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The
Cycling Mind
The
Cycling Mind The Psychological Skills for Peak Performance on the Bike – and in Life
Dr Ruth Anderson
BLOOMSBURY SPORT Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY SPORT and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain, 2019 Copyright © Dr Ruth Anderson, 2018 Illustrations pages 5, 22, 31, 76, 106, 165, 181, 197, 221 © David Saunders Illustrations pages 15, 18, 49, 55, 75, 84, 86, 113, 134, 135, 155, 172, 204 © D. R. Ink Dr Ruth Anderson has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. The information contained in this book is provided by way of general guidance in relation to the specific subject matters addressed herein, but it is not a substitute for specialist advice. It should not be relied on for medical, health-care, pharmaceutical or other professional advice on specific health needs. This book is sold with the understanding that the author and publisher are not engaged in rendering medical, health or any other kind of personal or professional services. The reader should consult a competent medical or health professional before adopting any of the suggestions in this book or drawing inferences from it. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data has been applied for ISBN: PB: 978-1-4729-4889-2; eBook: 978-1-4729-4890-8
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Contents Foreword by Joanna Rowsell Shand MBE
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Introduction 1 1 Create 2 Train 3 Control 4 Believe 5 Compete 6 Recover 7 Thrive 8 Excel
9 39 70 98 127 161 190 216
Acknowledgements 239 References 241 About the Author 243 Index 244
Foreword Joanna Rowsell Shand MBE I learned very early on in my sporting career the importance of psychology. All the best preparation in the world in terms of training and nutrition can be wasted if nerves get the better of you on race day. But sport psychology isn’t just about dealing with race-day nerves. It’s about being able to deal with the demands of training day in, day out, which can sometimes feel like sitting an exam every day due to the scrutiny of every training session. It’s about being able to deal with the different personalities of teammates and coaches and how your interaction can affect each other’s performance. And it’s about being able to deal with everything else life throws at you and still be able to get on your bike and perform. Sport psychology has helped me so much throughout my career, and the lessons I learned as an athlete about dealing with pressure, dealing with failure and dealing with other people are paying off now in everyday life. Everyone responds differently to difficult situations and Ruth taught me that sport psychology wasn’t just about learning to deal with my own nerves but also about how to respond to others at times when under huge pressure. Working well together as a team can pay huge dividends in moments like this. The training is done. The work is in the legs. You’ve eaten right and rested well. But your head can make or break everything. Don’t neglect it!
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Introduction It is an extraordinary experience watching my clients compete at the Olympic Games and World Championships. Athletes aim to win gold and train for an opportunity that comes only once every four years, and my job is to prepare them to give their best performance when it counts. Rio 2016 was my third Olympic campaign, and as I stood in the centre of the velodrome watching the Great Britain Women’s Pursuit Team get ready to race for gold, there were several questions running through my mind – the same questions I had asked myself watching athletes competing in Beijing and London. Are they following their competition plans? How are they controlling their anxiety? Will they be able to execute their skills under this level of pressure? The team had broken the world record twice in previous rounds, but going into a final as the favourite isn’t always advantageous. The expectation to win brings a new psychological challenge and can be a significant distraction. I was confident in the hard work of the team, but no one can predict how athletes will respond to the pressure of the Olympic environment. Four minutes and ten seconds later, my questions were answered: the team won gold and broke the world record again. It was a success, defined not only by the gold medal but by the ability of the team to create their best performance at the highest possible level of international competition. The Great Britain Cycling Team went on to win six gold, four silver and two bronze medals in Rio – and the same questions ran through my mind before every race I watched. My experience was no different watching the Australian Cycling Men’s Pursuit Team walking to the line at World Championships as
