Training the mind – there’s a lot of chatter about this nowadays for endurance athletes. The New York TImes features articles titled “Lobes of Steel” (those are cerebral lobes), and “I’m not Really Running”, about mental tricks athletes use to get themselves to stretch beyond their known limits in training or racing. Matt Fitzgerald has even written a book, out this year, title “Training the Mind”. Check any magazine or web site directed towards runners, cyclists, or triathletes, and you’ll find someone going on about the mental aspects of sport.
What’s going on here? Is there a magic path to success, whereby you can think your way to improvement? The answer is, Yes, and No.
First, some background – my beliefs about how the body works. I think of myself as a machine, with a number of working parts, all of which have a role to play in moving me forward when swimming, biking, or running. There are of course, my bones and ligaments, which make up the superstructure. There are the muscles and tendons, which move the bones across the various range of motions in the joints. The circulatory system, the veins and arteries, which bring fluid and fuel to the muscles, and carry away heat and waste from energy production. There is the heart, which pumps the blood through those vessels; the lungs, which provide the oxygen needed for energy production, and the intestines, through which the fluid and fuel enters my body. Less obvious, but just as important, are more neglected organs like the skin, which keeps my water in, and lets heat out; my kidneys, which help control fluid volume and electrolyte levels; my liver and other endocrine organs, which provide special messengers and catalysts to the other working parts; my nerves, which help trigger muscle contractions, and receive information about how things are working. And then there is the brain (we’ll get back to this in a minute.)
When I am training by swimming laps, or riding for six hours, or running intervals, or lifting weights, or stretching, I am training every one of these organ system. For example, it is possible to modify your skin’s ability to sweat, and to dissipate heat. After three weeks training in a hot and humid environment, the sweat rate will re-calibrate, and the “saltiness” of sweat will change. Over a longer period, the small capillaries in the skin will change to allow for blood flow at the surface, so heat can leave the body faster. Or take the blood volume and the vessels which carry it. Training increases that blood volume, and causes more vessels to be formed. Every part of the body can and will be changed by the physical activity we engage in. If that’s true, then the brain, a part of the physical body, must surely be changing as well.
Now, it is critical to know that the brain is much more than the “mind”. Most people talk about the mind as that changing focus of awareness also called “consciousness”. The fact of self awareness tricks us into thinking it is in control of the changes happening when we train. WRONG! The conscious mind can do very little to help the skin, or kidneys, or liver, or muscle mitochondria, or heart, or ligaments, or anything else in your body undergo the changes needed to improve athletic performance. So, let’s not talk about the mind at the moment, but focus instead on what the brain is doing during athletic activity.
The brain is one of two key systems for coordinating the activities of the organ system of our body. The other is the endocrine system, the hormones with names like “adrenaline”, and “thyroid”, and “testosterone”. The ability of these two systems to communicate with the other organs is improved during training. Basically, new neural connections within the brain, and between the brain and the rest of the body can be created. And the efficiency of hormone production can be improved.
All right, now that we have a construct with which to understand what’s happening during athletic training, what can “the mind” do to help the outcome, to improve performance? First, set the agenda. Second, identify ways to improve during training, Third, monitor performance. And fourth, gracefully get out of the way when it comes time to race. Think of an individual athlete as a sports team, with specialized players like quarterbacks and linemen, or point guards and centers, or strikers and goalies, or pitchers and catchers. Instead of people, we’ve got these organs and systems which have to perform together. Instead of a coach, putting the team through practice, we’ve got the mind, setting the daily schedule for training. But, remember, the coach is not out on the field when it actually comes time to play the game. The coach sits in the dugout, or paces the sideline, and intervenes occasionally when something needs to be changed. The players themselves are the ones doing the work and making the moment by moment decisions about what moves to make, where to throw or hit the ball.
Just like coaches, some of our minds rant and rave when things go wrong, and micromanage the event, like a baseball manager using four pitchers in an inning. Other coaches seem to know when to sit calmly on the sideline, and let the team play the way it has practiced – think Phil Jackson with the Chicago Bulls.
So, it comes down to this: how do you train your brain (or at least the part of it that produces consciousness) to back off from its usual busybody stance trying to continually run the show? How do you teach your mind to do the opposite of what it seems designed to do – control what’s going on?
You train your mind the same way you train the rest of your body. Through repetition and practice. This can be done during any training session, but it’s probably most effective during hard intervals, like running 400s up to 1600s on the track, 100 to 400 repeats in the pool, or specific cycle trainer work. Before the session, identify the speed or heart rate or power level or time goal you have for each interval. And commit to paying attention to some specific aspect of your work during the intervals. Focus spots for me have included: heart rate while running or cycling, number of strokes per lap while swimming, cadence while running or biking, character of breathing in any sport (breaths per pedal stroke, or breaths per step, or strokes per breath), power output while biking, speed while biking or running, interval time for specific distance, etc. One could also choose to ignore the numbers, and focus instead on the motion of legs or arms or core, or any item of mechanics. The key thing, though, is to NOT monitor effort level. The goal here is to teach the conscious mind to NOT WORRY about the effort (“agony”, or “suffering”, according to some) required to achieve the time or power or speed goals for the intervals.
Need convincing that the mind gets in the way of success when trying to achieve a peak athletic performance? Think back to any time you felt you had a transcendant athletic experience. It might have been skiing though the bumps like you were floating, or racing faster than you thought possible, or performing some gymnastic trick like a back flip off a diving board. If you can remember that moment, you might find that you had a feeling of your body “taking over”, and the performance just happened, with your mind as a spectator.
Our minds want to be in charge. For many of us, living by our wits has brought us success in our careers. Our minds have convinced our bodies that only when the mind is in charge, can we accomplish our goals. Our mind has overseen the training, has helped instruct the body to perform new activities, and has monitored and improved performance in training. But when it comes to achieving a peak athletic performance, once the training has been done, and the strategy set, the mind will just get in the way. When we actually try to accomplish what we have trained for, we need to be able to remove our consciousness from the control of our performance, just as a coach has to let his players do the work.