The largest undiscovered part of the world lies between our ears.
—William O’Brian
Soon after I had successfully finished the Atacama experiment, I received a phone call from two journalists. Only a few days later, two big articles about my story appeared in different daily newspapers. I was flattered that major athletes took a backseat, at least in this one edition. But what was most interesting was the title. Although two different journalists had conducted the interviews, and two completely different publishers had published the articles, the titles were identical: “As far as your feet will carry you.” When I read that, I had to smile, and I immediately thought, “Your feet will carry you as far as your head wants them to.” I then gave a subsequent presentation with the following slightly more provocative title: “How much of your head is in your feet? Running a 250-km race through the driest desert in the world with mental strength.” I like that question very much, but does that make me an ardent proponent of mind over matter? No!
In this chapter you will learn about the intelligent connection between mind and body, the partly puzzling effects the mind can have on the body (and vice versa), the exact meaning of mental training, and the extent to which mental training can be used to achieve goals and increase performance more elegantly. Or in plain English: The head and body are two sides of a coin and they are inextricably linked. To ignore this fact in everyday training would be downright negligent.
Sparrows will never understand why eagles fly higher than cherry trees grow.
—Russian proverb
In elite sports performance, density at the top tends to be very high. When two athletes with the same talent, the same training conditions, and the same general level of fitness and health compete against each other, the one who has the edge at the critical moment will be the one with the stronger mind. While materials-based, biomechanical, and athletic training-related approaches have increasingly exhausted their potential, the largest developmental resources lie within the brain. And how is it in recreational and popular sports? It’s actually pretty similar. We can train as hard as we want, run tons of miles, but if we’re mentally not in a good place on the big day, we might not achieve our goal. And so it is no surprise that this realization is also gaining ground in recreational sports.
Whenever you ask an athlete if the mind is important for athletic success, the answer is: “Yes, of course!” And that is true regardless of the type of sport. By now, everyone knows that success and failure are somehow also a matter of the mind. Some say it is a matter of attitude or character, while others say it’s a matter of motivation or willpower. Even in the running world everyone agrees that achieved results and successes are also a matter of the mind. Nevertheless, the question remains of how exactly to manage it, or rather how to optimally tune the brain muscle to be able to reliably access its performance at the critical moment and achieve precisely the successes or changes one desires. Or how to train more appropriately and holistically by using forms of mental training, thereby achieving goals more elegantly, more joyfully, or faster, with less effort.
Here suggestions are mostly perfunctory and largely anecdotal, the standard advice we hear all the time. In practice it isn’t very helpful because it is not followed by concrete information on how to improve motivation or how to develop willpower.
Of course, I don’t know how many hours a week you train. Is it an average of 3, 5, 10, or 20 hours? And at top times, how many more hours does that add? Granted, that depends on your personal circumstances, ambitions, and goals, but, be honest, how much of your average training time do you devote to mental training? Probably less? The good news is that many athletes already unconsciously use a number of approaches without being aware of it. They visualize competitions, plan progressions ahead of time, and know how to motivate themselves during difficult moments. You can learn and train your mental abilities just like you can systematically learn, train, and refine physical abilities. And the investment pays off, as you will see later on.
The sport of running is a worldwide mass phenomenon. There is probably no other sport for which more books, service providers, and internet sites with detailed training plans for all different distances and target times are offered. The plans are eagerly traded, intensely debated, offer training orientation, and are very helpful if one knows how to choose wisely. But why do these training plans still include so little information on mental training, on integrating the mind in the performance development process?
While some runners are convinced that everything is somehow mental, others consider psychology and mental training wishy-washy or irrelevant hocus-pocus. Let’s take a look behind the scenes to form a more differentiated and, most of all, a well-founded opinion on our psyche and mental training.
By now, the effects of the mind on the body have been scientifically very well documented. For our purposes I would like to first share a few well-known research results. You can find detailed information and supplementary explanations in the following chapters.
It is regularly confirmed that certain personality traits, attitudes, and deportments have a positive effect on physical processes, the immune system, and overall health, as well as overall success and satisfaction, not just in sports, but also in life overall.
A substantial piece of evidence from the area of sports medicine suggests that the performance-limiting factor in endurance performance appears to be primarily a matter of the brain.
Sport psychology research reveals many positive links between the use of mental or sport-psychology techniques during training and competition and general performance level, the situational athletic performance, and health.
Research on hypnosis and studies on the influence of trance processes in extreme athletes, fakirs, and Shaolin monks has given us impressive insights, providing suggestions on how to cleverly integrate the use of concentration techniques like the power of thought, mental imagery, and autosuggestion to positively influence largely automatic and uncontrollable physical processes such as pain, fatigue, stress reaction, metabolism, post-sports injury regeneration, and healing, among others.
