Exclusive Interview: “My Job Isn’t to Make People Calm” High-Performance Coach Sam Adams on Breathwork, Pressure, and Women's Football

Sophie Hurst

6 days ago

5 min read

There is a version of elite sport that looks cleanly mechanical on paper: hit your physical metrics, follow the recovery protocol, and execute on matchday. Yet beneath the tactics and physical conditioning sits a human being, one who might be carrying personal loss into training, concern over weekend selection, or standing over a high-stakes penalty with their heart hammering against their ribs.

Sam Adams, a high-performance coach specialising in breath and nervous system regulation, works with elite athletes, Team GB Olympians, professional footballers, founders, and global organisations like Netflix, as she tells Girlactico in an exclusive interview, her role is frequently misunderstood.

“People sometimes think my work is about making people calm, but it really isn't,” Adams explains. “It's really helping people understand and influence the state that they're operating from so they can access their skills when it matters most.” For Adams, the ultimate objective isn't relaxation, it is ensuring that when pressure peaks, high performers retain full access to the capabilities they already possess.

From Personal Loss to Nervous System Science

Adams didn’t set out with a grand plan to specialise in nervous system science. A veteran coach of over a decade, her career direction shifted abruptly seven years ago following a period of intense personal adversity. Within a short window, her father passed away and her marriage broke down.

“Despite having loads of coping skills and being in personal development for a very long time, I found myself really struggling,” she recalls. When a friend suggested she try breathwork, her initial reaction was far from enthusiastic. “I was really sceptical, I thought it was a load of old nonsense! But I went and did it, and my mind was blown. It really helped me manage all of the feelings that I wasn't coping with having.”

That turning point launched years of deep study with the School of Breath Science, exploring the intricate relationship between breathing, the brain, and the nervous system. Adams realised that the internal dysregulation she had experienced during personal grief was a mirror to what her high-performing clients faced under extreme pressure on the pitch and in the boardroom.

“I learned all of this work for myself because I was trying to push my business on, but I wasn't having the best access to my capabilities because my nervous system was in such a state,” she says. “Once I learned how to regulate myself, I transferred that straight across to my clients.”

Penalty Kicks and the Chloe Kelly Effect

With the rapid growth and professionalisation of women’s football, the visibility and scrutiny surrounding players have reached unprecedented heights. Yet, as Adams points out, even world-class athletes can execute flawless play all week only to freeze when performing at the highest level.

“You can train brilliantly all week and know exactly what to do, but then the pressure hits,” Adams says. “Suddenly you've lost all that access to your skill. What's happening is physiological activation, adrenaline rises, your heart rate spikes, and your breath shifts to your upper chest.”

Crucially, Adams stresses that this physiological activation is not inherently bad. “We need pressure to mobilise,” she notes. “The difference lies in how an individual interprets that activation. For one person, a racing heart signals excitement and readiness for action. For someone else, their brain interprets that exact same body signal as a threat based on past experiences, and all their cognitive resources get diverted.”

When discussing Lioness hero Chloe Kelly, famed for her unmatched composure in monumental tournament moments, Adams highlights that true confidence comes from emotional regulation rather than suppressing fear.

“Chloe Kelly has emotion; she isn't suppressing it,” Adams points out. “The skill is being able to experience that emotion without it completely taking over your physical capability. Chloe has probably done it a thousand times, so her confidence has grown because she knows: ‘I can feel this stress, but I can still be in the moment.’ When players learn to manage that state, confidence and self-trust really take off.”

The Myth of 'Pushing Through' and Allostatic Load

In traditional sporting culture, the default answer to stress has long been a culture of bravado, ignoring internal signals and simply pushing through. Adams warns that while overriding your system can make-do for short-term results, it results in a heavy long-term cost.

“In old-school environments, there’s a lot of that bravado, let’s just push on through,” she says. “But long-term, that works heavily against you. Your nervous system holds something called allostatic load, which is the accumulation of different types of stress in your system.”

This weight is far heavier than a demanding physical load. “It’s worrying about whether you’re getting picked on Saturday, injury anxiety, sleeping badly, or personal stuff going on at home,” Adams explains. “When you get too much accumulated load, the signals between your body and brain become noisy. The brain starts misinterpreting things, leading to negative thinking, self-doubt, low confidence, and eventually burnout.”

Rather than building a protective armour, Adams focuses on creating flexibility within what she calls an individual's "nervous system blueprint."

“Breathwork doesn't eradicate life’s challenges, you will still get injured, dropped, or deal with personal breakups,” she says. “We look at whether you hyper-activate and try to fix everything, or shut down and withdraw. Once you understand your blueprint, your nervous system is completely retrainable, allowing you to stay connected to your true self despite the disappointment.”

Sam explains that a key goal is discovering, “how can we be upset but still maintain the best, better version of ourselves?”, noting that this is how “we make good decisions.”

She discusses the ability to manage, control and regulate by calling our nervous systems our “conductor”. That “you know everything else that's going on internally and externally is the orchestra, but your nervous system is the conductor. It's making things operate when they should and how things show up for you.”

The Missing Piece in Professional Sport

While modern football clubs invest heavily in strength and conditioning, nutrition, and data analytics, Adams believes many are still ignoring the foundational driver of athletic performance.

“Clubs put in the physio and the S&C, which are great, but they are missing a huge piece of the puzzle,” she asserts. “How often you get injured, how you think on the pitch, and how you react in high-pressure moments are all driven by what is going on internally within your physiology and nervous system.”

She supports this with the story of a professional footballer who suffered from recurring injuries despite receiving world-class physical rehabilitation.

“He kept getting rehabbed, returning to the pitch, and getting injured again in the exact same spot,” Adams explains. “When he came to work with me, we didn't start with physical drills; we audited his total load, his sleep, caffeine, cognitive stress, and personal responsibilities. We quickly realised his system was holding a massive hidden load that the club knew nothing about. By starting at a restorative stage, he managed to get back on the pitch permanently without re-injury.”

How to Audit Your Own Capacity

For those of us, or any players out there without the luxury of access, are wanting to apply these high-performance principles off the pitch, Adams recommends starting with a simple, week-long observational test.

“Start tracking your own capacity,” Adams advises. “For one week, just notice what activates you. Pay attention to when a comment leaves you rattled, when an email makes you fire back a response you regret, or when a situation makes your heart rate spike and your breathing shift.”

The goal, she emphasises, is awareness rather than immediate intervention. “Don't try to fix it straight away, just notice it. That is the first indication of what state you are operating from. Once you understand what your brain is interpreting, you can start to retrain it.”