NBT Olympians: Alex O’Brien

Sept. 26, 2018

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From 1992 to 2001 Alex O’Brien competed as an elite professional tennis player on the ATP World Tour. Career highlights include playing for the US Davis Cup team and the 2000 US Olympic Team in Sydney, Australia. Alex also won the US Open doubles championship in 1999 and ranked as the No. 1 world doubles player in May 2000.

We’ve been working with Alex as a member of our own Elite Performance Program. He’s on the podcast with me today to talk about his journey to becoming a professional tennis player and sharing some of the moments that stand out to him from his years on the court. We also discuss his reasons for coming to NBT for health coaching and the progress he’s made since then.

It’s also worth mentioning that in 1998 Alex created the Alex O’Brien Tennis Foundation - a nonprofit organization that brings tennis to underprivileged kids in his hometown of Amarillo, Texas. It’s still going strong after 20 years.

Here’s the outline of this interview with Alex O’Brien:

[00:03:28] Dick Gould, John Whitlinger.

[00:06:30] Playing tennis professionally.

[00:06:39] Jim Courier.

[00:08:35] John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl.

[00:10:36] Strength training.

[00:11:25] Gustavo Kuerten.

[00:13:00] Growth Mindset. Previous podcasts discussing mindset (both with Simon Marshall, PhD): Why We Self-Sabotage (And What to Do Instead) and Why Most People Never Learn From Their Mistakes - But Some Do.

[00:14:13] Learning from losses.

[00:16:00] Coping strategies for the pressure.

[00:19:29] Björn Borg.

[00:20:34] Becoming a doubles player.

[00:22:09] Sébastien Lareau, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Sandon Stolle.

[00:23:36] Wayne Ferreira, Jared Palmer.

[00:24:29] Winner: 1999 US Open - Men’s Doubles.

[00:25:50] Olympics.

[00:27:30] Brandon Slay.

[00:31:11] Health challenges.

[00:33:56] Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast: Why Is My Cortisol High Even Though I’m Doing Everything Right? Hidden Causes Of High Cortisol, The DUTCH Test & More!, with Christopher Kelly.

[00:39:00] Blood Chemistry Calculator; 5-Year Wellness Score.

[00:40:17] Glycomark.

[00:41:51] MTHFR.

[00:42:48] Signal-to-noise ratio.

[00:44:00] Homocysteine; organ meat.

[00:45:07] Coping strategies for stress.

[00:47:05] Making meditation a habit.