Sports hypnosis results in extensive positive, health-enhancing physiological changes. The impressive results of a recent study even showed that objectively identical physical performance and effort performed during a state of trance can considerably reduce the amount of subjectively felt exertion and actual muscle activity, compared to a normal alert state.
Let’s take it a step further. A large portion of our behavior is automated and unconscious. Experts say 90-95%. While you are reading this book, your breathing until just this moment most likely proceeded fairly unconsciously. Until now, without your being aware of it, your muscles have also largely made sure that everything moves the way it should, no matter where you are right now and regardless of whether you are standing, sitting, lying down, or walking, and without your having to permanently think about which muscle groups to contract how much at what ratio in order to achieve a desired position or movement as you turn the pages. It is precisely this autopilot that allows us to function, unburdening our everyday consciousness. It makes sure that lots of things function as quick as lightning or without having to think about them. That’s good, as long as we get the desired results.
But what happens when we sometimes aren’t satisfied? When we don’t achieve the desired performances, are unmotivated or lethargic, when there are ingrained habits, fears, or other obstacles that seem to stand in our way? If that unconscious autopilot controls a large portion of our thoughts, feelings, and behavior, would it not make sense to involve that autopilot in our training, in our personal development? But how can we bring our subconscious mind onboard and thereby make our athletic training more modern and more successful, accelerate our personal development, or make it possible in the first place?
In view of the fact that the mind influences the body, does it not make sense to work more on mental processes as part of the training structure that has proven to dramatically improve performance capacity, performance efficiency, heath, and well-being? Yes, absolutely. Let’s do it!
And in case you are still not quite convinced, I urge you to carefully read the following segment
It is no longer a secret that running is good for your health and, among other things, can effectively boost the immune system. However, it can also have the opposite effect. We are more susceptible to infection after major athletic exertion, such as a marathon. Our immune system appears to be weakened temporarily due to physiological changes, which means we may catch a cold more easily. In the fall of 2015, the German Ultra-marathon Association’s (DUV) magazine ULTRAMARATHON published an interesting article written by an esteemed fellow runner. In “Not just ‘mental’: ultrarunning and immune defense,” biologist Verena Liebers reported on a current sports medicine study about the effects of running on infection-relevant messengers (Liebers, 2015; Gill et al, 2015).
At a 24-hour run in Scotland, a team of researchers studied the effects of the competition on bodyweight, perceived gastro-intestinal discomfort, and other physiological parameters, like the quantity of certain messengers in the blood that play a role in infections. For comparison, blood samples were taken from the subject group immediately before and after the race. The results showed that nearly all of the tested messengers (interleukin-6/-8/-10/-1/-beta, tumor necrosis factor, interferon gamma, C-reactive protein) had considerably increased after the race. Moreover, 75% of participants complained of gastro-intestinal discomfort or nausea, whereby a link was established between the gastro-intestinal problems and the increased presence of two messengers (interleukin-8/-10).
But this link could not be substantiated during a follow-up study (Gill et al., 2015) at a multi-day ultramarathon in Spain. However, here, too, considerably higher levels of infection-relevant messengers were detected. This means runners react to the physical exertion by producing more messengers that can also be found during infections or inflammation. Physiological changes take place that far exceed the phenomenon of weight loss. While the body immediately takes regulating measures, an increased susceptibility to infection remains for a certain amount of time.
Experts call this the open window theory. While according to Liebers these studies do not provide concrete information for practical purposes, she wanted to at least start a conversation and remind those ultrarunners who always say that everything is mental, “that even for an ultrarunner not everything is ‘strictly mental.’ Anyone who is willing to undergo such exertion must be aware that he places his body under stress” (Liebers, 2015, pg. 120).
On the one hand, I was pleased that the DUV’s association magazine ULTRAMARATHON published an article on such an exciting topic in layman’s terms. On the other hand, I had to ask myself if it did not come up short because, in my opinion, one significant aspect was not taken into account, at least if one takes a more holistic view of the human being: What effects could our mind, our personality, and the conscious and unconscious use of certain strategies potentially have on infection-relevant blood values and gastrointestinal sensitivity? Or in other words: When two athletes possess the same physical qualifications, are equally well trained and healthy, couldn’t it be possible that their values differ depending on their individual attitudes and the mental strategies they use?
Staying on the topic of stress and gastro-intestinal complaints for the moment, we are probably all familiar with one of the following situations in our everyday lives or that of our friends, acquaintances, and colleagues: Just before a college exam, driving test, important company presentation, a job interview, or an important competition we consider a major highlight, we react with relaxed anticipation or with anxiety and stage fright. The night before the big event, some sleep soundly while others toss and turn accompanied by a queasy stomach. They are experiencing stress.
We all know and experience it again and again, that people often react differently to identical situational demands. Some are stressed. Others are not.
In stress research as well as in sport science—specifically in training theory and sport psychology—we therefore differentiate between stress and strain or rather internal and external stress.
