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Having a Mantra Will Make You Better

jversteegh — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Buddhism, Stoicism, and Taoism all teach adherents to repeat��particular chants or mantras to steady the mind. Only recently, though, have researchers begun to look into the power of this practice. A 2015 study�� in the journal Brain Behavior��described research in which participants were asked to��lie down, first with no instruction, and then, after a few minutes, with the instruction to��silently repeat a simple mantra to themselves. Throughout��the test, their brain activity was observed��with a functional MRI machine. While they were repeating the mantra, participants had a marked decrease in brain activity, in what neuroscientists call the default mode network—the part of the brain that is involved in planning and self-focused thinking. When they weren’t repeating the mantra, however, participants’ default mode network��had normal levels of activity. In layperson’s terms: repeating a mantra occupies the brain enough so that it doesn’t get caught up in obsessing, planning, and wandering. This, the researchers write, accounts for a significant “calming effect.”

As I’ve , calm determination—what I define as a state of relaxed and ardent focus—is critical for peak performance, whether you are climbing a mountain, on the starting line of a marathon, or raising a child. Developing a mantra can help you achieve this state, especially in challenging or emotionally charged situations. I’ve used mantras in everything from the lead-up to big athletic events (“trust your training”) to when my son was an infant and waking up constantly throughout the night (“this is what is happening right now”). So long as they are short, memorable, and meaningful, just about any string of words can be effective.

I reached out to several top outdoor athletes to learn if they used mantras. Most of them did��and to great benefit—read on to find out what they are. If you are going to experiment with using a mantra, don’t wait to be in the thick of an intense experience. Like any other mental skill, it’s good to practice in lower-stakes situations first.

“Commit and Figure It Out”

“This was first said to me by Rick Ridgeway, and I believe Doug Tompkins��said it to him at some point. It applies to everything.”��—, mountaineer and photographer

“Be Good”

“Those are the words my dad wrote in his letters home from Vietnam.��He died over there when I was three, so these words are really the only words I have from him as a father, but they’ve served me well. These words have guided me throughout my life.” —, mountain-bike and adventure racer

“Focus, Focus, Focus”

“I don’t set out with a mantra in mind,��they tend to come to me in the moment when I need them most. Last year [in Colorado], at Leadville, when my knee was feeling weak and unstable—it was only about 80 percent recovered from surgery—it was as simple as repeating this, knowing every step could be my last if I let myself daydream.” —, ultramarathon runner

**�Ԩ�ǳ� Get��to Do This”**

“I come back to this mantra when I’m dealing with stress, especially prior to or following races.” —, Spartan Race��champion

“Mood Follows Action”

“Applicable in sport and life. Rather than waiting to ‘feel like’��doing something, the surest way to shift out of your discomfort or resistance is to lean into action. It’s in the doing that we alter our perspective and emotional state—not the other way around.” —, ultra-endurance athlete and podcast host

�Ԩ�ǳ� Are Strong, You Are Capable, You Are Strong, You Are Capable”

“I was struggling very badly at the beginning of my 2018 Antarctica expedition,��so I started to say this to myself first thing every morning as my alarm went off and I needed to face another long, icy day pulling my sled.��Sometimes, with how much struggle I was going through, it was hard to believe my own words, but it got me out of bed and moving every morning.” —, adventure athlete and explorer

“This Too Shall Pass”��

“I use it both in sport and in life when I’m hurting, as a reminder that the pain is temporary. Whether it’s during a period of intentional overreaching in my training, an episode of depression, or feelings of anxiety when I’m in a crowded, confined space, it’s a reminder that the uncomfortable feelings will fade away with time.” —,��Olympian and professional triathlete

“Don’t Wish It Away”

“It’s particularly powerful because some of my races can be 8-plus��hours, so you can just be wishing for it to be over from pure discomfort or, if you’re��out front, from just wanting to win. But this is a bad headspace to be in. You’ve got be in the race, not in thoughts about wanting it to be over.” —, mountain-bike racer

“It Means No Worries for the Rest of Your Days. It’s a Problem-Free Philosophy.”

“I’ve never had a real mantra, but occasionally I get snippets of songs stuck in my head on repeat. I can specifically remember having the refrain from ‘Hakuna Matata’��stuck in my head on a scary aid pitch once upon a time.” —,��climber

Brad Stulberg () is a performance coach and writes����ԹϺ��’s Do It Better column. He is also a bestselling author of the books����and��.

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Why You Don’t Need to Be Super Productive

jversteegh — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Danielle Steel��is a novelist 179 books. She writes��seven books annually, rarely sleeps more than five hours a night, and works every day of the year, save a single week of vacation. Steel’s��work has been read by hundreds of thousands of people.

Is Steel’s drive and productivity��something to be celebrated and emulated?

It depends, at least according to the writer Oliver Burkeman, who recently�� a column in The Guardian��questioning whether or not this kind of work ethic��is a good thing:��

Before the dawn of the gig economy, which made it mandatory to celebrate unrelenting toil as proof that you’re a “doer”, we called this workaholism—a compulsive absorption in work, perhaps due to anxiety, or low self-esteem, or the desire to avoid engaging with some more difficult aspect of life.

