Endurance performance is mentally tough; the best athletes can push themselves to sustain physical fatigue and remain psychologically positive over long distances and duration. This doesn’t happen by chance; endurance athletes can train the mind to develop emotional control.

Emotional control is a skill needed to cope with the stress of competition but the good news is that you can work to improve it. Focusing on emotional control can and will lead to improved performance. And while it can’t transform the proverbial carthorse into a racehorse, it can make both go quicker. I found some great info on this for you, broken down into 4 tasks. Let’s run through that.

Developing emotional control

Task 1: learning to recognise your emotional profile associated with success

We all have experienced intense emotions before important events. Some athletes can channel these feelings to enhance performance; some can regulate these feelings and reduce anxiety, while others become debilitated by anxiety.

Using an example of three athletes, the first feeling excited and calm, the second anxious and excited, and the third anxious and downhearted, athletes 1 and 2 should perform successfully whereas athlete 3 will probably perform poorly.

• Athlete 1 is an emotional profile typified by feeling vigorous, lively and alert, and in control. This athlete has regulated negative and unpleasant emotions. It is a profile often associated with supreme self-confidence and the perception that all challenges can be attained.
• Athlete 2 shows a different emotional profile associated with success. In contrast to athlete 1, athlete 2 has a profile depicted by feeling vigorous, tense and angry. Athlete 2 will use feelings of tension and anger to aid motivation. For athlete 2, feeling tense can be like a warning signal – ‘I am about to try to achieve an important goal, and unless I work really hard, I will not achieve my goal’.
• Athlete 3 is a different story. This athlete feels anxious, angry, downhearted and depressed. These emotions are likely to interfere with performance. Feeling tense might make you want to try harder but when it is combined with feeling depressed, it can make you feel like giving up. Our research has found that feeling downhearted and depressed is possibly the most damaging emotion to experience before and during competition. When athletes feel depressed, angry and fatigued at the same time they tend to turn anger inwards to self-blame and implode; poor performance is likely.

Task 2: assessing your emotional profile

I ask athletes to complete self-report scales before training sessions and before competition. I also ask them to rate whether they achieved their goals. Emotional responses occur in all of these situations and knowing how emotions change can be extremely useful in understanding how behaviour can change. You should assess your emotional profile before a number of different performances; something that can be done by completing an emotion scale shortly before competition or a training session(4). After competing, you should rate whether you performed to expectation or underperformed.

Performance should be rated in relation to your own expectations and your own goals. You will need around five successful and five unsuccessful performances before you can gather trends. Obviously, this is not always possible to do as you might be having a run of good form where most sessions/races are successful.

One way to get started is to think back to some of your recent performances and rate how you felt before a few races where you performed well (in relation to your own expectations) and a few races where you performed poorly (again in relation to your own expectations). Once you have a profile associated with successful and unsuccessful performance, a psychological skills programme can be tailored for your specific needs.

Assessment questionnaire

We assess emotions using self-report methods, typically a questionnaire. Of course, there are limitations with such an approach, as accuracy requires honesty. However, I would argue that there is not a better method available. A valid assessment of emotion necessarily requires access into thoughts and feelings.

It’s true that we can make hormonal measurements (eg adrenaline) to infer emotions, and also that these hormones are detectable in emotions such as anxiety, anger and excitement. However, a limitation with this approach is that the physiology of emotional states such as vigour or excitement is similar to other high activation states such as anxiety and anger.

The only way to validate a physiological measure of anxiety or vigour is to compare it against a self-report measure; that is, to ask someone whether they were angry, anxious or excited.

It’s important to know your emotional states associated with success and failure. Once you’ve identified the factors linked with poor performance, you can begin to develop a strategy to combat these factors.

Task 3: visualising success

One strategy for developing emotional control is to use imagery. Imagery is effective because it can be used to replay situations. The emotions experienced during those situations can be changed from dysfunctional to functional. Imagery is a good way to do this as the situation can be replayed and aspects of it can be changed.

A good way of starting to learn imagery is to find a quiet place on your own. Sit down in a chair and make yourself comfortable, close your eyes, breathe deeply and evenly until you feel calm and relaxed. Picture yourself standing in your competitive environment and look around you taking care to notice as many details as possible. What can you hear? What does your competitive environment smell like? How are you feeling? Immerse yourself in your competitive environment using all of your senses. Using 30-second blocks, you should relive the experience through your own eyes in real time. We encourage athletes to visualise in the first person and recall the emotional experiences before and during performance.

