Skadi Sport Psychology | Mental Health & Performance for Athletes

Rest vs Recovery: The Nervous System Science of Athlete Recovery

2 strategies to use for your next rest day 😴

Hi Reader,Rest day on the calendar. Your bike stayed in the garage, you slept in, and maybe even felt a little smug about it. 😌Then Tuesday’s easy spin rolled around, and your legs felt like wet cement.If you’ve ever had that moment, standing in the parking lot, legs heavy, wondering what more you could possibly have done, I want to offer you a reframe.Rest and recovery are not the same thing.A rest day removes training stress, but recovery requires your nervous system to actively shift into...

about 15 hours ago • 2 min read

3 signs of performance anxiety in athletes

The porta-potty line is not your warm-up

Hi Reader,Fall has officially arrived in Minnesota. The mornings are crisp, the leaves are showing off their beautiful colors, and half the athletes we know are deep in peak race season while the other half are side-eyeing their off-season plan. 🍁Which means we’re seeing a lot of the same thing walk and roll through our (virtual) door right now: athletes who train beautifully all week, and then race like a completely different person.If you’ve been there, as the athlete, the coach, or the...

8 days ago • 3 min read

5 Daily Habits that raise (or wreck) your HRV

5 habits that raise (or wreck) your HRV

Hi Reader,If you’re like most athletes, you track your heart rate on most workouts. Every interval, every long run, every Zwift session, even the ones where you swore you were “just spinning easy.” 😅Heart rate variability, HRV, is probably already on your radar. It’s on your watch, in your recovery score, in every wearable ad. But for most of us, that’s where it ends: we know the acronym, maybe glance at the number after a hard block, and couldn’t tell you what actually shifts it.Here’s the...

15 days ago • 2 min read

pre race nerves? How to regulate your pre-competition energy and perform under pressure

You know that shaky-hands feeling before a competition?

Hi Reader,You know that moment right before the start of an event when your hands won't stop shaking and your brain is running a hundred miles an hour?Or the opposite, when you show up feeling like you left your race-day energy in the parking lot, mentally checked out, and somehow already tired?A lot of athletes seem to bounce between these two extremes and assume something is wrong with them. Nothing is.The real issue is that nobody taught us to approach pre-competition energy like a dimmer...

22 days ago • 2 min read

I crushed my race. I hated my finishing photo. Let's talk about diet culture

2nd place out of 167. Yet I hated my race photo.

Hi Reader,Okay, story time! 👀Last month, I raced the YWCA Minneapolis Women’s Triathlon, and placed 2nd out of 167 women in my age group. I qualified for nationals. I felt STRONG 💪.Then the race photos dropped. And my first thought was… “Ugh, I hate how big I look in that tri kit.” 🫠Not “wow, look at that performance.” Not “holy crap, I’m going to nationals.” Just…my body size.I’m a sport psychologist. I literally teach people about diet culture for a living. I know better. And STILL. My...

29 days ago • 2 min read

managing parental pressure in youth sports

September survival guide for sports parents 📚

Hi Reader,September hits different, doesn’t it? Crisp mornings. New backpacks. The smell of fresh gear mixed with pumpkin spice. 🍂And if you’re a sports parent? You’re likely juggling all the things: the new schedules on the fridge, the carefully coordinated carpool arrangements, and the mental gymnastics of dinner timing around practice.You’ve invested so much, not just money, but time, energy, and heart. Those early Saturday mornings, the reorganization of your entire life around practice...

about 1 month ago • 4 min read

6 coaching strategies for performance anxiety

When "just relax" makes it worse

Hi Reader,Your athlete has trained their butt off—shown up to every practice, hit every mark, checked every box. You know they’re ready.But standing at the start line, they look like they might throw up. (Real talk: this may also be YOUR experience as an athlete!). This is one of the most common concerns I’ve seen with endurance athletes over the past decade, though it certainly appears in other sports as well. Even Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills quarterback, has opened up to talk about how...

about 1 month ago • 2 min read

what is hrv and why is it the training data your plan is missing

Your training plan is missing this one thing 💓

Hi Reader,Have you ever had one of those days where the workout on your training plan looks totally doable, but your body just… doesn’t cooperate?You hit the track or the trail, and within five minutes, you know. Something’s off. The legs feel heavy. The pace feels impossible. Your heart rate is spiking way higher than it should.Our training plans are always built on assumptions. It assumes we’ve slept well, that our stress is manageable, that last week’s hard efforts left us ready for this...

about 2 months ago • 2 min read

three people riding bikes (athletic identity beyond the podium)

Why your worst races hit harder than they should

Hi Reader,You know that feeling after a bad race when your entire mood just… crashes? When one disappointing workout can ruin your whole week? When the thought of injury doesn’t just scare you, but feels like it would completely change who you are?Yeah. I see this all the time with the athletes we work with at Skadi. I’ve also experienced it myself, especially when I was deep into chasing my road racing goals after transitioning from triathlon. At the time, I knew I had a lot of power on the...

about 2 months ago • 3 min read

what teen athletes actually need to fuel performance | teen fueling guide

Your teen athlete might not be eating enough 🍽️

Hi Reader,As athletes and families start to ramp up for the fall sports season, we’ve seen a lot of parents buckling up for another season of logistics: gear, equipment, travel accommodations for events on the road, meal prep, snacks, and more snacks. A number of thought leaders in the teen mental health space have been raising understandable concerns about how over-scheduled some of our teen athletes are these days (which is a topic for another day). With their incredibly busy schedules...

2 months ago • 3 min read