Unrelenting drive is every bit as common in sport as it is in the traditional workplace. Many athletes of all calibers struggle to turn it off. Some even believe that single-minded obsession is the only route to success in their sport. A great example of unrelenting drive is the movie Free Solo, which chronicles Alex Honnold’s attempt to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan without ropes. His focus and ardent striving is an absolutely beautiful thing. But it’s not without complexities and trade-offs, especially when it comes to how his girlfriend��and friends feel about the pursuit.

Though I’ve never free-soloed a massive peak, I do have��some personal and professional experience with unrelenting drive. I’m a pusher. When I wanted to further explore why I’m wired like this��and what it means,��the way I did it was to literally write a book.��I tried to figure out my own drive by doing a very driven thing—the irony of which is not lost on me. The process of writing��made me realize that unrelenting drive isn’t good or bad. It just is.��Here’s some of the stuff I ��that lead to this realization.

Drive Is Part Nature, Part Nurture

Some people insensitive to dopamine, the neurochemical associated with drive. This means that they need more of it to feel good, so they keep on pushing. Meanwhile, everyone can become hooked on the cycle of doing and achieving, especially if this behavior was heavily��rewarded in childhood. At an��extreme, if a developing brain perceives that love is conditional based on how well it does, then that developing brain��is going to wire itself to do well and do well all the time.��This is only intensified by a culture obsessed with external validation and achievements.

Drive Can Be Wonderful

If it’s born out of flow—a��state of full immersion, being totally in the zone—then drive is generally associated with life satisfaction and inner peace. Flow has a lot in common with love. It is a state of complete presence and��caring for someone or something. Flow��usually��involves self-transcendence, which is the goal of most spiritual practices. Not such a bad thing.��

Drive Can Be About Fear

Particularly the fear of death. We endlessly “do”��stuff to escape the reality that we are mortal. Facing this��reality��can be��horrifying, especially if we are accustomed to resisting and suppressing��it by working.��The kind of incessant doing and drive that is born out of fear��isn’t always so great. You could argue it’s��closer to addiction. Instead of facing the pain of mortality and loss, we numb ourselves with��doing, obsession, and productivity.

Drive Can Be About Insecurities

We think that if we can do just one more thing, sell one more book, get one more promotion,��then��we’ll truly be loved, fit in, feel good about the way we look, be able to rest, etc. Unfortunately, this never works. This mindset often creates more suffering than good feelings.

Most Everyone Who Is Driven Is Fueled by All of the Above��

At different times and��in different contexts, these levers may contribute disproportionately. When flow is the main driver, it’s usually OK��to keep the energy and momentum��going, so long as you’re aware of the trade-offs: what you’re sacrificing and giving up in other areas of your life. If fear or insecurity is fueling your drive, you have two options, which are nonexclusive. You can work on the underlying problem through things like therapy, meditation, contemplation, and sharing vulnerably��with trusted communities. Or��you can say screw��it and point the drive in productive directions, such as creative pursuits, mentoring, or volunteering.

Working on the underlying problem is generally more of a path to long-term freedom. But it’s also hard to completely overcome fear and insecurity, at least for normal people��like me. So��taking some of that drive and using it isn’t necessarily problematic either. The key��is to make sure you harness the drive for worthwhile pursuits that align with your core values.��

People love putting things into clear categories: good or bad,��black or white. But the truth about drive and productivity and passion is very much gray. There is no simple answer. These forces can be gifts and curses, sometimes both on the same day. Perhaps the best bet is just to pay honest attention. The more you’re��aware of where your drive is coming from, where you’re pointing it, and what you’re��giving up as a result to pursue it, the better off you’ll be.��

Brad Stulberg () is a performance coach and writes����ԹϺ��’s Do It Better column. He is also bestselling author of the books�� and .

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Sweat Science: Learning to Love the Pain

jversteegh — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

There’s no more painful pursuit for a cyclist than the hour record. It’s just you, by yourself, on a bike, going as far and as fast as you can in 60 minutes. Eddie Merckx, considered by many to be the greatest pro racer in history, called it the longest hour of his career and only attempted it once. Others describe it as death without dying. When her father passed away, Italian cyclist Vittoria Bussi decided she wanted this record for herself. For her father’s memory. For history. When she started training, other cyclists asked her, “Are you ready to die for the hour?” Soon she would discover that in order to succeed, she would have to completely change her relationship with pain.

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The Secret Foods Elite Athletes Eat

oharlow — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Clare Gallagher,��, began her ultrarunning career while undergoing a teaching fellowship in a rural corner of Thailand. There wasn’t a single sport-specific gel packet or PowerBar within a hundred-mile radius of her town. Gallagher, now 25,��improvised, sucking down Coca-Cola, Thai milk coffee, pure sugarcane, and lots and lots of packets of sweet sticky rice.

Not only did Gallagher feel fine eating this unorthodox combo, but she also started kicking��ass, winning her very first ultra. Now, when Gallagher looks at the prices of sports nutrition products, she rolls her eyes: “Westerners are so self-righteous with our extravagant nutrition strategies that cost more than a month of student loan payments—for one race,” she says.

Plus, gels, bars, and powdered sports drinks are not exactly fine dining—especially in large quantities, when it feels like your taste buds are being assaulted by pure sugar. This is why more endurance athletes these days are eating real food while training and racing. “It gives me something to look forward to,” says ultrarunner Dylan Bowman of his favorite salted fudge brownies.

