The Scottish Gymnastics Podcast

Euan Burton is one of Scottish Judo's most successful athletes. World and European medalist, Commonwealth champion, Scotland's flag bearer at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and proud MBE recipient. Euan has had his share of competition success before shifting his focus to coaching in his role as High Performance Coach with Scottish Judo. In this episode we explore the highs and lows of his sporting career so far, how he promotes mental fitness in his athletes and what he does personally to give his own mental fitness a fighting chance.

These guided exercises are designed to support athletes in developing the tools required for competitive anchoring. Anchoring is a powerful technique which can be used to help an individual return to feeling of safety, confidence, comfort or calm at times where they are experiencing emotional overwhelm such as anger, anxiety or panic.

Humans use imagery every day, but often we are not aware of the pictures going through our minds. By training ourselves to be aware of our imagery we can use this natural skill in a more strategic way. Imagery can be a helpful way to manage the psychological and emotional demands we experience as an athlete. This guided resource aims to give you an introduction to using imagery and will support athletes to develop their own imagery scripts.

This short guided body scan can help us to begin to understand how stress and anxiety takes hold and can be supportive in aiding rest, relaxation and recovery. A mindful body scan is a useful technique to help you learn what your body does and doesn’t need in order to get the best from it. During the body scan meditation we become aware of where in our bodies we hold physical tension. We can notice minor aches and pains which could indicate injury and become aware of where in our body we hold emotions we find difficult.

In this episode we are joined in the studio by one of Scotland's most decorated athletes, hurdler Eilidh Doyle. European, World, Commonwealth and Olympic medalist, poster girl for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and Team Scotland's first ever female flag-bearer - Eilidh has seen her share of sporting success but now we speak with the woman behind all the medals to explore how she's overcome life's hurdles and what she does to keep her own mental fitness on track!

Breathing is a vital part of keeping ourselves alive. But did you know that the way in which we breath can affect both our physical and emotional health. In this podcast we share with you a series of breathwork tools to support mental fitness of coaches and athletes.

To launch our new Mental Fitness series we are joined in the studio by Olympic gymnast Daniel Purvis as he explores the highs and lows of his sporting career so far, that infamous fall in France and his personal strategies for maintaining fitness of both body and mind.

A word from Olympic medalist Danial Purvis as we launch our latest series on Mental Fitness!