I
took a degree in psychology so I'm biased but have always believed
that as well as building physical fitness, developing mental fitness
is also important in achieving one's goals.
That's
not to say you can think yourself fit. You can't. You have to work.
But your mentality can be a great friend or a mortal enemy in
actually doing the work and in reaping its benefits.
It
is obviously best to have your mind on your side so I thought I would
share a bizarre but simple trick to help with this, one that I
learned at university and have used with great effect in cycling.
Placebo
Most
will be familiar with the "placebo" effect. This an
extremely powerful though still very mysterious phenomenon where the
mind can affect the body for good or ill. It is so strong that all
drug or similar trials have to be done "double blind" in
order that any effects of the experiment, good or bad, are known to
really be a result of the drug and not just what those taking part
think it will do.
What
is less familiar is the even stranger fact that the placebo effect
can happen even if someone knows they are being given a fake. So you
can tell someone that a tablet will provide a benefit, give them a
tablet, then tell them that the tablet is a fake. Still the person
will get some of the benefit. It may seem stranger than fiction but
its been repeatedly demonstrated.
Breaking the Century
So
how to apply this to cycling? Here is an example from my own
experience. A while back I was chasing time trial records. One
ambition was to be the first person in my club to ride 100 miles in
under 4 hours. I had several attempts and each time came maddeningly
close, just a few minutes over.
I
realised part of the problem was the pacing. Obviously the average is
25mph but it extremely hard to hold that as a steady speed for such a
long time. At times you go faster and at times slower. Whenever I saw
the numbers dip under 25 and especially under 24 I would get stressed
and try to push harder, trying to go at 26 or 27 to even things out.
This
is fine once or twice but over 100 miles this in itself became taxing
and I would find myself doubting if I would make up the lost time.
This self doubt is exactly the sort of thing that I meant when
saying your mind can be your enemy. When time trialing it is just you
and the bike. There is little by way of distraction and once the
first negative thought drips into your head it can quickly turn into
a torrent.
So
for my next attempt I went back to my university days and tried out
an experiment on myself. My speed was calculated from my wheel size.
So I subtracted a few inches from this so that when I was going at a
real 25mph it would appear as 24.9 or something on the display (I
deliberately didn't do any exact calculations, I just knew it would
be less than 25)
My
theory was that this would make me more relaxed. 24 would be the new
normal and every time 25 showed I would be ahead of pace but not too
much so. Also I would be less likely to dip below 24.
For
the race I set my display to only show speed, nothing else not even
the time or distance. Then I rode, just focusing on keeping the
display in the high 24s and giving myself a pat on the back every
time I went into the 25s which, of course, happened a lot.
The
time ticked by a lot more quickly than on previous attempts and only
when I finished did I check the clock. I had smashed my PB, taking 10
minutes off it, finishing in 3:55 so it was mission accomplished.
Despite the theory I was amazed but very pleased that it had worked
so well.
Other Applications
I
have repeatedly used the same trick since. It doesn't always work,
the mind gets used to things, but it has been successful more often
than not and even when it is not an outright success it still helps
keep the mind occupied and is better than nothing.
But
much more often than not its been a great help. Here are a couple of
examples:
- Having broken the club record at the sprint distance of 100 miles my next target was a the 12 hour one. The main problem with this event is from just past 1/2 way until 3/4. At this point you are very tired but the finish still seems a long long way away (because it is!). So I paced on "chunks" breaking the 12 hours down into 24 half hour laps. Except for the early laps I didn't hit the lap button until several minutes late, again not looking at real time, just using the lap counter as information. This way I mentally thought I was still not quite half way even though I was actually well past. When, inevitably, my spirits started to flag once I was past "half" way I checked the real clock and as if by magic jumped forward an hour or so, much closer to 3/4 with spirits high, battery recharged and record comfortably in sight.
- I use pretty much the same trick when climbing high mountains. Again with these the hardest part is after half way, especially so if, as is often the case the gradient is worse there. I pace my climbs on elevation. At the bottom I work out where the summit will be based on current height. I then add 100-200 extra metres (tip climbing in metres feels easier than climbing in feet as the numbers are much less daunting). I then work out how far through I am based on this new number. Again if I feel rough (which will always be in the later stages of the climb) I remind myself that of the trick I played and whoosh I am suddenly much higher.
So
in conclusion. These ideas may seem barmy but in fact they are based
on hard science and they can work wonders. The mind can be very
suggestible especially when under the sort of pressure lots of hard slog puts on it so it's best to give it suggestions that work in ones
favour rather than allow it to come up with ideas of its own like
"wouldn't it just be easier to give up now?"
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