I used to zone out during training going by a half-conscious autopilot. But lately, I've been trying to be mentally clear and present and trying out some mental exercise as well while training.
I've noticed that there are certain "mental modes" - not so much moods or thoughts, but a certain mix of attitude and desire that make a big impact on performance.
My worst mental "gear" to be stuck on is the one where I am very much in the here and now. I am living in the moment and listening very closely to every feeling and sensation. It's a setting where "I am my body"- I am the most aware of the physical discomfort I associate with exertion. It is also the mode where I hear the internal desire to stop or slow down the most loudly. I seem to be more emotional than rational in this mode.
My best mental gear is one where I disassociate my thoughts from my phsyical sensations and concentrate on my performance as though my body were a car and my thoughts were the driver of the car or better yet, a spectator. I interpret physical exertion as a mechanical measure and do not hesitate to turn up the effort because, on an intellectual level, I understand that I will not cause lasting pain or damage. I can let my HR go up and I easily eliminate the emotional distress signals at their onset.
I never remain at these gears on a permanent basis. They vascillate and transition from one to the other. I find that if I can concentrate and focus on sticking to the plan, I can keep the performance level up. If I don't have a "mental plan" to go with my training plan, I start listening to the "you must slow down, it hurts, it's uncomfortable, too hot, getting thirsty, must give up" voices, I get anxious for no reason and I hold back. I think I hold back on speed and effort because I'm afraid - afraid of giving myself a heart attack, bonking, injury, whatever. I hold back when I have plenty more to give, and that's no good.
Sometimes, I get short bursts of anger or fear that give me a temporary boost. Memory of a frustration, things like that. But it's not a good long term fuel but I'll take it if it's there.
For me, I'm finding the long stretches of mental reaction during an endurance training session or competition to be the most unique experiences I have.
Do any of you have similar or ways in which you use your mental game to help your performance?
I really started to use a lot of positive visualization during my longer workouts this year. I find that when the going gets tough I can put myself into a positive situation (i.e. racing really strong) and it really pulls me out of the funk.
I have started to practice this more with regards to racing and my results have been positive.
I find it is important to try and keep focused on the workout as much as possible, but a little positive sport specific daydreaming is also a good thing!
This is really interesting, deepbluex. Being focused on the here and now is often called mindfulness-a state of being that has been shown to increase performance- people who pay attention to their bodies instead of listening to music, talking to their training partner or otherwise being distracted has been correlated with better functioning in a lot of things. This is why it is surprising to hear to say that it makes it worse. There may be one thing that is missing though. Mindfulness is paying attention, in the present moment, [I]without judgment.[/I] Now, the last part is important but is really hard to do. If you are just paying attention to your body and what it is doing without interpreting it through your thoughts as good or bad than I would guess you would observe better performance. It's the problem of our minds always getting in the way of our bodies' potential! Anyway, I'm curious to hear what others have to say about this.
my coach has often given lectures to us, his athletes, and to others in the tri community. The gist of it is that there are two states and people go to one or the other. The first is that when the going gets tough of boring, then the mind disassociates, that is to say your no longer riding at 190bpm laying down the pain, your on a desert island some where and so on.
The other is to stay on there here and now, Focus on 3 mental cues, so for time trials, i focus on using my hamstrings to pull up the pedals while staying aero, High cadence, and Focus down the road. you need to do what works for you as an individual(just like everyone else)
[QUOTE=hollywood1;86015]my coach has often given lectures to us, his athletes, and to others in the tri community. The gist of it is that there are two states and people go to one or the other. The first is that when the going gets tough of boring, then the mind disassociates, that is to say your no longer riding at 190bpm laying down the pain, your on a desert island some where and so on.
