Comments that hurt your triathlon performance

An athlete recently asked me how to get a comment someone has made to you out of your head so that you can refocus on racing.

That is a great question from the point of view of both you and the person who distracted you.

The first thing you do is realize that the person who made the comment knew what they were doing, either consciously or subconsciously. In North America we are a very competitive lot and we do a lot of things to mess others up. Now this person who did this would likely be appalled if you accused them of throwing you off your game. It is so automatic that we can't help it sometimes. So, for starters, if the person who made the comment is hearing this, or you are someone who is prone to giving advice because you think it is helpful, don't, because this type of advice or comment isn't helpful.

For you the triathlete, since you'll never muzzle all the comments, you have to learn how to deal with them. Here are three suggestions:

1) See if you can get away for 30 minutes before your round. I call it the 30-Minute rule and it works to avoid most of the chatter. I teach various strategies you can do in this period of time - but just getting away helps. At the beginning of races this may not be possible, so certainly avoid talking to others during that time.

2) After every conversation, before you head off to do your 30 minutes of prep, take a mental shower. I imagine reaching up to pull the chain and all this imaginary water pours down and cleanses me. I've taught this to medical practitioners and other professionals who need to stay unaffected by some seriously sick people (and I'm not suggesting the person who made the comment to you was sick).

3) Replay the comment in your head and then "play" it backward in a way where you imagine it all garbled up. Play it forward, then backward again. Do this several times faster and faster. This is a bit like running a nail across an old vinyl LP and after a while you'll make no sense of it. You may even forget the original troublesome comment.

So give it a tri. Have fun with these strategies and see which one works best for you. And if you'd like to make people like this disappear, not like Tony Soprano does, but with the strategies as a part of my program, give me a call.

Three Steps to Sport Cross-Training Results

How elite athletes target high performance physiology from the get-go

Have you ever started off your season where running is just plain not fun and warming up takes forever? Or perhaps this sounds like all of your training runs.  If so, you’ll need to speed up the warming-up process, so you can step in where you left off in your last run, relaxed and in the Zone—whether it was last week or last year—and avoid the pain and potential of injury.

I used to run as a means to cross train for karate.  I’ll be honest.  As a martial artist I disliked running, but it gave me the fitness and stamina advantage I needed to stay at the top of my game.  So, when I stopped competing in karate, I stopped running and stopped the ‘torture’, as there now seemed no good reason to continue.   All too soon I could feel my fitness slipping away and the weight piling on. 

So I started to run again and it was the same old, same old.  In virtually every run I suffered through 20 minutes of mental anguish until I found a reasonable groove for about the same amount of time.  But the last 100 meters was pure joy—light, gazelle-like, powerful, adrenalized.  I loved it—but that was only a few seconds of my run.  So here are the three steps I took to resolve the problem:

1)      Divide and conquer:  This part is easy and although you can divide your run into a myriad of parts, keep it to three.   The three parts can be of varying lengths and times.   My first part was about 20 to 25 minutes, my second about 10 minutes and my third a few seconds.   

2)      Analyze each phase:  In the SportExcel system, I teach athletes to go to the outcome first.  In other words, you have to know what you want.  For example, I want my Ironman triathletes to be able to see themselves crossing the finish line in the Zone and full of spirit.   So in this step, I needed to find examples of the kind of physiology I wanted for my whole run.  So I analyzed all three parts of my run, found the obvious best part (the end) and noted my physiology. (If you have no examples of great physiology, you’ll have to call me for another exercise).  In my last few seconds I noted how my hips were moving...my shoulders…my core.  How did my arms move?  What was my breathing like? How did I feel?  I wrote down and itemized all noticeable components I remembered about my physiology at this point.   

3)      Apply the findings:  Once I had noted my physiological attributes, and literally had goose bumps via the memory, I applied these attributes to my next run, right from the get go—the rolling shoulders and extended hips, right down to the softness of my facial features, and the peripheral gaze of my eyes.  And it was amazing.  I got into the Zone in less than five minutes, not the usual 20.  By changing only my physiology, I was able to trigger my high performance  form in all parts of my run.  And the best part?  If ever my run started to flag, simply triggering one of the attributes would return me to the Zone.