We also use imagery to help athletes cope with difficult situations. You should try to anticipate a difficult situation and see yourself coping with it successfully. An important part of this process is to imagine successfully tackling a number of the factors that make the task difficult; never underestimate the difficulty of the task as this can create a false sense of self-confidence.

For example, imagine yourself coping through the toughest part of the race, when your body feels exhausted. Imagine yourself coping successfully with this fatigue, feeling anger and depression starting to build up as you sense your physical fitness not being able to match the standard of performance you have set as a goal.
During imagery sessions you should rehearse the psyche-up strategies that would be used to raise vigour. For ultra-endurance events such as the Marathon des Sables, you should imagine how you will feel at the start of a difficult stage. This could be three days into a multi-day event when you have residual fatigue. Imagine how you talk yourself into feeling ready, downplaying feelings of soreness. Imagine yourself as a runner of the course; focus on each step, on the small details, and go through how attainable each part is when broken down in to simple steps. What this can do is to develop effective coping strategies for successfully dealing with unpleasant emotions experienced in competition.

Task 4: use self-talk

Controlling emotions during an event is also about controlling that inner voice in your head. When you are feeling tired, this inner voice can be very negative. It can question what you are doing, talk you out of keeping going, and become a general nuisance. Positive self-talk is needed when feeling tired.

Endurance running involves coping with fatigue, which can be learned; you can turn the voice off and you can turn from negative to positive. First, think back to those runs when you felt tired. Think of what you said to yourself. Write it down. The next step is to change the negative self-statements into positive self-statements.

For example, consider the negative self-statement, ‘My legs have gone. I will have to stop’. This relationship between feeling tired and what to do about these feelings is clearly terminal for performance. We need to change both parts of this self-statement. Rather than saying ‘my legs have gone’ we need to change this to a transient statement such as ‘my legs are tired’. This is more likely to be true in any case. Tiredness tends to come in waves during endurance running and intense feelings of physical tiredness can pass.

It is also important to change the strategy for dealing with fatigue. I suggest that runners should focus on their technique when feeling tired. Focusing on technique is a good strategy as it is largely under the control of the athlete. If the runner focuses all of their attention on technique, this can detract attention from sensations of fatigue. The outcome is a much more positive self-statement: ‘My legs are feeling tired, so I will concentrate on my technique to make it more efficient.’

A good way of using self-talk is to try to anticipate difficult moments in competition or in training. Develop self-talk scripts to change negative scenarios to positive ones. Use a combination of imagery and self-talk to create situations in which you experience unpleasant emotions, and see yourself deal successfully with these situations, using positive self-talk to control the inner voice in your head that can be negative.

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Awesome. It’s time to take this information into every day training for me, because I believe this to be one of the critical elements between a good, great and winning performance.

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Rapha Continental USA Pro Cycling Challenge Stage 1 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Another beauty from Rapha. Applause…

Indeed, a day for a broad and dextrous waffle from the host of the blog. A day where he can let his mind wander and let you be the recipient of it all. Where all and nothing may make sense as he returns from a week in a antibiotic hum where everything had that horrible taste in there, somewhere. As I am returning to health, so my mind is returning to creativity. I am exercising lightly again and life beyond the tarmac is just easier again.

This morning I read a FASCINATING article about being your best. It perked me up about the tough choices I have to make daily to be my best. That dreaming is just that and that getting there is much harder. It requires a lot more. Dreaming is no good if you actually want it badly enough. If you are happy enough to just dream it – well then you don’t want it badly enough, do you?

As we are planning Epic Unsupported Tour 2011, I am little obsessed with details at the moment. On a trip where a lack of details means possibly sleeping next to the side of the road being the big spoon to an Epic Unsupported Aussie First Timer as he wonders if he`ll make it back to his wife, I need to go the extra step. Considering the route I have in my mind, which is now plotted 99% of the way on the Garmin Edge 705, I am going deep. The trip is 3 days shorter and only 50km shorter, but this year will be a lot more fun. There is a hike-a-bike section on the last day, which I need to go scout to see if I will have rocks thrown at me by this guy for being overly ambitious about what constitutes “adventure”.