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the current world record holders of the event, ready to test whether they could not only replicate but exceed their prior performance standards. Regardless whether the mission is Olympic Gold, a world record, performing for the first time in an international race, or a stage win in a road race, an athlete will achieve peak performance if she sticks to her plans, possesses the skills to find her own optimal psychological state, and can execute those skills under pressure. At the Olympic Games every athlete who competes in a final has comparable physical and technical skills, and what sets medallists apart from their competitors is their psychological ability. A good competitor can perform in competition, but a champion will thrive under the pressure and excel. Athletes who succeed at the highest level of international competition undoubtedly have exceptional talent, but talent alone does not win gold medals. Races won at the Olympic Games and World Championships are due to the hard Races won at work of athletes who have trained their the Olympic bodies and minds to perform at their best Games and World over many years. The teams achieve medal Championships success because they work diligently to are due to the hard maximise their ability, and don’t ignore one work of athletes of the most important areas most often who have trained neglected by competitors: psycho logical their bodies and skills. A common belief held by many is that minds to perform gold medallists must be infallible, and so at their best… mentally strong that nothing can impact their ability to perform. That is a false belief, a myth only. Every competitive athlete will experience performance anxiety. Every competitive athlete will endure times when they doubt their ability to achieve. Every competitive athlete will face adversity in the training and competition environment. The athletes who win medals understand their psychological state and are able to take control when it matters to gain the optimal state for performance. If you want to be successful on your bike or in any area of your 2
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life, you can develop the mindset that will help you to excel. To reach your personal best, all that is required is for you to commit to working on your mind as much as on your body. There are no shortcuts to success. It is hard work, but if you are committed, you can develop the same psychological skills that produce gold medal performances. The Cycling Mind reflects the expertise gained though my 25Â years of work and research across clinical and sport psychology with cyclists from many nations, and athletes from a diverse range of sports. The book will lead you through the psychological skills that an elite cyclist develops along their pathway to performance excellence. It is not, however, a book offering the promise that a few quick steps, or one strategy alone, will lead immediately to success. Why? Because achieving excellence is just not that simple. Understanding your psychological functioning, making changes, and developing a new mindset takes time and hard work. The Cycling Mind is a book that contains the information and tools for you to create your route to peak performance, and to acquire the psychological skills that will take you there. Commit to changing your mindset and you will become a champion on and off the bike.
The Route to Peak Performance If you are seeking to unlock your potential, and are ready for the challenge, you can follow the pathway taken by an elite cyclist. Travel through the key stages, from training to competition, to acquire the psychological skills required for performance excellence.
Create To start on the route to peak performance, it is crucial that you understand the powerful role your mind can play in creating Introduction
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success on your bike and in your life. You are in charge of your psychological state, and learning the central principles of performance psychology will lay the foundations for you to compete at your best.
Train Behind every performance gain is a considerable amount of planning and a lot of hard work, and psychological gains are no exception. Training your mind alongside your body will enable you to develop the behaviours required to succeed.
Control Critical for all cyclists is the ability to stay calm and in control of thoughts and emotions when confronting challenge. Taking charge of your mind when under pressure will allow you to discover your optimal psychological state to perform.
Believe The next stop along the route is to build confidence in yourself, and believe in your capacity to succeed on and off the bike. When you strengthen your self-esteem and develop belief in your ability, you will push yourself past previous performance standards and excel.
Compete Equipped with the core psychological strategies to self-regulate your thoughts and emotions, you will be able to deal with the pressure of the high performance environment. Attaining and sustaining an automatic psychological state when racing will facilitate a peak performance.
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Recover The ability to recover from one race and reset for the next will ensure you maintain the capacity to perform at your best level over consecutive days of competition. Psychological recovery strategies for training and competition will facilitate your ability to recover from performance stress and sustain your best psychological state over time.
Thrive The ability to thrive under pressure is imperative for performance success, and developing a resilience to stress will allow you to bounce back from setbacks. Keeping your mind fit will contribute to both personal and performance excellence.
Excel You can apply the skills you have developed to train and compete at your best to all areas of your life. When you arrive at the finish line, you will be equipped with the psychological ability to excel at cycling and in daily life.
Believe Control
Compete Recover Thrive
Train
Excel
Create
Route to Peak Performance Follow the pathway of an elite athlete to acquire the psychological skills to excel.
