WORKSHEET: MENTAL TRAINING FOR CYCLING

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

Review these mental training techniques before your next few cycling workouts or races. Customize these tools to meet your individual goals and needs, then note what works for future rides and races.

Use affirmations and self-talk. Practice these during training as well as racing. Tell yourself during a tough race or training ride, "I can do this; I can tough it out." Don't let negative thoughts such as "I'm tiring" or "I don't think I can outsprint this guy" creep in. If you fall off the pack or a rider elbows you or bumps your wheel, tell yourself, "Stay calm; put it behind you." Choose a cue word or phrase such as "You can do it" to use in tough spots during the race.

Breathe right. Practice full breathing regularly. Before your race, you may want to listen to a specific piece of music to practice relaxed, comfortable breathing. You might pair an image, such as crossing the finish line of the race, with your breathing routine.

Meditate. Meditation during a race or training will help you shut out the outside world and concentrate on your own race. You might choose a mantra such as Kungys': "Looking good, feeling strong, nothing can go wrong!" to repeat before and during the race to help you concentrate and stay relaxed.

Relax. After hard workouts, practice progressive relaxation to ease your muscles. Establish your own relaxation routine with an audiotape. Practice a mini relaxation session using deep breaths or counting backward from 10 to calm yourself if you're getting overly tense during or just before a race.

Practice imagery and visualization. To begin guided imagery, identify how you view images by filling out the questionnaire on page 56. For imagery practice, watch film clips of the Tour de France or other elite races. For inspiration, you might want to rent the classic cycling movie Breaking Away. You'll find a guided imagery program on page 240.

Consider your opponents. Lance Armstrong and his coach visualize a varied set of circumstances and other racers at different stages of a competition. It can also help to visualize yourself breaking away from key opponents or winning sprint finishes.

Visualize technique. In your mind, watch yourself cornering, climbing, riding in a pack, breaking away, and sprinting, then slow down your visualization and correct any mistakes you see. Kungys always practices his entire race in his mind before getting to the course. He takes himself through the whole race, feeling the ups and downs of competitive racing, including the enormous amount of fatigue in his quadriceps.

Build a victory image. Kungys's victory images include letting go of his handlebars, raising both hands to the sky, and letting out a sigh of relief. He does this in his mind before each race so that when it's time to win, he'll be ready.

Use visual motor behavior rehearsal (VMBR). Visualize yourself in a race; focus on enhancing your technique and analyzing and mentally correcting errors. While training, practice the corrected behavior. Before races, imagine all the details of the race and how you will meet challenges that might arise. Practice switching back and forth between a relaxed phase and a ready-to-win state of mind (see page 65 for specific steps).

Have a prerace routine. Anticipate, prepare for, and minimize as many distractions as possible. At the race site, check out the surroundings, the crowd, the weather, and the noise. See who your competitors are. Thirty minutes before race time, move into your PTEZ, or perfect timing and energy zone. Practice relaxed breathing. Visualize yourself riding the course, breaking away, dealing with adversity, and finishing strongly. Tell yourself that you will do well in this race. Do any prerace rituals that make you more comfortable. Twigg, for example, uses a ritual of checking equipment on her bike.

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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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