External stress refers to the situational demands that are objectively the same for everyone (for instance, completing a half-marathon). Strain or internal stress refers to a person’s individual physiological, biochemical, and psychological reactions to a specific external stress factor.
Of course circulatory, respiratory, and thermoregulation, as well as muscle metabolism also depend on the physical condition and general state of health. However, they can significantly differ even with the same strain and physical condition, and cause different levels of stress. It is also indisputable and universally known that physiological stress is inextricably linked to mental and emotional factors. For instance, anxiety and fear always result in an elevated heart rate, shallower breathing, increased perspiration, and altered muscle tone—and often also in a queasy stomach. Surely none of this is conducive to a good performance.
Now the critical question remains: Can we control mental factors so they can have a desirable or beneficial effect on the strain, and if so, how?
Verena Liebers’ title is slightly provocative: “Not just mental.” Of course she is right. Anything we do has a mental and a physical component. And by simply imagining ourselves running a fast 10K through the woods this afternoon, we still haven’t even covered 1 m. However, body and mind, physiological and mental processes are inextricably linked. They complement each other and impact each other, positively and also negatively. Here are a few exciting and educational examples on the subject.
Psychoneuroimmunology deals with the interactions between the mind and the nervous and immune systems, and is currently one of the most important areas in medical research. The knowledge that many mental factors have an important positive and negative effect on immune defenses is increasingly gaining acceptance (Schubert, 2011; Pressman & Cohen, 2005).
Personality traits such as optimism, self-esteem, and self-efficacy, along with social relationships and activation of positive emotions in everyday life, have a beneficial effect on the immune system, and verifiably lead to faster healing after injury or surgery. If the mind has such a powerful effect on our health and even on healing after injuries or surgeries, is it not reasonable to think that the mind also affects temporary inflammatory responses and metabolic processes during and after athletic activity, and thereby can positively impact individual stress levels and recovery times?!
Medical placebo research is an extremely exciting, still relatively new area of research. It addresses the following question: Which mechanisms are at work when sick, suffering people are treated with placebos and get well? The success rate in large-scale controlled studies is astoundingly high.
But it gets even more mind-boggling: Have you heard of placebo operations? It works like this: A recommendation of surgery is made to a patient with, for instance, knee complaints. Everything proceeds exactly like a regular operation. There is a comprehensive pre-surgery briefing, anesthesia is discussed, and at some point the patient ends up in the OR and is anesthetized. But instead of a regular orthoscopic surgery to, for example, remove part of the meniscus, two superficial cuts are made. That’s it! The knee is otherwise left untouched. The patient wakes up half an hour later, and it appears that he has had knee surgery. Post-op procedures also take their usual course.
Ordinarily one would think that nothing has changed since no real intervention took place and nothing on the knee has been changed. But lo and behold, even with placebo surgeries the rate of success is astoundingly high. Postoperatively some patients have fewer or no symptoms at all (Siegmund-Schultze 2008). Both strategies have one thing in common: An intensive healing process occurs even though no medically effective chemical or operative intervention takes place.
But it can also work the opposite way, and in extremely dramatic fashion. Nocebos refers to the circumstance when preparations that don’t contain therapeutic agents, due to personal expectations, are unhealthy and even cause illness. In 2006, a 26-year old man was told by his then significant other, that she planned to leave him. The young man’s lovesickness was so severe that he wanted to end his life. Since he had previously participated in a medical study for a new medication, he had in his possession 29 tablets of a highly effective medication. He swallowed the entire contents of the container. Shortly afterwards, his medical condition deteriorated dramatically and he was admitted to a local hospital. The doctors fought for his survival. The man’s blood pressure was dangerously low. As part of the treatment, one doctor contacted the director of the medical study to find out which ingredients were in the medication. The director of the research project took a look at the files and replied: “None!”
The man had been part of the control group and had only taken a placebo medication without any therapeutic agents. Just the belief that he had swallowed a highly effective, large dose of a deadly medication put the man in serious danger. The moment the man was told that he had merely been part of the control group and had been administered a non-effective placebo preparation consisting only of starch and lactose, his dire medical condition improved within a short amount of time and he was discharged from the hospital free of complaints (Merlot, 2008).
Conclusion: Fervently believing in healing (or illness) alone greatly activates one’s own power to heal (or destroy) and causes positive (or negative) changes in the body or brain entirely without external or conscious help. In the future, wouldn’t it be interesting to control these powers a little more systematically before, during, and after major stresses and strains? At least the positive ones? But what and how should we believe during those moments, what should we focus our attention on?
Up to now we have received valuable information about the fact that our mind—meaning our personality traits, attitudes, and expectations—broadly and constantly affect our bodies without us consciously controlling these processes. But we are also able to specifically influence physical processes that are completely automatic and appear to not be deliberately controllable. To preempt: Yes, we can do so, and it might represent one of the greatest and most valuable opportunities for personal development and improved performance.