So, before your next run, follow the three steps and divide, analyze and transform.   Whatever you find in your physiology, it holds the key to making your whole run efficient, enjoyable and sustainable.

Give it a try, and if you want to learn more strategies, call us—877-967-5747.  www.sportexcel.ca

Triathlete Training Tip: You have to love training

Bob Palmer answers a question from a triathlete about how we can overcome the negativity we feel toward a sports discipline that we are struggling with.

High performance training for triathletes and ironman competitors

SportExcel's one-on-one training kickstarts your training with a high performance system used by athletes and coaches around the world.  Contact us to set up a free, no obligation training session to introduce you to our non-psychology program.

Skype:   sportexcel
Email:    bpalmer@sportexcel.ca
Toll-free North America: 1.877.967.5747
Website: www.sportexcel.ca

High Performance Trainer Bob Palmer answers a triathlete's question: How can I train when I don't feel motivated to do anything?

Interested in one-on-one training via Skype to get your sport to the next level?  Call Bob:

Toll-free North America: 1.877.967.5747
International: 1.705.720.2291
Skype: sportexcel
Email: bpalmer@sportexcel.ca
Website: http://www.sportexcel.ca

Cool Down / Stretching Tip for Triathletes

Julie Anderson, Team Manager for Mercury Rising Triathlon is our guest blogger this week.  She shares her video training tip for cooling down and stretching after a run.

About our Guest Blogger:

Julie Anderson is the Team Manager for Mercury Rising Triathlon (www.mercuryrisingtriathloncom). She is also a successful age group triathlete and dedicated student of the sport. Julie writes extensively on her blog (www.runningwithdoggies.blogspot.com). 

She lives in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, Canada with her partner Mike and cats Mandalay and Peanut.

 

About Mercury Rising Triathlon:

Mercury Rising is a triathlon team based in Western Canada comprised of athletes from all over Canada and the United States.  Mercury Rising is first and foremost about the athletes, providing coaching, training camps and an environment where people can come together and share their passion for the sport of triathlon.  Check out Mercury Rising's Blog for triathletes.

Flying in the Zone: How athletes can prevent motion sickness

Many athletes need to do a lot of air travel to get to their next game or competition. They can't afford to have motion sickness when flying because they have to be ready to compete within a short period of time. Bob shares a tip for athletes on how to make yourself comfortable on flights and ready for competition without resorting to medication.

SportExcel Tip - Balance Training

Core stability is a must in every sport. Some sports need cross training to develop this kind of stability and balance cushions offer an easy way to achieve it, especially after an injury. Bob Palmer offers this tip as to how to use them.

SportExcel Training Tip: Away Game Performance

Own the Coaching Zone: Carrying the team with passion

A university coach recently described to me how a parent had invited a mental peak performance instructor to work with four select athletes.  The coach was concerned that the seminar had been closed to the majority of the team, and wondered what impact this would have on the team.

Based on what he described, I told him that any program directed solely at young athletes would have a marginal impact.  Most of the information would be lost in about 48 hours, simply because the most important component of education was missing for the athletes—the coaches.

Only working with the young athletes is generally ineffective.  In my nearly 20 years of experience in this field, I’ve been frustrated by this time and again.  The reason is twofold:

1)      Coaches need to reinforce the concepts and strategies that are being taught, and,
2)      Coaches need to have their own set of leadership strategies that will develop their coaching skill-set and set the tone (of the Zone.)

Elite athletes need coaches to be working on the same page as they are.  For example, I teach athletes very effective ways of visualizing, and it is important for the coach to reinforce it.  I also teach athletes how to overcome the effects of negative people, but experience tells me that immature athletes find it very difficult to overcome a negative coach.  So, whether we are speaking of game skills or mental skills, coaches are crucial in the learning process.  They need to own the coaching Zone so that they can emotionally carry the team.