Although this trip will never be open to the public (currently the application includes a set of mixed random tasks involving tactical application of your ability to emulate an Alpaca doing Pavarotti on LSD), this year we will be doing live tracking with THIS awesome little toy. Family, friends and yes, stalking blog readers unite, because you will get random SMS at random times telling you where we are (should there be signal). Taking stalking to a new level, you can also track live, at any time, if the device is charged and in reception areas.

Now stop and read this.

While you`re at it, also read this. See – you`re smarter already.

Let’s celebrate some South African’s doing it in style this weekend: Greg Minnaar for yet another win at the World Cup. Ray Tissink for his 2nd at Boulder Peak 70.3. It’s awesome to see the guys flying the flags on the world stage. If I missed someone – please let me know.

Talking of races, here are two galleries you should look at today:

1. London ITU where collectively, the rest of the field must have slept badly knowing how far behind they are. Ali Brownlee is the best triathlete in the game at the moment.

2. Norseman is on my list to race someday. Along with Embrunman. Yes…you think I am stupid, and yes, you are very, very wrong.

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Simply beautiful those 2 images and the galleries they link to. Opposite ends of the experience – one very solo, one very much thriving with chaos, but both utterly beautiful in terms of the talent and rockstar performances that came from them.

Me, I am currently searching for the solo moments. Not that this is a new thing. I prefer the quiet to the chaos. I prefer to suffer mildly for extended periods of time, rather than suffer harder for shorter periods. I find this to be true in my work, my sport and in my relationships as well. So much we can learn from the sports we choose, or sometimes, the sports that choose us, seemingly.

Tomorrow is a public holiday. I am doing a full day of training in prep for O till O. Long, slow mileage across 3 sports. Should. Be. Fun.

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I share a few things with James Cunnama. Dislike of people who feel the need to talk all the time, eating KFC before big races, and a love for this song:

True story.

Out of those 3, the KFC might stand out. In fact, the talented people in my office always know its race day on the weekend if I arrive back from lunch on a Friday with a bag of KFC. The idea is that its the last day of fat loading, before a day of higher carbs leading into the race on Sunday. I have had success employing a high fat diet for years now, teaching my body to use fat for fuel even when I rest, essentially upping the fat oxidation rate and improving body composition. It didn’t happen overnight though.

Don’t believe me, read this article, by the lady who started it all in 2000 when she did her thesis on this. Julia Goedecke, we thank you for this contribution to the world of endurance sports.

Make the tough choice. Cut the sugar, up the fat…

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Over the years, I have tried to learn as fast as possible what it takes to get to the top while working a normal day and dealing with normal stress like the amateur guy I am. I want to race among the middle pro’s and beat all the other guys with jobs. So what does it take? How do you get there?

Study:
Go out and read what the best guys are doing. Doc Gowans taught me how to do that – that man absorbed more knowledge on Ironman racing in the time he was a serious age grouper than most of you will in your lifetime and it worked. I learned so much from him and read all the books he read, all the forums and websites. Be studious… like the 8th dwarf.

1. Consistency:
Doing the work every day. I have found that my body and my mind work best with an average of two hours of training per day. I make sure my workout time is treated as high priority for every day, twice a day in heavy load periods. Essentially, its a meeting with yourself to better yourself. Make sure you arrive on time.

2. Be a Geek:
Work on your aero position, your running form, your swim style. Try different shoes, saddles, socks, creams and eye wear. Make sure you have what works best for you. The most expensive might not be the best for your riding style, your foot strike or your body type. Make sure you are geeky about saving seconds. When you add all those seconds up, over the years, it becomes more than just a few minutes.

3. Recovery:
If you analyze your hours in a day, a very small percentage is for actual training. Your primary focus should be on what you can do to recover stronger, better and faster. Eat like it’s your job. Sleep like it is your religion and find the little things that give you an edge on recovery: hot tub, ART, massage, compression, ice baths, mongolian rugby midgets running back and forth over your quads, etc.

