Mental Toughness.

ramtha

Any tips or resources on training your mind to overcome obstacles that seem daunting?

hunnymonster

I'm quite firmly in the JHFU school of thought so I'm not going to be much help with mental training. Experience, visualising the result and imagining failure will all help

It#s a horrible cliché but : pain is temporary, quitting is forever.

tunney

pezcyclingnews.com is a steaming pile of sh!te for cycling news however their toolbox articles are very good at converying skills mental focus and self motivation.

HTFU is right.

tunney

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=6174&status=True

crubean

just put the head down and keep saying to your self
"I will not let the B******* grind me down" ( I hope that is not consider very bad lanague ,sorry if it is .)
I find it gets me angry and I keep pushing untill I get through what ever I have to overcome.I know its different to other ways of overcoming obstacles.

--amadeus--

American running websites tend to be very good for that kind of thing. Hardy E. has a book that she raves about that is supposed to be good for the whole mental side of running, but I can't rem what it's called.

There is something to be said for mental prep - all the top athletes use techniques like visualisation so it must work. Likewise it seems that elite runners think diferently while running - recreational runners are generally "disasociative" - they think about lots of things but rarely about running itslef. The top runners though are "associative" - the concentrate on what they are doing, how thier legs feel, breathing, pace, what the competition are doing etc and don't notice anything else.

Other than that all I can say is prepare for worst case scenarios - nothing knocks the wind from your sails faster than something going wrong and 15 or 18 miles into a race you may not be mentally agile enough to work out a backup plan so work it all out in advance (eg what will you do if you are running to HR and your HRM stops working - as happened to a mate of mine in Paris). And lastly have subsidary targets - one for each 5 mile section up to 20 and then for each mile from there to the end.

buck65

Call me old fashioned but I think mental toughness comes from training hard and pushing yourself physically. If you have the work done and expect to succeed you will, If you have a lax attitude to training then when the chips are down you will invariably struggle or quit. If you go out and do your very best that's all that matters, if the other guy beats you well then he does.
No book you read can instill attitude into you, it may give you some nice tips and soundbytes its what you do in preparation and the way you tackle obstacles that count.
You get back what you put in.

Ps get the Rocky soundtrack on your Ipod - i kid you not I up my game 10% when I hear it!!

tunney

buck65 wrote: »

Call me old fashioned but I think mental toughness comes from training hard and pushing yourself physically. If you have the work done and expect to succeed you will, If you have a lax attitude to training then when the chips are down you will invariably struggle or quit. If you go out and do your very best that's all that matters, if the other guy beats you well then he does.
No book you read can instill attitude into you, it may give you some nice tips and soundbytes its what you do in preparation and the way you tackle obstacles that count.
You get back what you put in.

Ps get the Rocky soundtrack on your Ipod - i kid you not I up my game 10% when I hear it!!

So wrong its not funny. amazing how someone can missed the point so massively.

buck65

Maybe you should elaborate?

thirtyfoot

Personal "Power Statements" are very good. Although I compete at a much shorter distance I use them to great effect. For example at a crucial part of a track race were mental demons might start to play their games in your mind (for me with about 150m to go and i used to go I can't win this I'm going to lose) I constantly repeat "I am calm, I am strong". Firstly it gets that negative thought out of your head and then it re-inforces to you that you are calm and strong. I use calm and strong because thats the way I want to be at the end of a race but something similar can be used in a longer races when crises hits. I practice this mental side of things in training too. Very simple but massively effective.

Stupid_Private

Tingle wrote: »

Personal "Power Statements" are very good. Although I compete at a much shorter distance I use them to great effect. For example at a crucial part of a track race were mental demons might start to play their games in your mind (for me with about 150m to go and i used to go I can't win this I'm going to lose) I constantly repeat "I am calm, I am strong". Firstly it gets that negative thought out of your head and then it re-inforces to you that you are calm and strong. I use calm and strong because thats the way I want to be at the end of a race but something similar can be used in a longer races when crises hits. I practice this mental side of things in training too. Very simple but massively effective.

My "power statement" of choice these days only really gets used during the last rep of a speed session

"It's only a body, it's only a body"

Running Bing

Some techniques I use...bit hippyish, even embarassing, but they can work.



1.Positive self talk as stated before. "I feel fine", "this run is easy", "I feel like I could go forever".Not massively effective in my experience but pretty easy to do.


2.Making videos. I got this one out of a running book. Basically think of a time when you had a great run and felt great. Sit down and write all the details down you can remember (where you were, the weather, what you were wearing, smells etc.) and make a "video" about a minute long of you on that run. Now anytime you get a negative thought pretend there is a dvd slot in the side of your head, eject the negative tape and insert the positive one you just made and play it. Sounds daffy as fvck but it does work.

3. I knicked this one off marathon man the film:D I basically "play a video" of Abebe Bikila running by the coliseum and into the stadium at the 1960 olympic games in Rome. I use this a lot and find it very effective.

4. I get an image in my head of my legs working like pistons in an engine (if you dont know what that looks like look up a video...the image works well with the legs) and I repeat in my head "my legs pump fvcking gasoline":D Find that one very effective as well.