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The Consistent Pursuit of Excellence The key task for a psychologist working in elite sport is to equip athletes with the ability to maximise psychological functioning in the quest to be better and execute their personal best. Elite athletes strive to win, and Olympic athletes are on a mission to be the Olympic Champion. My definition of champion, however, differs from most. I don’t think a champion is only defined by a win. I’m actually not primarily interested in winning. I’m interested in discovering how individuals can reach their performance potential. To me, a champion is characterised as an individual who consistently strives to be the best they can be. A champion may stand on top of the podium or finish 18th or even miss team selection. What defines success is when an individual has maximised her abilities and exceeded her prior standards. We all want to win, but we rarely get what we want in life. We won’t always achieve what we wish to achieve. Similarly in sport, not all elite What defines athletes will win an Olympic medal. There success is when is one common motivator driving all elite an individual athletes, however, and that is the consistent has maximised pursuit of excellence. I was never drawn to her abilities and work in high performance sport through exceeded her prior having a passion for a particular sport, and standards. I certainly have no natural athletic ability. What I have always held is the drive to be better and always to do better, and I pursued the field of psychology to assist others who also seek to create change and excel. My work in high performance sport began when I was appointed to set up and run a counselling service for athletes training at the Australian Institute of Sport. Over time I delivered performance psychology strategies for many Olympic and professional sports. I held the role of Head of Psychology for the Australian Olympic
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Team at both Beijing 2008 and London 2012. At Rio 2016 I was the Lead Psychologist for the Great Britain Cycling Team, and I am now working with the Australian Cycling team as Head of Performance Psychology to build the mindset that will lead to the team standing on the podium in Tokyo 2020. All of these roles provided me with invaluable experience helping athletes and coaches to perform at the highest level of competition. I have witnessed the success of teams and athletes who prioritise psychological ability as a critical aspect of performance, and who commit to working hard over time on the skills required to achieve excellence. Working with elite athletes has given me the opportunity to create psychological change for individuals and teams, and also to help others to exceed their prior limits and excel. During three Olympic Games, eight World Championships and many more competitions too numerous to count – across a range of sports from cycling to diving, tennis to swimming, golf to basketball – I have talked with athletes celebrating the highest success, and with those devastated by loss or failure. I have researched the psychological experience of athletes during peak performances. The one common experience for all athletes, across all sports, is the search to obtain their best performance at the critical moment of their career. It is not only within elite sport that I have had the privilege of collaborating with individuals to be the best they can be. In my early career, I worked in mental health services, and watched my clients courageously fight the impact of trauma, abuse, addiction, and severe mental illness. Standing alongside people as they battled their way through the most difficult of circumstances, I learned of the individual’s unlimited capacity for growth and ability to create change in the face of adversity. The more experience I gain while working with clients, the more I realise there is to learn. However, there are five things I know now to be true.
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1. You don’t have to be defined by your current circumstances or prior history. 2. You can make psychological change – although at times this can be extremely difficult. 3. If you are willing to confront your fears, your capacity to achieve will surpass your own expectations. 4. There is no fast track or easy route to success in sport or in life. 5. You are in control of creating the psychological state required to perform at your peak. Whether you are an elite cyclist, an amateur competitor or an individual striving to achieve, you hold the capacity to be better. Invest the time and effort required to understand the way you think, how you experience emotion, and the ways you can make psychological change, and you will create the psychological state that will lead to your personal best. No competition is comparable to the Olympic Games: elite athletes endure no higher performance pressure than they experience here. No bigger challenge is available for sport psychologists than to equip athletes to thrive under this pressure. When I look back on my career and reflect on the individuals I have worked with, I realise that those I most respect, those I consider to be champions, are not exclusively Olympic medallists. Rather, they are the individuals who were open to challenge, who persisted despite significant setbacks, and who maximised their ability, thereby achieving a level of success that exceeded their expectations. For some, that was a gold medal, a World Championship, or a grand slam win, but for others that was confronting trauma or overcoming depression. Whatever your level in cycling, or no matter what your personal circumstances are, you can make the choice to overcome your limits, break free of expectation, and empower the champion within.
