Are You Under Performing?

Adventure racing is a physically demanding sport; no one would deny that. And as a result, people rightly, spend a large amount of their time training physically to prepare themselves for the challenges of competition. However, consider this, how often have you heard yourself, or others, talking about how mentally demanding the event, or parts of it were? How many times have you had to overcome mental barriers? What is your motivation like? Your determination? Your ability to deal with setbacks? How do you perform when the pressure is on? What levels of commitment and self-belief do you possess? Mental toughness is with out doubt a fundamental component to successful adventure racing. Now ask yourself this...how much time do you spend preparing yourself mentally?

Peak Performance = Physical Training + Technical Training x Mental Training

Many people are under performing because they are training almost entirely physically, and ignoring the fact that as humans our performances are influenced by our thoughts and emotions. There is actually no such thing as a purely physical performance, because every action, no matter how small, starts first in the mind.

Did You Believe In Father Christmas?

The barriers to success are most frequently in the mind. As humans we are constantly setting limitations to our performance, often based on our beliefs. How many of you, when you were younger, believed in Father Christmas? Maybe you believed so much, that you heard the bells on his sleigh, maybe even saw him, or at the very least , wrote to him. This is the power of belief. Mental training allows you to overcome limiting beliefs, and importantly to build powerful, positive beliefs.

If you want to achieve your true potential - not your perceived potential - then mental and emotional skills training is the fastest and most effective way to do so. After all, there is a LIMIT as to how much physical training can be undertaken, no matter how fit, healthy and motivated you are.

Imagine how well you would perform if you could have the levels of motivation, confidence, self-belief, determination and persistence that you wanted. How would it feel to know that you had a positive mental attitude, and that you could perform consistently under pressure? What most people don’t realise is that mental skills are not bound by genetics - they are learnable, just like physical skills. You can train yourself to develop the mental skills that you want, and in doing so, you can make significant improvements to your race performances.

Are You Planning For Success, Or Leaving It To Chance?

Have you ever had one of those races when everything went well? Where it almost felt effortless. Where you just seemed to keep going, and things seemed to come quite naturally and easily to you. It’s great when that happens isn’t it? You were in what is often referred to as ‘the zone’, or in flow, a peak performance state, where the subconscious mind takes over, and you don’t have to consciously think about what you are doing, it just seems to happen. How often does this occur for you? If you are honest, it is probably down to chance, everything just seemed to click INTO place. Mental training can help to take the chance out of these peak performance experiences.