[Warning: long]
Extremely helpful work on mental training techniques, relaxation techniques, techniques for improving volition and other critical tools for athletics, but also for any kind of real-world achievement. The author draws from a wide range of sources: Abraham Maslow, Bulgarian psychiatrist Georgi Lozanov, ideas from zen, breakthroughs from experts in psychology and biofeedback, various accomplished athletes of the 20th Century, and even 1970s and 80s-era Soviet athletic mental training techniques.
The book is structured in "lessons" that build on each other, teaching the reader various foundational skills (relaxation, visualization, mental rehearsal) which build upon each other, eventually bringing the reader to a final, paradoxical idea of attaining a state of poise and confidence, but with a release of attachment to the athletic outcome.
Of course, there's a big difference between just reading a book and actually doing what's in the book. A reader who does the latter will get exponentially more out of this work.
Finally, this book contains a solid bibliography. See the reading list at the end of this post for several interesting books for further reading.
Notes:
* The author meets with Russian sports psychologists and they basically have him apply NLP techniques and get him to do a lift far beyond his expectations (Imagine yourself from the sides, from above, look at your hands grasping the bar, imagine how your muscles would feel completing the lift, etc.).
* Maslow on peak experiences
* Intense focus on a small action. Surrendering to the action rather than taking an active part in it (boxer Ingemar Johansson and his right hand)
* The athlete:
Has an expectation of success
Is totally focused on the present
Has a sense of possessing extraordinary power
Has a sense of being completely immersed in the activity
Has a feeling of joy and ecstasy
Lesson 1: Sports Motivation Analysis: Discovering the You Who Can Become a Peak Performer
* Understanding the concept of volition, harnessing volition and its accompanying confidence by practicing imagining and visualizing the intended change while in a relaxed state. Assuming active responsibility for your success. Total responsibility and accountability for what you do. Your belief in your volition is self-fulfilling.
* Exploring the "Self" that emerges in the face of a challenge. The Self that seeks new experiences. And being able to dwell in this self at will. Your volition is fueled by many sources--from past experiences of your own successes to recollections of live sporting events, books, etc.
* Clustering, nonlinear brainstorming similar to free association (like a mind map), to identify what helps drive your volition, what gives you volition, what things are "volitionally important" to you. Then, planning training activities around these events, experiences or accomplishments.
* "All athletic accomplishments begin with volition" (--> one could expand this to all accomplishments!)
Lesson 2: Unveiling Your Mission: Goal-setting Techniques for Fully Actualizing Your Athletic Ambitions
* Lesson 2 is to design a plan of action for fully channeling this power toward achieving specific athletic goals.
* We need to thoroughly familiarize ourselves with the individual needs and responses of the self within us who can become a peak performer. Phase one revealed how to identify your volition like using clustering to explore the kinds of training experiences that have strengthened your volition in the past. Phase two helped you evaluate your volition and that's generalize about the experience of high volitional impact. Phase 3 showed how to prepare a goal profile developed from high impact training experiences for succeeding in future athletic goals.
* Developing a sense of mission, a personal philosophy that establishes a basis for setting goals.
* Goal setting and mental imagery: holographic, three dimensional imagery, with a very fine eye for detail and precision.
* Soviet use of self-regulation drawn from the work of Ivan Pavlov. The work of Bulgarian psychiatrist Georgi Lozanov demonstrating that suggestions in the form of words and phrases could initiate conditioned responses in humans (his theory of "suggestology"), then Alexander Romanov, a Russian, who refined these techniques for shaping exact behavior through words and mental imagery, programming specific muscular responses in humans through mental visualization.
* Having a sense of mission and intentionality as well as delight in the mission, as opposed to a "determination-relief cycle" where you have determination to get the work completed, and relief when it is done.
* Your mission statement: a summation of your personal philosophy, your private, subjective reasons for wanting to accomplish a specific goal in your sport. What feelings do you experience when you are enjoying your sport the most?
* Your long-term goal statement: a major stepping stone leading toward the eventual expression and actualization of your personal philosophy, embodying those athletic experiences you find intensely satisfying. Your long-term goal should be clearly defined, with a timetable.
* What are the inherent rewards associated with your long-term goal? E.g., feeling better/stronger, having more stamina, developing new skills, etc.
* Making sure the goal setting takes into careful consideration a realistic assessment of where the athlete is right now, and what the personal capabilities are of the athlete. Your objective is to develop your full potential, not to see how much you can take. Planning small steps beginning from where you are now. Each step must have a high probability of success. These points will be more thoroughly reinforced as we get into program planning.