We caught up with six athletes to hear about their favorite unorthodox fuels, and then asked , a New York–based registered dietitian to weigh in on what, if any, benefits these foods might convey. (A necessary disclaimer: Not every workout requires this kind of fueling. If you’re going out for under two hours, we suggest you stick with water and maybe a gel.)

Clare Gallagher, Ultrarunner

Favorite Race Food: Frosting and Sour Patch Kids

The Backstory: “When packing my fuel for Leadville, I was completely disenchanted at the thought of buying 20-plus gels, and I am a sucker for frosting anyway. It occurred to me that I’d actually like the frosting better than gels,” Gallagher says. “Same with Sour Patch Kids. I could buy endurance-specific gummies, or I could buy 1.9 pounds of Sour Patch Kids and have plenty to share with my crew for the rest of the weekend. I hate to think my genius frosting idea was born out of me being cheap, but it really was just that.”

The Result: Gallagher’s Leadville win, which was the second-fastest female time ever, speaks for itself. Still, though, observers gawk. “People say my diet is appalling and unhealthy. To them, I say, ‘I think I’m doing just fine, thank you very much.’ I can’t eat gluten. I eat very little meat. I avoid dairy because I also have Hashimoto’s disease. If someone has evidence that eating frosting and Sour Patch Kids instead of some $300 baby-food vomit formula repurposed into Premium Fuel for Endurance Athletes is going to kill me, then I’m all ears.” Plus, Gallagher is now officially sponsored by Frost’d, a coconut oil–based frosting company founded by fellow ultrarunner Jessica Hamel.

Anselmo’s Take: Frosting has simple carbs for quick energy and no fiber to wreak havoc on the GI tract, and it’s easy to eat. No chewing required.

Dylan Bowman, Ultrarunner

Favorite Race Food: Salted fudge brownies

The Backstory: “In 2013, my girlfriend, Harmony, and I had to do about six months of long-distance dating. One weekend, we met in Malibu, where I was running a 50-mile race. We hadn’t seen each other in more than a month, so she surprised me at the airport with a fresh batch of my favorite brownies. Up to that point, the brownies were a special indulgence, but in the context of the race that weekend, it dawned on me that they’d be a good addition to my nutrition arsenal. I didn’t bring enough gels to get me through the whole race, so I had Harmony give me a Red Bull and brownie bag at an aid station about halfway through the race.”

The Result: “There were probably seven brownies in the bag, and I ate them all over the course of about 20 miles. I ended up winning the race, which seemed to validate this new and unfamiliar nutrition strategy. I’ve had her make them before important races ever since.”

Anselmo’s Take: “These have quick simple carbs, plus chocolate gives a bit of caffeine, which, in moderation, can enhance energy and athletic performance. They are also likely have some sodium and potassium for electrolyte repletion.”

“If someone has evidence that eating frosting and Sour Patch Kids instead of some $300 baby-food vomit formula repurposed into Premium Fuel for Endurance Athletes is going to kill me, then I’m all ears.”

Amelia Boone, Obstacle Course Racer

Favorite Prerace Snack: Cinnamon Roll Pop-Tarts

The Backstory: “I ate one before the Spartan Race World Championships in 2013 and won the race. So now it may be semi-superstition-related, but I actually find they sit really well in my stomach.”

Also on the Menu: “My diet sounds like the standard American diet for kids. During races, I’ll eat gummy bears, baby-food squeeze pouches, and peanut M&M’s. After races, I house pints of ice cream; it’s the only thing I can eat for about 12 hours. My stomach tends to be in knots an unable to take solid foods after really long races—I mean, go figure, given what I eat during.”

Anselmo’s Take: “Pop-Tarts are my prerace fuel, too. They’re perfect for quick simple carbs, and there’s no fiber to cause gas, bloating, or diarrhea. Also, they’re a total childhood comfort food, which might help calm nerves prerace. I’ve brought them with me when traveling for races because they travel well and never go bad, which is kind of gross but kind of great.”

Phil Gaimon, Retired Pro Cyclist

Favorite Midrace Fuel: Chocolate croissants

The Backstory: During long stage races in Europe, Gaimon and his teammates would often grab extra pastries from the hotel’s breakfast buffet and save them for later in the day. “There wasn’t a moment in the race when I wasn’t counting down to unwrapping those things,” he says. “I remember a moment where I went nuts for ten minutes to pull back the breakaway on a climb at the Tour of Provence. So I started to eat the pain au chocolat, but I was out of breath, and then the descent was insane, but I wasn’t going to spit it out and waste it, so I did a 20-minute technical downhill just holding it in my mouth.”

Also in His Pockets: , and his fans know it. Sometimes, before races, people would hand him wrapped cookies.

Anselmo’s Take: “A chocolate croissant has carbs as well as some fat, which you’d need during multiday events. Also, the sheer deliciousness factor makes it appealing. It’s not cloyingly sweet like some other treats, so it’s good for someone who likes less-sugary things.”

Sean Burch, Mountaineer

Favorite Expedition Food: Peanut butter

The Backstory: “I’ve always loved peanut butter, ever since I was a kid. I started letting myself eat a little more of it, and I thought I’d gain weight, but I didn’t. Pretty soon I was eating more and more. Now I eat a pound a day. On expeditions, I make sure we bring peanut butter because I don’t trust that I’ll be able to get it there. And I crave it. I look forward to eating it every single day.”