The famous lemon experiment is a wonderful example of how our conscious thoughts and mental imagery affect our bodies in a minimum of time.
EXERCISE: THE LEMON EXPERIMENT
Imagine holding an already peeled lemon in your hand. It is a plump, early-ripening, and therefore particularly sour lemon. Imagine what the lemon’s surface feels like as you turn it over and move it around in your hand. And now imagine raising your arm and passing the lemon under your nose to smell it. You begin to notice a pleasant, fresh lemon scent. The longer you hold the lemon in your hand, look at it, and sniff it, the stronger the lemon’s fresh scent becomes. And now imagine bringing the lemon to your lips, opening your mouth, and taking a big bite.
For many people, this exercise works particularly well with their eyes closed. The more intense and detailed the attention that is focused on the mental image, the more senses or cognitive channels are activated, and generally the more significant is the immediate physical reaction. Some people literally shudder when they imagine themselves biting into the sour lemon. Others’ facial muscles contract or they experience a spontaneous increase in saliva production.
We can purposefully use such mechanisms to put ourselves into desired positive states. Even just remembering positive experiences (e.g., particular successes or pleasant moments) also results in positive physical reactions. But whenever we focus our attention on negative memories, it inevitably results in perceptible negative physical reactions or the respective symptoms of stress. And even if those effects are so minimal that we are not conscious of them, they can still have a decisive impact on whether or not we achieve our goals as desired (also see chapter 6.1).
It doesn’t matter what distances you run; there comes that point for every runner when not just the legs begin to hurt. It might be the occasional unpleasant twitch of this or that muscle. Other times it feels like the legs, the lungs, and just plain everything is about to explode. Runners have the critical ability to tolerate this pain for as long as possible and still keep running. That requires a certain amount of willpower and is essential to any endurance runner’s success. But what would happen if we could manage this pain or even tune it out? Wouldn’t that be a huge help to personal performance development?
Sometimes, when you see a dentist, you might need a little work, and to make sure the whole process is as pleasant as possible for the patient, you generally get an injection to numb the area to be treated. Dental hypnosis, a practice that is being offered by many dentists in the USA, is now gaining popularity in Germany (Schmierer, 2009). Instead of resorting to a chemical hammer, the patient is guided or supported by dental hypnosis so he won’t feel any pain during the procedure without the use of classic anesthesia (i.e., chemical pain relievers or narcotics). Many scientific findings show that this approach is considered much more pleasant and has fewer side effects for the patient.
Since the results are exceedingly positive, there are now well-educated, innovative physicians practicing conventional medicine, who use hypnosis during surgical procedures. Depending on the patient and the type of surgery, a severe sports injury and even larger open wounds can be treated either completely without classic anesthesia, or with significantly lower doses of anesthesia due to a combination of hypnosis and conventional anesthesia. The amazing thing is that healing processes after surgeries with accompanying hypnosis often proceed considerably better and faster than those in which conventional anesthesia was used (Bejencke, 2009; Schmierer, 2009; Wicks, 2009).
Now one might tend to think that not feeling any pain would be a wonderful thing and would open up all sorts of new possibilities. On your way to becoming a super-runner without any pain? Be careful! We all know that pain can also have a positive function that protects us from overuse and damage to our body, and ignoring this protective mechanism can result in major complications. For example, a few years ago, I attended a conference on mental strength. One of the participants talked very openly and self-critically about the case of a top female German athlete who had suffered a muscle strain. But instead of taking it down a notch, she proceeded, full steam ahead, through a rather meaningless competition. And you might have already guessed how the whole thing ended. The slight, easily treatable muscle strain turned into a full-blown torn muscle, which inevitably forced the athlete to take a prolonged break during a critical phase in her season. Not good!
The moral of the story: Of course it is good, and often helpful, to handle pain constructively, to turn it off in some situations and at least tolerate it better and more calmly in others. We can use this ability very nicely to help ourselves and should do so. At the same time, this last example in particular shows us that we should always pay attention to our body to avoid a short-term injury, as well as long-term damage that often isn’t noticeable while running until many years later. The mind is very powerful, but so is the body. And just as wise and precious! Happy is the man who can establish effective body-mind teamwork in which both areas cooperate equally with each other to facilitate healthy short- and long-term performance development.
In late 2012, there was an exciting episode from the documentary series Terra X, titled “The Body Dominators – People pushing the limits of what’s physically possible” (Staudenmayer, 2014). It featured several people that achieve extraordinary performances in very different areas. The question they tried to answer was to what extent each of us has similar hidden talents.