* Your program training plan, broken into segments or aspects of your sport: diet, physical training, mental training, your present performance level, your goal or desired improvement, a date, and changes that you may make in the program due to an injury or vacation. Be sure to leave space and time for mental training, not just physical training. This may even allow you to reduce the hours spent on physical training.
e.g:
protein intake
weights
fasting
distance running and speed work
mental training.
* Visualizing goals: this is the final element in goal setting. Mental images of your mission, then (subsequently) mental images of each goal you have included in your training plan.
a) Use a minimum of verbalization.
b) Accuracy and clarity in the visual imagery.
Rachel Mclish, women's bodybuilder: "I visualize the blood surging through my muscles with every repetition and every set I do. When I pose I've got a mental picture of how I want to look. When you have that in your brain, the physical body just seems to respond. It's important to tell yourself you are good and you look wonderful."
* Do not allow yourself to be limited by memories of your past best performances. Although these can be inspirational, boosting the power of your volition, it is important for you to set your aspirations extremely high. You are reaching into the future, not duplicating the past then make a written record of your visualization that will trigger your full recollection of it.
* Remember the principle that each goal must have a high probability of success.
Lesson 3: Voluntary Relaxation: Developing the Primary Skill for Controlling Concentration and Physical Intensity
"Every change in the physiological state is accomplished by an appropriate change in the mental-emotional state"
--"Beyond Biofeedback" by Elmer and Alyce Greene
* "In Soviet athletic training programs, two key skills must always be mastered. First is the skill of voluntary relaxation--that is, the ability to relax the body consciously and put the mind in a quiet receptive state. The second skill is the ability to produce and creatively manipulate mental images. This is the process frequently referred to as "visualization." (see Lesson 4).
* Principles of self-regulation: where individuals gain greater control over their own functioning. This opens the door to the development of human potential.
* Contrast a deeply relaxed, meditative state with the Vince Lombardi stereotype of "clenched jaw determination" along with attachment to winning. An integrated balanced body and mind versus a fight-or-flight reflex where only specific areas of the body are activated. "When this relaxed balance is achieved, one may note not only improved physical performance but an inner feeling of unity and confidence and a definite, enhanced sense of pleasure."
* Deep relaxation is achieved by learning to produce four feeling states:
1) inner calm and muscular relaxation throughout one's body, along with a free rhythm of breathing and clear sensations of heaviness and immobility.
2) feelings of warmth in the arms, legs, abdomen, chest, and head.
3) feelings of coolness in separate parts of the body, and the simultaneous contrasting sensations of warmth in other parts.
4) feelings of a calm heart with strong, even, steady heartbeats.
* On battling fight or flight/"the intrusion of the fight-or-flight response in sports: "In working with athletes, I tell them to look upon the fight-or-flight response as a stereotypical behavior pattern and a potential enemy of the subtler, learned responses associated with their sports. When activated by worry, fear, or trauma, is automatic response, even at its subtlest levels, can obscure or even cancel the more precise, learned program of athletic coordination and movement."
* Meditation, relaxation producing similar inhibitory effects as sleep, helping the body recover.
* "Relaxation is an essential first step to visualization and mental rehearsal. "
* This book illustrates relaxation training through three phases:
1) exploring relaxation and tension
2) diaphragmatic breathing
3) autogenic training
You want to undertake these phases slowly and master each of them gradually.
1) Edmund Jacobsen's system for progressive relaxation. "An anxious mind cannot exist within a relaxed body." "People are often astounded to discover the degree of mental excitement they are manifesting when they believe they are fully relaxed." Thus "any relaxation system must begin with exercises that teach an awareness of tension and relaxation."
Interesting exercise here of clenching your fist, and then exploring all the sensations throughout your entire body, as well as mental sensations and emotions you experience, and then relaxing your fist and doing the same. This helps you discover manifestations of the experience of tension, as well as manifestations of the experience of relaxation. " This is how the experience of tension feels." And "This is how the experience of relaxation feels."
2) Diaphragmatic or belly breathing, instead of sucking your belly in and having your chest out, the entire abdominal cavity stays loose and flexible and breathing is rhythmic and sure. Most people in modern society are "thoracic breathers." Proper diaphragmatic breathing involves the entire torso. The diaphragm moves downward, then the middle part of the lungs begin to inflate, finally the chest itself expands, filling the upper portion of the lungs.
