“BASEBALL IS NINETY PERCENT MENTAL AND THE OTHER HALF IS PHYSICAL.” YOGI BERRA
You have trained hard for your race. You’ve done the long runs, the hills, and survived the speed work, now it’s time to break through to the next level by doing the inner work with Peak Performance Training. In this section, I will show you the “how tos” and the basics of becoming a relaxed, more confident and faster runner.
Everybody knows that we use only ten percent of our brain. Can you imagine how great it would be to transcend that ten percent barrier? Is it possible? Here’s a resounding yes to unlimited possibilities. Being a peak performing runner means becoming aware of and using the cognitive processing skills of the three major parts of the brain: the left hemisphere, the right hemisphere, and the frontal lobe. The left-hemisphere is home to your verbal and analytical skills while the right hemisphere is non-verbal, emotional and thinks in pictures. The frontal lobe is the executive officer of brain, making the decisions and maintaining focus and attention. The chatter of the left hemisphere tends to drown out your awareness of the quiet right cerebral hemisphere; subsequently, whole brain training is about becoming aware of and strengthening processes that are already present. This is important because the brain tells the body what to do and the body obeys. Our goal is to give the body directions that creates a peak performance.
Subsequently, there are two important questions for you to answer:
- How Bad Do You Want To Be Good? More specifically, where are you now with your running and racing? Where do you want to be? And how are you going to get there?
- How Do you Prepare Yourself Mentally to Achieve Your Goals? Do you use any of the advanced training techniques like guided imagery, visualization, mental rehearsal, and sports hypnosis to train your inner runner and mental muscles?
There is a full body of scientific literature on how to improve athletic performance. Here is some amazing research. In a now classic study, world class athletes were divided into the following four training groups:
- Group I: 100 percent physical training
- Group II: 75 percent physical training, 25 percent mental training
- Group III: 50 percent physical training, 50 percent mental training
- Group IV: 25 percent physical training, 75 percent mental training
According to sports psychologist Dr. Charles Garfield, “When the four groups were compared, Group IV had shown significantly greater improvement than Group III, with Groups II and I following, in that order.”
In the Sports Psychology labs, one of the first steps is to train the athlete in deep muscle relaxation. The researchers have learned that in a deeply relaxed state, muscles respond to mental images as if they were actually performing the activity. The athlete, who is trained in a lab, is taught how to create composure and visualization skills for competition. Perhaps you seen a golfer or skier as they visualize there next shot or performance.Obviously, there is not a sports psychology lab on this site for you to train in but the 3-step break through formula is the next best thing.
How much mental training are you doing? With the help of the information I provide you, you should be able to take your performance to the next level or 2 and enjoy your best outcome. My goal is to help you to have a break through performance in your next race.
You do not have to be a world class athlete to benefit from Peak Performance Training. Many age groupers use guided imagery and visualization as well. The sports psychologist Dr. Steven Ungerleider “found that older and better educated athletes tended to use mental practice.” Furthermore, “the more hours one trained the more likely one is to use mental training techniques.” This means, the better the runner, the more likely he/she are to use training techniques, similar to those offered on this site.
The sports psychologist, Dr. Charles A. Garfield describes peak performance in the following manner: “It was the ability to reach into themselves and draw upon resources of energy and inspiration that usually transcend everyday life – the hidden reserves. Again and again, athletes said that they made major leaps of improvement in their performance when these hidden reserves were accessed. Such moments were often described as unexpected and awesome.”
Dr. Garfield summarizes the peak performance experience in the following way:
- “The athlete has an expectation of success.
- The everyday world recedes, and the athlete begins to act completely “in the moment,” as though an automatic pilot has been switched on.
- The athlete is totally focused on the present, and concentration is so intense that actions are anticipated before they occur.
- There is a sense of possessing extraordinary power, which sometimes appears to be coming from an outside source or from a new source within oneself.
- There is a sense of being perfectly immersed in the activity, perfectly in tune with the actions in which the athlete is engaged.
- There is a feeling of joy and ecstasy, the “perfect emotion.”
Deep relaxation, visualization and guided imagery are the processes used to navigate that yet unused ninety percent of your brain power. Here’s a short audio insert that, in a very simple way, explains the visualization process.
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