Herbert Nitsch is one of the most successful freedivers of all time. He can dive to a depth of 214 m without an oxygen tank and with only one breath. Nitsch is able to control the blood distribution in his body via intense concentration or meditation so the body’s outer regions (i.e., the limbs) receive as little blood as possible, which results in considerably lower oxygen consumption. He is also able to resist the natural breathing reflex, and can achieve an extremely calm, focused physical and mental state in spite of the extreme diving depth and the associated high risks. It reduces his energy consumption to the absolute essential, allowing him to make perfect use of the available oxygen to achieve extremely sustained dives that feel like an eternity at an unbelievable depth.
Fakirs and other people that stick needles and other decorative objects through their nose, ears, cheeks, etc., as part of religious and cultural rituals, also use these abilities. What’s astounding: There is usually no blood flowing during these activities, nor do the participants seem to be in pain.
A sport psychologist in the United States did a similar experiment with a number of athletes (Liggett, 2004). After briefly introducing the topic self-hypnosis and the use of focusing techniques, each athlete had two tiny holes poked a few millimeters apart in the back of their hands with a fine needle. What do you think happened with the wounds?
Maybe I should add the following information: The test subjects were first divided into two groups. The first group was told to focus on blood coming out of only the right hole. The second group’s task was to focus on blood coming out of only the left hole. The athletes were speechless when they noticed that the results matched each group’s instructions. One athlete initially confused the psychologist, causing him to think the experiment had failed because no blood appeared at all. But then he was equally surprised when the test subject revealed that he had initially imagined no blood flowing at all, and only several seconds later did blood flow from the desired hole.
Wim Hof’s achievements are similarly puzzling. By using focusing or meditation techniques, the so-called Iceman is able to control his body temperature even under extreme conditions. He develops an unbelievable ability to stay in deadly cold temperatures for very long periods of time, and he also does things that would usually cause death very quickly in humans. For instance, he dives a distance of 80 km nude under an ice floe during the artic winter, or stays trapped inside a large ice cube for more than an hour. Of course it seems natural to try to explain this performance capacity and endurance under extreme conditions by believing that Wim Hof might possess a certain abnormal genetic predisposition or special physical qualifications.
But a study done at the University of Minnesota showed that this is not the case, and that the extraordinary achievements are related to a special form of meditation Wim Hof uses called Tummo meditation. It is a Buddhist meditation practice whose objective is the controlled raising of the body temperature to consciously direct energy from the inside to the outside and thereby eliminate negative thoughts, stressors, etc. by burning them away. Several scientific studies confirm the temperature-regulating effects of Tummo meditation and suggest that practitioners have learned to be more aware of their body’s internal processes, and then purposefully influence them (Benson et al., 1982; Lutz et al., 2007).
The second part of the program featured the world-famous Shaolin monks in China. Shaolin monks are known for their remarkable martial arts and dancing, their muscle strength, speed, and imperviousness to extreme endurance tests. They cultivate their unbelievable abilities over years of intense physical training and with special meditation techniques and breathing exercises. These outstanding physical abilities are based on the so-called internal power of Chi. It is said that the power of one’s Chi is greatest when body and mind are in perfect harmony. Interestingly, the Shaolin monks believe that this energy doesn’t originate inside the fighter but rather from nature, and only flows through him when, as previously mentioned, body and mind are in harmony!
All those briefly introduced here, as well as the other adventurers, extreme athletes, and exceptional talents presented in the Terra X program have one thing in common: They all mentioned again and again that during their extraordinary top-performances they were in a kind of trance, a state of consciousness apart from the normal waking consciousness, during which attention is focused to the extreme. Getting back to running, we received the same feedback from the Lung-Gom-Pa runners in Tibet, also monks. These trance runners are able to run hundreds of kilometers at a fast pace through the Tibetan highlands (Ufer, 2013) without any physical training, using primarily the power of the mind and special breathing techniques.
All of these exceptional athletes have something else in common: They did not just drop from the sky. Their extraordinary performances are based on years of intensive training, whereby they paid particular attention to the intensive development and training of their mind and their mental abilities. Now you might think that those are all great, exciting stories. But does one have to practice mediation for years to be able to achieve exceptional performances or be able to influence automatic processes? The answer is yes and no. On the one hand, every good or extraordinary endurance performance requires a certain developmental process. That also applies to mental abilities.
(You can find information on the topic of expertise in sports and the possibilities and limits of mental training in chapter 2.4). On the other hand, we can all relatively quickly learn to purposefully influence our body without many years of meditation or mental training. But the more we immerse ourselves in it and practice it, the more possibilities arise. The following examples illustrate this impressively.
One effective way to influence the vegetative nervous system is the purposeful use of certain breathing techniques. Just taking a deep breath followed by a slow exhale has an immediate regulating effect on the activity of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. This technique can easily be used for stress management to reduce mental stress within seconds while also providing long-term health benefits (you can find more specific information on this topic in chapter 6.7 on relaxation.)
