How many of us who have competed at a high level of sport have suffered with the jitters, or succumbed to the pressure of competition and not performed as we know we can one time or another?

How did you react to this? Did you brush it off with a blasé comment such as "the pressure got to me" or "I just didn't feel confident", or maybe "the venue isn't up to scratch" or some other excuse.

For some of us this is an all too familiar problem. Sometimes, we are never able to "be alright on the night" and for all intent and purposes competitive careers are destroyed from within.

So why do some people show phenomenal talent in the training hall but crumble when it comes to the competition? It's a common scenario in elite sport. Is it the pressure? Is it the venue? Or is it something more sinister?

I used to train and compete with a guy who was probably one of the greatest talents I had seen in the UK for some time. He was everything a Gymnast should be - he was physically ideal, as though he was a kit gymnast. One that had been made to measure and assembled like a high performance sports car. He certainly had the dedication and fantastic family support.

I used to watch him as he would pick up new moves easily, remember set routines without a second glance and had the arrogance to intimidate.

I was due to compete against him one day and woke the morning of the competition feeling overwhelmed. I knew he was the favourite to win.

As we warmed up prior to the competition I could see him hitting his routines with fighter pilot accuracy, yet I noticed in his face he was uncomfortable. I wondered why? He certainly was a class above the rest of us and he knew it.

As he took to the floor to perform his first routine, he was fidgety and he wasn't acting in his usual confident way. I could feel that air of arrogance was completely gone, on his opening line he fell! I had seen him perform that line hundreds of times without a second thought! His routine was second rate and after all six apparatus he finished 11^th place.

We competed over many years after that day. He continued to be the champion of the training hall and never won a competition, falling in to the category of an under-achiever and fading into the background never to be seen again.

So what can we surmise from this? Is it that physical ability or even talent isn't what wins competitions or defines a true champion? It has to be something more. Sure, you have to be able to compete in the competition in order to be competitive, but it would appear the edge is your mental strength not the physical - that is the defining aspect!

So what defines Ian Thorp as a champion?  His physical technique has been studied, scrutinised and copied by many swimmers around the world. His physical strength has been surpassed by others yet throughout his career he continued to get better and better results. So you have to ask yourself - why?

I believe it is his personal ability to not succumb to the pressure. Whether he is competing in a local swim meet or the Olympic Games, the same swimmer enters the pool time after time after time and produces the same consistent results! We have all heard Ian talking about competing against himself and himself only and that's what matters to him, mentally eliminating his competitors before he enters the pool.

Going back to the Gymnast. He had trained himself to succeed in the training hall but he would perform differently at competition, drawing on different behaviour. He would spend 50 hours a week honing his approach to the routine and on competition day would not apply the same thought process - so essentially he was competing without preparing. He left his best performance in the training hall, never achieving anything near his potential.

When I was competing, I was always told to train as though it is a competition, I never knew why at the time and to be honest I don't think my coach did either. I now know there is a sound scientific philosophy behind that throwaway statement.

Every action we perform creates an imprint in the brain, this becomes our neurological point of reference for the next time we perform that action. So when you go to cross the road you will look left and then right as taught from a very young age. What starts as a conscious action becomes an unconscious action, or behaviour.

So if you moved to a country where the traffic travelled in a different direction, you would need to retrain your behaviour, creating new neurological points of reference to look Right then Left. Obviously this can be done - it just needs some conscious thought for a period of time before again it becomes an unconscious action, or a new behaviour.

So if you train a bad habit, it then becomes your point of neurological reference and your behaviour!

Using the same philosophy, what if you train for perfection in the training hall but when you come to compete you draw on a different neurological point of reference? You may spend hours saying to yourself "What if I fall?" or "Don't fall!" So when you start to compete you are concentrating on falling and what the consequences of that action would be!

Inevitably you will fall because your mind is dealing with that action. This fall becomes your competition neurological point of reference. You may have noticed either yourself, or other competitors consistently stumble or fall at the same point of a routine. So it wouldn't matter how many hours had been spent practicing and to what standard - you would only ever perform at your competition neurological point of reference unless you retrained this behaviour.

So how do we change these negative neurological behavioural trends? The easiest way is to replicate your successful behaviour in the training hall and put it in the competition venue. Train as though it's a competition, giving your mind less options.

When devising training programs, incorporate a formal competitive module in every training session. Increase the number of these modules as you build towards the competition date.

If, however you have had ineffective behaviour for a period of time, it may be necessary to scramble the old neurological imprint. This will render it useless as a point of reference, making your mind look for a more suitable reference point.

This is a psychological pattern reimprint, just replacing the old negative action with a more desirable one.