

This practical and highly accessible guide by British Cycling's Lead Psychologist explores the importance of psychology in achieving peak cycling performance.

For the last three Olympic Games, the Great Britain Cycling Team has dominated the Velodrome events and is regarded as one of the most successful elite sporting set-ups in Olympic history. The emergence of sport psychology as a critical aspect of the Great Britain Cycling Team's success has sparked wide interest in the psychological skills required to perform. In The Cycling Mind, British Cycling's lead psychologist Ruth Anderson transfers the sport psychology strategies used to assist elite cyclists to win Olympic gold to individuals seeking to improve their own performance and psychological wellbeing on and off the bike.

The Cycling Mind will take the reader through the key stages of an athlete's pathway, from training through to competition, and provide guidelines to developing the psychological skills to compete at their best. In addition the strategies explored in the book can be applied across all high-pressure performance environments, including business and daily life.

Genres: Cycling, Sports, Psychology

256 pages, Paperback

Published August 20, 2019

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s much about this book that crosses over to many disciplines of our life.
If you choose to read or listen to this book, it’s not something you’ll simply clean over, and as much as some of the insight seems ordinary, it’s amazing how easily we can overlook the simple principles of life and how our thoughts affect our actions.
If you’re looking to improve your life from a day-to-day basis on a personal level or in athletics, this book will help you achieve your goals.

I would equate this book similar to the “Psychology of Winning”, by Kenneth Bell. It’s a hard book to find now but if you do happen to stumble on it, I highly recommend it consume your time.

[Neeti Gokhalay Kheny · Rating 1 out of 5]

The most generic advice all through the book. Kept waiting for something more substantial in terms of strategies and how to implement them, but there were no real strategies to be found…

It’s a book full of banter that you would any way get should you read a few blogs here and there, watch some youtube videos and apply a bit of common sense.

[Abbie Kremer · Rating 2 out of 5]

After doing a course in Sports Psychology I though this would provide more context and information; however, it simply just reiterated what I already knew and read like it was a piece of coursework. So it was a big disappointment. Although if you know nothing on sports psychology this is probably a good book for you.