4. Eat like a Champion:
When I look at the diets of the guys and girls around me at races, those at the front are eating for their wins. They cut out the processed stuff when it counts and sure, they indulge, but not like you do. Real food only: veggies, nuts, meats, etc. James Cunnama taught me to never take my body to depletion and this especially counts with what you eat. You are what you eat. Your body is your vehicle, feed it the best quality fuel.

5. Compromise a little each day for gains in the long run:
Could you add 30min a day and keep your weekend rides to 5 hours instead of 7, risking injury and illness? I try and forgo a bit of time every day to not have to ride ALL day on the weekend and run for 3h30, risking injury. Find the biggest volume you can do in the week and reduce the weekend “cramming of miles” as a starting point.

6. Hire the best:
Buy your idol a beer and pick his mind. Find a professor in applied movement online in a forum and hound them for the right answers. Having a training plan from a guy is great but you will need to do more than that. I make the effort to hang with the pro guys because I learn from them far more than they will allude to. I am not a threat to them and neither are you. They are the pinnacle. When it comes to a coach, choose someone who works within these 7 habits.

7. Push that envelope:
From time to time, you need to throw it all out the window and go big. I prefer bike camps, as they limit the risk of injury, but you need to go way beyond for a week to get through the ordeal. We learn from ordeal because our central governor is broken and keeps us in the comfort zone. Get out that comfort zone and push that envelope. DO IT, but in limited quantities that leave you exhausted but not depleted, fatigued but not injured.

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Super simple, right?

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I am happy to confess it to you. I am happy to tell you that I am far from normal, that the normal limits of mankind don’t apply to me. That society deems me a freak.

Come here, I`ll tell it to you calmly, quietly, without prejudice. I`m happy to sit and listen to you tell me why I am mad to be trying to balance a full work day with my crazy sports obsession. I`ll sit and listen, without judgement. I realize you can’t fathom the compromise, the level of effort it takes to live the life I choose to live, every single day. I realize all you see is the training and the work and the limited time. I see that you see I am tired, that I look “ill” to you, too skinny by societies terms and conditions.

What you don’t see is the real effort. The packing of 2 bags a day, the effort it takes to shower 3 times a day depending if I am squeezing in a lunch session too. The compromise it takes when I want to go out partying with mates, because I LOVE the dancing, singing and laughing and bromance that they offer, but when I am simply too tired to be a part of whats going on there. The compromise it takes to stay true to a dream, a goal. I know you don’t see me when I`m sitting, 140km into a 180km ride, tired and weary, with 40km of hills and block headwind to get home. You cannot see the doubt in my mind right then, the fight in my head and body to keep going, despite the surrounding circumstance. All you see is “crazy boy spent the day on his bike again”.

You really can’t see that I`m training my mind as much as my body? Really? Interesting…

I full realize that you and most of the people I am surrounded by look at me with caution because they don’t understand my motivations. I know those of you who watch these videos and get goosebumps, wanting to be out there, on that course, that you share that burning desire. I salute you. In fact I am standing on the highest perch with a banner and a microphone for you, protesting the limits of society for you, with you, through you. I know you don’t expect everybody to understand you, but that you feel like an island some days. That the island gets lonely.

I get that. Just remember that life is NOT about finding yourself out there, in the open road. It’s about CREATING yourself out there, in the open road. That you are building the foundations for making amazingly good decisions by pushing the limits. The limits are beautiful. Just when you smash through one, it goes just a bit further again. The limits will challenge you forever. That is their essential beauty and truth.

Still not understanding what I am saying? Have a watch at this, tell me it doesn’t grip you in the heart and wake something in you. For me, I get so emotional when I watch this that I am ready to run out the door and onto the mountain, disappearing for a few hours where I set the trail and there is no route. Where all bets are off on whether I hit a limit out there or not.

It makes me want to go find that beautiful moment where I have to stop and ask myself serious questions about WTF I am doing out here in this state with so far left to go. Give me those moments. They make me laugh at myself. Yes, I am mad.

What am I doing?

This is my language. I know you might not understand it. I realize the crazyness of it all. I know it’s a little obsessive. I am fully aware of how intense it is. I am 100% coherent on the fact that I do it 100% for myself, however. I really can’t complain, all is Kosher around these parts. Thank goodness it`s far from over. Really there are too many great roads, trails and open stretches of water left to explore, too much great food to experience and far too many amazing wines I have never sampled.