The Result: It has become an obsession for Burch. “If there’s a sale on all-natural peanut butter, I buy the store out of it—the cashiers at my local store know me,” he says. “I wish I had a sponsor for peanut butter. I spend a fortune on it. But I’m willing to spend the money because it’s an investment in myself and my health.”

Anselmo’s Take: “It’s a great, no-chew food that’s full of protein.” Plus, Burch says he only buys the all-natural variety, so it has no added sugars or hydrogenated oils.

Aaron Gwin, Red Bull Mountain Bike Racer

Favorite Between-Ride Snack: Pancakes

The Backstory: “I make a batch of pancakes at home in the morning, and then bag up two to six of them, depending on how much riding I’m doing that day. I make them pretty healthy, adding protein powder to the batter so I get all the nutrition I need. I keep experimenting and adding new things. They’ve gotten a little out of control the more that I keep adding ingredients—things like sweet potatoes, bananas, peanut butter powder, and oats—but I dig them. Pancakes give me a good base of carbs and protein for training days to keep me going without having to stop for long periods of time to eat, plus they’re easy to pack and digest, and I like the taste of them plain.”

Anselmo’s Take: “Pancakes have carbs galore, plus the little extra protein is probably good for muscle recovery after an intense and long workout.”

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How Aaron Rice Skied 2.5 Million Feet—Uphill—in One Year

cthompson — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Rice’s love of snow has grown exponentially. In 2011, the Alta, Utah, native skinned 75,000 vertical feet. In 2015, he logged 703,000. But the one-year world record was two million, set by Canadian Greg Hill in 2010. So in 2016, Rice planned to notch 2.5 million self-propelled vertical feet by skinning (and hiking, when he had to) 5,000 to 12,000 feet per day in Argentina, California, Chile, Colorado, Utah, and Oregon. There were plenty of powder days, but much of it was a slog. He spent the entire month of June trudging up dirt and scree to ski down Colorado’s diminishing veins of snow. Along the way, he learned a few things about setting an ambitious goal and staying motivated. By late October, he’d pulled even with Hill. And on December 29, just outside Alta, he notched vertical foot number 2.5 million.��

Bye-bye down time: “Between skiing, eating, and transport to and from the hill, I only had about an hour and a half of free time each day.”

Homemade fuel: “I ate Probars while I skied, but my big issue was recovery. The key was four grams of carbs to one gram of protein in my recovery drink. Every night I had a half-gallon of a homemade mix of seltzer water, orange juice, and soy milk. The next morning I was a new person.”��

Finding ski buds: “In Utah and Colorado, friends would join me for laps. In Argentina, I used social media to find partners. It’s hard to overstate the value of two people’s energy.”

Going forward: “Pick a little drift of snow in front of you and get there, then pick another. You need to think about anything other than how hard it is.”

Turn up the volume: “There were days when I liked to put on light gear, plug��in a podcast, and go as fast as I could for five hours. I even managed to listen to the entire Radio Lab series all the way through.”

Thoughts to work: “When you’re out there for ten hours every day, you have so much time to stew in your thoughts that it becomes a source of anxiety. I wrote everything down on my iPhone as I skinned, and it helped me let go. I got so good at it that I could almost touch-type with-out looking.”��

Long-term magic: “When the skiing is good, it’s easy to stay motivated and go with the flow. That motivation pulls you along. But you need stubbornness to go for a goal that takes a year.”

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The Best Advice of 2016, from the World’s Best Athletes

ndavidson — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past year,��I've had the privilege of interviewing over twenty of the world's best performers for my��Fitness Coach��column: people��like big-mountain climber Jimmy Chin, Olympic marathon runner Des Linden, CrossFit guru Kelly Starret, big-wave surfer Nic Lamb, and NFL strength and conditioning coach Brett Bartholomew. While each of these conversations was fascinating in its own right, what struck me most was the emergence of a few��themes that cut across just about every discipline. I learned that whether someone is trying to win an Ironman triathlon, write a best-selling book, or shatter a free-diving record, many of the practices underlying their success are the same. And��these practices can be harnessed by anyone.��

In 2017, Fitness Coach will be transitioning to Science of Performance. I'll still be interviewing athletes living on the razor's edge, but I'll also be covering broader topics related to the physiology and psychology of pushing our bodies to the limit, and the philosophy behind why we do so. But first, in a finale to this series, I leave you with these seven keys to peak performance, as told by the world's best.��

Eat Real Food

“A performance diet is comprised of loads of produce, high-quality fats and proteins, and whole grains—in other words, real foods. Before you start supplementing with amino acids and measuring out cumin and cinnamon, ask yourself: are you getting six to eight servings of vegetables per day? Are you eating a lot of fruit? Focus on mastering the basics.” —Kelly Starret, mobility expert and CrossFit coach��

“I don’t do anything fancy or count calories. I just try to avoid eating stuff that comes in bags or boxes.” —Des Linden, elite marathoner��

“When it comes to daily nutrition, I aim for a B-plus or A-minus. I’m good—limiting processed foods, avoiding sugar, eating mindfully, not stuffing myself—but I’m not perfect. I never go full-out A-plus. That kind of rigidity and restriction just isn’t sustainable.” —Jesse Thomas, six-time Wildflower Triathlon champion and CEO of Picky Bars

Get Comfortable with Pain��

“During really hard training intervals, instead of thinking ‘I want these to be over,’ I try to feel and sit with the pain. Heck, I even try to embrace it.” —Evelyn Stevens, elite cyclist��

