By: Matt Bombardier

RICHMOND, Vermont — Brian Cain, Director of Cain Peak Performance and one of the top baseball mental game consultants in the country, has recently emerged as the premier mental game coach for elite mixed martial artists competing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Working with Ultimate Fighting icons, Georges St. Pierre, David Loiseau, Tom Murphy, Keith Jardine, Rich Franklin and Rob MacDonald, Cain has found many similarities between competition in the octagon and competition that happens between the lines.

"I have been using ultimate fighting clips with teams I work with for about the last three years," said Cain.

"The mental aspects of MMA and the mental game of baseball are very similar. The major difference is that in baseball if you lose, you have to get ready to play the next day, in MMA, if you lose, you have to deal with it for 3-10 months before you can fight again."

Having worked with the top teams in college baseball and the best fighters in the world Cain felt that the readers of Collegiate Baseball could benefit from understanding what goes into mentally training the most fierce competitors on the planet.

"When the fighter steps into the octagon, it is war. Both fighters are trying to take possession of the cage and the way they do that is through having confident/championship body language and forcing themselves to act different than how they feel.

"All the fighters that I work with get very nervous before a fight and often are scared and regret having to go to the cage. The fighters who succeed are the ones that know how to get those butterflies to fly in formation.

"As in baseball, the athlete that wins the battle is often the one who takes possession of the plate. Who's plate is it? Is a question I often ask both hitters and pitchers, looking for the same answer from both. IT'S MY PLATE!."

Fake It Till You Make It

Both fighters and baseball players get nervous and anxious before a big game. The key is for them to let their actions dictate their feelings, not to let their feelings dictate their actions.

"Athletes that can 'act as if' have a much better chance at performing at or near their best than those who act as how they feel. When you act as if it is impossible to fail, or act as if you are the best fighter or player in the world for that moment, and carry yourself with that swagger and confidence, sooner or later you start to feel like that confident warrior going out to do battle."

It is also much easier for athletes to act themselves into feeling than it is to feel themselves into action. If you wait around till you feel like going to the cage to take extra swings, or till you feel like going to the weight room, that urge may never come. You have to ACT like you want to go, get your body there and the brian will follow. It is the start that stops most people because most people wait till they feel like starting before they do anything.

ESPN Analyst and Movie Star Share Similar Experiences

Cal State Fullerton alum and baseball movie actor Kevin Costner said it best in a conversation with ESPN's Kyle Peterson when the two were talking about finding a way to get it done when you don't feel your best. The conversation happened during a pitching change in an NCAA Super Regional Game between Cal State Fullerton and the University of Arizona.

Costner said, "There are days when you show up and you don't feel like acting but you have to fake it, and sooner or later you find it and the universe opens up for you, and you perform at your best, but that does not happen unless you are able to relax."

Peterson related that analogy to going out to the mound and not feeling your best, but acting as if you had you're a game as to not tip your opponents off to the fact that you are at less than your best.

"I may feel my best 20 % of the time when I go out there, but what you have to do it fake it and sooner or later your good stuff comes."

Awareness Drills

One way in which Cain gets the athletes to increase their awareness of when they are beating themselves is to use what he calls the Awareness Alarm.

"I have athletes use a wrist watch or a cell phone and set an alarm for every 20 minutes that they are awake," Cain said. "What they have to do when the alarm goes off is check in on one of there mental game goals."

"For example if I am working with an athlete that does not carry himself with confidence, I will have him repeat to himself "Confidence is a choice, carry myself like a champion and I will become a champion" every 20 minutes when his alarm goes off. After a few days, the athlete will start walking around with much more confident body language. In the beginning what you will see is that the alarm will go off and the athlete will check in, become aware that their body language is less than its best and will pull their sternum up and "Get Big" as they walk around.

"We all know that body language alone will not make you a champion, but we also know that if you do not have confident body language, you are beating yourself and will fall short of your potential."

Breathing Is Critical To Perform At Your Best

If you had a chance to watch the Ultimate Fighter Reality Show on Spike TV in which UFC Welterweights Matt Serra and Matt Hughes were the coaches, you would have heard that the most prominent words used by the corner of Team Serra during any of his teams fights were breath, relax and breath. Cain has seen fighters and baseball players beat themselves by not being able to breath in the heat of competition.

"I had the chance to be in the corner of Georges St. Pierre when he fought Josh Koscheck at UFC 74 and it was no surprise how often his great coaches Greg Jackson and Firas Zarahi were saying, "Breath Georges, Relax and take good deep breaths" if you buy the DVD you can hear them clearly, it is amazing, Cain said."

"Matt Serra said the same thing on the reality show. You see, in Ultimate Fighting like in baseball, there are no little things, one pitch and one punch can make the difference in the outcome. You have to stay in the present moment, one punch and one pitch at a time and you do that by breathing. It is no surprise that the greatest coaches in the world are talking as much if not more about breathing then they are about fundamentals and strategies in competition. George Horton at Cal State Fullerton, Dave Serrano at UC Irvine, Jim Schlossnagle at TCU and Tim Corbin at Vanderbilt are always talking about breathing and staying in the moment. What I am learning as I gain more experience working with Olympic athletes, top college hockey, football and baseball teams and ultimate fighters is that the best of the best in any sport are all talking about breathing and What's Important Now. I think that is no secret why they also WIN."

For more on the Mental Game of Baseball and for current specials on DVDs and CDs please visit www.briancain.com To become a member of the best Mental Game of Baseball Inner Circle, for FREE¸ log on to www.firstroundmentalcoaching.com and www.briancainblog.com for more information.