Mind Over Matter - Training Your Mind and Your Body

With the Winter Olympics now in full swing, it is apparent that training your mental strength and your physical strength is critical to athletic success. In almost every interview you see on television, the Olympic athlete talks about his/her mental preparedness and how it affected their performance. In many cases, the mental aspects of competing are overshadowing all the hard work athletes spend on the physical aspects of their sport. While you might not be competing at the Olympic level, all athletes can improve their performance by training their mind, along with their body (and you don't need a sport psychologist to get started)! Here are a few ways to incorporate mental training into your daily workouts:

• Visualize success - when you're putting in those long, base hours, don't daydream, think about racing. Visualize the start, your transitions, the finish, and let the images motivate you.
• Match your mental training to your physical training - when your workout includes sprints, power bursts, or hill climbs, don't simply focus on the mechanics of completing the task, visualize how these efforts would look and feel in a race environment.
• Reflect on how you overcome challenges on a daily basis - when you've had a stressful or hectic day at work and you still need to put in a quality workout in the evening, how do you focus your mind and body to complete that workout properly? Reflect on the tactics and strategies that you use to successfully get through training days that are challenged by life's distractions (family, work, other commitments). If you take the time to be aware of the tactics and strategies you are already using, you will be better able to deploy them before and during a race.

Adding some mental training to your daily workouts will build confidence and help you achieve a higher level of physical performance.

Martha Handford
MTB Coach
The Sport Factory