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The Cycling Mind
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Create Every day at work I have the privilege of glimpsing into people’s lives and collaborating with them on their mission to excel. We work together to unravel the psychological factors inhibiting their ability to achieve, and to build the psychological skills required both to attain and to sustain peak performance. The outdated notion of seeing a psychologist only for a problem has no place in the high performance environment, where we recognise that a rider’s psychological state plays a critical role in elite training and competition. Your mind makes the difference in sport, and you can work to develop and strengthen the skills that will create the psychological state required for a personalbest performance. No matter what the sport, or what athletes may be seeking to achieve, they all come with one common target: to find new ways to be better. My role as a sport psychologist is to gain a comprehensive understanding of a rider’s overall psychological functioning, and to provide the right strategies that will build the skills required, unique to each rider, to maximise their ability to perform on the bike and thrive off it. The role of the rider is to be honest with their self-report, and to be disciplined in consistently implementing the tasks that will develop their psychological ability. It is only with this mutual collaboration in action that lasting psychological change can be created. When a rider and I meet for the first time, we chat about the range of
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psychological areas impacting performance, explore individual psychological functioning, identify personal strengths and vulnerabilities – and then we begin to formulate a plan for our work together. Usually I need to begin by dispelling the most commonly held unconscious belief – namely, that your psychological functioning is not within your ability to control. During moments when you are consumed by self-doubt, or when anxious and negative thoughts about an impending performance invade your mind, it is difficult to comprehend that you can take charge of your psychological state. Given that none of us intend to think negatively – we certainly don’t try to feel anxious – we tend to believe that the automatic psychological response experienced under pressure is beyond our capacity to influence. Typically, we will avoid dealing with the challenging aspects of our psychological functioning – either because we lack the tools to make change, or because we attribute the symptoms to a personal weakness. Exposure to any high performance situation, however, will generate changes to what we think, feel, and do. Instead of trying to avoid dealing with your thoughts and emotions, and hoping that they won’t negatively impact a race, you can use your psychological state to push you to a higher standard of performance. You hold the power to create the psychological state that will allow you to compete at your best. This chapter will provide you with the foundations for a high performance mind. When you understand how your thoughts impact on your performance, and the psychological process that is required to make change, you will have the knowledge required to succeed. You can plot your route to peak performance by creating the mindset that will take you there.
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Accept the reality of sport and life Life is marked by uncertainty. Sport is no different. You can never know for sure what you have the capacity to achieve in life, what results you can obtain in your sport or what obstacles you may encounter. What is certain is that you can choose your pathway forward, and that you will inevitably confront challenge. If you want to maximise your potential, you need to begin by accepting two certainties of sport and life. The first is that you always have a choice. You have the ability to decide what you want to do and who you want to be. You have a choice about the way you think, and about how you respond to pressure. You always have choices, and you can determine your own route to achieving success. Second, you will always confront challenges. When striving for Failure is the success, you will inevitably encounter inevitable part of barriers, and you won’t always gain your success. No reward desired outcome. If you are willing to take comes without risk, on a challenge, you are faced with the and you will fail at possibility that you may not succeed. some point along Failure is the inevitable part of success. the way. No reward comes without risk, and you will fail at some point along the way. That is part of the journey – and it is the moment when you will learn most about your strengths and vulnerabilities. Successful athletes and teams are defined by the way they handle failure. You have to be prepared to try – and then to face the consequences, learning from them, picking yourself up, and trying again. No athlete or team can be certain about a result before they perform. An element of risk will always need to be part of your race strategy if you want to win. During stage races,
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riders have to assess when to make a move or they will remain in the peloton; pursuit teams need to set ambitious racing schedules or they would always ride the same time; and sprinters have to make tactical decisions but will not know in that moment if their opponent can match their own skill. If you only race within your capacity, you will never test where your limits are, and you will never gain insight into your vulnerabilities. If you want to improve, and if you want to win, you cannot avoid risk. Being willing to test your limits is the only way to peak performance. However, being willing to assertively deal with the consequences of taking a risk is just as crucial. Riders and teams will not always be able to meet the demands of their race strategy and consequently results will be compromised. There are critical moments in all riders’ careers when they need to make critical choices. Do you remain consumed by the disappointment of one result, or do you choose to accept the outcome and use the experience to create change? From the outside, an unsuccessful performance may appear to be a failure, but as long as it is a part of your long-term mission, and you use the information to keep pushing to be better, it will be part of your future success. The Great Britain Cycling women’s team pursuit won a bronze medal at the World Championships before the Olympic Games, but that was part of the teams’ journey to winning gold in Rio. The Australian Cycling Team did not perform to expectations at the Olympic Games in Rio, but that experience will be invaluable in defining future success for the team at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Challenging yourself to push past your previous performance limits and then managing your reaction if you fail will test, and then build, your resilience. Risks will not always pay off in the short-term, but being willing to accept and deal with the consequences of taking a calculated risk will enable you to succeed over time.
