Chapter 7 - Mental Preparation

8/13/2019 Chapter 7 - Mental Preparation

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MentalPreparationIn addition to the literature that exists on the physiological side of training,there is also a literature on the mental side. In this section, we compare it to themental practices that Greg Barton employs.In a very general sense, the literature on mental training is of two types. First,there are techniques for helping the athlete concentrate. These usually focus onimproving the athlete's training during the year leading up to the big race, butthey come into play during the race as well. Secondly, there are techniques forrelaxing the athletesohe is able to perform up to his level of ability. If he is ableto relax in the tense situation, the argument goes, nervousness or even paniccannot break his concentration and deflect him from his pre-planned race strat-egy. The relaxation techniques are most useful on race day itself, but they alsohave application during the training year.Breaking the two categories down further, we have the following four areas:

.Improving self-image. The premise here is that if you want tochange human behavior, the first thing you have to do is change theperson's self-image.Inthis case, the athlete s convinced he is capableof an outstanding athletic performance. Self-image is usually con-trolled by the self-conscious, so a lot of se~f- age raining is aimedat ensuring that subconscious motives are helping, rather thanhindering, the athlete.

Setting goals. The literature on this usually focuses on helpingpeople set ambitious long-term goals and then set realistic short-tenn ones for reaching them, as well as generating the emotionalcommitment necessary for following through with the plan..Improving concentration. Mental rehearsal is one of the men-tioned techniques in this category. In essence, it is the technique ofthinking through in elaborate detail what you are about to do-a big


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The Barton M oldrace or even a training session- sothat you are fully prepared to doyour best in it. The idea is that the subconscious mind cannot tell thedifference between an actual experience and one that is vividlyimagined; that is if you are able to think in great detail about whatthe race will be like -how hard it will be at the end what the watertemperature is like what the smells are what the crowd is doinghow well you are pacing yourself t will be exactly the same asactually doing it and you will therefore be able to familiarizeyourself with it even without doing it.

Controlling anxiety Hypnosis autogenic raining transcendentalmeditation the idea of competing against yourself and not othersand listening to relaxation tapes are all examples of ways to controlanxiety.We will s how Barton has come to use some of these principles through yearsof experience.

Barton s M ental ApproachWhile he does not have an elaborate system of mental training Barton doesadvocate the following:1 Have a precise reason for whatever it is you are doingI think i t helps i you know why you're doing something, rather than justhaving a coach give you a program and you follozu it b lindly. I think i t helpsi you can actually visualize yourselfgaining benefit from a workout thatyou are doing. For example, if youare doing a weight workout, you can say,OX., this is making mestrongerso Ican pull harderon the paddleso cango faster.'' Ithin ka lot of it ssubconscious; qyo u really belieue in what youare doing, it's a lot more effective than just doing i t because someone'stelling you to do it. There's more of a purpose. It's sort of a philosophicalthing: Whyam I doing this? f you can answer that, it's easier to motivateyourself to go out there and do the workout than ifyou are doing it justbecause someone tells you to. At times, even ifyour assumption is wrong,it's better than having no assumption at all. If somebody honestly believesthat doing a lot of 25 metersprints will improvehis aerobic base,it probablywill, although he might do v n better doing some longer pieces. A t least hehas a purpose for doing it.

But Barton also means having a good reason for doing competitive kayakingat all: For me, it is a personal challenge just to see whether I can really go fastenough to win the WorU Championships,or to breaka certain time. T o me,that's a thrill in itself- just seaeerngow fast I can go, whether I can do itor not. But there are other aspects as well. I do enjoy paddling, but not u ryday. Sometimes thedrudgery o fthe workouts gets pretty boring. But I likebeing healthy and being i n good shape and I enjoy a lot of the people I meetat the competitions. But I'd say those are the side benefits. The main reasonI do the sport is just the thrill of seeing how well I can peor m.


