BE READY FOR PAIN

By: Stephen Ungerleider, PhD
From: Mental Training for Peak Performance: Top Athletes Reveal The Mind Exercises They Use To Excel

Edmark is also a former track runner and knows the feelings and emotions of being in tight places. He was a 31:20 10-K racer and knows about energy conservation, positioning, and the ever-important surge and final kick. He learned a lot from his track days, such as knowing when to make a move based on the emotions of his competitors. "When I am racing in a criterium race, I have to not only listen to my pace and my fatigue level, but also be mindful of the other racers," he explains. "I have to anticipate the pain. The trick is to know how to deal effectively with it. When you reach that threshold of discomfort, you need to convert it to positive energy, positive thoughts, and positive overdrive."

Edmark practices visualization strategies but also does much kinesthetic imagery, concentrating on how he feels rather than what he sees or hears or what his mood is. He constructs imagery around being fluid, effortless, and very efficient as he races. He feels the race and has all his senses tune in to the pain and inevitable discomfort. During a mental practice session, he gets himself into a psychological framework that activates the energy from a race to the point of feeling fatigue and painlots of pain. When the pain comes on, he converts that sensation to aggression, telling himself that he has to stay tough and not give in to the pain. "It's funny, but my best races have been when I didn't feel any pain. It's always there, but I guess I converted it very effectively both in my mental practice and then in the competition." This conversion process allows him to go to that next level of competition, which uses one form of energy and redefines it as aggressiveness.

"It is an attitude. I see so many cyclists who give in to the pain. Their faces show the fatigue, and then they give up," he says. "I know that place, I have been there myself, and I know when it is about to hit me. I prepare mentally for that moment in the race; I seize that moment, convert it, and feel a new positive attitude."

Gebhard is a firm believer in training physically tough. He says there's a direct relationship between training physically and emotionally. Gebhard has raced all over the world, including 3 weeks of intensive training and racing on the island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. "The roads are bumpy and very erratic down there," he points out. Getting used to tough physical conditions can help you tough it out mentally during your next event.

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Reprinted from: Mental Training for Peak Performance: Top Athletes Reveal The Mind Exercises They Use To Excel © 2005 by Stephen Ungerleider, PhD. Permission granted by Rodale, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098.

© 2006 Rodale Inc.
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