The Mindbuffs Podcast

[Music]

>> MAT: Hello! Welcome to the Mindbuffs podcast. I'm your host, Mat de Moissac, and I'm here today with my co-host Alex Schinke

>> ALEX: Hi everyone

>> MAT: Today we're hanging out together because we are going to talk about the Olympics

and honestly, if you haven't been tuning in to the Olympics the last two weeks and doing other things with your time, I don't know what could be more important than watching the games

it is the most hyped part of the year for sports psychologists

it's one of the big goals that many sports psychologists kind of strive for is being able to work with Olympic athletes and traveling the world in international competitions

but today we wanted to just kind of highlight some of what we think to be some of the big headline stories more from a kind of psychological perspective

but I'm curious for you Alex like what events have you been most drawn to or enjoyed the most?

>> ALEX: I have really enjoyed obviously I like the swimming I like watching them all race

I was really surprised how much I like steeplechase and like hammer throw I know it was like oh huh

and then I did get to watch a little snippet of the surfing and that was pretty cool I don't understand it but it was cool to watch

so those are kind of the big ones that I've been watching

>> MAT: I was in a cafe in Halifax actually during the men's finals in surfing and they had the servers had like a monitor behind the cafe bar and they had surfing on and I could just overhear the staff like talking about surfing and trying to explain the rules and figure out like like how come they're just sitting there for 10 minutes like what's turn order mean and priority

>> ALEX: Yeah

>> MAT: It's fun watching the games because I feel like half the time you watch an event you're trying to learn the sport and then by the time the finals roll around you kind of understand a bit more what's going on you're like cheering for someone

>> ALEX: Yeah, yeah

Well I watched one and I'm like, he - he's gone

and then out he pops out, and I'm like, how? How did you do that?

>> MAT: And if you guys haven't seen the viral picture of

>> ALEX: Yes

>> MAT: the athlete who won men's gold where he jumps out from the wave and he's like holding up his finger that he's like number one

it is one of the most iconic Olympic photos of all time um yeah take a look at that photo pretty easy to find

Today we wanted to go over these specific stories though

some of them are really positive and unfortunately some are steeped in controversy and so we wanted to kind of break down that controversy from a performance perspective

so I think the biggest controversy especially as Canadians that many people have heard of even if you haven't watched the Olympics is unfortunately what they're calling "dronegate"

>> ALEX: Yes, we have a name for it now

>> MAT: Soccer Canada yeah using organized cheating to be able to spy on their opponents and their practices

>> ALEX: It's so sad

>> MAT: It is sad

it's disappointing but it's not the first time something like this has happened in sport

>> ALEX: No

>> MAT: So what we're going to do is we're we're going to talk about the difference between organized cheating and gamesmanship

then after that we'll have some fun we're going to talk about the Turkish shooter who again I hope you guys have seen his viral videos

his name is Yusuf Dikeç such a cool dude 51 years old winning a medal are you kidding me

and then we're going to go and talk about gymnastics and the all around women's final and all three people on the podium and their stories

>> ALEX: Yeah
>> MAT: Amazing

We're going to go back to some controversy

>> ALEX: Yes

>> MAT: The female boxers and the genetics are you woman are you man and all of the social media outrage that's kind of been there

toxic social media outrage that's been out there

and then we'll finish with one of my favourite Olympic athletes I think she has one of the coolest social media accounts out there

Ilona who plays for USA rugby I think is just smashing women's body issues

women's like physique and how you're supposed to look as an athlete or how you're supposed to eat

she's just making fun of all of it and just owning who she is and she's just a beast and she's hilarious

we'll talk a little bit about her

so I'm curious for you when you hear that there's been systemic cheating though in women's soccer what looks like for years well before Priestman

>> ALEX: Yes

>> MAT: What are your first thoughts hearing that?

