Maloney Performance

🧠 Safety Before Growth
We often focus on what we want from athletes:
🏋️ To take risks
💪 Be resilient in the face of adversity
🗣️ Communicate honestly

But all of those require a degree of safety first.
When we feel threatened or overwhelmed, even subconsciously, our nervous system shifts into protection mode.

➡️ In sport, that might mean playing safe or hiding concerns.
➡️ In life, that might mean retreating from opportunity or avoiding vulnerability.

Growth requires challenge.
But challenge needs a foundation of trust, belonging and psychological safety.

Before asking people to be courageous, we should ask whether they feel safe enough to take the risk.

🥳 Creating a safe space to smile, play, explore, fail, succeed, laugh, be silly, be intentional.. (and also to train!)

🥳 T-Spine Tuesday!

👨🏻‍🏫 Get your upper back moving and your body will thank you.

Rough difficulty progression…
6️⃣ Lunge hold pullaparts
5️⃣ Lunge hold rainbow
4️⃣ Side lying bow and arrow
3️⃣ 3-point T-spine rotation
2️⃣ Floor cogs
1️⃣ Cat-cow

🧭 What’s Your Origins Story?
The longer I coach (and more I’m therapised…), the more I appreciate that our coaching philosophies don’t appear out of nowhere. They grow from our own experiences.

For me, creating environments built on autonomy, trust, and psychological safety is important because I know what it feels like when those things are missing.

Many of the values we try to develop in others…
💛 empathy
🗣️ authenticity
🤝 belonging
🌱 growth
are born from challenges we’ve faced ourselves.

Much like grief can lead to growth, our greatest struggles can become our strongest convictions.

Not because the struggle was good. But because it helped us understand what matters.

🦸‍♂️ Whether you’re a coach, athlete, or simply trying to navigate life, it’s worth reflecting on your origins story.
What experiences shaped the values you hold today?

👨🏻‍🏫 Supporting coaches to develop their skills, knowledge and confidence is a real passion of mine.

🏌️‍♂️ This week was the first workshop for our PGA golf coaches studying for their UKSCA Level 3 S&C Trainer award with me

💪 Great to be a part of their development and future cohorts in the pipeline too!

💪 Hamstring strength (e.g. producing high levels of force) is great.

👨🏻‍🏫 However, in sport and performance, we need to be able to tap into the force quickly!

🏋️‍♂️ Exercises such as SL Hamstring Catches and SL RDL Drops can provide a bridge from more forceful variations into ones that emphasise more RFD (rate of force development)

🌱 Growth After Adversity
Last week we defined grief as “the gap between where your life is and where you thought it would be”.
 
Sometimes that gap is created by:
🏅 Major sporting disappointment
🤕 Long-term injury
💔 Relationship breakdown
🧠 Major life challenges
 
While these experiences can be incredibly painful, they can also become turning points.
Psychologists call this post-traumatic growth.
 
Importantly, this doesn’t mean trauma is good. Because it flat out isn’t!
Nor does suffering automatically make us stronger.
 
Growth doesn’t come from the adversity itself, but from how we adapt to it.
🏋️ Athletes can return from long-term injuries with greater resilience and new perspectives.
⚽ Setbacks can become catalysts for taking the steps needed for a better future.
🧠 Difficult experiences can deepen empathy, relationships and appreciation for what matters most.
 
Growth isn’t guaranteed.
And we are not defined by our hardest moments.
 
The future we build after adversity might be different from the one we imagined.
But within the change lies the possibility of growth. Not because of what happened to us, but because of how we choose to respond.

🤾🏼‍♀️ Performance athletes & weekend warriors…
If you’re stuck in the cycle of pain-rest-return-repeat…
I help athletes break that cycle!

💻 The end of the season means I have in person and online coaching spots for athletes who want to get back to performing and training at their best without guessing, avoiding movements, or hoping things magically improve.

👨🏻‍🏫 If you want:
• Clear return‑to‑performance plans
• Speed and agility improvements
• Technique fixes to maximise game speed and lifting
• Support from a coach who specialises in hybrid rehab + performance

📲 Drop me a “💪” and let me know how I can help.

💯 Let’s get you back to training at 100%.

👨🏻‍🏫 When the ribcage and pelvis are stacked effectively, we promote:

✅ Mobility at the hips and shoulders
✅ Better length-tension relationships
✅ Better breathing mechanics
✅ Less sympathetic tone

3️⃣ This trifecta hit the top, bottom and sides of the stacked column we’re trying to encourage.

🖤 The Truth About Grief
On Good Life Project podcast this week, Dr Lucy Hone described grief as “the gap between where your life is and where you thought it would be.”

We often think of grief as loss through death. But we can also grieve:
🤕 Injury and the athlete we thought we’d be
🏅 Missed opportunities or setbacks in sport or work
💔 Relationships ending
🧠 Changes in health, identity or direction

Research often calls this disenfranchised grief. Losses that aren’t always seen, validated or mourned openly.

😶‍🌫️ Just because others can’t see the loss or validate it, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t count. The emotional and physical impact can be every bit as real, even when the loss is invisible to everyone else.

But the lack of perceived validation can leave us suffering in silence or even repressing our feelings.

🛣️ This is important because coming to terms with grief is the only way we can move forward.