Mental toughness is an extremely important aspect for an athlete to work on, and for a coach to, well, coach.
I’ve never had a lot of personal success with a lot of sports psychology processes, but what I suppose you could call “positive affirmations” work pretty damn well.
The key, in my mind, is understanding the following:
1. The mind is extremely powerful
2. Pain is relative
3. (And this is the most important) You can turn pain off
The power of the brain has been in quite a few popular articles I’ve read lately on the power of the placebo effect. Basically, the body can heal itself in some cases as well just by THINKING you gave it drugs. As the linked article above state, Germany has even started encouraging doctors to give placebo’s for cases of chronic pain. Why?
Pain, it turns out, is more of a safety mechanism in a lot of cases than an actual indication of damage. When your body starts telling you to slow down at the end of a race, for example, it’s your body trying to slow down to make sure the brain doesn’t run out of oxygen. Is the brain being damaged by you racing anaerobically? Not a bit, but your “safety sensors” still send nerve transmissions to the brain that it “hurts” and that you need to slow down.
SO, if the brain has been shown to be able to turn off even actual physiological processes through placebo effects, how hard can it be to turn down the “volume” of some nerves yelling at you to slow down?
Quite easy as it turns out, especially if you actually understand how the process works. I’ve heard a spectators laughing at me when I’m yelling at my athletes that “There is no pain” near the end of a race. It’s 14K out of a 15K cross country ski race, how could there be no pain? Because that kind of pain is essentially imaginary, it’s as real as you let it be.
By using “positive affirmations” (and I HATE that terminology, sissy-pansy-bullshit), it’s amazing how much harder and faster you can push yourself. It’s all about frame of mind.
How: When you go train, everytime it hurts, tell yourself it doesn’t, while thinking about what I’ve said above. KNOW that nothing is being hurt, it’s just your body telling you it’s not happy. In FACT, it’s this time when you are signaling positive training adaptation the best, so not only does it not hurt, it feels GOOD, because this is going to make you into a total badass if you push through it.
Facial expressions actually work quite a bit also for me, a smile, or, when it gets really tough, the War Face. It’s amazing how much of an adrenaline rush you can get when you're close to the end of a race, let out a little growl, tell yourself there is no pain, and go hunting.
In a race and you're hurting because you are tired, then yes screw pain! But one has to be careful in training about how much they push through. There are good reasons we should listen to our body when we tweak a muscle, start to strain from overuse, or just aren't having a solid day due to many other non-training related facts of life. If you always try to be badass and ignore pain you will most likely get hurt. Training takes lots of knowledge, coaching, studying, listening to your body, and yes, the "fuck pain" mentality. Just don't try to put that war face on every time you're training and you feel that muscle twinge
ReplyDeleteThere's a difference between "pain" and injury that is an important distinction. at 14km of a 15km race it is unlikely the "pain" Joe speaks of is due to a pulled muscle or orthopedic injury. Pain from injury should not usually be pushed through. I agree 100% you shouldn't always hurt in training, but agree that getting comfortable with race-type efforts will yield positive benefits.
DeleteAbsolutely right on both counts, a distinction I should have mentioned. What do you guys think is a good way to relate this difference to athletes/clients?
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