>> ALEX: I had a couple, um, and just two just because I played soccer I think it's a little closer to the heart, too

but for me I felt with the organized cheating from my understanding from what I read the players had no idea that it was going on

and I think as a player it would be really disheartening and like hurtful that my coaches didn't have faith in us as a group

>> MAT: Good point

>> ALEX: to be able to perform and to be able to like beat these teams that they had to go into like the drone footage and like learning practices of other teams like as a player I think that would be I'd be really hurt that my coaching squad wasn't around me

>> MAT: Yeah, I really like that take

I was watching, I forget which professional soccer player, but he was asked like what he thought about the cheating and the very first comment he said was I think all it does is highlight the insecurities of the Canadian coaching staff that they felt like they needed to do this to secure victory

and it was like ooo like but he I think he nailed it right on the head I think that's the only thing that makes sense to deliberately plan to incorporate this into your scouting

so, yeah, really disappointed but I think your take is important that you kind of lose faith in your coaching staff because it seems like they've lost faith in you

>> ALEX: Totally

And, uh, so I do feel bad for the players that had to go through that and then two to have your now coaching staff basically ripped from you in one of the the biggest international tournaments and to not have that support too

and the fact that they actually pulled through and got as far as they did is amazing

>> MAT: Yeah

>> ALEX: and it says that their actual core group was obviously very tight-knit and that they were able to

>> MAT: Yeah and and I also hope in the soccer community that the way that they overcame that

and so for those of you that don't know, FIFA and the IOC the Olympics they stripped six points away from the women's national team which meant that the only chance they had to even make the elimination round was to outright win all three of their games which they did two of which in like the last dying minutes of the games

they were incredible but I hope that, again, the soccer Community can kind of respect the fact that they overcame that and that it wasn't cheating

they didn't win because you know they had this knowledge and this information about the opponents

fingers crossed this is just what the reports are saying I hope that the players were kept in the dark

>> ALEX: Me too

>> MAT: about this but it is complex because then you have to kind of start thinking about, well, how much of the players, like, game to game systems and strategy were based on like drone footage

and it's a really slippy slope in terms of like where the the cheating kind of ends but yeah it's kind of it's kind of disgusting

>> ALEX: Yeah, and we've always had good soccer teams especially like in the women's soccer that like we've always been typically at the top so yeah it was it was really disheartening I think to to have that scandal come out in my opinion

but like I said good on the players

>> MAT: Yeah, so we'll see what happens with honestly just soccer Canada in general for those of you that are more familiar with our national governing bodies as of late, Hockey Canada, Soccer Canada, Gymnastics Canada, they haven't exactly been shining beacons of hope and um setting good examples for our young athletes

so I know a lot of funding has been cut federally that our federal government has stripped funding from a lot of these organizations

so there's just a really immediate need for drastic culture shifts but that's only going to happen if they bring in the right people and we'll see what that looks like

>> ALEX: Yeah, we'll see
>> MAT: over the next couple years

On to something more fun

I really hope that you guys have seen the footage of both the men's and women's pistol shooting we have our male athlete from Turkey who uh Yusuf Dikeç

again, if you haven't seen the viral, like, videos and how they've been just cropping him into like all these like funny images

he's 51 years old one of the only competitors, if not the only competitor that doesn't use any technology

so for those of you that haven't watched the sport there are there's this like headgear that kind of blocks the vision

>> ALEX: Yes

>> MAT: of one eye so that your brain is only taking in one eye's information to make it easier to focus

and there's other types of like gear to like try to increase stability with like the hand and arm when shooting and things like that

not Yusuf

>> ALEX: No, no

>> MAT: What does Yusuf look like when he's shooting his pistol?

>> ALEX: I'm gonna use what everybody else has said and is he the John Wick in real life? I don't know

He's so relaxed, he's calm, um it honestly looks like somebody sent him to the grocery store and he forgot he had to go to the Olympics and just like rolled up

just like okay, here it is

but what I learned about the pistol shooting is it's actually a team sport, I didn't know that

so apparently he was actually one of the best shooters um and they would have gotten first place but I guess some of his teammates weren't as strong as him

but yeah I didn't realize that until after I looked into this story but it is a team sport and they're all dressed the same

>> MAT: Yeah

>> ALEX: Just, like, in their sweatpants and their

>> MAT: Just the vibe of the team we're just going to show up really relaxed and not take this too seriously and kind of be best

and we we'll talk about him a a little bit more

and then on the other end of the spectrum in terms of like swagger and intensity we had the female pistol shooter Kim Yegi uh who uh also meddled and became very famous and she thanks uh Elon Musk for it because Elon Musk made some funny tweets about how she should like automatically be in the next James Bond film