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Embrace Failure To excel in sport, or life, you have to accept failure. There is no escaping it. You will never be guaranteed a successful outcome, but the good news is that your failures can define your future success if you make the choice to deal with them effectively. These experiences provide the opportunity for you to evaluate your performance, understand your vulnerabilities, and then assist in planning the development of skills for future success. The most successful athletes are those who embrace adversity as a chance to learn. No matter how hard the loss, or how big the error, they are back on the bike immediately, challenging themselves to improve. Success isn’t easy, and you won’t always achieve the results you strive for, but you can be your best self. Choose to commit to developing an elite mindset, and be prepared to challenge yourself when you are most vulnerable. The choice is yours.
Mind Games Racing can feel like a mind game. Your pursuit to peak performance begins when you understand the psychological principles that underpin the competitive mindset. In all competitive sport you will compete against athletes who may be more skilled, stronger or fitter than you. When racing on the road you have to ride in unpredictable weather conditions, negotiate your way through the pack, and race against other riders and teams with unpredictable tactics. Most aspects of the training and competition environment are not within your control – your competitors, the conditions, and the course – and you have no option but to deal with these factors. If you spend your time and energy thinking about aspects that are outside your control, you immediately limit your potential
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for success. When you are focusing on factors that you have no capacity to change, you are ignoring the opportunity to perform in your optimal state. There is not much that we control in sport or life, so we need to focus only on the aspects that we can influence. What, then, is in your control in sport? Only one factor: you! That is, your cognitions (what you think), your emotion (what you feel), and your behaviour (what you do). Fifteen minutes prior to racing, it is easy for anxious thoughts about your competitors, doubts about your race preparation, or worries about difficult weather conditions to hijack your mind. You have no power over your competitors. You can’t go back and change your preparation. You certainly can’t influence the rain. Letting concerns that you cannot resolve divert you from your task will sabotage your capacity to race well. What you can control is what you need to do to execute the race, how you will adapt to the conditions, and the actions you can take to gain the optimal state to compete. You are in command of your thoughts, your feelings, and the execution of your skills, and only you can allow yourself to be distracted by factors beyond your control. There is only one type of change we can be certain we can make – and that is to ourselves. Focus on your psychological functioning, and you will set the foundations to perform at your best. The common trait in all Olympic medallists I have worked with across numerous sports has been the capacity to take control of their psychological state in critical moments. Athletes are exposed to the highest level of performance pressure at the Olympic Games, and athletes can’t predict how they might respond until they are ready to race. The complexity of the Olympic environment brings a multitude of external and internal issues for athletes to negotiate, including an overwhelmingly large environment, the expectations of others, performance anxiety, self-doubt, and disrupted sleep. I have talked with athletes who didn’t sleep the
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The Cycling Mind
night prior to their final, others who felt their confidence had disappeared in the days leading into competition, and some who had very poor warm-ups just moments before performance. Most Olympic medallists do not have a perfect preparation and won’t always achieve an ideal psychological state prior to competing. What they do have is the ability to adapt and the skills to create the psychological state required to win, regardless of the challenge. These athletes understood what issues were disrupting their psychological state, and they all took the action required to change.
COGNITION what you think
EMOTION what you feel
BEHAVIOUR what you do
Performance Command Centre All that is within your control is your cognition, emotion and behaviour.
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If a rider doesn’t sleep the night before the Olympic final, the rider can choose either to worry about the implications of a lack of sleep on their ability to race or to adapt to the circumstances. The lack of sleep will not negatively impact performance if managed appropriately, but repetitive anxious thoughts about the lack of sleep will. A rider in control of their psychological state will acknowledge that a lack of sleep is not ideal, identify any worries about the impending performance, and take action to regain the state required to compete. As long as you are aware of what you are thinking, how you are feeling, and what you are doing in the moment, and you know how to regain control of these areas when required, you will succeed in the midst of the highest level of pressure. We feel in control of ourselves when we believe we have the ability to significantly alter, and determine, our psychological state. A sense of control is important to all aspects of psychological functioning, and has been found to be a positive predictor of physical and mental well-being, achievement, coping, self-esteem, and success. In sport, once you are confident that you are in control of your psychological state, you are more likely to succeed in making the changes required to perform at your best. The perception of control over yourself has been identified as a factor contributing to performance success, and has been reported by athletes during performances that felt automatic and effortless. The reason this concept is crucial to performance is that you are more likely to utilise effective psychological strategies when you believe a situation is within your control. If you are not confident in your ability to change your psychological state, you won’t implement the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural strategies that are required to achieve automaticity – the psychological state required for peak performance. You control your thoughts, feelings, and actions, so you are in command of attaining your optimal psychological state to perform.
