No longer is sports psychology regarded by coaches and athletes as a subject for wimps needing an excuse for poor performance. Ten or fifteen years ago, that might have still been the case, but the adoption of mind coaches (otherwise known as mental game coaches ) by such top athletes as Tiger Woods, Andre Agassi and Colin Montgomerie soon put paid to that. Today sports psychology is recognised as an essential component of sporting success, particularly for the serious athlete every bit as important as training, recovery, kit, hydration and nutrition. That s because, the more accomplished the athlete, the bigger the role the mind plays in performance. After all, if you re a beginner in a sport, you re probably still working on mastering a basic competence in physical skills and not worrying about your mind game. Moreover, we now know that it s not simply a question of harnessing the power of the mind to achieve peak performance on the day of a big event. The correct mindset must underpin an athlete s efforts all year round. After all, the best-designed training regime won t help if you re not sufficiently focused and motivated to follow it, week in and week out or if you re liable to choke at the critical point in major competitions because you haven t done the proper mental preparation for the event. That s why research into sports psychology has accelerated considerably in recent years, mirroring its more general acceptance amongst the sporting community. Today, sports scientists are scaling new heights in their understanding of the mental factors that underpin peak performance and, equally, those factors that can undermine it. So we ve chosen this fast-developing subject as the topic of our first-ever sequel in the Peak Performance series of special reports