“It’s only when you step outside your comfort zone that you grow. Being uncomfortable is the path to personal development. It is the opposite of complacency.” —Nic Lamb, big-wave surfer

“Hard workouts are an opportunity for learning how to deal with the inevitable pain and discomfort of running 100 miles. When I’m really going to the well in training and I want to slow down or adjust the session, I remind myself that it’s like putting a deposit in the bank: suffer now, race better later.” —Dylan Bowman, North Face and Red Bull-sponsored��ultrarunner��

Sleep��

“Sleep is the most important thing you can do for recovery. And it’s free. In a 24-hour period, I’ll get nine��to 10 hours. Usually, I’ll sleep for seven to eight hours at night and then take a two-hour nap during the day, but sometimes I’ll sleep for 10-11 hours straight.” —Mirinda Carfrae, triathlete��

“Sleep is a part of my job; I take it very seriously.” —Brenda Martinez, Olympic middle-distance runner

Prime for Performance��

“I focus on priming my system prior to races so I can be ready to go right out the gate. I’ll spin on the bike for 10 minutes when I wake up and do some core work, too. It’s all about activating the muscles I’ll use during the race early and often.” —Ted Ligety, two-time Olympic gold medalist skier

“I visualize all the moves and memorize the sequences to make sure I can physically climb the route. I also think about various positions, especially those that could be scary. I imagine every aspect of the climb beforehand so that nothing surprises me while I’m up there.” —Alex Honnold, free-solo climber.��

“Find a routine to repeat before you race. For me it’s yoga. I do the exact same yoga routine every time. It only takes about 20-25 minutes, and it predictably puts my body and mind in race mode.” —Megan Gaurnier, cyclist��

Accept Fear

“Fear is always there, it’s a survival instinct. You just need to know how to manage it. It’s about sorting out perceived risk from real risk, and then being as rational as possible with what’s left. Am I in control of the situation? Do I possess the skills and capabilities to succeed? If you answer yes to these kinds of questions, go. But if you answer no, have the guts to turn around. Don’t get paralyzed; get rational.” —Jimmy��Chin, mountaineer

“I don’t hide from fear or try to ignore it. I feel the fear and channel it to help me focus, to nail the line or to put up the biggest ride I can. And when it’s all over, the fact that fear was with me the entire time makes the run that much more of an accomplishment.” —Dane Jackson, whitewater kayaker

“Focus on what you are doing in the moment. Experience is key here. The more you are in a certain scenario, the more comfortable you become.” —William Trubridge, freediver

Embrace Rest

“Rest is a weapon. What was once seen as a weakness is now a strength. There are all kinds of ways to recover, what I call regenerative strategies. They range from listening to calm music, to massage, to aroma therapy—anything that helps you relax and transition from the stress of a workout to a more restful state.” —Brett Bartholomew, NFL strength and conditioning coach

“If the thought of a hard workout brings you close to tears, skip it. It’s better to take a few days off now than to put yourself in a hole that takes weeks to dig out of later.” —Megan Gaurnier, cyclist

“Recovery starts with smart training and understanding your body’s natural rhythms and cycles. How many easy days do you need after an intense day? How many weeks can you train hard before taking a break? How often can you race? If you listen to your body and are honest with yourself, you’ll be able to answer these critically important questions.” —Amby Burfoot, veteran marathoner��

Prioritize Mental Fitness��

“Focus on what you can control, like the effort that you put in, and don’t waste energy on the things you cannot control, like the outcome of an event. This is especially important in athletic endeavors, where conserving energy is of the utmost importance.” —Ryan Holiday, author

“Whenever I get down and catch myself with negative thoughts, I pretend I’m saying those things aloud to another person. I ask myself, would you ever say, ‘Well, it looks like you’re really blowing up, your day is over,’ to a training partner who is struggling? Of course not! You’d tell him, ‘Keep pushing and just make it through the next five minutes.’ Or maybe you’d say, ‘Eat, drink, and hang in there until the next aid station.’ Going through this exercise helps me replace negative thoughts with positive ones.” —Rebecca Rusch, world-champion adventure racer

“There is such a difference between asking yourself, ‘Oh gosh, can I do it?’ and saying ‘I’m going to do this.’ The former breeds self-doubt and almost always stifles performance. The latter sets you up to go all-in and have no regrets, even if things don’t pan out.” —Sarah Piampiano, triathlete

Brad Stulberg () is a coauthor of the forthcoming book .

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How to Hack Your Brain to Optimize Performance

ndavidson — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hack your brain and optimize performance with these five��science-tested strategies.

Train Tired

Samuele Marcora suggests scheduling some workout sessions on stationary equipment in an “acute state of mental fatigue,” like after a tough day at work or after taking the cognitively challenging Stroop test online. (Find it at .) When you remove the added brain stress on race day, the physical effort will feel easier.

��ԹϺ�� Fitness Special

127 radical tips for total health.

Read the entire issue

Rock Out

Listening to music isn’t an option in some races, but if yours permits, it can reduce perceived effort.��

Boost Power

Discreetly plant positive words and images, like YOU GOT THIS or a smiley face, in strategic places to help you during your event. Write them on your arm, your bike, or your shoes. Hide them in snack bags. Both direct and subliminal positive messaging have been shown to improve endurance performance. When Marcora showed the words GO, ENERGY, and LIVELY to cyclists, they performed better than riders shown STOP, TOIL, and SLEEP.