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Your Mind is Your Mission Control You are in charge of your Performance Command Centre, and can determine what you think, what you feel, and what you do. Critical to the successful completion of any mission is your capacity to master your mind. Mindset plays a powerful role in determining how you will respond to the pressure of competition – and hence the level of success you will achieve. Your mind is central to your ability to change your psychological state, but it can also be the factor preventing you from achieving your goals. All of us often question our ability to succeed, feel anxious when confronting new situations, and become overwhelmed when faced with difficulties and impending challenges. Learning how to take control of your mind when under stress will not only contribute to a good performance, but will also enable you to thrive under the pressure of daily life. Your mind is your Mission Control, and it’s the most crucial aspect of your Performance Command Centre as your thoughts will directly impact on what you feel and then influence what you do. If your mission is to achieve peak performance, whether on or off the bike, then you can build the mindset to perform consistently at your best. A common misconception is that we have no control over the way we think. Our thoughts, both helpful and harmful, flow through our minds automatically and trigger our emotional and behavioural responses. It is a challenge to influence these automatic thought processes, but creating the mindset for success is possible. We have the ability to change the negative or unhelpful thoughts that hold us back and establish constructive ways of thinking that push us to excel. If, for example, you are learning a new skill and start to think: ‘I will never get this right’, you will feel increasingly frustrated. You may even develop the belief that you will never be good enough and so give up trying. However, if you focus your mind
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Mission Control
What you think
controls
What you feel
determines
What you do
Mission Control HQ Master your mind and you can determine how you respond in competition.
on what you need to do to improve the skill, you will be focusing on your improvement, and so will begin to feel confident in your ability to develop the skill. Therefore, it is important to learn how to manage your thinking; your thoughts will directly influence your emotion and your performance. In the 10 minutes prior to racing, a rider can start to think about the potential outcome of the race. The thought ‘I am not good enough to win’ will escalate a rider’s performance anxiety, and consequently alter her preparation in the last few minutes before the race. However, if the rider takes charge of the thought and is able to refocus her mind on aspects that are within her control, her level of anxiety will stay manageable, and will not disrupt the pre-performance routine. For peak performance, you need to ensure that your mind is equipped to take you there. 18
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The target set by most athletes is to win. However, the more you think about winning, the more likely it is that you will undermine your capacity to win. What is within your control is what you need to do to race well – and the time you achieve will follow. Focus on the process of racing and the execution of your skills. Set your mission as being to achieve a peak performance and focus on the task of executing your race plan. Then you will reach the best outcome possible for you at that time and given the circumstances. I have witnessed many athletes across a variety of sports break a world record in a semi-final but then be unable to replicate the performance in the final. The athletes enter the final with the same level of physical skills, so what changes? Their mindset. Athletes in the semi-final were focused only on how they needed to perform at their best, in that moment, in that one race. Once the world record is broken, athletes begin to think about the potential to win the gold medal, and thoughts about results creep into their mind. Once athletes change their thinking, their performance state will change, and they compromise their mission. Any thoughts about the potential result will take the athlete away from the psychological state they experienced when they broke the world record, when their thoughts were focused not on winning but on the processes required to win. If you want to win, you need to stay in command of your mindset, and commit to creating the psychological state required for peak performance.