We should remind ourselves to practice deep breathing, and we should associate it with something commonly done throughout the day: like when the phone rings or when we check our watch, etc.
A good five-step instruction for proper breathing:
use your abdomen and expand your lower, middle and then upper area of your lungs,
empty your lungs completely,
inhale through your nose,
exhale through your mouth,
use a sigh of relief exhale through your mouth for added tension release.
3) Autogenic training to develop the ability to relax body and mind at will:
See Soviet physician A.G. Odessky, and the work of Johannes Schultz.This process takes some 3 months, about the same amount of time as an aerobic exercise program would require.
Six steps to practice autogenic training:
1) put on a "relaxation mask"
Begin with a gentle cycle of deep diaphragmatic breathing. Now imagine you are putting on an imaginary relaxation mask, relaxing all muscles of your face. For 5 minutes enjoy these sensations of letting your face fully relax.
2) create heaviness
Begin with diaphragmatic breathing, then put on your relaxation mask.
You will now learn how to create a sensation of heaviness in your dominant arm. Repeat to yourself four times each: "my left arm is getting limp and heavy, heavier and heavier, completely heavy." Perform this step at least twice a day for a few days--your goal is to be thorough, not fast. After doing this exercise with your dominant arm for two days do it for your non-dominant arm. Then do it for both arms and legs.
3) create warmth
Here you will learn to create feelings of warmth in your body, resulting in blood flow changes that you will induce. Start with diaphragmatic breathing, your relaxation mask, and the heaviness exercise, then begin the exercise for warmth using this formula:
Imagine your arms and legs immersed in warm water, or being warmed by the sun, then repeat to yourself 4-6 times each, "my left arm is getting limp and warm" then "my left arm is getting warmer and warmer" then "my left arm is completely warm." Just as with the heaviness exercise do this with your dominant arm first for two days, then your non-dominant arm, then both arms, then each leg and then both legs together, each for two days. Practice this until you can create warmth in both arms separately and then simultaneously,
THEN combine the heaviness and warmth exercises using the following formula:
My arms and legs are getting limp, heavy, and warm. (4-6 times)
My arms and legs are getting heavier and warmer (4-6 times)
My arms and legs are completely heavy and warm (4-6 times)
I feel supremely calm and relaxed.
4) calm your heart
Now you will learn how to attain a calm, steady heartbeat.
Start with the diaphragmatic breathing and the relaxation mask, then the entire relaxation process as you have learned it, creating feelings of heaviness and warmth throughout your arms and legs. By now these sensations will be made quickly. Then when you are reclining and relaxed, gain a mental sense of your heartbeat.
Then repeat to yourself 4 to 6 times each:
My chest feels warm and pleasant
My heartbeat is calm and steady
I feel supremely calm and relaxed
5) create warmth in your stomach
Start with the skills of step one through four then repeat 4 to 6 times each:
My stomach is getting warm and soft
I feel supremely calm and relaxed
6) cooling your forehead
Again, start with steps 1 through 5, then repeat four to six times:
My forehead is cool
I feel supremely calm and relaxed
As you say these words imagine a fresh breeze is a gently cools your forehead.
Putting it all together:
This is a short reference list for a smooth and rhythmic relaxation routine, by memorizing it you will always have all the instructions you will ever need with you:
Deep diaphragmatic breathing
My relaxation mask is on
My face feels smooth and relaxed
My arms and legs are limp, heavy, and warm
My arms and legs are getting heavier and warmer
My arms and legs are completely heavy and warm
My heartbeat is calm and steady
I feel supremely calm and relaxed
My stomach feels soft and warm
I feel supremely calm and relaxed
My forehead feels cool
I feel supremely calm and relaxed
"As you gain mastery of this exercise, you will find that you can induce a deeply relaxed state by simply sitting down, taking three diaphragmatic breaths, and thinking to yourself: "Mask in place. Facial muscles smooth. Arms and legs heavy and warm. Heart calm and steady. Stomach warm. Forehead cool. Supremely calm and relaxed."
You now have a range of skills that will allow you to create a state of mind body integration that is conducive to optimal performance, and that can be achieved by relaxing for 10-15 minutes at least 20-30 minutes before competition. It will also help you establish better emotional control to handle moments of frustration, fear, anger, or anxiety. See also applications in the business world, increasing your resistance to stress, and stress diseases.
Lesson 4: Mental Rehearsal
"I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head." Jack Nicklaus
* Mental rehearsal techniques to create mental images of yourself performing at optimal levels. This technique is the single most powerful tool in the Soviet mental training arsenal.