The interaction between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system is also a key topic in heart rate variability (HRV) research. You may already know from training theory that HRV is helpful in managing training and training load by reliably identifying phases of overtraining and fatigue. It allows you to more accurately adapt your training stimulus to your current situation. It also offers information on how we can achieve a hugely positive impact on our physical and mental performance by synchronizing our breathing and heart rhythm (Servan-Schreiber, 2006). There is an enormous similarity to the Shaolin monks, who reason that their extraordinary performance capacity is based on the effects of harmonizing. However, learning such coherency of breath and heartbeat is not that difficult and is a rewarding practice.
During a study at Michigan State University, 16 test subjects (students) were tasked with influencing the behavior of their endogenous granulocytes through intense concentration. Granulocytes are white blood cells and part of our immune defense system. As phagocytes, they attack pathogens to render them harmless. The number of granulocytes in the blood increases with infections in order to combat them. Since we are not able to feel our granulocytes, one would think we would not be able to deliberately influence something on such a small and abstract physical level. That makes the result all the more astounding. All of the test subjects were able to change the number of white blood cells just by intensely focusing on physical changes. Some even managed to improve their ability to adhere to the blood vessels (Kretschmar & Tzschaschel, 2014). Bongarzt (1996) also confirms these effects within the context of his studies on the use of relaxation hypnosis.
Isn’t this fantastic? And to circle back to the introductory study about the immune defense of ultrarunners, what interesting practical possibilities present themselves when we once again complete a long, hard workout or competition and can feel the effects of temporary inflammation in our body? And of course there are a number of other physical processes relevant to our athletic activity that we can deliberately influence.
90% of running is a matter of the mind. The rest is mental.
In 2006, Hollmann and colleagues (2006) from the Institute for Circulatory Research and Sports Medicine as well as the Institute for Motor Function and Kinetics at the German Sport University in Cologne authored a highly interesting survey article on the role of the brain in endurance exercise for the German Journal of Sports Medicine. They prefaced the article by pointing out that “the effects of motivation and hypnosis on strength performance have been known since the 1960s.” By contrast, with respect to endurance performance, the cardiopulmonary system and metabolism (cardiac cycle, respiration, muscle metabolism) are still considered the performance-limiting factors. Is this notion still up to date and tenable?
The results from many experiments provide impressive proof of a central fatigue component in addition to a local fatigue component. As part of a study, healthy male test subjects were given the task of rhythmically contracting their hands for as long as possible with the aid of a hand ergometer. Of course the ability to contract diminishes after a while due to fatigue, and at some point the test subjects were no longer able to contract their hands at all. But when electrical impulses were used to stimulate the motor nerves responsible for hand contraction, the original contractile force was briefly restored and a few more repetitions were possible. After the values plummeted again, electrical impulses were administered once again, this time directly to the relevant working muscles. Afterwards, the test subjects were again able to complete several contractions. This study demonstrates very memorably that central fatigue of the brain or central nervous system takes place before fatigue of the local musculature.
According to Noakes (2002), the brain as a central governor has a crucial function in managing the training load. An area in the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain located behind the forehead, receives lots of information from all body regions as well as vital organs, such as the heart and the brain itself. Based on this information, the central governor protects the central nervous system from overload. There might be the perceived “I-can’t-do-it-anymore” reaction, although objectively—and from a purely physiological standpoint—the performance limit has not been reached yet. The assumption is that additional performance reserves can be mobilized with a special effort of will (or, as we have seen, with clever experiments). According to Ikai and colleagues (1967), that would indicate that the mind is the performance-limiting factor.
Jones and Kilan (2002) confirm that it is time to part with previous perceptions of performance limits on a hemodynamic and metabolic basis, and instead pay more attention to the brain’s performance-limiting role. And in the course of their studies, during which the opioid system in the brain was blocked during athletic performance to manipulate emotional effects, Sgherza and colleagues (2002) concluded that performance was limited by how individual test subjects felt and not by the objective physiological findings.
Neuroscience studies have shown that the brain’s plasticity can be immediately altered with meditation and hypnosis (Halsband, 2009). So it is no surprise that exceptional athletes rely on self-hypnosis, meditation techniques, and other forms of mental training (in addition to their physical training) to purposefully impact performance and relevantly influence brain function and emotions.
Since we can purposefully influence our mind and emotions with our body, it is impossible to separate body and mind. It is impossible to avoid a holistic view. As long as this isn’t reflected in our training, we must consider our training as suboptimal at best.
So what exactly is mental training and how does it work? First of all, it’s trendy. And it is a vague expression to boot. Nowadays, when you start surfing the Internet, the key word mental training will yield countless results. The terms mental training, mental coaching, or mental trainer are not trademarked terms. It is therefore no surprise that we are presented with such a broad and colorful range of topics under the label of mental training. Everything from sport-psychology offers to leadership, management, and team training, seminars to improve your luck, health, creativity, speed-reading ability, learning and memorizing techniques, and flirting strategies, to manipulation of the opposite sex, to offers for dementia and Alzheimer’s patients, all the way to esoterically tinged quests for meaning and self-realization, and much, much more. For this reason, and in order to distinguish it from other approaches, I would like to briefly present my definition of mental training based on scientific sport psychology.
