Physical warm up is very important, this is well documented and every serious sports person accepts this. Getting the body primed and ready for what you are about to ask your muscles and limbs to do is very important. This helps in keeping injuries to a minimum and enables you to go straight into a competition with your body feeling un-stiff and un-tight, giving you the opportunity to put in a high performance from the very start.

Although warming up is essential, if you are not mentally warmed up or prepared, you will not get the full benefit out of your physical preparation. Your mental activity has a profound effect on your physical game; if you mental game is not ready you will probably run into problems.

How many times do we hear sports professionals on TV after they have just lost saying things like "I couldn't get my head right" or "I wasn't quite there today". They undoubtedly felt like they could have won because their physical aspects of the game are similar and their physical skills are at the same level. But what was different on that day was the fact that the opponent had THE INNER EDGE, his/her mental game was better!

I would like to mention at this point to get psyched up is not the same, although for some sports (i.e. rugby or boxing) getting psyched up is important. You need to be careful of the type of person you are and indeed what sport it is you're performing.

If you are a person with low self-esteem for example it would be possible to become over psyched up and you will not be able to focus properly thus having a completely adverse effect.

In the zone, is probably the most talked about state that sports people want to be in when they are performing their chosen sport. This is where your concentration is at it's best, you are totally focused, everything else around you, you do not see, feel or hear, it just all comes together as if you don't have to try. It will not enter you mind what could go wrong; you will only focus on exactly what you want.

Most of us will have experienced this at some point or some will have experienced it a little more maybe, but the main objective is to get in to the Zone as much as possible.

The inner edge is an amazing package of mental techniques to enable you to focus on exactly what you want to be achieving. It will allow you to deal with almost anything that test's your boundaries of concentration. By having the inner edge it allows you to slot into the zone nice and smoothly.

What makes a great sports person as opposed to a good sports person is that the great sports person can get into the zone and stay there. How many times have we seen Tiger Woods lead in tournaments and once he is there he nearly always stays there and goes onto win.

What Tiger is particularly good at is his mental game he very rarely gets fazed or distracted. How many times do we see Johnny Wilkinson miss a penalty in rugby, the answer is not very often, again his mental game is outstanding no matter how much pressure he is under or what distractions are around him on and off the pitch he stays totally focused.

These top sports people all have one thing in common they have the inner edge. Make no mistake these guys have amazing physical skills as well but without having the inner edge they would not be able to utilize their physical skills.

Once your performance is over, whether you won or not it is time to look back over your good and not so good parts of your game. This is a great time to remember there is no failure only feedback. What I mean by this is that inevitably we all make mistakes but as long as we can go back to those events in our mind and give ourselves feedback, realizing what went wrong and turn that into a positive by learning from it, such that next time we don't make the same mistake again.

Also you must recognise all the good parts of your performance, remembering how you did that, what mind state you where in etc etc and keep playing those good parts back in your head and feel yourself getting more confident every time you run that movie in your mind.