* Performing different stages of a sport, and by doing so supplementing your physical training with invaluable neuromuscular practice.
* An important requirement of practicing mental rehearsal is that the mental images must include movement.
* Mental holograms: three dimensional mental images involving movement and the direct nerve impulses to all the muscles of the body that will be involved in the execution of the task.
* Practicing various movements hundreds of times through mental rather than physical rehearsal. With a mental rehearsal well established then practice the shot on the court.
* Jack Nicklaus: "Going to the movies" is how he describes mental rehearsal, Chris Everett Lloyd rehearsing significant details of a match in her mind before every game. (See also Michael Phelps "run the videotape")
* Feeling of time alteration with mental rehearsal of complex physical/athletic tasks. Releasing the athlete from the pressure of time.
* A cocoon of concentration, where you and the action you were performing are all that exists in the world.
* Seeing with your mind's eye, preliminary to the more complex mental rehearsal exercises to follow. Not everything will be as clear as like a television screen. Everyone creates mental images in his or her own distinct way.
On finding out more about your "style" of visualizing: In a warm-up exercise imagine a close friend or relative, a special place you visited on vacation, even an object that has special meaning for you, recall this person and our object is vividly as you can. Now explore what you are "seeing"... Is it an actual visual image or are they impressions? this gives you information about your particular way of visualizing. It also can be the inner experience of movement, imagery of muscular sensations.
Then erase the image from your mind, by mentally looking at an artificial light with your eyes closed, this creates a neutral color. And call the image you previously created again. If you perceive something other than the energy first created erase it and start over. This is practice to get better at mental imaging.
* Your best performance and beyond: Create mental images to serve as a model for future peak performance.
* Mentally rehearse the complete action, rather than just the beginning, middle or end. A specific serve in tennis and the precise location where it lands on the court, a specific lap around a track, etc. "The best test of a visualization is that after mentally rehearsing the activity three or four times you should be able to run through it effortlessly."
* Focus on the part of your body that was intensely involved in performing the activity. Relive all the physical sensations. What thoughts and feelings did you have as you were performing? Recall any details that come to mind. What did you see? Pay particular attention to the way a ball made contact with a racket. Visualize sounds, for example of the tennis ball when you struck it. Create pictures, sounds and sensations of all kinds to enrich your mental rehearsal.
* Then assign a trigger word for the visualization of the event. Repeat the word to yourself at the beginning of the end of each mental rehearsal. Then the process gradually becomes Pavlovian.
* Finally, you will find you need to close your eyes only for a moment and replay only once the mental images that you have refined through rehearsal. For example, a mental rehearsal prior to each serve in tennis.
Directing the movies of mental imagery:
Review the relaxation technique of Lesson 3. Also review the two phases of mental rehearsal proceeding this one. This exercise is basically like making a movie of someone who does the skill you're looking to do perfectly (e.g., Federer hitting a backhand). This is modeling behavior for you to match. Then choose a name for this "movie" in order to mentally catalog and retrieve it whenever you need it.
In the same way athletes mentally rehearse important competitions, you can mentally rehearse interviews, presentations, etc.
Lesson 5: Athletic Poise/Maintaining Peak Performance Feelings
"Athletic poise is the ability to recognize and maintain a particular state of psychological readiness. Even when the competition and pressure is very high. The Soviets have demonstrated that this performance state can be systematically taught. You can develop athletic poise by: becoming aware of the ideal performance state; getting in touch with your own experiences in this state; and mentally rehearsing psychological readiness as part of preparing for competition."
A sense of reserve and self-mastery. Patience about one's own limitations, yet also pushing beyond them. Knowing how to direct your emotions for maximum benefit.
Competitive toughness: creating and sustaining the ideal performance state regardless of circumstances.
The 8 peak performance feelings:
1) Mentally relaxed, inner calm
2) Physically relaxed
3) Confident and optimistic, positive outlook
4) Focused on the present, not thinking about the past or future
5) Highly energized, Joy, intensity, power
6) Extraordinary awareness
7) In control
8) In a cocoon
The peak performance compass (see image below): indicating the zone of positive feelings, attentional focus on the present and high/good energy.
Phase 1: rate yourself in the eight performance feelings on a scale of 0 to 10 during a past peak performance. Peak performance conditions are 8 to 10 range.
(See the neurophysiological cues of your peak performance feelings, photo below; depends intuitively how you would feel when you highly rate each of these mental states.)