Your Fatigue Is All In Your Head

Can athletes train their brains to reach unheard-of levels of peak performance?

Turn Up the Heat

Get your hot friends to hang out near the crux of your course to cheer you on. Studies have shown that physical effort is easier when performing in the presence of people you’re attracted to.

Use RPE

Tracking your (find the scale at ) can help gauge whether you’re actually working hard or just think you are. After each training session, record your RPE and multiply it by how many minutes you worked out. This will be your overall training load. By looking at your RPE in combination with other performance metrics like heart rate and power output, you can target why and when you’re struggling—for example, if your perceived exertion is higher than normal for a given heart rate, your brain needs a rest day.

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What’s Behind the Relentless Pursuit of Excellence?

ndavidson — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

For many athletes, passion is the driving force behind their��relentless pursuit of excellence.��, PhD, sport psychologist and counselor to some of the world’s best athletes, puts it simply: “Sustained passion is a hallmark of mastery.” Many groundbreaking athletes (as well artists and intellects) describe the feeling as an eternal hunger. Irrespective of what they’ve accomplished, or of what they’ve lost and given up, great performers struggle mightily to be satiated, to be content. But what is the source of passion? And why does it persist? We talked to three lifelong athletes to find out what drives them to continue pushing the boundaries of their physical and mental capabilities.��

Biological Underpinnings

When was just two��years��old, her parents tied bells to her shoes. “I was always running around and they needed a way to track me,” she recalls. Although her childhood predated the recent surge in the diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Trason, now 55, would have been a fine candidate for the label. She remembers struggling to sit still and pay attention in school. “Running became my outlet, a place to expend all of this bottled up energy.”

In addition to struggling to sit still and focus, individuals with ADHD tendencies tend to be less sensitive to the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine. For an article in the January issue of ��ԹϺ��investigating the connection between ADHD and adventure, Florence Williams wrote that those exhibiting ADHD symptoms seek out “charged activities” in order flood their brains with dopamine.

Dopamine excites and arouses us. Under its influence, we feel revved up and alive. Unlike other neurochemicals that are released after we’ve achieved something, the far more potent dopamine is released prior, when we are longing for or desiring something deeply. In other words, those that crave dopamine don’t become addicted to winning; they become addicted to striving, addicted to the chase.

“I often wonder about dopamine,” Trason told me. “I always had this yearning to push, push, push—to see what I was made of, to beat myself. It never went away.”��

Shortly after high school, Trason discovered ultrarunning. It gave her a way to express her energy and test herself. Pounding out 100-mile training weeks and races yielded an otherwise elusive sense of fulfillment. But it was always fleeting.��

She could have been satisfied many times in her running career, like when she won the in 1985, the in 1989, or when she set both the Western States 100 and Leadville 100 course records in 1994. Instead, Trason kept coming back for more. “I always had this urge to see what else I could do,” she says. “It was never about beating others or proving myself or anything like that. I just felt so alive out there. I loved it.”

Perhaps the only thing stronger than Trason’s love for running was her love for her then-husband, Carl Anderson.��So in 2004, when Anderson’s body broke down and he could no longer run, in an act of courage and support, Trason stepped away from the sport with him.

During her career, Trason broke over 20 world records, won the prestigious Western States 100 14 times, and set countless course records, many of which still stand today.��

Her competitive running career may have ended, but her incessant longing for challenge had not. To fill the void, she and Anderson threw themselves into endurance cycling. But when their marriage ended in 2013, Trason stepped away from the bike. “It was never fully my thing,” she explained.

Trason became depressed. Not only because of the divorce, but also because she felt she had nowhere to “channel [her] drive.” Thankfully, with the encouragement of friends, she tried her hand at coaching and race-directing��and loved both. They are the two pursuits to which she currently dedicates herself.

Though biochemistry isn’t everything, Trason herself told me that she suspects the same hardwiring that forced her parents to attach bells to her shoes at age two is at least partially responsible for her seemingly endless energy and inability to be content. “I’m really working on ‘balance,’” she says, “but it’s hard for me. I’m not really sure I’d want a 9-to-5 job anyways.” ��

Something to Prove

Much like Trason, latched onto endurance sports (at the time, swimming) in school. But for Roll, it wasn’t so much about expressing otherwise bottled up energy as it was about proving himself. “I grew up kind of lonely,” says Roll. “I look back and think that, at the time, I really wanted to prove myself; both to myself, and to the outside world.”

Roll was raised in a very goal-oriented family. “Drive and achievement was an ethos of how we grew up,” he says.��He struggled academically (“struggle” is relative term for Roll, who was, after all, accepted to Stanford University) and didn’t excel in any of the traditional sports. No surprise, then, that when Roll discovered his strong swimming ability, he threw himself wholly into the sport.��“It was a chance to define myself, to show that I, too, could succeed.” First in and last out of the pool, Roll blossomed into a superb swimmer, good enough to compete for Stanford.

Fast forward about ten years and Roll once again felt he needed to prove himself. Again he was lonely, this time grappling with addiction issues: “drugs, alcohol, and food,” he told me. Thanks to the help of rehab, he sobered up, but he was still 50 pounds overweight; walking up a flight of stairs left him massively fatigued and pained. This time around, Roll devoted himself to triathlon and running. He went all in and became one of the best ultra-endurance athletes on the planet. In 2009, Men’s Fitness featured him on a list of the “.”