>> ALEX: Oh, nice

>> MAT: just the way that she like composes herself it's, it looks fantastic

I love her because she has like this swagger and this really intense like focus and even like some of her pre-shot routine just looks really deliberate and like really professional

but then in her on the left side of her body in her left pocket is a stuffed animal of a little elephant

>> ALEX: Really

>> MAT: because it's her daughter's

>> ALEX: Ohhh

>> MAT: so I just thought it was the most badass mom energy because she was both this like epic athlete who is like the top of her class and her sport

but then part of her identity and part of her performance mindset is the fact that like she also has her daughter with her

>> ALEX: Right

>> MAT: with that stuffed animal I just love that those two aren't separate, that they were together for her just big fan

>> ALEX: And I what I do love most about the story, too, is that, especially with the the pistol shooting, but you could really go to the Olympics at any age really

like I know um Yusuf started quite a bit later, like a couple years ago

and so it's kind of cool to see like more of like an age variation too in certain sports

and it's like, hey if I do this I could go at 51 too

we don't have to be doing it since we were thirteen

>> MAT: Yeah, and I know like we could probably have conversations around like what exactly is sports

you know I've heard some people talk about like you know is shooting a sport or is it a hobby

and you could say that about I think a several different game or sports that were put in the games in the last couple of years

but when it comes to the training, the mental focus, the preparation, these are all the exact same things that you have do to be good in sport

so I wouldn't argue that pistol shooting isn't a sport, just maybe isn't more of like a traditional kinaesthetic sport where like your entire body is like involved in in it and you can not worry about as much your um physique and physical conditioning to be at the top of your game

but if you look at every sport in the Olympics, a different body type is needed to excel at that sport

so sometimes you don't need to have the eight pack and musclebound body from head to toe to be able to be your best at your sport

that's another reason why I love watching the games is just seeing how many different body types can really like prosper and excel if they can find that right sport

>> ALEX: Totally, totally

>> MAT: so lots of fun

again if you're looking for something fun to scroll through like look up either of those shooters because one of the other I wanted to touch on before talking about gymnastics was

I think it also highlights how diverse personalities can be in regards to how they approach the exact same sport at the exact same level

>> ALEX: Right

>> MAT: so you've got the more laid-back super cool chill like Yusuf who looks like he he could give a [ __ ]

>> ALEX: Right? Again, just rolled in off the streets

>> MAT: and more like um, Kim, who's like, I'm here, here to win I'm here to compete like I'm going to to do my best

and that level of intensity completely depends on what your personality is and that you're being authentic to what Flow State feels like for you

and again based on your emotional intensity, it's going to be different, it varies from athlete to athlete

that's one of the things as sport psychologists that we always spend time on with our athletes

>> ALEX: Yeah

>> MAT: Did you watch any of the gymnastics men or women or did you just see some stories?

>> ALEX: I saw some stories and then I did watch uh Simone Biles' floor routine 'cause it circulated like crazy

I did want to watch gymnastics but it must not have been on when I was tuning in or like I don't know but

>> MAT: I believe the gymnastics were on every time you were seeing clients

>> ALEX: Probably

>> MAT: because I was in my office watching

>> ALEX: Yeah, so that's probably why

but I did see her floor routine

>> MAT: For those of you that haven't seen Simone Biles' documentary, they timed the release of it to like I think it was like a week or two before

>> ALEX: I think so

>> MAT: the Olympics and two seasons are out

there's only like a couple episodes I think in the docuseries and the third there's going to be like a third episode a third series that's going to come out right after the Olympics

I imagine to like, um, highlight in detail like this particular Olympic Games

they wanted to produce that documentary to be able to highlight what Simone Biles went through in Tokyo and something that's in gymnastic is called the "twisties," okay

>> ALEX: Yeah

>> MAT: What are the twisties, Alex?