The term mental training originated in sport psychology and refers to a process used to optimize athletic movement sequences, along with physical training. In its original sense, mental training purely meant that we imagined ourselves repeating movements before our mind’s eye without actually performing them (Eberspächer, 2012). The intensive mental simulation of movements alone can have an extremely positive effect on actual real movement sequences. To do so, the following mechanism is used.
Even just intently imagining a movement results in the activation of participating nerves and muscles just like they would during an actual movement. While it is less than during a real movement, it can still be measured and is effective. Only the execution is arrested. It might sound simple, but anyone who has ever done truly intensive and systematic mental training knows that it can be quite strenuous.
We have seen this, for instance, when bobsledders prepare and optimally tune in for the high-speed run through the ice tunnel just before their race. by letting the course pass in front of their mind’s eye, extremely focused and with eyes closed, and their bodies seem to follow their thoughts through the various banked turns, possibly even swaying along. For very complex movements, such as high diving and artistic gymnastics, repeated mental imagery is considered a basis for sensible physical training, because without having a concrete mental image of a movement, its satisfactory execution will hardly be feasible. Runners can use mental training in its original sense to, for example, improve their personal running style or to improve their hurdling technique so they can be more relaxed, faster, and conserve energy. Or they want to be able to put less stress on their joints and the rest of the locomotor system to stay healthy long term. Do you have an idea—a detailed mental image—of what YOUR perfect running style would look like?
Mental training is now not just used to optimize movements, but also during athletic movement sequences in general. To get ready for an important race, you can do a mental run-through of the entire competition—or certain key situations as well as possible problems—to be better prepared. You create important mental routines and automatisms because you already know precisely—and without having to think about it for long—what you need to do in certain situations or at particular times. This mental rehearsal also helps remove some of the dread of certain difficulties. You develop problem-solving approaches in anticipation and then have them ready when needed.
This mental simulation of action sequences is also being successfully implemented outside of sports and is used systematically in, for instance, pilot training and by other professional groups, so they can confidently access complex action sequences in critical situations and under extreme stress without having to think about what to do. Or in other words: So every movement during an emergency is automatic.
We usually rehearse certain actions in our mind so we can achieve the desired result later. But what should that result look like? Are we able to experience it in front of our mind’s eye and actually feel it with our body? It is a question that is neglected or negated surprisingly often. Intensely imagining possible positive results and goals is an essential part of mental training. Attractive objectives push our behavior in the right direction and provide the necessary motivation, at least as long as they are a good fit. In difficult moments or when the legs hurt and the lungs burn, imagining yourself successfully achieving your objective can be extremely helpful and unleash the necessary strength to keep trying.
Moreover, we can use mental training not just to prepare our future actions via mental simulation, but also to better guide our experiences and behavior in the present. We are able to access mental images and perceptions in the here and now that that can help us in one way or another. We can develop routines to replace negative images and perceptions with positive, productive ones and are thereby able to exert influence over our current experiences.
We already use the option of mentally simulating difficult, important situations based on the motto “What do I do if…,” before we actually put ourselves in that situation and prove ourselves. In this respect, mental training in the narrower sense may not be new to you. However, the question remains, to what extent can you make these processes a little smarter to better achieve your goals? And as we saw in the previous chapter, we can also systematically use our mental images and perceptions to influence autonomously occurring physical processes or induce them, which, for athletes, is not insignificant.
In summary, mental training in its original and narrower sense means purposefully exerting constructive influence over our emotions, physical processes, and actions through mental imagery (i.e., a type of training inside the head). You could also call it deliberate head cinema.
To me, mental training in the broader sense means the systematic development and improvement of attitudes and psychological abilities that help us manage specific challenges, be it in sports or in our professional or personal lives. Depending on the specific challenges, these abilities and their manifestations can be very different. Someone completing a 250 km run through the desert needs slightly different mental qualities than someone who wants to be one of the world’s fastest 100 m runners.
It is basically about improving one’s self-leadership or self-regulation abilities. It is about increasing the likelihood of actually achieving the things we intend to do as planned, regardless of which specific goals we may be pursuing.
Some may wish to make their movements smoother to conserve energy. Others wish to work on their motivation; on better balancing their job, family, and running; eliminating dysfunctional behaviors; to better handle the stress of competitions; increase self-confidence; accelerate post-injury rehab; achieve a new best time; embark on a special running expedition; stay happy and healthy (or become so again); or whatever! And as varied as these athletic and private goals are, so too are the characters behind the goals and the stories behind the characters. It is much like training running. Mental training is most effective when the individual circumstances are consistently taken into account, meaning when it is a systematic developmental process geared to a specific person, their goals, and parameters.
