The live crowd is hanging on the outcome. The lights are bright on the competitors as they duel for the win. The cameras are plentiful to guarantee a good shot from every angle.

I’m not talking about any professional sporting event, rather the competitive sport of television game shows.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you preparing for a game show is like preparing for the Super Bowl. It is not for the faint of heart.

How do I know this with such certainty?

Well, I recently returned from Los Angeles after competing in the television game show Wheel of Fortune.

You might not believe me when I say the training was ruthless and the competition was tough, but I promise it was. I felt like I was back in my varsity basketball days preparing for the big game (full disclosure: I mostly sat on the bench in high school).

Preparation for a competition like this takes true training. It was a combination of physical and mental toughness that helped me succeed on the rough streets of the Sony Studio.

Physical Preparation
You might occasionally sit at home and watch Wheel of Fortune, thinking “I could do this.” If so, you better start training today.

The physical preparation is perhaps the most important part. Start a weight-lifting regime immediately. That wheel is nothing to joke about, weighing in at about 500 pounds. Spinning it is like a full day’s workout.

All spinners are encouraged to do a spinning motion with their right hand that works the bicep as you pull the wheel toward you and the triceps as you push the wheel away for maximum velocity.

After the show, medical attention might be needed for hand blisters.

Mental Preparation
Any good athlete will tell you success is just as much about the mental as it is about the physical. In the world of competitive game show athletes, this is no different.

You have less than three weeks between the time you are informed of your show appearance and the day of taping. This means you must go into puzzle overdrive leading up to the competition.

Hand cramps from playing the Wheel of Fortune app on your iPhone are part of the training. Constantly filling my head with puzzles was one of the most important aspects of my training.

The hardest mental test comes on the day of the show. All 18 contestants are kept in a room for nearly five hours before the taping of the first show. This is where the real mind games begin.

I have to figure out who my toughest opponents will be and how I can get inside their heads in case we are in the same taping. This is also the time when my own preparation is the most important. I can’t let Sheila from Long Island psyche me out with her talk of grandchildren.

When it is finally time for my taping, I find that my training has served me well.

The time and training required to be a television contestant is much like what I did to be a bench warmer on my basketball team. It is not easy work, but someone has to be willing to do it.

Tune in Nov. 15 to see how I fared.