Peak Performance You can learn how to create and maintain the psychological state that will contribute to success. The primary objective of all elite athletes is to develop the ability to execute their skills automatically under the pressure of the highest levels of international competition. A peak performance occurs when an Create
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athlete experiences an episode of exceptional performance that produces a personal-best result – a moment described as ‘the prototype of superior use of human potential’. A range of psychological characteristics are likely to be present before achieving best performances. Athletes describe experiencing a calm mind, and having the ability to deal with the unpredictable competition environment. The feeling of being anxious but in control of themselves is repeatedly identified, with a focus on the present moment and on what they need to do to execute their performance. Elite athletes are then able to transition into autopilot on the start line. The psychological state experienced during peak performance has been described as feeling automatic and effortless, with little or no conscious thought required to efficiently execute skills. In my research, Olympic and World Championship athletes identified automaticity as the optimal psychological state, and reported that it was the critical factor in attaining a personal best. Athletes described feeling on autopilot when performing, one elite athlete reporting: ‘I knew what to do without thinking about it.’ When reflecting on wins immediately following a race, athletes commonly state that it felt easier than previous performances but they struggle to recall specific details. Their mind was in an automatic state, which allows for the efficient execution of the skills they have trained over time to perform. Just as physical and technical skills are learned, the psychological skills required to attain peak performance can be learned through training and practice. Preparation is the fundamental building block for maximising performance and achieving automaticity. The skills required to perform under pressure are obtained not in the moments before performance but by training your mind, and rehearsing over time, to allow for your psychological skills to become automatic. For elite athletes, automatic functioning occurs when they have the ability to self-regulate the thoughts, feelings, and 20
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actions relevant to executing a successful performance. This is how one elite athlete described it to me: ‘I was nervous when I was competing at World Championships, but I just had to try and stay in the moment, not worry about my competitors, and it just came automatically.’ Experienced athletes are able not only to attain automaticity for one performance, but to sustain that automatic state over repeated occasions in competition.
The Psychological Process When you understand the psychological state required to compete at your best, you can take the steps that will help you to achieve automaticity. Two key psychological concepts underlie all psychological skills that target enhanced performance: selfawareness and self-regulation. These factors are not often specifically referenced, but it is these underlying concepts that facilitate all psychological development. Self-awareness is critical. You need to be aware of what you are thinking, feeling, and doing, to assess if you need to change. The process of self-regulation consists of the actions taken to change your psychological state. Make the right choices, and you will create the mindset required to perform. A peak performance will come from your ability to put yourself in your optimal psychological state.
Self-Awareness Self-awareness is an essential skill for all aspects of human functioning and is defined simply as the capacity to clearly understand your cognitions, emotions, and behaviours. The ability to be self-aware is critical for performance, as it is the skill that empowers you with the knowledge required to make change. When you are able to recognise what you are thinking, feeling, and doing, you will be able during your preparation to alter any areas Create
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What am I... thinking? feeling, doing?
Self-awareness Understand your psychological state
What do I need to change to perform at my best?
Self-regulation Take control of your psychological state
My performance felt automatic
Peak Performance Create your optimal psychological state
The Psychological Process to Perform at your Best
that may prevent you from attaining your optimal psychological state. Without self-awareness you will fail to recognise when you need to take action, and you may not choose the appropriate way to manage your psychological functioning. It is very easy to assume that you hold a high level of self-awareness – but unless you take time to develop this, you may not have a comprehensive understanding of how aspects of your psychological functioning change when under pressure. When we are stressed, our thoughts can become dysfunctional, and our perception of situations can be distorted, so we will not always hold an objective view of ourselves. When debriefing a race in competition, athletes often struggle to describe important elements related to the execution of their performance, and they can display poor insight into how anxiety may have influenced their race. My interventions within competition are to help riders develop the capacity to independently and accurately debrief their own performances. If riders do not hold strong awareness of what they are thinking and how they manage emotion under moments of high pressure, they won’t be able to take the action required to ensure that they obtain the psychological state required to execute their race.
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The Cycling Mind
Self-awareness is the precursor to effective self-regulation and ultimately to performance success. The greater your selfawareness, the more likely it is that the attempts to regulate your psychological state will be successful. Becoming more selfaware sounds like an easy skill to develop, but it takes time to learn how you respond under pressure, and to understand the strategies you can implement in training and competition to help you attain your optimal psychological state. Do you understand what state you need to be in during the critical moments of performance, and do you understand the triggers that may disrupt that state? Do you have the awareness to change your state when under pressure? Armed with a high level of selfawareness, you will be equipped to deal with the performance challenges you confront.
