Aug 8, 2026 · 42 min · 11 segments
“Performance is your potential minus interference - and the brain often interferes with how well we want to do.” Many runners struggle to translate their training to racing, because of race day…
Trent ClaypoolGuestLaura NorrisHostAmanda BrooksHostSo Trent, for folks who are thinking, "What's happening here?" What is sports psychology?
Sports psychology is the, the study of how we relate to and think about performance, and I often think about it as the psychology of high performance.
So what are the optimal ways that we wanna be thinking, that we wanna handle our thoughts and feelings, and relate to certain moments in races or a performance to reach our most optimal state, optimal state of performance.
And so one of the ways you can think about this is that your performance is your potential minus interference, and the brain often interferes with how well we wanna do.
And so sports psychology is trying to reduce that interference and then maybe even seeing if we can help you find your maximum potential through the way that we think about and relate to the sport.
So to help our listeners with this a little bit, how, how did you get into the specific field of sports psychology? 'Cause I know generally that's not the main field of study when you, say, start a bachelor's degree.
So, um, I especially, I grew up in Wyoming, so sports psychology wasn't even really, like, a thing there.
So what happened was I studied psychology in graduate school, and then I got into grad school, and I had thought I wanted to be a marriage and family therapist.
Um, and then I got my first job working at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and I was the liaison for the athletics department, and we were having all of these, um, athletes come in who not only needed help with their mental health, but who were having performance re- related challenges.
And so it gave me this really rich ground to get, um, experience working with athletes, and then that was, like, 2011, and so I just kept moving forward with my studies and diving deeper into sports psychology, branching out on my own and deciding, like, "Hey, I really care about this stuff.
I wanna, I wanna study it and research it and get really good at it." And having a, a background in swimming myself, it just kind of was a, a natural, um, next transition to take in my career.
I got into psychology generally and then was drawn into it, but a lot of people now have a lot better opportunities to go to sports psych specific programs.
So Trent, for folks who are thinking, "What's happening here?" What is sports psychology?
Sports psychology is the, the study of how we relate to and think about performance, and I often think about it as the psychology of high performance.
So what are the optimal ways that we wanna be thinking, that we wanna handle our thoughts and feelings, and relate to certain moments in races or a performance to reach our most optimal state, optimal state of performance.
And so one of the ways you can think about this is that your performance is your potential minus interference, and the brain often interferes with how well we wanna do.
And so sports psychology is trying to reduce that interference and then maybe even seeing if we can help you find your maximum potential through the way that we think about and relate to the sport.
So to help our listeners with this a little bit, how, how did you get into the specific field of sports psychology? 'Cause I know generally that's not the main field of study when you, say, start a bachelor's degree.
So, um, I especially, I grew up in Wyoming, so sports psychology wasn't even really, like, a thing there.
So what happened was I studied psychology in graduate school, and then I got into grad school, and I had thought I wanted to be a marriage and family therapist.
Um, and then I got my first job working at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and I was the liaison for the athletics department, and we were having all of these, um, athletes come in who not only needed help with their mental health, but who were having performance re- related challenges.
And so it gave me this really rich ground to get, um, experience working with athletes, and then that was, like, 2011, and so I just kept moving forward with my studies and diving deeper into sports psychology, branching out on my own and deciding, like, "Hey, I really care about this stuff.
I wanna, I wanna study it and research it and get really good at it." And having a, a background in swimming myself, it just kind of was a, a natural, um, next transition to take in my career.
I got into psychology generally and then was drawn into it, but a lot of people now have a lot better opportunities to go to sports psych specific programs.
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