How to Train Your Mind to Think Like an Athlete
(Even if You Aren’t One)
Written by Gidon Gabbay 

Ever wonder what makes high-performance athletes winners? Aside from their astounding physical prowess, it’s the top-level athletes’ mental muscles--and how they flex them--that really sets them apart from everyday athletes. Years of research and hundreds of studies have shown just how important psychological preparation is to optimum performance. So are you psychologically prepared to give your all in the gym or in your sport of choice? Assuming that you’re human and are not always “in the mood” to give it your all, you might be able to use a short lesson in “mental management”.

They Practice Focused Attention

Numerous studies over the years have confirmed that successful athletes are better able than the rest of us to deal with distractions. While most of us spend a lot of time worrying about things we can't control, successful athletes pay attention to the things that are within their control. You can learn to do that, too. Just like you can train your body to run for longer distances or lift increasingly heavier weights, you can learn to increase your ability to focus.

Control Distractions

You can control distractions by making a quick checklist of everything that might derail you from accomplishing your goal. Eliminate the things you can't control, like the weather, and focus on those you can, like having the proper shoes or equipment for your activity. Then concentrate on the being in the moment, because every effort you make now to commit to your workout will improve your success.

Increase Your Body Awareness

Pay close attention to your body and how it feels during your workouts. Do a body scan while working out and relax your tight muscles frequently. Particularly make sure that your training form is correct. Ask yourself questions like “Are my shoulders and neck relaxed? How does this pace feel? How much energy is left in my legs?” 

If, during your workout, you have “good pain” that is not damaging your body, just shift attention to your breathing or cadence of movement, and let the discomfort fade into the background. You can also use the pain as feedback. Register it not as pain but as effort level. Say: “Now I know exactly how hard I’m working. I know how this pace feels. My body is doing what it should be doing.”

They Visualize Their Successes

Visualizations are also referred to as guided imagery, or the process of creating a scene in your mind of what you want to happen. Athletes will create images, like pictures or movies that create a desired outcome. While imagining these scenarios, the athlete actually imagines every visual detail and the way it actually feels to perform just the way she wants. She can call up these images over and over, enhancing her skill through rehearsal, similar to physical practice. With mental rehearsal, minds and bodies become trained to actually perform the skill imagined. 

Not only can visualizations help improve your skill, but new research is suggesting that visualization can actually strengthen muscles. A recent study reported that just thinking about exercise helped maintain muscle strength in a group of subjects. Sounds unbelievable, but consider that measurements of the brain activity during visualization sessions suggest that these strength gains were due to improvements in the brain's ability to signal muscle activity.  

Take some time before your workout or your game to visualize yourself going through the motions feeling energized and strong. Imagine yourself in all your sweating, stinky glory as you push yourself past your comfort zone and do one more rep, or one more lap around the track. Then while you’re training, visualize the muscles that are working (it may help you to get acquainted with some basic human anatomy, first) and feel them as they contract and release. I know, it sounds like a weird thing to do, but try it a few times and you’ll start to realize you can isolate muscles better and push them harder because you’re actually focusing on them.

They Talk to Themselves—A Lot

Believe it or not, high-performance athletes need to give themselves a pep talk every now and again. In fact, the more positive the self-talk, the easier it is for them to excel. But it’s not only the positive things they tell themselves, like “I’m going to with this” or “I’m a competent person”—it’s the fact that they actually believe what they tell themselves. 

So make positive self-statements continually, but more importantly, believe them.  Negative thinking is quite common; everyone has an inner critic. Become aware of these thoughts early on. Don’t fight with them; simply acknowledge their presence, and then substitute a positive affirmation. (e.g., when you’re thinking: “This hurts too much, I want to lie down and die”; say to yourself: “This feeling is connected with doing my absolute best”).

They Know How to Relax

Relaxation is especially important to hard-core athletes when even the slightest deviation from the norm can throw off their performance. The muscle tension that is caused by stress before a competition can detract from their performance. 

Whether it is the stress of a competition, or just daily life stresses, we could all use relaxation time. But how does a busy person like you relax? Well, first you could start by practicing being in the present moment. Remind yourself to stay in the here and now. Let past and future events fade into the background. Whatever the task you may be doing, take a single minute and feel what it feels like to be in that moment. Without letting any other thoughts come to mind, focus on being your ultimate goal. Picture what it would be like and feel what it would feel like. It’s not an easy thing to do, but with practice you’ll find yourself doing it more often, and with greater success. 

Conscious breathing is another technique that can help you relax, and you don’t have to take time out from your day to do it. If you’re sitting in a traffic jam on your way home from work, or standing in a line-up at the bank, you can simply bring your attention to the sensation of the breath as it enters and leaves your nostrils. Keep your awareness on the duration of each breath, and when the mind wanders from the breath, just notice that and bring your attention back to the sensations of the breath. Try not to control your breath or visualize it; simply note the sensation just as you feel it.  

Okay, so most of us won’t ever become top-notch athletes, even after having read this article. But that shouldn’t stop you from trying to be good at what you do. Granted, training your mind takes as much discipline as training your body (sometimes more), but as with any big task, take your time with it. Keep trying and eventually you’ll get better at it. Take it from a non-Olympic athlete who has tried it himself—this stuff does work.

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train your mind to train your body tm.

G Force Home Training Inc.
Train Your Mind To Train Your Body,
Gidon Gabbay-G-Force Home Training
email: fitness@gforcetraining.com
website: www.gforcetraining.com