Podium Psychology

Podium Psychology offers longitudinal support for individuals and organisations. In addition to this we devise bespoke Psychology workshops and one to one interventions to the clients need. Due to the varied nature of the work conducted please get in contact for pricing.

About Us

Below is a brief background Hugh’s experience. Feel free to contact by email at PodiumPsychology@gmail.com for further info of what can be done to help you reach the winners podium or perform better

Consultant: Hugh J. Gilmore

Qualifications:

Bachelor of Science with Honours in Sport and Exercise Science
Master of Science with Distinction in Applied Sport and Exercise Psychology
BASES (prob)
Irish Institute of Sport Accredited Psychologist

Experience:

Hugh has worked with All Ireland winners, World Champions, Olympians.
With experience in delivering Sport & Performance Psychology to
British Weightlifting and Paralympic Powerlifting (Rio Games )
Weightlifting Ireland
Northern Ireland Netball
British Athletics
Sports institute of Northern Ireland S and C staff
Hockey, Rugby and GAA athletes and teams
Competitive Crossfit Gyms
A wide range of elite coaches and business professionals seeking personal development

Podium Psychology specialises in the application of scientifically derived knowledge with clients in order to create performance improvement.
This knowledge is delivered by both informal meetings with clients and through group sessions and workshops in team/club/business environments, we also aid in coach education programs for sports clubs and governing bodies. ]
The majority of our one to one work is carried out by Skype unless you happen to be located in near Belfast or Loughborough.
Hugh currently works in Loughborough with the English Institute of Sport and also sits on the board of Directors for Netball Northern Ireland acting as Performance Director.
If you need to improve your performance to get you, or your team closer to the podium then Email:PodiumPsychology@gmail.com

Professional standards are important for our profession.
With in the UK and Ireland there are 3 main bodies with which all those who are fit to practise must be registered with at least one. Hugh is registered with Two of these bodies.

These are:
The Irish Institute of sport
British Association of Sport and Exercise Science (BASES)

It is important that whenever you seek Sport Psychology support that the person you use belongs to the appropriate organisation this will ensure that they are suitably qualified. We appreciate that this can be confusing to the lay person but we are happy to explain the difference for you.
If you have any queries about this feel free to make contact.

Testimonials

I want to give due credit to Hugh Gilmore. For the first 3-4 months of management we had consultations before and after most training session and matches, and then just regular communication throughout the rest of the season. I can’t go into everything we talked about as I want to manage again and keep some of it to myself, but the main things were how to communicate with the players and get the message across effectively, how to structure my sessions, identify areas for improvement, measure improvement and even how to phrase my words when talking to players.

Paul Bradley Manager, Ahoghill GAA 2015 League winners

“Thanks to both Hannah and Hugh for extremely professional yet practical and friendly support. As I was preparing for the biggest international competition of my career I was balancing a number of pressures that were affecting my performance and confidence and Hugh was able to help me scale everything back and put things into perspective again. He helped me realise I had a lot of the answers myself, and gave me a number of tools to use as well whenever I did feel like I wasn’t in control of things. It is one thing to be able to know a lot of theory, but a skill to be able to apply it in layman’s terms and one of the key things I think Hugh and Hannah are great at is actually making you realise that the solutions required aren’t necessarily radical, and that the changes required can be achieved through an informal chat and positive, practical interventions.

Hugh’s and Hannah’s support enabled me to maintain focus, and enjoy the event rather than be overwhelmed by it, ultimately allowing me to make a strong, solid contribution to the team and our overall performance.”

Noleen Lennon Commonwealth Games Athlete 2014 and N.Ireland Netballer

  “Our weightlifting club has utilised the services of Podium Psychology as both Hugh and Hannah are qualified sports psychologists who also have a strong focus in professional development demonstrated by their current PhD studies and/or employment with national governing bodies. Furthermore both have spent time training and competing in weightlifting and have furthered their sports psychology studies from a weightlifting perspective working with Weightlifting Ireland and also Hugh is now employed with British Weightlifting.

       We have held two workshops at our club where they presented material on pre-performance routine (PPR) and also on self efficacy which would also be of benefit to other sports.  Both presentations were well researched and informative and it was reassuring we could give credence to drills we currently perform in the club to improve preparation for competitions and to provide a more productive training environment.  A number of novel strategies were also discussed to enable our coaches to tailor situations to particular lifters weaknesses.

We would have no reservations about recommending their services to clubs and/or individuals.”

Peter Stewart   GoLift Weightlifting Club Coach

“We put a heavy emphasis on mental preparation on both a collective and individual basis. One of the key individual areas we looked at was dead ball kicking. We brought in Hugh Gilmore to work on this area. We looked at both mental and physical routines as well as technique. Our kickers developed their own kicking strategies which added significantly to their conversion rates.”
 
Anthony McGrath Queen’s University Sigerson Manager & Donegal Minors Performance Coach
 
“I have used Hugh to improve my own personal performance for about 5 years now, and having worked with many other so called sports psychologists, I have to say Hugh is the real deal. He is brings a no nonsense approach based on methods that are proven to work.” 

Dermot McArdle Former Monaghan Footballer, and owner of Gaelic Performance

Hi, my name is Alex Mardan and I am a track& field athlete.  Here is my feedback to help other athletes and organisations make a decision and collaborate with a professional sport psych.

I approached Hugh to help me in my attempt to compete in the World Masters Championships in Athletics. From the beginning I felt that Hugh was able to clearly provide a strategic approach to our collaboration, showing great skill in understanding and applying sports psychology to my individual needs, taking in consideration the particularities of my sport. Our collaboration took place during an entire season as neither me or him believe that sport psychology stands as a quick fix for performance but rather we see it as a skill that needs time and work just like any other fitness component. I found his techniques to be useful on a variety of challenges. Hugh helped me to clearly understand and put in practice goal setting, the result being that I was able to create a training programme that was challenging and motivational at the same time. Later in the season Hugh helped me develop a tool in order to deal with training and competition stress. I referred to it as the “StressFigther” and it was a combination of  breathing techniques and positive self talk. With regards race tactics and running technique, Hugh helped me to practice effectively, by implementing one of the most used tools in sport psychology, imagery (visualisation) . The practice facilitated a good concentration in competitions and enabled me to learn to attend relevant cues prior executing the race. I highly recommend working with Hugh to my fellow athletes, coaches, parents or team managers and to all willing to achieve their best athletic performance using mental skill training consultation delivered by an accredited specialist .
 

Alex Mardan achieved a 7th place finish in the World Masters Indoor 400m, Alex also has held National records and represented Romania at the world championships as well as being a highly experienced athletics coach.