The other is to stay on there here and now, Focus on 3 mental cues, so for time trials, i focus on using my hamstrings to pull up the pedals while staying aero, High cadence, and Focus down the road. you need to do what works for you as an individual(just like everyone else)[/QUOTE]
There appears to be some truth in what Hollywood states
It is bizarre how we rely so heavily and so totally on that one half (the physical) which is actually the weaker half. It is the half that is restricted immensely - by gravity, size, mass, the laws of nature, entropy, and the space-time continuum. Yet our other half, for all we know, is limitless. It stretches beyond what we know and is virtually impervious to destruction. I recall a novel by Jack London called The Star Rover. It was about a man who was being held a prisoner and he was able to will his body, part by part to die and ultimately was able to free his mind and thus had no boundaries. He was able to roam the stars and go wherever he wished.
Wow, this is some pretty heavy stuff!
I find that as I tire I loose my form. This hits me hardest in the pool - swimming being my weakest of the three disciplines. It's hard not to get distracted by and focused on fatigue and pain on a long bike. In these situations I find it helpful to focus on some aspect of form - keeping my swim stroke long, my hips high, lifting my trailing leg on the bike, etc. I rotate through these little form details in my head one at a time because I think it's counterproductive to try and focus on too many details at once - in a race I'm usually zoned out enough as it is!
While I think that Gary3 is going all "new-age" on us, I agree with him that training the mental skills appropriate to the sport is critical to success.
Karate and martial arts folks have been doing this for centuries. They learn mental discipline, to focus on the target (having already grooved the skills with thousands of reps).
Endurance sports require different techniques. Focus, like anaerobic effort, is short-lived. You can make specific, measurable goals for yourself - such as standing on the pedals to the next road sign - but that effort will end. How do you deal with a six-hour bike ride, or a three hour run?
Mark Allen famously spent time meditating, "to become attuned with the spirits of the island" - whatever that may mean,
and to achieve the mental state necessary to endure the variable challenges of the competition.
It is the latter that I feel comfortable addressing.
Notice that the challenge is variable. This means you need different skills to deal with the different states you may go through.
There may be periods of anger, depression, despair, elation, and so on. Not dealing with these episodes can be disastrous. You may remember Paula Newby-Fraser at Kona a few years ago, collapsing just 400m from the line. The cameras were there and Paul Huddle was there. Nobody wanted to touch her and thus disqualify her. She was saying things like, "I'm dying!" and her mental state was chaos. She has said on other occasions that if you are patient, and persist, the current crisis will pass. She stayed true to that belief that day and it passed. She was able to put her shoes back on, get on her feet and make it to the line. Karen had passed her while she was lying on the ground and won the race but PNF finished.
Experience had given her the knowledge of herself to cope. Before we acquire enough experience to cope by ourselves it is useful I think to consider how we would deal with the states through which we are likely to pass and have a strategy for dealing with them.
The first key is recognition - we must realize what mental state we are in and what to do about it - maybe nothing, maybe something like drink, take salt, cool off, etc.
Next, I think it helps to have a mental checklist with which to compare what we are feeling. Having a track to run on may save being derailed. heh.
I'll stop there, let others chip in, rather than write the book in the quick reply box.
PoC
OK I'm new to the longer triathlon scene but have always played sports at a decent level; I find my best performances come when I am maybe a mental step/plane above any discomfort I may be feeling and recognise (and try to focus on) the overall sense of "flow" that I have. I get this particularly when running or swimming - but must admit that with nerves in competition have trouble relaxing enough to feel this flow, normally seem to "drop down" a mental plane to where I feel what my body is doing and it isn't always good! At these times I try to find one good thing in there amongst the pain, focus on that (could be my breathing, my arm position in the water, my hips/footstrike when running) and maybe build on it to overall feel better/stronger and maybe even "in the flow"....make sense to anyone? I think this is basically the same as DeepBlueX. The sense of "mindfulness" that Donna refers to is I think what is achieved in the "flow state" where you are aware of your body and what it is doing but there is no negativity attached to the thoughts - it's all just "working together".....does putting all these "_" ""__" enhance understanding at all? :)