How Physical Micro-Rituals Stop Overthinking In Sport

A single mistake can hijack an entire training session. We’ve both seen it: a young player drops a ball, throws a pass behind, misses a read and then spends the next 20 minutes replaying it in their head. Confidence dips, choices get slower, and the game stops feeling fun. That’s why we’re digging into mental resilience and mental strength through a surprisingly simple lens: the body can help the mind reset. 

We pull a key idea from modern sports psychology and coaching culture: physical practices underpin mental practices. If you try to outthink overthinking, you usually just add more noise. Instead, we share a concrete “micro-ritual” you can use immediately at training. The example is almost laughably small: two quick push-ups after a mistake, done at the back of the line or on the whistle. It’s not punishment. It’s a signal. You acknowledge the error, you close the loop, and you get back in the game. 

We also talk about how elite rugby players use their own reset routines, why these cues work under pressure, and how a team-wide habit can build self-accountability without creating fear of failure. If you coach, lead, or play, you’ll leave with a practical way to reduce rumination, improve decision making, and create a healthier performance mindset. Subscribe, share this with a coach or teammate, and leave a review if it helps. What physical reset would you try after your next mistake?

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Transcript

Why Mental Resilience Feels Harder

Physical Practice Supports Mental Practice

The Two Push-Ups Reset Idea

Pro Rituals That Signal Move On

Self-Coaching Without More Thinking

Building A Team Habit Around Mistakes

Final Takeaway And Challenge

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Welcome to the Coaching Culture Reflections midweek special. Today we're going to talk about something which has been topical for me of late, had a lot of conversations about mental strength and mental resilience in our young players and our young athletes. And something really stood out to me this week is a wonderful podcaster called Chris Williamson, who coached who coaches via uh Modern Wisdom Podcast, which I recommend if you're looking for other podcasts. He talked about this concept that the physical practices you do help underpin your mental practices. And he had this lovely phrase which he talked about. Trying to outthink or outthink your way out of overthinking is a very tufted thing to do. It's the equivalent of trying to sniff your way out of a cocaine addiction. That's what he said, and I loved it because it does make a lot of sense. And today's athlete seems to have a lot more struggles and battles with the mental side of the game. Maybe it's the changing generations where there's more emphasis on that stuff. School-aged children go through more schools with this as a mindset. Whereas perhaps 20, 30 years ago when I was growing up playing the sport, there was less emphasis on the mental side. It was just get on with it. I remember when uh you made a mistake, the coach would just yell out, two press-ups, and you'd have to drop and do two press-ups straight away. And that's the point that I was mentoring some young athletes on this week, which I think is really topical to think about and discuss as coaches. This concept of adding in a physical element to get rid of the mental burden, the mental stresses. And here's the example. I was chanting to a young athlete who was struggling with overthinking. When he said, when he would make mistakes, it would stay with him and he would spiral and he'd be thinking over and over and over again for the rest of the training. And it would affect his confidence, it would affect the way he played, his decision making. He found he would hesitate more, he found he lost his confidence, he didn't enjoy what he was doing as much after a mistake. He said, How do I shrug this? How do I move on better? And it got me thinking about uh a practice I used to do, unknown to me back then, is that two press-ups scenario. And I've delved into that a bit over the last couple of days and gone back to him and said this come up, every time you make a mistake at training, think about a physical practice you can do which will take you away from thinking about what you did wrong. And so we we came up with this the two press-ups scenario, where every time you make a mistake, there's no problem. Whenever you get to the back of the line of that drill or the end of that phase, or whenever the whistle goes, just drop and do two quick press-ups. And that's creating a bit of a practice. So you're acknowledging the mistake, and then you're exounding yourself from further repercussions. Just do it. Bang, do, done. You get up, and now you're back in. And that little bit of physical burst, that acknowledgement, then alleviates a lot of the compounding thinking. Now, I love that, and I found it really worked for me as a player. And what I found was it wasn't just the big mistakes after time. Once you got that practice in where it wasn't a slight on you, it was just something you did bang, drop, and give you two press-ups. I found it just made you get back in the game quicker. And I know a lot of the best rugby players in the world, I know Aaron Smith used to have little practices, and Karen Reed talking to him the other day. They have these little practices on field in a game where they have a physical practice to fix mistakes. Karen Reed used to look at the crowd and find someone and hold his view on him for a couple of seconds. Aaron Smith used to have a little foot stomping routine. Whenever he made a mistake, he would have a set pattern of foot stomps that he would do, which would be his signal to himself, move on now. You're done. You've fixed that problem. It's gone. It's in the past. And that was the physical totem that signified that. So what it also does for players, which does help confidence, is it also shows a team at training. If someone's dropping and doing two press ups when they make a mistake, it's showing the other rest of the team that you care, that you acknowledge that you made the mistake, mistake, and you're doing your own little practice to fix it. And when you see someone do that in a team, you go, oh, cool, that person cares. And then it creates this little mental health thing where when you know that other players go, oh, cool, he knows. He's acknowledging that, encourages you to do it more. And I think that's awesome. What also happens when you are when this becomes part of your practice, and it's not a slight on you as a player, it's just something you do, you then start critiquing yourself uh like a coach. If that pass doesn't go out in front, or it's it it's a passable pass, but in your own personal standards, you know you could have been better there. A simple bang, drop and give me two press-ups just to yourself is amazing. You're actually self-coaching. Now, if someone does this sort of self-coaching as a coach, you actually have to sit back and acknowledge that they are thinking about the process that they're going through. You might look at it and go, I didn't see too much wrong with that, but for whatever reason, they're critiquing themselves and they want to just move on from the little bit that irked them. And so they're dropping and doing two press-ups. Now, as a coach, it would be very easy to come in there and go, oh, make sure you're passing out in front. But that's just adding to the thinking. Sometimes you just got to sit back and let that ride. What we're actually teaching as coaches here is not just the X's and O's, we're actually teaching how to get out of your head. We're giving players a little bit of uh a little bit of a practice to help them move on quicker. Acknowledging it as a team, actually saying to the team, Rhino team, I don't mind if you make mistakes. As long as you acknowledge them, you fix them, and you move on. Here's what we're gonna do. Every time in training that we make a mistake, it's two press-ups. Just on your own. Don't mark up a drill, but whenever you get to the back of a line or whenever that whistle stops in a team run, if you're not happy with something in it, you do two press-ups, it's over. It is gone. And you move on the next whistle, the next session in the drill, you're fresh. And when you start getting that as common practice, it creates a wonderful self-regulating system for your team. And once people realize that you, as the coach, aren't holding, you know, you're not holding it over them, you're not yelling and saying two press-ups all the time. You might have to to start off with to get it rolling, to get it as a habit. But once it is habit, once it's in, it really creates a culture in that team, which is self-accountability, and it shows people how to get over things quickly, which is what you want in a game, because rugby is a chaotic game. Things aren't always going to work. You know, you're gonna make mistakes. That is the nature of the game. You are gonna have things happen to you. But the quicker you can get over them and get back in the game, the better. So as coaches setting up little practices which help that, which teach that, which encourage that, have to be a winner. So get stuck in. Think about how you can add small physical practices into your trainings that help the mental aspect of your players. Until next week, stay super well.