4 Psychological Techniques used in Training
4 Psychological Techniques used in Training
Your body is fairly important to keep in shape for distance running for sure, but the mental side is generally lacking some attention when it comes to physical training. Now obviously I don't mean to tell you to do a crossword while you’re running; so what exactly am I referring to?
There are lots of cookie cutter workout plans, training plans, “guides to (5k, marathon, etc.); these aren’t necessarily bad, but in an attempt to apply to everyone, they usually don’t apply to you. Unique people require unique training. The mental side of training I hinted at before is twofold; there are techniques used for developing personalized training programs, unique to your skills, goals, and personality. (Even if you have a coach or trainer, this could give you some common terminology or ideas when working together to create your program). Secondarily, there are psychological techniques, often utilized in elite sports and athletics.
Goal Setting
This technique is just as it sounds, the process of programming out training and clarifying direction. Solidifying outcome or process goals has been shown to improve mood and concentration () as well as performance in endurance sports (). Goal-setting materializes motivations, giving concise mile-markers to hit during training.
What to do: Start off with a far-reaching crazy goal, something big. What is the end result of this training? Why are you wanting to train in the first place? This will give form to your motivation, allow you to picture what success will look like. Do you want to run a marathon; then set that in mind, craft an image of what you will look like running.
The next step after this, separate out the big goal into smaller, more directly achievable goals, benchmarks. Keeping on with the big marathon goal, think about everything that is involved with that.
Self-Talk
Self-talk, specifically negative self-talk, has been shown to have a significant impact on cognitive and somatic anxiety. But why would anxiety be relevant to sport performance? It is not a new concept that your body has an effect on your mind; in fact, that is a good reason that people choose running as a hobby. With that, the mind has an equal impact on the body. Getting back to anxiety, a negative and overly anxious mindset leads to physical mallities that can decrease performance. Some effects could be: fatigue, sweating, increased heart rate.
As a brief caveat to this. It is not an uncommon theory that anxiety can actually enhance performance. This comes from an incorrect definition of anxiety. Psychological arousal is the broad spectrum of levels of physical and mental awareness, heightened arousal can be beneficial to performance. Anxiety is the term describing a negative appraisal of heightened emotions and arousal, and can therefore by definition never be beneficial.
What to do: Putting Self-Talk into practice is fairly reasonable, but does take some practice. During races or training some negative thoughts might bubble up to the surface, you may get tired, or the weather could be bad; these are the times when you need to catch yourself, and flip the wording around. Instead of thinking about how much of a race is left, praise yourself for already doing how much you’ve completed. Thinking back to training runs and all the practice you have put in is also a positive technique.
Positive self-talk is a difficult tool to teach because it is unique to the individual, it needs to develop naturally.
Imagery
Imagery is a logical next step from Self-Talk; there are similarities, like positive reinforcement during training or competition, but there are also some additional elements that can enhance training. A perfect mental projection of an action activates the same neural pathways as the physical action. What this means is that imagining yourself doing, let’s say, a push-up. If you have already done push-ups before, those neural pathways will exist in your brain already; mentally going through the motions will activate, and strengthen them to a lesser degree. Imagery is not a replacement for physical training, but it is a good supplement.
From a motivation standpoint, imagery of success, or successful completion of a goal, works to reduce anxiety, promote positive thinking, and act as a source of positive reinforcement. This element of Imagery goes hand-in-hand with positive self-talk.
What to do: Imagine running at your peak physical condition, utilizing your best running form. If you are racing for the top position, imagine yourself winning; if you’re running against yourself, imagine not how you were, but how you will be. Really, it’s your imagination, you can imagine whatever you want.
Relaxation
Much like Goal-Setting, putting Relaxation in here as a technique doesn’t exactly seem mind-blowing; but, there are more scientific concepts to link to relaxation that are important and useful for training. The recurring theme across these techniques has been proper understanding and utilization of stress in running or other exercise; it is not a far reach to connect the concepts of Relaxation and Stress. While there are some general physical practices to reduce stress (meditation, deep breathing, music), there is no cure-all for all people, it will depend on the individual.
Pre-competition routines are fairly common among elite athletes, in fact a well-known aspect of many sports is the almost spiritualistic superstition surrounding certain events or actions. Athletes and even fans take precautions to prevent bad luck. These routines are an extreme example of relaxation in sport, but it shows the relevance.
What to do: pre-exercise or pre-competition routines are something that are developed over the course of a long involvement with the sport of running and are unique to every runner; but there are techniques to sparse in if you are looking for them. If there is time for it, meditation is a good stress reliever before competitions; while it is important to mentally prepare for an event, emptying your mind and just focusing on your breathing and nothingness lowers heart rate and anxious feelings.
Conclusion
You may never plan on joining the professional running circuit, maybe not even do competitive racing; even if your goal with running is simply to improve your endurance or cardiovascular health a little bit, the mental aspect of running, of all sport and exercise, remains. For competition or personal improvement, mental training has an impact on your physical state. In coordination with physical training works greater magic than physical training alone.
R. Andrew Paxton, B.S., M.S. Kinesiology
Head Coach & Trainer, Coeur Ninja
e: robertpaxton11@gmail.com
p: (615) 424-3239
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