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The Barton Mold2 Use mental rehearsal before training sessions

f you think about what you aregoing to do in a workout before you get outthere, it's much easier to concentrate when you get there because you'vealready thought it through. For example, i I've been having problems w ithgetting m y blade buried at the start of the stroke, I just think about how it'sgoing to eel, v n when m not on the water, like when I'm waiting for thebus or something. Or i you think about a workout you aregoing to do andhow you should pace the pieces, how it's going to eel at the 250 meter mark,then when you get out there it's easier to concentrate because you have agame plan.

3 Trainwith other people selectivelyThere are certain times when Iprefer to train aloneand others when preferto train with groups ofpeople. T h yboth have benefits. Training with othersmakes it easy to motivate yourself. hen you know someone else isgoing tobe at the workout at 5:30 a.m., you're motivated to get down there andpractice. And once you get on the water, i you'vegot three other boats thatare your speed, then you see the results of your efforts a lot more clearly. fyou're out there hanging v n with somebody and then you start pullingharder on each s troke, you can see that you're moving ahead of him. It's a lotmore motivating to see that when you workhard, you'reahead of thoseguysand when you slack off, th q're ahead of you. Also, maybe you can learnsomething by watching the others. Perhaps somebody has a certain way ofstarting and always has good starts in a race. You can pick up somethingthere.But there are disadvantages of training with others. The main one is gettingcaught up in simply t y i n g to beat the others rather than actually concen-trating on the specific purpose of the workout. For example, i you'reworking on technique, a lot of times you want to hold back a little insteadofgoing berserk out there. Yo u want to think O.K.,I want to reach way outand have a straight a m t the catch. But as soon as somebody creeps upbeside you, you throw all that out the window and do whatever you have todo to win. Another thing Fve seen is that people start playing little mindgames in the workouts. Some people know that once they gef ahead of thisother person, they can break that person's will and the other person will backoff. Thegoal of the workout becomes togetahead in the irst 15strokes of eachpiece, and whoever is behind gives up and a lows the person who is ahead tojust w i s e or the rest of the piece. But if you're on your own you canconcentratemore on pacing out the workout the way it should bedone, usinga good, hard g o r t or the entire piece and not just getting ahead and sittingon it.

The following three are his mental approaches to big races1 Use familiar routines at race sites

If you can use the same patterns on race day that you have developed intraining, I think this helps to calm nerves a lot. Even though you are in a


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The Barton Moldstrange location and there are a lot of strange people and the competition iscoming up, if you have a familiar warm-up rou tine,something you ve doneover and over again in the past, I think it helps you to just think about fhetask at hand: you re going out there and you re going to race hard, andyou regoing topaceit out the way you thought about in training rather thanworrying about all those other distractions.

2 Be by yourself just before the raceIt works best for me to go off somewhere and do some stretching and laydown. I ve never practiced anything like transcendental meditation or yoga,but I think what I do is similar to what people do when th ey meditate, likegetting relaxed and doing some deep breathing, sort of concentrating onyour breathing, in and out,so that you re tun ing in to your body, rather thanworrying about all these outside distractions you have. And then I thinkabout what Pm going to do in the race, how the s tart sgo ing to be, what I mgoing to do on the irst few strokes,and what I intend to do in the middle ofthe race, how it s going to eel and what position Pll be in. nd then whatthe inish will be like. Will I ki k at the finish or am Igo ing to t to go outhard i n the early middle and just hang on at the end?

3 Stick to the race planWhenI m at the start, I tr y to think about doing m y own best time , ratherthan w oryin g about some other person two lanes over who has a fast start,or a fast finish. You do have to be aware of what they can do and have a raceplan which takes that into consideration, but Ith inkyou need tostick toyou rrace plan and not change it because somebody jumped out a boat length atthe start and then you give up, or decide you have to make it up right awayrather than realizing you haveanofher800 meters to do it. Ifyo u havea raceplan of where you replanning togain and where you re reallygoing topourit on, you re better off sticking to that rather than letting somebody elsedicta te your race. Dictate your ow race.

Chapter 7 - Mental Preparation

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