I may not always be so driven to obsess about sport. I may switch it to exploration at some point, but I guarantee you I will explore by bike, foot and human power. I`ll be climbing the mountain, not catching the cable car to the top. I am too addicted to the way the body feels when it moves. How good it feels to walk, run, ride, climb, dance, jump, boogie, bounce, paddle and in the middle of all that, with all the senses going bazongkers, standing perfectly still with my eyes closed, arms wide spread, being amazed at how everything tingles with absolute excitement at doing what it’s supposed to do, when the mind and body are 100% stimulated through a full body sensory experience.

Don’t tell me I am mad.

I am well aware of the fact.

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So I am struggling in the last week, officially. I figure its better to put it out there, rather than do the typical athlete thing and keep it to myself. My experience on the weekend was just a manifestation of this “kidding myself” process in the last few weeks.

It all started with a big fall. Yes, my leg was pretty heavily cut up, but the real damage was not in the blood, infection and swelling. It was hidden in my back. I spent the week after the fall nursing my leg and arm back to health, all the while ignoring the tell tale signs. The headaches, the return of the sore right knee in the first 20min of running, the nerve under my right elbow twitching.

Lighthouse to Lighthouse went amazingly, my legs felt amazing, my head was in a great space, my hands dealt well with all the work, but there was a nag in my back, like a T-rex with a itchy bum, it was there. By tuesday morning I was in serious trouble, the “sinkplaatpad” had turned the niggle into an official problem. Massage on Wed confirmed that I was misaligned and needed to get back to Rob, my chiro guru.

He fixed me up, but it was the longest, most painful session of alignment and releasing I have ever had. My body completely skewed and my tireless ambition getting the better of me.

Stupid athlete. Tirelessly telling yourself you are ok, that its just a niggle. I should be better adjusted to listening and seeing the signs.

Anyway, we did what we could, but it was too little, too late. Friday I had the most amazing session of activation with Line, but the results were yet to show by yesterday. Xterra was a mare. 3 hours of frustration as I couldn’t find the strength to pedal, to run, no matter how hard my mind tried to push.

The alignment and the activation are two things which really take it out of me. My body was still in shock, even though my mind was roaring to kick ass and take victims, this being SA Champs and all. Disappointment in myself is without a doubt the thing I deal with worst.

Am I all better? NO. I reckon one more adjustment should do it, along with a session with a fitting expert. I need to work on some minor tweaks here and there. It’s all very tiring and emotional, but tirelessly I have to go about the healing process.

Silly fall. At the time, shock and adrenaline kept me going. I hope to have learned this lesson now. I gave out some advice regarding this exact subject to a pro a while ago, and there I was, not listening to my own advice. Silly athlete.

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Those of you who have been unlucky enough to be coached by me know the value I put on my once a week gym session for you. Whilst not a full body session, its far more of a “core” workout. I place alot of value on lunges, squats, core work and quite alot of stability stuff i.e. one leg at a time.

The reason for this is simple – we do not hop when we bike, or run. Pretty much always (barring extreeeeeeeme desperation) we go ahead, one leg at a time. We also have to learn to keep our core strength statically strong for extended periods of time.

Wobble on your bike? time to do some plank exercises…

There is a pretty good workout here and a great explanation for why we do strength work is simply that, as we get a little older, we tend to get a little weaker, and to stay fresh with the whipper snappers, and able to be in the mix, you need some strength in there too.

A fantastic reason to be in the gym is also to avoid injury. I was fairly injury prone a few years ago, until I started regular work in the gym. Every single one of my disciplines got faster, and I have since, never been injured.

Also, as Crowder says. “A little rippedness never hurt nobody.”

Here is a new one I found today, which after a quick mail to the Muse, has gotten approval for insertion into the program. Hip Flexors, Hammies, Quads, Stability, all in there…

Unfortunately, for the mirror athletes, there are no bicep curls, and no calf raises.

But why only once a week? Ask my athletes about GR/ME/Big Gear Intervals. They are gym, ON the bike. They are included in almost every work-out we do. They DO hurt, but they ARE worth it. I have yet to come across another form of specificity towards ME (Muscular Endurance) that works as well as GR (Gear restriction) intervals…

Want to know more? Drop me a line… raoul [at] urban-ninja.co.za

ciao ciao

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