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 Racing is very much about being able to get in control and stay in control. Your ability to deliver consistent technical and physical performances will be influenced greatly by your ability to develop consistent psychological routines prior to racing. Being able to take control of your thinking, as well as your physical actions is a key step to take to help you get closer to fulfilling potential. There is very little point trying to explain away differences in your performances if you have not established a very consistent pre-race build up, mentally. If you haven’t done this, any inconsistencies in racing might be down to feeling/thinking differently prior to getting on the start line – so take control of the pre-race period to give you the confidence that when you review a race, you can do so in the knowledge that you had given yourself the best chance of success by getting into the right frame of mind for you.
Reminders.You are looking to maximise Confidence, be fully in Control and very Consistent through the pre-race routine that you put in place. It’s very obvious that with Consistent preparation you’ll get Consistent performance. Unsurprisingly, Inconsistent preparation will lead to inconsistent performance. Imagine that your performances only lasted 10 seconds – you’d make absolutely sure then that you did everything in the lead up to that 10 seconds to give yourself the best chance of producing a great performance time and time again. Therefore, decide when you want the race to begin. In your head, the race can begin at any point, and this should be when you decide that preparation has begun. This might be 20 minutes, 2 hours or 2 Days before racing – there’s no single right answer for everyone, just your right answer for you. If you take control and stay in control from well before the started says ‘GO’, you’ll spread the pressure of performing over the full preparation period – not all of the pressure gets focused just onto the race itself. The better you get at this, the more you’ll be able to build up to racing, looking forward to it, as opposed to counting down to the inevitable scary start! The more familiar you can make your routine, the better. If you have a consistent way of doing things, you can put this into practice wherever you race – so different courses or opposition make no difference to your ability to prepare effectively. Let everything else around you change… you’ll be being consistent in what you think, feel and do! Control thoughts, feelings and actions. Therefore, in advance, not only decide what you want to do in terms of warm-up, decide what you need to say to yourself, remind yourself of, or focus on in order to give you the right mind-set in the build up to the race. If you can make sure you are the best person around at delivering a consistent pre-race routine, then you have given yourself a competitive advantage even before the racing has started. Once you decide on a routine, you should practise it and make sure it works for you. Use training pieces or erg tests to rehearse the preparation as well as the performance! Once the racing is over, one of the most important things to do is review things properly. Make sure you look back at your preparation as well as the race performance. - How well did I race?
- How well did I prepare to race?
- How good is my pre-race routine now? Does it deliver me consistently to the start line?
- How good am I at controlling my thoughts, feelings and actions, so I know I’m doing, thinking and feeling the right things that put me in control and give me the best possible chance of racing to my potential?
Editorial by Chris Shambrook |