Isolated, short stimuli—for instance a simple mental exercise—can provide extraordinarily helpful support and result in immediate improvements if you know what you are doing. At the same time, the benefits of mental training are most effective, and comparable to physical training, when the techniques are used regularly and not just read over or tried once. Because when it comes to the mind, it is about fine tuning, finding your own way, and being able to use strategies appropriately and with some level of experience. Some things we do correctly intuitively. Or we do them incorrectly. And that’s why it’s sometimes just like running: Only when I look in a mirror via a video analysis am I able to see the way I really run, independent of my own self-perception. This new information helps me to purposefully improve my running style. And it could be just as beneficial to use new information for psychological improvements such as recognizing blind spots and developmental potential that previously might not have been used in the best possible or most sensible way.
Simply put: Even in mental training, you can’t turn a hotdog into a steak!
“You can achieve anything if you just put your mind to it” is one of the many slogans on the psychology market. I can wish (and truly want) to be able to run the 100 m at a new record time of 8.9 seconds next year. But if I am realistic, it probably won’t happen. Next to a slight multi-year lack of sport-specific training, my muscles and biomechanical leverage ratios will set natural limits. Is the picture I am painting here a slight exaggeration?
There are a number of confident mental trainers that promise their potential clients pie in the sky, often with dubious results or even dangerous consequences (more on that in chapter 7.1). Admittedly, mental training can be a very valuable and powerful tool. Very often people credit their use of mental techniques for their successes or breakthroughs. Systematic and customized mental training can be extremely beneficial to performance and personal development. But …
With all the justified euphoria, we should still always be aware of the following: While mental training increases the likelihood of being able to better access your inherent abilities and potential and apply them in everyday life, which allows you to achieve your desired successes and results more reliably or calmly, it cannot perform miracles. Except may be if you gained access to the secret knowledge of the amazing Tibetan Lung-Gom-Pa runners (I’m working on it, but then it would no longer be secret knowledge.). Until then, we runners will just have to console ourselves with the fact that even mental training does in a way require great diligence, and next to working on physical fitness and general lifestyle, it is only one of several components. An often neglected and extremely powerful one (maybe even the most powerful), but nevertheless only one.
There is a famous number in expertise research, which focuses on the prerequisites under which people from very different spheres achieve top-performances: 10,000. No, that’s not quite right. There is another number or rather a rule of thumb: 10. Again and again, it is apparent that people who have acquired a certain expert status spent approximately 10,000 hours or 10 years educating themselves, practicing, and working extremely diligently (Hagemann et al., 2007). Whether they are chess grandmasters, top athletes, or professional musicians, anyone who wants to be good must put in the time. Someone who wants to get really good has to invest lots of time in developing his abilities. Aside from a few exceptions, there is generally no shortcut to success.
But what if you already reached a certain level, and still have not achieved the desired success? What if you technically could achieve certain things but just can’t get it done? Let’s assume that, based on his training results and performance diagnostics, a really good runner on a regular basis doesn’t perform as well as he should at competitive races. Would more or less intense physical training make sense here? Or should the athlete try more frequent and intensive mental imaging of his movements and runs? More physical training would most likely not yield the desired results and may even have the opposite effect: over-training or burnout.
And instead of training physical or mental abilities, it can of course also be advisable to resort to coaching for solutions to certain, often unconscious blocks, motivational lows, and so on. Valuable positive changes can certainly happen here within a very short period of time as long as you can find the right parameters. Sometimes these positive changes are downright dramatic, and sometimes they are rather small and at first glance not spectacular, but they are very significant and powerful because they represent an initial spark followed by a considerable, long-term positive domino effect. And sometimes all we need is a helpful suggestion to gain a new, different perspective on things.
Body and mind are two sides of the same coin and are inextricably linked. Anyone who trains one-sidedly by focusing only on the body misses out on a great opportunity. There is lots of evidence—some of it astounding—of the impact of the mind or mental techniques on physical processes, and using them can be very advantageous. Many yet unforeseen, untapped opportunities lurk here. That means people who want cutting-edge and integrated training also invest time into training the brain in addition to the body. After all, it’s an important part of the body. Integrating mental training into your everyday life improves the optimal interplay between body and mind or the general ability of confident self-leadership. This in turn increases the likelihood of achieving desired goals faster and easier, or sometimes just achieving them at all.
The following chapters will show how you can, by using tried and proven mental strategies, make your training more cutting edge, more integrated, and thus more effective, or make the athletic aspects of your life smoother and more satisfying over all.
You may have the occasional “aha!” moment or you might achieve astonishing results. Or maybe it will be the small, quiet, subtle changes and shifts that will create a valuable long-term effect for you, and here and there facilitate constant positive changes. Just pay attention to what happens.
