When it comes to athletic success, there is often a point
where an athlete needs to push himself to his limit. In some sports, like
swimming and track and field, this “comes with the territory,” but there are
other sports, like soccer, basketball and tennis, where athletes are asked to
push themselves in practice to develop the physical conditioning that may well
make the difference between winning and losing in games. Few athletes may
possess the iron will of a Michael Phelps or a Novak Djokovic to push
themselves unrelentingly hour after hour -
but there are mental strategies that can help an athlete who is on board
with the need to push himself but may find himself giving up too quickly when
pain or fatigue set in.
WE’VE ALL BEEN THERE… You are approaching an intersection as
the light turns yellow. Most of the time, we speed up to make it through the
yellow light. Sometimes the light turns red as we are going through the
intersection. It happens with drivers thousands of times every day.
Sometimes, a
driver slows down and comes to a stop at the intersection. And while it is often a matter of our ability
to get an immediate read on our timing relative to the light, there is
something else at play… our motivation (in this case, the motivation to save
time).
We’re coming up
to the intersection… the light changes to yellow… and we’re thinking “I don’t
want to get stuck waiting at this intersection. What a waste of my time that
is. I want to go on my way.” (And if we
are in a rush, all the more so…)
And so we go
through the light. (Hopefully it’s yellow… how many senseless deaths are cause
by people running the red light – but
that’s another matter for another time.)
But any
reasonably responsible driver will also be saying something else to
himself/herself at the same time … something like “I need to stop at the
intersection because that is the safe thing to do under the
circumstances.” Or even “I need to stop
at the intersection because there could be an officer nearby – or a traffic
camera, and I don’t want to get stuck with a ticket.”
IN OTHER WORDS…
we are faced with two reasonable but opposing motivations – one which translate
into “GO” and the other which translates into “STOP”
It all happens in
a fraction of a second, but in that fraction of a second ONE of those factors
(“GO” or “STOP”) wins control and determines our behavior.
This thought
occurred to me recently while doing interval training on the bike. As I was
pedaling at maximal effort I was feeling an energy drain – and probably would
have dropped down to a lower speed. But
all of a sudden an image came to mind that gave me a surge of energy – enough
energy to keep me going strong! (What was the image? See the end of the
article!)
There I was, my
body sending signals of pain and fatigue to my mind, which in turn was ready to
activate the “STOP” response … when a different (opposing) thought came into my
mind which sparked the “GO” response instead. That thought prevailed over the
other tendency and won out… with the result being that I kept going “full
throttle” instead of giving in to my original temptation to slow down.
A similar
situation was reported during the 2008 Summer Olympics, when U.S. Olympian
Jason Lezak captured the world’s attention by recording (unofficially) the
fastest relay leg in swimming history to help the U.S. to a gold medal finish in
the 4 x 100 freestyle. This was one of the races needed to help teammate
Michael Phelps set his Olympic record of eight gold medals – a loss in this
event would have put an early end to that quest.
Lezak was going
against French swimmer Alain Bernard, who, at the time, held the world record
in the 100m freestyle, and had earlier that day bragged to his teammates that
they would “smash the Americans.” Lezak
was swimming the final leg of the race, and trailed the Frenchman noticeably at
the turn. With 50 meters to go, Lezak was a full body length behind. After
having taken first place in this event for nine consecutive Olympics, the
Americans had come up short in both 2000 and 2004. In fact, just prior to the
2004 Olympics, I asked Jason what aspects of the experience – his second time
there – he was most looking forward to, and he replied, “I’m looking forward to
getting the gold in the 400 freestyle relay back from the Aussies.”
So when Lezak
swam his part in what television commentator and former gold medalist Rowdy
Gaines called “the greatest relay I have ever seen,” besting his own personal
record by 1½ seconds, he later explained:
“When I flipped at the 50 and I saw how far ahead he still
was, I really thought, ‘There's no way (I can catch up with Bernard). The guy
holds the world record. This isn’t possible.’ And then I changed and I said,
‘You know what, that is ridiculous. This is the Olympics, and I'm here for the
United States of America. I don't care how bad it hurts. I’m just gonna go out
there.’ I’ve been part of two teams at the last two Olympics that came out
behind, and I wanted … to show that we are the nation to beat in that relay. In
like five seconds I was thinking all these things. I just got a supercharge and
took it from there.”
Whether it is
that “supercharge” that helps an athlete surge ahead in competition, or just
the motivation to maintain a high level of energy and effort in practice … it
often comes down to that “Yellow Light Moment” and WHICH ONE of the conflicting
messages we tell ourselves – “Take it easy” OR “Keep on going!” – takes hold.
I often ask
athletes to picture some sort of image or scenario that will remind them of the
way they want to perform. In this case – me on the bicycle - I thought of filling
my car up with gas to fuel me on the way … and then imagined passing someone on
the highway (i.e. going strong). That image over-rode the other signal my body
was sending my brain – the one of feeling tired and feeling about to quit.
Another time I was
on the treadmill, going at full speed, when the pain/fatigue kicked in.
Although I was similarly tempted to slow down, I thought to myself “What if I
was to get my second wind in the next 2 minutes? What if I was to get a surge
of energy if I could just keep it up for the next two minutes? I thought to
myself that IF that would be true and IF I would have slowed down instead that
would have been a shame… and that thought – that my second wind could be right
around the corner – gave me the determination I needed to keep going for the
next two minutes. THAT MENTAL STRATEGY MADE THE DIFFERENCE between stopping and
keeping going.
Like the saying
goes – “mind over matter.” Which one of two opposing thought will prevail in
your mind. That is what matters!
Post Script… There is probably not a basketball coach around
who hasn’t made his players run suicides in a certain time, (e.g. 28 seconds)
only to have them run again because some team members didn’t make the required
time. So the team runs again, and still
comes up short. Eventually they push themselves and everyone finishes in
time. The thing is that by the fourth or
fifth time they are that much more exhausted, and yet they manage to run the
best time of the lot. This certainly speaks volumes about the mental part of
our ability for endurance! As former
Celtics great and Hall of Fame basketball legend John Havlicek put it:
“Most people think they’re overworked so they stop. They
could have kept going but they didn't. They weren't beat physically, they were
beat mentally.”
© by 2010
by Dr. Mitch Smith. All rights reserved.