Roll isn’t dismissive of the idea that endurance sports serve as the perfect outlet for addictive personalities. “It’s a place where you can be addicted, but shrouded in a healthy tunic,” he says. But he also explained that the tangible progression inherent to something like triathlon provides a wonderful way to “prove oneself.”

Alan St. Clair Gibson, PhD and MD at Northumbria University in Newcastle, England, agrees. Gibson, who specializes in sports medicine and integrative neuroscience, has spent a lot of time thinking about the intersection of mind and body. He believes that passion may be rooted at least partially in something that Freud called “ego-fragility.” In order to block out damaging events from one’s past, Gibson says, people repress bad memories and experiences, relegating them deep into the subconscious. But these emotions can only stay bottled up for so long. Eventually, according to Gibson, they are “released through external drives or desires, often manifesting as energy put fourth toward an unrelated activity.”��A telltale sign of this transference, Gibson says, is “fanatical attachment to projects and goals.”��

A recent article in the journal Sports Medicine, “,” found that a common thread among many elite athletes is the presence of uncommon challenges— what the authors call “trauma”—in their early years. ��For example, athletes who make it to the highest level of their sport have a greater number of siblings (increased competition for their parents’ attention) and are significantly more likely to have parents who divorced. The researchers concluded that “talented potential can often benefit from, or even need, a variety of challenges to facilitate performance.”

Going through trials and tribulations doesn’t just make someone tougher or “grittier”—though it certainly does that, too—but it also creates a profound hunger to perform.��Gibson says it’s as if someone takes whatever negativity or inadequacy they felt from past events and uses it to fuel unbelievable accomplishments. “Trauma from times past,” he says, “creates an ‘inner mongrel’ which refuses to give up until the ‘prize’ is won.”��

Interestingly, even though Roll has proven himself (i.e., he’s won the “prize”) and is no longer racing competitively, he continues to push. Like Trason, Roll currently channels his energy into helping others, through his inspirational podcasts, speaking engagements, and writing. Ironically, he is perhaps even more prolific in non-athletic work than he ever was in his training.

“I’m still wholly passionate,” says Roll. “I certainly wouldn’t call myself balanced, at least not in the traditional sense. It’s just that now I feel driven by a greater purpose: to inspire others to live a big and full life, to pursue their dreams, and to overcome their own personal demons and challenges.”

In an interesting twist, it turns out that where Trason and Roll ended up—motivated by a greater purpose—is where some great performers begin.

Purpose

Ryan Hall, arguably the best American-born marathoner to ever live, ran not for himself but for his god. Hall, a devout Christian, told me that one of his life’s purposes was “to love God through running.” God, Hall says, gave him a special gift with running, and his duty was to “maximize that gift.” When I asked Hall if anything else contributed to his massive 120-mile training weeks or the pain he endured during races, he reiterated that he was fueled by his love for God, and his love for his wife, Sara. “All of my biggest breakthroughs were born out of love,” he said. “They were acts of worship.”

According to Victor Strecher, PhD, a behavioral scientist at the University of Michigan, purpose and performance go hand in hand. “When we focus on something beyond ourselves, our ego, or our literal ‘self,’ becomes minimized,” says Strecher. With our ego out of the picture, constraining emotions like fear and worry subside. No longer in a guarded state trying to protect our literal “self” from failure, Strecher says we become more likely to take constructive risks and venture beyond our perceived limits. ��We look past whatever might be holding us back and pursue our goals with reckless abandon. As I’ve previously explored for ��ԹϺ��, in a paradoxical twist, thinking less about yourself is one of the best ways to get the most out of yourself, to achieve what once seemed like impossible goals.

The greater purpose need not be religion. Take, for example, Ashton Eaton, the world champion decathlete who many believe to be the greatest athlete of all time. At the end of the 2015 world championships, in order to break the world record Eaton needed to run faster than four minutes and eighteen seconds in the 1500��meters. This is hard enough on its own. But Eaton had already completed the other nine events, and he had all but locked up a gold��medal.�� In other words, he was dead-tired and had little to gain from going all out—especially because the record he would be trying to break was his own, set a few years prior.��

Nevertheless, epitomizing the perpetual hunger so common in world-class performers, Eaton decided to go for it.�� When asked why, Eaton told the media that when the pain came on, “I was just thinking, it’s not for me so I have to go.” When further questioned, Eaton said, “Really I was just thinking about me sitting on the couch when I was little and watching somebody like Michael Johnson or Carl Lewis jump and run, and that’s the reason I’m here today. I thought maybe there’s a kid on a couch somewhere and if I break this world record they may be inspired to do something.” Eaton ran the 1500��meter in four minutes and seventeen seconds.��

Passion is a complex emotion.�� All of the theories considered above operate on a spectrum, and many great performers show elements of each. And while extreme passion enables breakthrough performances and storied careers, it can also come at the expense of health, family, and friends. As the climber Jimmy Chin once told me, “Mozart’s life may not have been considered ‘healthy,’ but his pursuit of excellence benefited generations of people.” Wherever it may come from, passion is a great blessing, but one that should also be carefully handled.��

