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Mind Over Matter
By Jim Lehman and Jim Rutberg
May 31, 2006, 02:51
There is no question
that it takes more than skill and conditioning to be successful as an athlete,
but sports scientists, coaches, and even athletes have struggled to define the
precise extra component that separates champions from pack fodder. The clearest
answer seems to lie with the mind’s power to either enhance or hinder your
ability to perform at your best.
The Mind’s Impact on
Performance
Sports scientists tend
to focus on performance tests that minimize the variables between test subjects;
in other words, they like the lab-based lactate threshold or VO2 tests because
they can control the temperature, equipment calibration, etc. Yet, there are
abundant examples of athletes who test poorly in the lab and then go out and
uncork phenomenal performances in competition. Conversely, there are athletes
who test wonderfully and then fail to perform anywhere near their potential in
competitions.
The lack of a good,
scientifically-proven, physiological reason for the discrepancies between test
results and actual performance leads to the conclusion that successful athletes
possess mental and behavioral attributes that enhance their ability to
capitalize on their physical potential. Athletes who have the engine and skills
to be successful may not be able to reach their potential if these mental and
behavioral attributes are absent or underdeveloped.
With the use of power
meters, we can even see these discrepancies between individual workouts in
training. One of the most common situations is a drop in wattage when a workout
is moved from outdoors to indoors. Even after taking into account variables like
tire pressure and the pressure of the flywheel on the tire, athletes
consistently report difficulty reaching and sustaining the same power output
indoors that they can achieve outdoors. And when they can reach the desired
power output, their perceived exertion and heart rate are both considerably
higher than during the outdoor workout. For instance, when an athlete is asked
to perform 15-minute lactate threshold intervals outdoors, he may be able to
hold 285 watts, but only be able to sustain 270 for the same workout on the
indoor trainer.
The Upside of
Arousal
Among the biggest
differences between training indoors and out, and between training and racing,
is the level of arousal you derive from your surroundings. Greater arousal leads
to heightened performance because there are more stimuli; your brain is more
engaged and your emotions are feeding your motivation to perform. Emotional
arousal also has a physical impact on your parasympathetic nervous system (the
one that triggers your fight-or-flight response) which sets off a cascade of
hormonal and metabolic effects that lead to increased ability to focus, greater
strength, and heightened reflexes. When you strip away stimuli by removing the
competition, it becomes difficult to reach competition-level performance in
cycling training. And when you remove the stimuli of the wind against your face
and the sensation of speed from watching telephone polls go whizzing by, it’s
more difficult to achieve the same level of motivation, and hence put out the
same high-intensity effort, on an indoor trainer.
What You Can Do to Get Your Brain
in Gear
The more time you spend
around successful elite athletes, the more you understand the crucial roles
arousal and excitation play in performance. Take, for instance, a young rider
like Credit Agricole’s Saul Raisin. Off the bike or on a leisurely ride, he
comes off as a goofy kid who’s way too nice to be anything but a pushover. Yet,
when you put him in a race, the affable and kind small town guy disappears and a
fierce, calculating, and intense competitor emerges. The same can be said of
other pros I coach, including road racer Phil Zajicek (Navigators Insurance) and
cyclocrosser Ryan Trebon (Kona).
While some athletes
naturally develop the ability to tap into their full physical potential, many
more have to spend time learning and adapting their mental approach to training
and racing before they can perform at their best. For every racer who
automatically understands how to deliver maximum performance, there are dozens
more who are hindered by self-doubt, lack of confidence, and fear.
The tips and techniques
below can be very important for shifting your attitudes about competition, and
I’ve found that these simple changes in the mind can elevate an anonymous
mid-pack racer to a podium contender within weeks, regardless of changes in
fitness and conditioning.
Face
Forward
When riders first start
racing, or when they move up in category so they’re racing more experienced and
faster riders, the desire to reach the finish line sometimes takes a higher
priority than trying to win. When this attitude persists for too long, however,
racers fall into the habit of racing against the back of the field instead of
the front. If your brain is at the back, that’s where your bike’s going to be as
well. The race is in front of you, and in order to win, you need to stay focused
on what you can do to compete against the riders at the front. Once you cross
the threshold of realizing that the risk of not finishing is either minimal or
less important than the risk of missing out on a chance to win, you can turn
your attention to improving your finishing position.