>> ALEX: Well from my understanding, I was not a gymnast so please don't quote me on this

um it's where your almost like your equilibrium starts to go, so when you're doing all these like I would say like bars or something where you're often upside down that it can really

>> MAT: You lose your place

>> ALEX: you lose your place and then that's where injury can happen and like vertigo can happen afterwards like it's quite an actually intense injury to go through but it's not really an injury at the same time

>> MAT: In golf what would we what would we call that the "yips"

>> ALEX: Yes

>> MAT: right so the yips in basketball they would call it choking you know

every sport kind of has its own way of describing that really shitty moment where as an athlete your brain just forgets how to access basic skills

and there's nothing that cripples your confidence more than when out of the blue you experience the yips, the twisties, or you choke

and the video that went viral at the Tokyo games was during her practice routine she was just trying to do one of her basic vaults and she got the twisties in practice right before the big moment

and I think for any athlete that's experienced the yips or the twisties or like choking, you kind of know that largely it's outside of your control when it comes to that day's performance if you start to experience it

because it's not a simple experience that you can just kind of self-talk your way out of

twisties, the yips, choking is a very deep-seeded subconscious psychological

I'll use the word trauma that takes time and effort

>> ALEX: Yeah

>> MAT: Have you ever experienced the twisties in figure skating or the yips in golf?

>> ALEX: Probably. I would assume so

I don't have an example though. Well golf I guess is the easy one because I'm not as consistent in it but there's still yeah times where you're like I should have made that two foot putt

>> MAT: Yeah

>> ALEX: right and then it sticks with you for the rest of the round right and then you're like ugh

>> MAT: Yeah
>> ALEX: throws everything off

>> MAT: Yeah. When there's that doubt of I just had a bad shot whether bad shot in soccer bad shot in hockey bad shot in golf and that doubt starts to creep in like oh man like do I not have it today

if that doubt festers for too long it can create like a disconnection of self where part of the athlete believes that they're fine, they're confident, they can execute

but then there's another part that doubt part that is afraid of what will happen if we don't execute that skill right and whether it's the a risk of injury if we don't execute it right or the embarrassment if you don't execute it right or even just like the self hatred of like failing your own expectations if you make the mistake

so often times there's this sensation of needing to bail out of the execution and that is what we kind of call yips, twisties, and choking

it's brutal I would say of all the things that we work on with athletes, that particular type of psychological experience takes the longest to kind of recover from

>> ALEX: Mhm, yeah

>> MAT: and again, that's why the documentary is really important because it did take Simone almost 2 years to get back from experiencing the twisties so like you know please watch that

so she talks about seeing a sports psychologist and her husband who also plays in the NFL with Green Bay talks about working with a sports psychologist

but then the other two athletes that podiumed outside of Simone with the all-around women's event were Suni Lee who's another American gymnast and Rebeca Andrade from Brazil

so Suni Lee I wanted to talk about a little bit because I'm not sure um if you had read this article or not but she actually had two different types of rare kidney diseases that happened relatively close to these games

so she actually retired from gymnastics like at 20 years old because even the doctor said that she wouldn't be able to recover

>> ALEX: Wow, holy

And here she is, podiuming

>> MAT: so and what's really cool about that is um I was just on another podcast um for those of you that haven't listened to Grant Fedoruk's podcast which is called Life Shouldn't Hurt

great guy, really cool podcast

we were actually talking about the power of belief and recovery from injury whether it's like a physical injury or like a disease or something like that

we do know that having hope, believing, having a support group, that our bodies and our brain are able to recover and regenerate cells quicker

there's research and literature in like medical and sport and performance that shows that there is a significant increase in recovery when there is that kind of belief

so I think Suni's story is really cool because it's another example of someone, from a medical perspective, was told that you'll never be able to compete in gymnastics again, and yet her self-belief that she was going to try everything that she could to overcome the disease and find a way for it anyway her body recovered and here she is a badass

>> ALEX: Oh my goodness, hey, because I think she had some, didn't she have knee and ACL stuff too? Like there was other stuff going on too

>> MAT: and that was the main thing that Rebeca Andrade from Brazil um suffered three separate ACL injuries

so for those of you that don't know like what an ACL injury like is, that [ __ ] takes like eight to 10 months to recover from

even with the world's leading experts, Conor McDavid he had I can't remember if it was MCL or ACL when he had hurt his knee he was working with the world's most renowned experts he had professional help every single day and even and even he was like a six-month recovery and then a couple months to kind of get his form back into shape but it is a significant recovery and yeah Rebeca herself had to overcome a lot of those injuries

and if you are someone who's experienced a lot of injuries and

[Alex sneezes]
>> ALEX: Sorry!