Whether you are a coach, team leader, trainer, manager or water boy, high performance strategies can play a huge role in keeping your team in the Zone.  Even parents have been known to sit in on my high performance training sessions, as initially encouraged by an Olympic Development Team Coach in Pennsylvania.

As a high performance trainer, once I get an athlete to buy into the high performance program, their change in performance is usually amazing.  And when I get the coach to buy in, the end result is pure magic.  Working with only the athlete is akin to building a structure without a foundation. By including the coach—and giving them specific strategies—I can develop an assistant who will reinforce the strategies for me when my workshop is over.

So, if you are a parent or coach seeking a high performance trainer, it is a good policy to ask:  Who will you include in the workshop?  And what strategies will we be learning to support our young athletes?  Because we want to own the Zone, too!

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Website: www.sportexcel.ca

SportExcel High Performance

SportExcel to deliver high performance strategies to Edmonton’s Olympians and elite athletes

High Performance has changed and nobody told us. Trainer Bob Palmer of SportExcel brings high performance in sport into the 21st century with an innovative and successful systems-based approach. Athletes use it to get themselves in the Zone consistently. Coaches use it for motivational leadership.

Many teams these days are hiring high performance trainers to help them get their players to be consistent, from the beginning of the game to the end. But it is a hard role to play. “Athletes have very little patience with you,” says Bob Palmer, “If what you deliver is superficial, they refuse to buy in. And they need to get results “yesterday,” or your credibility is on the line.”


On January 29 and 30, 2011, Bob brings his energizing style of high performance to Olympic athletes and Olympic hopefuls in Edmonton. His approach is quite different from traditional sports psychology. As a matter of fact, it is not sports psychology at all, but rather an education-based system. It is made up of powerful strategies that get results very quickly.


“Bob has a successful record of working with athletes, as his approach is easy to understand and work into one’s games,” says Wynn Payne, a prone rifle shooter from Edmonton who recently attended the Commonwealth Games. “Bob has worked with several World Cup winners and Olympic medalists and is well-known in high performance circles.”


Whereas most other approaches concentrate solely on the athlete, teams now have the option to use a “whole team” approach. With this, athletes no longer operate in isolation. Athletes, coaches, trainers and even the waterboy learn strategies to create a team synergy, game in and game out. “Many problems simply disappear when you are in the Zone,” says Jason Caswell, an Edmonton resident and two-time Olympian, who has worked with Bob and won a silver medal in Delhi. “He teaches amazing strategies that fix virtually any problem. If you’re not fast enough? He has a fix. Not confident? He has a fix. Too easily intimidated? He has a fix.”


With Bob’s SportExcel system, athletes can learn to excel without sharing or opening up or being emotional—all things that many athletes find uncomfortable. He teaches strategies like a hockey coach would teach a player to shoot the puck better or a basketball coach would teach a layup. With his system, high performance is a skill, easy to learn and easy to apply.


In the last summer and winter Olympics, Bob’s athletes won gold (skeet shooting) and silver (snowboarding) and at the recent Commonwealth Games, four of his athletes attended and all four medaled. “Bob’s approach is judged on his record,” says Wynn Payne. “And that is why we are bringing him here on January 29 and 30.”


Contact Information: For more information or to register for this limited seating workshop, please contact Wynn Payne at 780-462-1029 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 780-462-1029 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or w_payne@telusplanet.net.

Beyond Winning - Setting outcomes for Competition

Read our latest article on 2011 Goals and Outcomes for your sport:
Beyond Winning:  http://hubpages.com/t/1d3b23

People are the Problem

Check out our latest article on peak performance strategies for staying in the Zone.
http://hubpages.com/hub/People-are-the-Problem

Own the Zone - Own the Game

If I Stay in the Zone my Child / Athlete Will

Check out our latest article on how to stay in the zone with your child / athlete posted on Hub Pages: http://hubpages.com/t/16d08a

Knowing the Zone

As a high performance specialist, getting athletes into the Zone is as exhilarating for me as it is for them. That’s because, as a trainer, I have to be in the Zone in order to do it, and it FEELS good. The transition in athletes is amazing and easy for me to see, but they have to feel it.  Recently, after only one training session, a figure skater and her mother returned for a second visit with huge smiles on their faces. Had she won a national championship? No. But, her wide smile and great posture would be her way of carrying herself from now on, on and off the ice. I could see the change the instant she walked through the door into my office. But could she FEEL it?