Stay
Present
As an endurance event,
cycling can involve hours of relative boredom punctuated by moments of extreme
effort, but it’s important to stay engaged at all times instead of settling into
a mindless rhythm and letting the kilometers just pass under your wheels. Apathy
is a problem for endurance athletes in both training and competition; you see it
in the racers who are just along for the ride in the first two hours of a
four-hour road race and the rider who just cruises through intervals in training
instead of committing to quality efforts. Use landmarks in races or specific
times in your training rides to quickly evaluate what you’re doing in comparison
with your goals for the day. This can be a quick check at the end of each lap of
a road race to see if you’re racing
or just riding, or a check an hour into your training ride to see if you’re
really accomplishing what you set out to do today.
Lose your fear of
losing
You race conservatively
when you’re worried about getting dropped. This is the primary reason racers do
not take the risk of initiating, joining, or working in a breakaway group. The
truth is, there’s a chance your breakaway won’t make it, and a chance the break
will make it, but that you won’t be able to keep up with it. There’s also a
chance that making an effort off the front could mean that you get spit straight
out the back when the peloton catches you. Yet, there are some other important
results you may garner from trying anyway.
Some riders notice that
riders they were intimidated by had to work very hard to catch them, and when
you realize you’re powerful enough to make them hurt, they suddenly become
beatable. Riding aggressively and showing that you’re willing to commit to
potentially winning moves also makes it more likely that other like-minded
racers will join you. The way you approach races, and the way you ride, can help
you generate a reputation that helps you get into, and stay in, the right
moves.
Clear your
mind
Once you commit to the
effort of a breakaway or a chase, clear your mind and just go. There is a lot of
strategy in bike racing, but the time for considering the costs and benefits of
a move came and went before you committed to it. Once you’re on your way, don’t
waste time and attention on second-guessing and devising contingency plans in
case this move doesn’t pan out. You made the decision, and you can’t control
what the rest of the race is going to do in response. The only performance you
can truly control is your own, and throwing the full weight of your effort and
commitment behind your decisions increases the chances that you’ll actually be
successful.
Turn Setbacks into
Opportunities
Several of my athletes
have returned from mid-season injuries to have the best performances of their
careers. Saul Raisin broke his pelvis when he was run over by a motorcycle in
the Three Days of Dunkirk, yet six weeks later he finished ninth
overall in the ProTour Tour of Germany. Ryan Trebon broke his wrist in the Tour
de Toona in the summer of 2005, then stormed through the cyclocross season a few
months later and eventually finished XX in the USGP Series and second at the US
National Championships. And then, of course, there are the US Paralympic
athletes I’ve worked with; men and women who are blind, missing limbs, and
living with brain injuries who are nonetheless committed to competing and
winning as elite athletes.
Setbacks in the form of
illnesses and injuries can be a blessing in disguise when they help you get more
rest than you would have normally afforded yourself. In the cases of Saul and
Ryan, their injuries allowed them to take time off during periods of the year
when their fellow competitors were racing and training full-bore. When they
returned to training and competition, they were hungrier for results, mentally
refreshed and physically recovered, and fired up to be back in the pack again.
At some point in your
time as an athlete, you’ll be sidelined by illness or injury. Hopefully it’s
minor and you’ll be back on your feet quickly, but be careful about how you
think about your recovery time. If you focus on how much training you’re missing
out on, and how far behind that’s going to make you, you’re going to return to
training frustrated and discouraged. Instead, focus your energy on doing
everything you can to enhance your recovery, from physical therapy to eating
well and staying hydrated, and use the time as a well-deserved recuperation
period. That way, when your body is ready to return to training, your mind will
be raring to go as well; your fitness will return faster and more completely,
and you’ll be likely to outperform your own personal bests.
Jim Lehman is a Premier Coach and
Jim Rutberg is a Pro Coach for
Carmichael Training Systems, Inc.
(CTS). Lehman coaches several rising stars of US cycling, including Saul Raisin,
Phil Zajicek, Shawne Milne, Ryan Trebon, and Tyler Wren. Rutberg has co-authored
four books with Chris Carmichael,
including the bestseller “Chris
Carmichael’s Food for
Fitness”. To discover what CTS can do
for you, or to sign up for our free monthly nutrition newsletter, visit trainright.com.