Rate your performances on these eight feeling States, 0 to 10, allow yourself to feel once again all the sensations during the event. Rate your worst and best performances as well. With these three ratings look at the numbers and see where you tend to read below 8 to 10.
Peak performance feelings and related skills:
Mentally relaxed: The ability to recognize tension, and the ability to voluntarily create and maintain a relaxed state.
Physically relaxed: Using breathing exercises to relieve physical and mental tension, also the ability to recognize and relax tension in your body.
Confident/optimistic: Your physical conditioning and your ability to maintain overall athletic poise
Focused on the present: Autogenic training with mental rehearsal which leaves little room for distraction by thoughts or activities outside of the performance.
Highly energized: Sleeping well eating well, also ability to maintain focus on the present and having positive emotions.
Extraordinary awareness: Being relaxed and open to the experience, establishing a harmony between your mental image of the activity and the activity itself, this creates a sense of acute awareness of detail
In control: Comes about through being engaged in activities that have high volitional impact, being relaxed and open to the experience, and having mentally rehearsed the activity. Prolonged practice.
In a cocoon: The ability to maintain an extremely high level of concentration, focus, and expectation of success in an activity that deeply interests you
Phase 2: creating an expectation of success
* The ability to activate feelings of success under pressure constitutes athletic poise. A larger attitude, poise, that you assume the moment you engage in athletic activity
* Visualization exercise: Visualize a time where you've experienced something you did extraordinarily well. Put yourself completely in that memory and envision everything about it. After you vividly recall your moment of success, notice how you feel mentally and physically after. Make it a practice to turn your attention to those feelings you've discovered at least twice a day. The purpose is to develop a habit of thinking in terms of success, and then to recognize that you have the ability to create these feelings through mental rehearsal prior to or during any performance, just as you mentally rehearse movements or shots or plays. Expecting success is the source of athletic poise.
Lesson 6: Letting Go/Turning Over the Controls to Your Internal Peak Performer
"Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking."
--D.T. Suzuki
"Thinking is what gets you caught from behind."
--O.J. Simpson.
Quoting Timothy Galwey's book The Inner Game of Tennis, on how a player does not "try" to hit the ball, it is done by an automatic process that does not require thought; also Galwey's idea of letting go of judgment.
* A state of relaxed attentiveness, learning to let it happen rather than trying to make it happen.
* Fewer words, more mental images. Right brain rather than left brain. Do not verbalize, judge, or analyze.
Mantra: "I feel like I have all the time I need to respond accurately and well. I am so completely involved in the action that there is not even a question of confidence or the lack of it."
* Learning to trust the complex subconscious mechanisms that ultimately determine peak performance, and out of that trust the athlete is able to relinquish conscious or willful control that inhibits these subtler processes.
* Free the athlete from anger, illusion, and false passion. De-emphasize the intellect and develop the intuition.
Avoid:
* Trying too hard, struggling.
* Worrying about past mistakes, or the fear of repeating such mistakes. These inhibit performance and make the athlete tentative and unsure.
* Becoming overly concerned about the outcome of a play, or a game.
* Excessive emotional arousal or excitement. Remember the best performances are spontaneous and natural.
* It is an idea of losing your sense of self, because that selfness stands between the action taking place outside you and the part of you that is responding to the action. A non-interfering attitude of mind where you can respond to the present without judging, fearing, or dwelling on errors.
Step 1: visualize the event
Step 2: quiet your mind (observe your thoughts and let them go without acting on them or thinking about them)
Step 3: rid yourself of negative thoughts (use Bruce Lee's method of visualizing the negative thought written on paper, then visualizing wadding up the paper and burning it to a crisp, letting the thought go away)
Step 4: focus on the present
* Trusting the work that you've done before the competition, and that you've engaged your mind and body to function at their best, and then let go of attachment and allow your mind and body to come together and function as one. Essentially, this is a shorthand version of the entire book itself.
Reading list:
The Psychic Power of Running by Valerie Andrews
The Energies of Man (essay) by William James
Seeing With the Mind's Eye by Mike Samuels and Nancy Samuels
Zen in the Martial Arts by Joe Hyams
The Psychic Side of Sports by Michael Murphy
Relax and Win by Bud Winter
Development and Control of Behaviour in Sport and Physical Education by Brent Rushall
The Centered Athlete by Gay Hendricks
Guide to Stress Reduction by L John Mason
The Well Body Book by Dr. Mike Samuels
The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson
Taking It To the Limit by Stan Kellner
Coach, Athlete, and the Sports Psychologist Peter Klavora and Yuri Daniel, editors
