The story behind Ryan Stevenson’s success

January 26, 2011

I’m delighted to see Hearts footballer Ryan Stevenson receiving so much positive attention after his brilliant game-clinching goal against Rangers at the weekend. This is one Scottish footballer who is showing both physical and mental prowess on the field at the moment.

I remember, too, when Ryan was at his previous club, Ayr United, when he scored the goal that won the game that secured the club a promotion. 

So why my interest in this sporting champion? Well, when I was Strength and Conditioning Specialist at Ayr United, I was privileged enough to work with Ryan for several years. I say privileged because he was a player who was keen to improve both mentally and physically and so he was very willing to embrace a range of sports coaching techniques.

First we overhauled Ryan’s diet. He wasn't actually eating enough for his calorie needs. Then we enhanced his physical workouts to include more strength, power, speed, agility, flexibility and endurance training. Because of this his fitness reached an outstanding level. 

The next step was one-to-one NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) sessions. These mental performance coaching sessions allowed Ryan to rapidly transform his mindset both in games and at training. He became far more positive and confident, which really helped to improve his game.

From what I can see of his playing now, Ryan naturally accesses this positive state and confidence. 

We also did a great deal of visualisation training in regards to goal scoring with Ryan. He would picture the ball going in the net and such like. 

So, in my opinion, it’s no wonder that Ryan is now being hailed a goal hero by so many football commentators. You only had to read the positive reports in the newspapers over the past week to see how much his previous sports coaching experience is paying off. 

I wish him all the best in his future career – and I’ll be watching his progress closely.