I AM in a typically mundane, low-ceilinged conference room in an office block in Hemel Hempstead. You can hear the hustle and bustle of shoppers on the street outside. Overhead, a defective fluorescent light periodically flickers into life. Around me, eight women aged between 25 and 60 are lying on the carpet, eyes closed, breathing deeply. They are practising meditation, an art familiar to many sportsmen.

As a former international table tennis player, I have meditated in sports arenas around the world. At the Brentwood Centre, I used to do it in a broom cupboard. At the Toun Building in Tokyo I would do it in a toilet on the ninth floor. At the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002, I did it in a corridor hidden by a curtain adjacent to the competition hall.

The trick is to relax the mind to such an extent that it becomes amenable to suggestion. In my playing days, this would take the form of positive affirmations about the upcoming match — “I have the talent and mental strength to win!” For the women on the floor in Hemel Hempstead, the affirmations are specific to their jobs as regional sales managers of Bourne Leisure, a holiday company. The point of the exercise, however, is identical: performance enhancement.

Adrian Moorhouse, gold medal-winner in the 100 metres breaststroke at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, is a studious exponent of these techniques, having learnt them in the United States when sports psychology was beginning to take off in the early 1980s. He firmly believes that they contributed to his success as an athlete. Since his retirement from swimming in 1992, his life has been driven by the real- isation that the techniques are not just relevant to sportsmen.

“We all have an incentive to improve performance, whether we work in an office or a swimming pool,” he told me. “My idea was to take the tools of sports psychology and offer them to businesses.”

It might sound fanciful but it has proved lucrative. Moorhouse now runs a multimillion-pound company — Lane4, named after the lane in which he won gold in Seoul — employing an army of psychologists and consultants who operate in companies around the world.

My trip to Hemel Hempstead was to observe a seminar led by Graham Jones, a former professor of sports psychology at Loughborough University who now works for Lane4. Lying on the floor to perfect the art of meditation wasn’t the half of it. The women from Bourne Leisure also learnt about goal-setting, stress management, concentration techniques — indeed, almost every aspect of sports psychology was touched upon during the day.

“We try to provide a rounded education in performance- enhancing techniques,” Moorhouse said. “In the last few years we have gone beyond looking at the issue of maximising individual performance and have started to help companies also to look at how they can create a high-performance culture in the workplace.”

Moorhouse happened upon the idea for his business while doing some motivational speaking for the company run by Will Carling, the former England rugby union captain. “I felt wholly unsatisfied and wholly fraudulent,” Moorhouse said. “The talks were doing very little at great expense. Why pay £3,000 to get some famous person to talk at you for an hour when you could get Graham (Jones) for eight days and do some bloody good work on the techniques that had helped me to be a successful sportsman?”

So, Moorhouse, Jones and Adrian Hutchinson (Carling’s former sales manager) teamed up, initially working out of Moorhouse’s living room. Jones had the science, Moorhouse had the practical experience and Hutchinson had access to a string of clients through his work with Carling.

Today, Lane4 employs 55 consultants and has a further 60 self-employed contractors. Its clientele includes such blue-chip companies as Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank and Sainsburys. “It is a booming market,” Moorhouse said. “We are expanding all the time.”

Sports psychology is not without its critics, however. The ethereal interaction between mind and body has vexed philosophers since the time of Socrates and many regard the brash certainties of the new science with considerable scepticism. Many of the most vocal cynics are top sportsmen. Desmond Douglas, Britain’s greatest table tennis player, described it as “a complete waste of time”. Linford Christie was similarly scathing. In my experience, it can make a marginal difference, which is often enough to convert failure into success.

What can be said with certainly is that sports psychology, like religion, only works if you believe in it. Which is perhaps why Moorhouse, Jones and Co have been so successful — like great evangelists, they believe their own propaganda. “We do not just tell other companies to use our tools. We use them within our own company, because we believe that they work,” Moorhouse said.

Back in Hemel Hempstead, the women from Bourne Leisure have woken from their self-induced trance and have begun to talk about their work with Lane4. The feedback is generally positive. One says that the seminars have boosted her motivation, another that the relaxation techniques have enabled her to sleep in times of stress. One, however, cannot stop yawning. She had fallen asleep during the meditation.

GIFT FROM GOD OR GOBBLEDEGOOK?

SPORTS psychology is at its most visible in golf, with many professionals insisting on the presence of their personal “mind coach” on tour.

Jos Vanstiphout is the sport’s most prominent psychologist. The 54-year-old Belgian works with many top players, including Ernie Els (who credits him with his victory at the 2002 Open), Retief Goosen and Michael Campbell.

A former rock musician, Vanstiphout received no formal training in sports psychology, which arouses the suspicion that the discipline is more art than science. This irks many of his rivals in what is now a lucrative business. “He’s Ernie’s pep-talk guy,” Gio Valiante, a golf psychologist from Florida, said. “I don’t think he’s serious-minded.”

Speaking to The Times, Vanstiphout was unapologetic about his lack of education. “I don’t have a clue how I do it; it is a gift from God,” he said. He believes that his techniques are applicable beyond sport: “A strong mind can help you to be successful in any area, whether it is working in an office or seducing beautiful women.”