Some years ago, an athlete’s mother sent me some photos she had taken of her son between skeet shooting stations at the USA Shooting Fall Selection Match. When I’d first met this young man, he had had little confidence and would rarely look at me as we spoke. The picture told a different story. It was taken en route to his winning a berth on the National Development Team. I could see the change in him, but could he FEEL it?

 

After the GM of a baseball team grew tired of watching his team melt in tight situations, he gave me a call. His skillful and motivated athletes, who were young off-season college players, lacked the maturity and mental toughness of ex-major leaguers they were playing against. They were easily intimidated and looked pitiful whenever they fell behind in a game. In only a couple of workshops, with new confidence fueled by the Zone, they turned an average season into a championship one. I could see the difference, but could they FEEL it?


 

Being in the Zone is an incredible, on-going, personal, exhilarating experience. It is an emotional and empowering state of mind that is as relevant to a sporting career as it is to a job in medicine. To outsiders you display an incredible sense of confidence. Personally, you just know that you are going to do well. You FEEL it.  Read more  

Team Chemistry Gone Mutant

Great teamwork is team chemistry in action and you need that kind of chemistry to build a successful team. Montreal is a fabulous example of team chemistry gone mutant. Nowhere in the NHL manual of proper playoff protocol were the Canadiens expected to beat two champions. They were supposed to be fodder for the Capitals, and since that was a fluke, fodder for the Penguins.

The trouble with team chemistry is that it keeps getting better. In the biology of the brain the process is called myelination, where our brains build insulated pathways that improve brain performance. Practice your slapshot over and over and it gets faster. Play game after game at a competitive level and your comfort in critical game situations becomes consistent. Play do-or-die playoff hockey game after game and a certain comfort takes over. Montreal is growing myelin aimed at playoff peak performance and they are having fun doing it.

Whatever Montreal pulls off in the next series, they should be a model for every minor and professional hockey team of how to MENTALLY play (and coach.) They have implemented strategies that any team can learn and apply. And they are certainly a different team now, than the one that entered the playoffs.

Call it team chemistry or myelination, the next team they face should be worried.

Karate Kids Ban Bullies

With the remake of the Karate Kid movie about to be released, martial arts clubs are jumping on the bandwagon by touting the martial arts as a cure for bullying. And they should, because, by and large, children and adults benefit immensely from the self-confidence and self-esteem they get from the martial arts. However, as a karate instructor, I find that bullying usually stops before my students have the skill-set to adequately defend themselves. So what is going on?




Karate kids begin to transform, walking tall and displaying that confidence outwardly in posture. Their tone of voice grows commanding and their awareness of their surroundings becomes acute, and they hold their heads high. As well, most clubs have forms or patterns where students perform in front of their peers and gain confidence. And they have freestyle, point sparring where they learn to face an opponent confidently.



Once “karate kids” learn the posture of self-esteem and confidence, bullies often leave them alone. Bullies make that judgment in a split second by how one walks and talks. However, not all kids who are bullied have the time to take a martial art, especially if they are involved in highly competitive sports on club or travelling teams. But it is very easy for them to get the benefit of self-esteem and confidence, without having to pretend to be brave and “put on a happy face.”