>> MAT: Blessings!

>> ALEX: [Laughing] Couldn't hold it anymore

>> MAT: [Laughing] God bless you

>> ALEX: Please cut that out Cam

10 minutes? 'Kay.

>> MAT: We might not cut it, we might we might leave it

>> ALEX: It was quite elegant but it would probably be loud

>> MAT: Oh my goodness, um, yeah the recovery from injury is it takes forever and that's one of the most common things that we deal with when we're helping our athletes

and you know if you're still a competitive athlete or someone that still does something at a high level and you've experienced a lot of injuries, if you've notice that there's like self-doubt or some maybe you might call it self- sabotaging, a lack of belief

those types of mindsets often come from having experienced a significant injury. That's why as psychologists one of the most difficult things that psychologists encounter are working with people who've experienced like motor vehicle accidents that type of injury that type of trauma kind of opens up Pandora's Box

injuries are a significant existential identity crisis so, yeah, don't think you just you can walk injuries off, they're one of the hardest things to recover from

so yeah don't hesitate to reach out to a therapist or someone yeah to process through injuries cuz there it's no laughing matter

>> ALEX: Yeah

>> MAT: We'll go back to something controversial

>> ALEX: Of course, 'cause we have to, right?

>> MAT: Several things, yeah, what was your take on everything that kind of happened in the boxing world and specifically the athlete Imane Khelif?

>> ALEX: So, I obviously read the headlines the original ones that had come out and then I did do a deeper dive

I was like there's got to be something else here

and so from what I have understood from the reports is that that um Imane has um is genetically all female, but has a Y chromosome

and so people there's this now big debate of, like, how much does I guess genetics play into into sports and um but the report that I read, and I forget where it was, but they had compared it to Phelps

Michael Phelps, probably one of the greatest swimmers of all time if we can all say that

>> MAT: I think he's still the GOAT

>> ALEX: he doesn't have any world records anymore

>> MAT: all been shattered?

>> ALEX: They've all been shattered, I learned that when I was doing this research. I had no idea

but somebody like Michael Phelps also is a genetic like anomaly with his wingspan and um I think he had more webbing in between his hands like there was

he did have almost like a body type that was meant for swimming that did give him a competitive advantage and so I thought that was a really interesting way of looking at it from a different lens that we have historically had athletes throughout time that have had genetic advantages

>> MAT: For those of you that remember even like Lance Armstrong and like the blood doping scandal

it kind of connects back to the soccer Canada thing actually where three quarters of the athletes in cycling at the time were blood doping

Armstrong obviously was he was the main guy he winning all the time so he he took the biggest fall especially because he lied for so many years

but um the reason why I say it connects back to soccer Canada is that Bev Priestman had made a comment that uh well everyone in the top 10 does this

I'm not sure if he came across this

>> ALEX: No I haven't

>> MAT: I haven't dug deep and I don't want to like spread lies but um she made some kind of side comment that like well this is just what teams are doing at this level was kind of what she was insinuating

and there is truth in that, it does not excuse you of like being unethical and and being unfair like in sport but I think when we look at Michael Phelps, the earliest kind of documented story that I could find that talked about genetic benefits and performance was an athlete called Mäntyranta who had the EPOR mutation

why I'm sharing that is essentially what uh Armstrong was doing was giving himself the EPOR mutation

so this is where your blood is able to hold on to more oxygen so your cells have larger capacity for oxygen and obviously you can improve your distance if you have more oxygeny in your blood

and yeah Mäntyranta was actually someone who was just born genetically with like 50% more capacity to hold oxygen as blood cells than average people and so he was shattering Olympic records

I think if we did a deep dive into most gold medal athletes and their genetic mutations, their genetic anomalies, we would probably find things that, wow, you know what they picked the right sport

>> ALEX: Totally

>> MAT: to really utilize their genetic gifts

>> ALEX: Yeah, and I know from a sports psych perspective too that and I'll use Michael Phelps and even like Imane but you don't get to those levels without training either, right

it takes a lot to get to those levels and it's not just the genetics that is pushing them forward and and I think people often lose sight of that and that's what I've noticed in this whole controversy is again it's happened before, right?

