How elite athletes stay sharp: Performance coach Bradley Scanes on the psychology of success

Bradley Scanes is one of the most sought-after performance coaches and motorsports speakers, best known for his work supporting elite athletes across Formula 1, Olympic sport, and professional boxing.

As the former performance coach to F1 world champion Max Verstappen, Bradley has been instrumental in helping some of the world’s most high-pressure performers optimise both body and mind.

With deep expertise in physical conditioning, mental resilience, and high-performance routines, Bradley has worked with everyone from Olympic gold medallists to C-suite leaders.

In this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency, he opens up about the science behind elite performance, the lessons professionals can learn from motorsport, and how mental toughness is built, not born.

Question: What does the role of a performance coach involve?

Bradley Scanes: “The best way I can describe the role of a performance coach is that I do everything so my client, my athlete, my driver only has to think about what they’re doing.

“So, for example, working with Max [Verstappen], I would look after his training, his physio, his nutrition, his hydration. I’d drive him to the track. I would wash his kit. I’d do absolutely everything so that he could just come in, focus on the task at hand, and go racing – control his controllables – while I look after the rest.

“That involves obviously knowing your client, knowing your athlete very, very well, building that trust with them. I’ve always talked in the past about the reason I got the job is probably all about getting on with that client. Talk about something called interaction over intervention, where that communication style – those communication skills – are so, so important.

“And I guess it’s a bit like a CEO or business leader coming into a company and trying to manage their people and find out what makes them tick and try and get the best out of the client.

“In managing everything for that athlete, what you’re fundamentally doing is trying to optimise the environment to stack the probability of success in their favour. And, yeah, that’s what I would say a performance coach does.”

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Q: What can professionals learn about improving performance from your high-performing clients?

BS: “For me, most of my high-performing clients come from a sporting background. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Olympic gold medallists, F1 world champions, Ironman world champions, professional boxers, cyclists, winners of the Giro d’Italia but also some high-pressured CEOs that have to travel a lot for work, and so on and so forth.

“I always take three core principles out of that, and a lot of that is around pursuing those one percent gains – those marginal gains; executing at a world-class level – an elite level; and being able to stay at that top and perform under pressure.

“But I think what you can then learn from those things is essentially: the breakdown of each individual one is where the magic happens.

“For example, an elite-level athlete is constantly training for that pressure before it happens. Max Whitlock, three-time Olympic gold medallist – Britain’s greatest ever gymnast – has done his routine on the pommel horse a thousand times before he walks out on that Olympic stage. And you can see it as well.

“The best CEOs will prepare for crisis moments or prepare worst-case scenario drills. They are ready for when it happens. So they train for the pressure before it happens. And then being able to apply frameworks when the pressure does come, so breathing techniques to regulate stress, reframing that pressure as a privilege.

“Michael Jordan was always the best at that, when he would see game-winning shots as opportunities and not threats.

“We had the same in Abu Dhabi ‘21 – level on points going into the last race. It was an opportunity to win the championship.

“And then being able to apply mental performance techniques such as visualisation or breaking things down into micro-tasks, developing an ultra-ego for high-stakes moments – all coming to the ability to be able to cope with those high-pressure moments and perform at the best.

“Lots you can break down into that, but I think focusing on the key points and then breaking those down initially is the best way to look at it.”

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Q: Mental resilience and mindset are key topics. How much of sport is a battle of will?

BS: “That calculated battle of will, I’d probably say. There’ll be moments when you wonder how these high-performing athletes are performing at the level that they’re performing now. You hear a lot about flow state and people being in the zone – and that is a real thing – but it’s built up by building that mental and emotional resilience over time.

“And again, F1 is a very good example of that, because what you have is drivers that need to reach a certain level of physical fitness, but they don’t need to be super athletes. Most drivers will be of a relatively similar physical fitness. Because once they reach their cardiovascular fitness, once they reach their neck strength, by going above and beyond, it doesn’t add lap time. If you’re below it, it can take away lap time, but you don’t get faster by being more physically fit.

“The way you go out and win races is by having a fast car, but if you’re relatively similar, it’s winning that mental and emotional battle against your competitor.

“And that’s where your visualisation techniques come in, your ability to control your breathing and use breathing to reduce stress when under pressure, breaking tasks down into small micro-tasks.

“We were winning the US Grand Prix in ‘21 in Austin, being chased down very, very closely by Lewis Hamilton. Every point counted in a year where it was a very closely fought contest. Max will talk now in interviews about how he could feel his heart rate rising, and he used a technique called box breathing to bring that down.

“So I say a calculated battle of will because mental toughness and mental resilience that he’s built up over the years put him in that situation. But he was also very calculating – ‘Okay, we’re in a situation where we can win this race. My heart rate’s going up, adrenaline’s coming in’. He was able to then apply those mental performance techniques to bring that all back down, level himself out, and go on and win the race.”

This exclusive interview with Bradley Scanes was conducted by Chris Tompkins of The Motivational Speakers Agency.

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