5.Do Math. Seriously. Try and divide 3999 by 73 or something else ridiculous. Dont use it much myself but it has worked for me before.

6 Alphabet game. Go through the whole alpahbet letter by letter and for each letter give a strong positive word and then give a statement with that word. you'll probably have to stretch it and be a bit cheesey to get the whole alphabet out e.g. A is for action. I am always ready for action and never feel tired. B is for brilliance. I am brilliant. C is for courage. I have the courage to complete any run. D is for daring. I always dare to push myself that bit further.........and on and on. This one can make the run fly by and can be quite entertaining/challenging trying to come up with new words.

7. Smile:D when your really feeling it, grimacing, dying sometimes all it takes is to put on a big smile while your running to make it feel a bit easier (and make you look like a wierdo;))


I know some of it sounds silly and everything there wont work for everyone...but try some of them out and you might be surprised!


P.S. I also like the old Navy seal saying " Pain is just weakness leaving the body"

Odysseus

I concur for me the mental discipline is how you will either cross the finish line or DNA.

Some of mine are to imagine the feeling of failure and say I'm having none of that.

"You knew this was going to hurt when you started, so shut the fcuk up, finish the job, then you can complain all you want".

I tell myself "yes you are hurting, what are you going to do about it, sit down and cry?"

I have counted the white lines in the road between markers.

I imagine my partner and tell myself I'm finishing for her.

I think about family and friends who have experience hard life experiences, terminal illness pain, going to war, etc if they can experience that I can finish a ****ing race. I curse a lot when running.

I also draw upon the experience of other hard runs or life experiences I have had to remind myself its been like this before.

I also think about the next race I have planned, telling myself if I can't finish this what hope do I have with the next one.

For example I just finished the Lapland 100km it was my third time. I wasn't planning on doing it this year, but as I'm doing the MdS next year I was thinking a third 100km under my belt may help me psychologically when it get tough. The race turned to sh!te for me this year I had to hobble the last 40km using all of the above. I told myself if I wanted to do the Mds I had to finish the 100km. It was like telling a child there is no desert unless they finish their dinner.

Music is also a good way of swichting off when it hurts and can work as a performance cue. I finish every race on Ride of the Valkyries. When I hear it I dig a tad deeper.

Hope this made sense and doesn't just make me sound like a nut job!

Peckham

Babybing wrote: »

3. I knicked this one off marathon man the film:D I basically "play a video" of Abebe Bikila running by the coliseum and into the stadium at the 1960 olympic games in Rome. I use this a lot and find it very effective.

Is that the 1976 film or the new marathon documentary? Very keen to see the latter, but don't think it's aired on this side of the atlantic yet.

Running Bing

Peckham wrote: »

Is that the 1976 film or the new marathon documentary? Very keen to see the latter, but don't think it's aired on this side of the atlantic yet.

The 1976 Dustin Hoffman film Peckham (which has little to do with running a marathon).


As for the latter Im dying to see it myself.....very hard to procure though:(

ramtha

next time your feeling the burn,think of this guy:
http://www.weboflove.org/050917dadtrulycares

racso1975

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=-8XSit8XyeM

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ZLB1-Ofyw&feature=related

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=B3u2huIEFkI&feature=related (stunning sprint finish)

tunney

buck65 wrote: »

Call me old fashioned but I think mental toughness comes from training hard and pushing yourself physically. If you have the work done and expect to succeed you will, If you have a lax attitude to training then when the chips are down you will invariably struggle or quit. If you go out and do your very best that's all that matters, if the other guy beats you well then he does.
No book you read can instill attitude into you, it may give you some nice tips and soundbytes its what you do in preparation and the way you tackle obstacles that count.
You get back what you put in.

Ps get the Rocky soundtrack on your Ipod - i kid you not I up my game 10% when I hear it!!

An extremely naive take on mental preparations. Mental preparations can make a great race a fantastic race, and rescue you from a terrible day in the office as well.

Even the most diligent of athletes can struggle maintaining mental focus. Training 20+ hours a week 11 months of the year is mentally draining, it takes hard work just to get out the door for a long ride in the middle of winter when its cold and windy and no one else will come out and ride with you. The hardest thing about these sessions is simply leaving the house.

Now the very fact that someone drags themself out of bed and out training in all conditions does not mean that they will perform well on race day. I can think of many examples of people in the triathlom community that train deligently through the year but on race day "just can't get it together", the simple act of training may prepare the body but it does not guarantee the right frame of mind for race day. Far from it in fact. For some people the very fact of being superbly prepared physically can cause huge mental problems for them.

"if you go out and do your best that's all that matters

But that is simply what mind games/tips/tricks are all about - allowing athletes to do their best. If you aren't doing them you aren't doing your best, you could do better.

Positive reinforcement, tricks to separate body from mind so extremes of pain can be endured and most importantly for me - mantaining focus can be the difference between a good race and a great race. Its extremely difficult to stay focused and keep the power on for two, three, four hours regardless of how people approached their training.

Read the pez cycling tool box articles for mental preparation, you find them an eye opener.