and so, again, it's it's not nothing new to sports

>> MAT: No, it actually reminded me of this horrible horrible take from a reporter after Zach Hyman with the Edmonton Oilers scored 50 goals and then Zach Hyman or he went off on Zack Hyman being like, he's from a privileged family, he grew up in money, he had like all the opportunity in the world, you know, he's not that great of a hockey player, he just plays with Conor McDavid

oh my God I just wanted to just throttle this guy because none of that stuff matters if you don't put the same amount of work or more than your competitors and your colleagues and your friends to even take advantage of the advantages that life had presented you with

>> ALEX: Exactly

>> MAT: that [ __ ] means nothing unless you actually take advantage of it and are, you know, utilizing those strengths and those gifts to your fullest so I I get sick and tired of he's like, oh he's just privileged, he's just privileged, or you know, it's because of this because of that, there genetics

who gives a crap? They actually did something about it

>> ALEX: Totally

>> MAT: they used it to their benefit and that's what needs to be celebrated in my emotional opinion

>> ALEX: [Laughing] Yes

I think we have one more topic to discuss before we wrap up

>> MAT: If you guys are looking for one of the best role models when it comes to women's body image then look no further than Ilona with USA Rugby, she is incredible

one of my favourite videos is her making fun of BMI as we all do as a team here at Mindbuffs, it's an absolute joke

and she is someone who's technically obese on the BMI and there is, like, nothing but muscle on that woman, she is a tank

>> ALEX: Yeah she is

>> MAT: and so there's a lot of videos of her like eating food, like eating fun food, sugary food, carb-y food and not presenting this like I'm a perfect athlete who hardly eats and I train at the gym all the time

she has a normal life but she's also a competitive Olympic athlete that does everything that she can to kind of like maximize like her body and and her genetics

and so I just think that Ilona is is one of the stars of the Olympics

I mean not as bright as Snoop Dog, I mean he kind of stole the show

>> ALEX: He's the, the Olympic mascot I think this year

>> MAT: He 100% is

but yeah Ilona has a really awesome Instagram account and social media following where she just kind of breaks those barriers of really unhealthy toxic like body image pursuit and yeah does a good job of including and being more inclusive to different types of bodies

>> ALEX: Mhm, yeah and I would encourage all of you to follow her because she is great

>> MAT: Definitely

I think a conversation I would like to have, this might sound like something that maybe Kayla and I I can do, is talking about the difference between cheating and gamesmanship

this really got my brain thinking at first when I heard about the soccer team kind of having this organized system of drone cheating and things like that because it brought me back to deflategate in the NFL

you know they were there was no proof, right, it was the the Houston Astros and the sign stealing

there's a lot of examples in sport of this happening but then there's also like gamesmanship so soccer players taking a bit of a dive when you know they feel a blade of grass touch their ankle

hockey players flinging their head back as if they just took a two hand to the face and trying to bleed by like sticking their finger in their mouth to get extra time on like power play

every sport kind of has this gamesmanship in it but I think it'd be a lot of fun to have a more in-depth conversation and kind of talk about the difference between the two

>> ALEX: Again, and some I feel like some of it kind of overlaps some of it doesn't right so it' be interesting I think it' be an interesting conversation especially with what just happened a soccer Canada

>> MAT: Yeah

and yeah just lastly we are in, for whatever reason, and I'm not going to argue with it, it's amazing, we are in the era of sport documentaries so many amazing sport documentaries

from the Dallas Cowboys like cheerleading um tryouts documentary, incredible, to just individual athletes and just kind of following their their pursuits

I would just encourage you if you're someone that loves high performance and is inspired by people's stories of like hardship and adversary then,

Adversary? Adversity!

If you're someone that really enjoys like people's stories with adversity there's just tons of amazing sport talks out there but

thank you so much for hanging out with us today

>> ALEX: Thank you for having me

>> MAT: and we look forward to seeing you next time

again, comment email let us know if there are conversations that you would love whether it's just like fun little bits like TV shows, movies, particular events in sport

Alex and I like to talk about more things that are the buzz popular in social media or pop culture right now and we look forward to hang out with you guys next month

>> ALEX: Sounds good

>> MAT: Take care

[Music]