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Why Simplicity and Fun Are the Keys to Staying Strong

ndavidson — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The fitness world is never dull. Recently, we’ve seen the emergence (and in some cases, the decline) of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), CrossFit, Soul Cycle, Hot Yoga, the Bar Method, Zumba, Body Pump, the list goes on and on. Some of these programs stress intensity: just a few minutes of hard exercise every day. Others emphasize volume: more is better, even if that means an easier effort. Add to this endless “recovery” products, and it’s easy to see why so many athletes are confused.��

“Every few years, people try to reinvent the wheel,” says Steve Magness, exercise scientist, University of Houston track and cross country coach, and author of . But, he says, they are either doing one of two things: selling a quick fix that simply won’t work or repackaging something that’s already been tried before.��

Take HIIT, for example. Though at the time it lacked the catchy name and acronym, the concept of performing short, extreme bursts of exercise followed by brief periods of rest was used by in 1954, when he became the first ever human to run a mile in under four minutes. The approach has been used ever since, helping countless other runners break the four-minute barrier. Regardless of what marketers want you to believe, HIIT is anything but a new trend.��

When Bannister was pioneering HIIT, he was also practicing specificity, or training a specific function—in his case, running fast for just over 1600 meters. Unfortunately, too many new and “innovative” programs sell themselves as panaceas for total fitness development when, in reality, no such thing exists. Though there is some benefit to training across disciplines, Magness says no one is going to run a marathon well on a diet of CrossFit and no one is going to win the CrossFit World Championships running 65 miles a week. “If you want to get really good at Zumba, you should spend most of your training time doing Zumba,” he says. “But if you want to run far or fast, you need to run far or fast.”��

Vern Gambetta, a veteran strength coach who works with numerous world champion athletes and professional sports teams, says the key to gaining fitness is actually easy to understand, albeit hard to stick to. “Figure out what you want the body to do, stress the body in that manner, let it recover and adapt, and then stress it again—just a bit harder than last time.” Irrespective of a workout’s or training system’s branding, if it follows this systematic progression, it should work, explains Gambetta. Where people run into trouble, he explains, is when they constantly switch training programs hoping that the latest and greatest marketed approach will fast track their fitness. “Adaptation takes time. In my 45 years of coaching, the biggest deficiency I see that comes with most new trends is a lack of clearly defined goals and progression.”��

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Not Everyone Should Be Doing the Bonk Workout

ndavidson — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The bonk run (or ride) is a workout both feared and revered in some elite endurance training circles. The general idea behind it is this: you work out��sans carbs, like going for a morning run without eating anything first or during the run. That way, your muscles don’t have much glycogen (sugar) available to power your effort so they learn to use fat as fuel instead.��

This adaptation would be a boon to endurance athletes, who have limited glycogen but plentiful fat reserves. Because when glycogen runs out, you bonk. Hit the wall. Blow up. You get super tired and weak and can’t maintain your pace or you stop moving altogether.��

So training yourself to avoid an in-competition bonk by running low on glycogen once in a while might seem like a decent idea. But the ultimate performance benefits have already been questioned, and a published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition brings up two more glaring reasons to avoid the bonk,��or to at least approach it carefully.

First, there’s the issue of severe inflammation. Glycogen depletion can cause markers of inflammation called cytokines to skyrocket, along with the possibility of getting sick or prolonging recovery. “Whenever carbohydrate stores are knocked low, it’s a red flag—a huge physiologic stressor—and the entire body feels the effects,” says the study’s lead author, Dr. David Nieman, a pioneer in the field of exercise immunology and professor of health and exercise science at Appalachian State University. ��

“In general, the more you train, the better you get at glycogen sparing,”��says Dr. David��Nieman. “But there’s still this uncanny variance that we’ve seen where some runners are much better at preserving their glycogen than others.”

If you’ve caught a cold post-marathon, that finding may not be surprising. This one shouldn’t be either, but it’s the second reason to question the sanity of the bonk run: not every athlete’s body utilizes their glycogen stores similarly.

“Typically when you’re at 70 percent of your VO2 max, which is about marathon pace, most people are relying heavily on glycogen to make it through,” Nieman says. But some well-trained runners going at that intensity for more than 75 minutes will experience very little glycogen depletion whereas other equally well-trained runners use it all up.��In other wrods, Neiman's research suggests you can't train your way into being a highly-efficient glycogen-sparing athlete; it's an attribute that may come more from nature than nurture.��

“In general, the more you train, the better you get at glycogen sparing,” Nieman says. “But there’s still this uncanny variance that we’ve seen where some runners are much better at preserving their glycogen than others.”

The thing is, there’s no way to tell what type of athlete you are; at the end of prolonged, intense endurance exercise, everyone feels like crud. (Though it’s worth mentioning that poor glycogen-sparing may be one reason some athletes develop chronic fatigue doing the same endurance workouts as other athletes who recover well.)

That’s why athletes��should skip the bonk workout and keep carb stores topped off before and during endurance workouts lasting longer than 75 to 90 minutes. A half a banana every 15 to 30 minutes, or 30 to 60 grams of carbs an hour should help keep potentially harmful inflammation in check.��

You could also do interval workouts, with these same fuel guidelines,��to help attenuate the��inflammatory response. “Intermittent activity, the immune system handles that in great fashion—there’s no ill effects,” Nieman says. “Run up a hill, jog down, rest a bit and do it again. That’s going to be a lot better to your body’s physiology and immune system than running 90 minutes or longer at high intensity.”

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