55. Kayla Balcom: The Mental Side of Performance

In episode #55 of the podcast, Dr. Kate and Dr. Kacy interview Dr. Kayla Balcom, PhD, a clinical psychologist and sports psychologist for the Atlanta Track Club, Georgia Tech Athletics, and her own private practice clients. You may remember Dr. Balcom from her interview on More Than Miles in Episode #32: Vulnerability is not a weakness, where she discussed her early sports experiences as a figure skater and later as a recreational runner. She also talked about ways to cultivate more positive mental health as individuals including a discussion of improving our self-talk, being vulnerable, and the unfortunate barriers of accessing mental health services. In this second interview, Dr. Kate and Dr. Kacy interview Dr. Balcom and pick her brain on sports psychology and how mental health can influence performance as an endurance athlete.

Dr. Balcom some of the strategies that she uses to improve performance with her athletes including dealing with fear of failure, maximizing an individuals’ best performance level of arousal, leveraging reliable routine (aka “superstitions”), and the power of mental imagery and visualization. She discusses how positive self-talk and belifes take work and why this is partly due to our “survival brain” that fixates on the negative experiences as a protective strategy. She also talks about the importance of mental rehearsal or visualization to improve performance and the factors that can make this most effective (HINT: imagery is best performed in “real time” to mimic an actual event or race). Dr. Balcom also talks about optimal mental states to maximize performance including ways to try to find an athlete’s best arousal level to perform well (i.e., not too relaxed, but not overly anxious or stressed out). She also explains some of the nuances of “flow” state and how this may be a great “feel good,” or subjective experience, but may not actually correlate to a high performing state.

Dr. Balcom shares some neat insight into why athletes may experience fear of failure and how to overcome these self-limiting beliefs and fears. She also shares some tips and tricks to reframe a less than ideal race and how to overcome disappointing performances and move on to future race success and enjoyment. You will not want to miss this rich discussion with Dr. Balcom and some of the keys to cultivating great mental health for your performance as an endurance athlete! But also, as Dr. Kacy says, “people come in the door for the performance benefits and stay for the overall health benefits.” This episode can provide a great perspective on improving overall mental health as well!