Body, Body, Body

“If I just jump farther, I am going to make it....” “I am going to try harder this time, that will work” “I am stronger than this” “what the hell is going on?...I am really slow today”.

Do any of these thoughts or something similar ring a bell?  Please take a second as you read this to realize in this environment, I have no agenda to compete with you on any level and only seek to share some experience and knowledge with you. Try very hard to open up to the fact you might not know how to preform better. When I say, “you might not know how”, I mean you might know how to hit that third turn on the course with great speed and in a good line, but do you know how to hit it like you dream of hitting it? Think about that for a second. Let it sink in. How many times have you ever been in the middle of an activity and had a short moment of that dream state or done something that just seemed to happen and it was perfect?

Called many things by many people, “The Zone”, “The Moment” and many more; that place in your mind where you feel everything on auto and your brain is engaged in high level strategy and not locked into and limited to dealing with emotions and suffering. In this mental state, if you can get there, the highest levels of performance are achieved.  I am no talking about trying harder. The point is if you have to think about what you are doing, the game is already over, you have already been passed, you have just taken your kneecaps off on a rock sticking out on the trail or worse yet, you are still trying hard and have no idea how to really dig deeper to get your performance up.

The athletic body is made up of a mass of memories of movement. Right or wrong, every movement you have ever done is stacked up in your body to reproduce later. The problem is, when you are close to peak physical output levels, most often you are also allowing your physical stress load to cause your brain to spin out too. During these peak times, you have to have a rehearsed method of dealing with extreme calmness during, close to fight or flight levels of physical performance.

I offer a few questions here to start the process for you. Read through these and ask yourself, in pure honesty, are you a physical performer, in the middle or a mental performer? These questions will be a start to knowing how to approach your training going forward.

·      Do you lose focus and memory of the experience when you are physically maxed out?

·      During times of “FLOW” in your peak moments, are you fully aware of strategy?

·      Does mass physical suffering during an activity cause you stress and emotional hardship.(loosing faith and confidence, mood swings)

·      Before you start an activity at a high level, do you have the outcome planned?

To know where you rate, look at your answers and use common sense. If you think about what the correct answer might be and how you rate, you are already forming the mindset to bettering your performance. This is the side of your mind being open to a mental plan of performance over a physical one. Get it?

I hope you continue to come to LarryB Sports Mind and read on. Share this with your training partners and work together to better both of your performance levels.  I will do my best as a coach and fellow athlete to pass along ideas I have incorporated into my training methods that have helped not only myself, but many others reach top levels of performance in the face of stress, fear and mental detachment.

I hope you can learn to be the athlete you dream of being.

LarryB

The Place We Go Inside, When Nothing Else Matters

So there you are...

I have to start this entry, as an athlete, in this way. I feel all athletes looking to perform at any higher level, have this visual going on in your mind, before, during and after a sporting activity. Or, more importantly, you should. As an athlete you have so many factors that can make this day, weekend or this lifetime of sports a much more planned out, mental experience that can relate to a deeper connection to the activity and, potentially, higher performance levels.

Mental connection to anything we do as humans is almost always taken for granted. In sports and athletics it is the norm. Having a solid understanding of how your mind works in a mentally challenging environment in athletics is a huge factor towards improving overall performance levels. Getting to know who you are as a mental athlete will not only help you perform better but, more likely will help you make improvements without any additional physical training.

The athletic mind goes in so many directions depending on the conditions going on around you and how well trained you are to deal with controlling your mental calmness in times of high adrenalin. 

So let’s get to the point. How are you going to get a handle on your brain while training and during your sport? Here are some suggestions and steps that will lead you in the right direction, just to start. There will be more about this in future blogs.

·      Are you open to the possibility you don’t need to get stronger, faster of more physically fit?

·      What are your goals and do they include reaching a higher mental level?

·      Does you training program include mental training time?

Once you have honestly answered these questions, you might be ready to get a solid handle on a path to a new level of performance. In this journey to your next level, so much depends on how you see yourself in the sport and how you mentally prepare to be at that next level. You will usually get exactly what you want and should not be surprised of better results because if your mental training is done correctly, you have already been at that higher level before.

Look for my next blog in this intro series to LarryB Sports Mind, called “Body, Body, Body”, where I will introduce the concepts of undermining your own physical performance during an activity and how to recognize when and how to take control.

The sports mind and how it can help or hurt your performance.

You might have a long history of sports and athletics, but even so, many athletes today have no idea how they really think and make choice's under pressure. Most athletes have a top-out in terms of what they comprehend while doing a sport. Damage control is what I call it. Attempting to control the things that are coming at you but not taking charge and having a calm, thoughtful mind during the process.

Consider this, when you are doing a sport at your max, do you have full control of everything? This is a trick question. "everything" is the word here you might not fully understand. So much is going on, there is not one answer. Control of you body, mind, both...the environment? Fact is we are not good at multitasking. Combine this with a maxed heart rate, adrenalin, fear, strategy, injury..etc.. and it is no wonder, most athletes run on natural ability and have no idea what it would be like to take a solid mental plan into a sport and keep a hold of that plan while things in the activity are peaking.

This is not as easy at it seems. Practicing the mental game out of the sport is the key. Take you body out but keep your mind in. Take 10 minutes each day to see yourself in your spot at the highest level you have ever felt and hold that level for as long as you can, allowing no errors. If you trail off to other thoughts, start over! Imagine the top level finish, achievement...whatever your goal is, but keep it in your mind at all times.

When you have mastered this sports meditation, move it into your sports environment. 60% is a good level and intensity to start. Try to get in the mind set and focus point you have reached while just sitting and work on not breaking your concentration. Once you can do this to perfection, up the intensity.

Over time you will see an amazing thing. An awareness of your mind now in the game at a new level. The sport wil feel different and your results will be different too.

Good luck out there!

LarryB 

http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/LarryB-Sports