Self-Regulation Once you have self-awareness, you can move on from identifying the areas requiring change to creating the change. Self-regulation refers to the ability to alter your psychological state. The regulation of cognition, emotion and behaviour is the process that enables individuals to gain and maintain their optimal state to perform. Athletes need the capacity to adapt the psychological factors that are relevant to achieving a peak performance, and they can take control of what they think, feel, and do by implementing self-regulation techniques. These tools will enable you to reset your thinking when your mind is racing prior to a performance, deal with your anxiety when overcome by fear, and reduce the critical voice that consumes you when you doubt your capacity to achieve, and will give you a plan to ensure you race in your optimal psychological state. As you develop your expertise, the acts of self-regulation can become an automatic process and will often occur without the need for conscious intervention. The strategies used to regulate Create
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your psychological state will help you to develop confidence, take charge of thoughts and emotions, compete at your best, and recover from performance effectively. The ability to self-regulate psychological factors will help you to consistently create your optimal state in which to perform. The information and strategies described within this book will give you insight into your current psychological functioning and equip you with the diversity of self-regulatory techniques that is required to reach automaticity, the state required for peak performance.
Gaining a Cycling Mind Developing self-awareness and acquiring the ability to selfregulate your psychological state is not a simple process, but it will create lasting change. It is therefore important that the strategies you implement are not simplistic, but instead challenge you to learn how to control your Performance Command Centre. Traditional sport psychology interventions have evolved from an approach commonly referred to as mental skills training. This method educates athletes on a range of areas such as self-talk, goal-setting, focus, imagery, and activation control. The mental skills approach was widely integrated into sport psychology practice and research as the primary way to improve an athlete’s psychological capacity to perform. Surprisingly, despite the long-term use of this approach, there is a lack of strong evidence to prove that mental skills training on its own results in positive performance outcomes, particularly with elite athletes. This does not negate that some of these techniques are certainly useful when employed in the context of a more holistic approach. Mental skills do have a role to play in sport psychology, but any intervention that doesn’t incorporate the development of an athlete’s core
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The Cycling Mind
psychological functioning will not create the foundations required for peak performance. Due to the concerns that mental skills training was being adopted without a clear understanding of the effectiveness of this approach, an extensive review of research papers was conducted to assess the efficacy of the use of various mental skills training techniques (including imagery, goal-setting, selftalk, and focus) to enhance performance. This review found that when the studies were held against rigorous research standards, the results supporting the use of mental skills were inconsistent and inclusive, and therefore revealed that there was not sufficient evidence to support the commonly held belief that mental skills training enhances performance. It is now clear that the traditional approach to sport psychology intervention has significant You can’t isolate limitations and is inadequate for elite your general performers in their quest to master a psychological performance mindset. Why? You can’t make-up from your isolate your general psychological make-up ability to perform. from your ability to perform. Mental skills training alone won’t create the psychological change required to elicit best performance under pressure. When I transitioned into sport after working in the clinical psychology field, it did not resonate to solely use a model that seemingly neglected to consider holistic psychological functioning. How can an athlete maintain focus when his mind is consumed by self-doubt that is beyond his ability to control? Imagery can be effective to assist an athlete to visualise the demands of a course or in the rehearsal of a difficult skill, but if he can’t self-regulate his anxiety, the use of imagery is redundant. An approach that focuses only on the use of traditional mental skills without creating change to underlying patterns of cognition, emotion, or behaviour will not equip athletes with the ability to
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mediate the complex interaction of psychological factors that are present in high performance competition. Recent developments in research and practice in high performance sport have provided the evidence to now be certain that a comprehensive approach is required to performance enhancement, based on the therapeutic models that assist to better understand psychological functioning, and that contribute to building the ability to make long-term changes to what you think, how you feel, and what you do. This is substantiated by elite sport psychology research and practice showing that the optimal psychological state that generates peak performance is an automatic state. To achieve automaticity, the first objective of any intervention is to understand your psychological state; then, the second is to have the ability to create change to what you think, feel, and do. Once these objectives are achieved you are then in a position to incorporate relevant mental skills that will optimise your ability to perform. The tools detailed in this book apply the principles of evidence-based psychology interventions to the high performance context, and integrate the mental skills that will positively impact your ability to compete. Avoid the temptation to seek simplistic solutions to what is a complex psychological state, but learn how to stay in command of cognition, emotion, and behaviour and you won’t limit optimal performance to the sporting arena.
Discovering the champion within Real change comes from a solid and honest understanding of your psychological state. One of the most critical aspects of my role is to develop the rapport with riders to facilitate change. If we cannot establish an honest relationship, then psychological work will be ineffective. It can be difficult to be truly honest and to be willing
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The Cycling Mind
This practical and highly accessible guide by British Cycling’s Lead Psychologist explores the importance of psychology in achieving peak cycling performance.
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