Athletes in all sports can learn that same kind of posture in two ways:



1) By modeling or copying the posture of pros or Olympians in their sport or
2) By perceiving themselves as powerful in the face of the bully. It generally takes me two to three hours to help an athlete to stand up to a bully, and I’m talking only mental strategies here, not karate ones. Some examples are:



• The baseball batter facing down the imposing pitcher (or vise visa).
• The hockey player learning to keep his or her head up.
• The football quarterback calmly making the play in the face of a big defensive line.
• The coach dealing with aggressive parents.
• The athlete dealing with an aggressive coach.                                                                                                                


As a karate instructor, judging from the pleasure I get from it, the sport is not to be missed. But if your child’s time is committed, the projection of confidence can be applied to any sport, even potentially hard hitting ones like football and hockey. As for the Karate Kid, it is not really karate, but I’ll enjoy it anyways.

Zone Signal

When I watch sports, one look at the posture of the players on the bench often tells me whether they are winning—upright posture—or losing—slumped posture. The Game runs their lives instead of the players running The Game. The Game is like a two-year old, throwing tantrums one minute and smiling at you the next. So, how come athletes let this happen? Because they think it is normal.

Well it isn’t normal and we need to control the game by controlling ourselves. We all have clear signals that tell us that we are in the Zone or not. And we can learn these signals and use them to guide us and prevent The Game from taking over.


Try this exercise: Imagine yourself at a busy intersection. The traffic light is red. GO THROUGH! If you are like most people, you feel a sensation that says, “DANGER, STOP, LOOK OUT!” An internal “gut” reaction tells you that it is unsafe. We all get this same kind of feeling in competition. It represents weakness, lack of skill, frustrated thinking, etc., and the game will run us unless we fix it.


Put yourself back at the traffic light. Now it turns green. GO THROUGH! You probably feel an entirely different sensation, one that says, “THIS IS OKAY.” You relax and feel at ease. This is our Zone feeling and it represents strength, skillfulness and clarity of thinking. We need this feeling at the start of our game—all game—and we need to get it back when we lose it, no matter what the score.


I worked with a high school volleyball team, and shortly after our workshop an opposing coach videotaped them in a tournament. The reason—she could not tell by their behavior whether they had lost or won a point. She wanted to use them as an example for her team as to how to stay in the Zone throughout the game—every volley.


Many athletes and teams expect that they can get this kind of Zone by building a winning score or healthy lead. Wrong. If you wait for it to happen, The Game will run you. And when it does, look out, it’ll be some kind of tantrum. Instead, learn your Zone signal, and you’ll be the one in charge.

Psychologists We're Not

An Educational Approach to the Mental Game

So what’s up with SportExcel? Simply this – our approach is educational not psychological. We teach sport strategies, just like adding and subtracting are school strategies. We teach strategies that are simple to learn, fun to use and results-oriented. With a strategies approach, change occurs quickly—days versus months or even years. More importantly, they are at an athlete’s fingertips 24/7, especially in the heat of the game.


Imagine your coach coming over to you after a really embarrassing mistake and saying, “You need to be smarter out there.” You’d probably feel even worse. But, what if you could fix the problem in less than the time it took for your coach to walk over to you? Would that be cool or what? What if you could use a strategy to copy a pro’s finesse or bring a person who just intimidated you down to size in your mind? And what if you could do this instantly as well? You would get back in the game pretty quick, wouldn’t you?


The SportExcel approach teaches athletes and coaches these kinds of strategies. If you can’t get up for your game—fix it. If you are frustrated—fix it. If you have serious butterflies—fix it. If an opponent’s goaltender stymies you—figure him or her out.


Equipped with strategies, you’ll become more independent and coachable. You’ll know from experience that every mistake makes you stronger, because you now have the tools to fix virtually any mistake. Imagine having that kind of power. You’ll learn to feel fantastic in your game, in school and in life.


The SportExcel program has been tried and tested in many sports: the martial arts, hockey, tennis, baseball, volleyball, skating, golf, baseball, basketball, snowboarding, football and the international clay target sports to name a few. Our athletes and coaches have won Olympic, international, national and regional events. The approach has even been tried and tested in the classroom, as many of our athletes are seeking scholarships. This is quite fitting, when you think of it, as it is an educational approach.