EDITOR'S CHOICE THE WALL

Video / Wall / Special Events

  International Racer coaches...

have provided the following technical analysis to assist your racing performances.
Manage your energy state for optimum performance!

Have you ever had a bad race, yet your physical preparation up to the event was excellent. What happened ?

In training you felt fast, your split times agreed and your coach was delighted with your skills progression; yet on race day, you could not convert this to a result. Your first assessment was maybe a skills issue or just bad luck. But let’s look at another possibility, How was your mindset?

As coaches we often see athletes who are not performing at their best on race day; sometimes this is bad luck, but more often it’s a factor of the event. The bigger the event, the bigger the spectacle, the more overwhelmed athletes can become. Externally they may appear fine, but internally they are churning. As consequence, the athletes blow a lot of energy before they even get in the gate and gas out mentally and physically; Not the best state to generate a winning performance.

When stress level come up, the body goes into fight or flight mode, (an evolutionary human response to danger), designed to protect the individual. These responses are designed for quick action and resolution. However, over a sustained period they produce exhaustion. The athlete gets butterflies, the body starts to activate, it burns extra energy, they cannot sustain that heightened state, so their mind starts to wander, generate more negatives and blocking thoughts and their body cannot deliver the physical skills they’ve trained so hard for.

Some symptoms of this:

• Athlete appears overly nervous or agitated
• Athlete complains of cramps or dry mouth
• Athlete reports that they feel sluggish/low energy
• Athlete has trouble concentrating on the task
• Athlete skis slower or demonstrates less skill in a race than in training
• Athlete has trouble forming a race plan
• Athlete performs much better on second run

So what is the solution ?

The important skill for athletes to train is “arousal and energy management”. Coaches must train their athletes to understand that race days will bring on a higher level of arousal and stress; what is required though is that the athlete gains the ability to control that arousal. By training “arousal regulation” (the ability to control nerves, negative thoughts and their energy levels before/during the event), coaches can develop athletes capable of performing at their maximum ability under all race conditions.

When the athlete breaks the wand we want them at peak activation and focus. This is the ideal state for short burst competition like a ski race run. Athletes needs a framework that allows them to stay calm and confident, so that they can compensate and adjust to whatever conditions they face. The athlete needs to recognise when they need to bring their arousal level down, but also have the ability to bring it up to peak just before they start their run.

In training, athletes are relaxed, there is nothing at stake, nothing to lose. The focus is on skills development. On race day they are suddenly under stresses that they don’t normally train for. Coaches need to understand this and introduce strategies into their athletes training that prepares them for the rigours of race day.

• Introduce routines that provide stability to the athlete
• As a coach, strong leadership and an inclusive team environment can alleviate individual worries.
• Nerves are a result of fear, excitement, expectation, adrenaline. Athletes need strategies to calm themselves, lower their energy state in the lead up to their race run.
• Visualisation is a powerful way to imagine outcomes, use imagery to create the scenario you want to happen.
• Inner belief and confidence in ones skills are the cornerstone of being able to perform under pressure
• Coaches need to artificially create training scenarios that stress the athlete and then take them exercises that practice lowering their energy state on demand and then raising on demand.
• Timed training with other teams, can create a higher level of competition outside actual race events.
• Post event evaluations with athletes whether a win or loss are necessary to evaluate performance. Doubts can creep in from a bad day in the course, athletes need to work through these with their coach to prevent these becoming a mental block at the next event.
• Between race runs, athletes need to also reset, take on evaluation, calm their mind and prepare a plan for run 2.
• Training speed introduces higher stresses in training that will not exist at a tech race.
• Athletes who can recognise their own flight/fight response can deal with it quickly before too much energy is lost.
• Athletes must realise they can alter their own thoughts, apprehension is a protective response but it can be controlled.

Athletes put enormous effort into their physical skill development, yet actual performance results can vary significantly. To bring stability to performance, athletes must train their psychological state to support their physical game. The mind is a very strong player in high performance activities; at the elite level where physical skill differences are minimal, its vital that athletes manage with precision their mental responses to competitive stress. Coaches for all levels of athlete need to build stress challenges into training but also train the athletes to manage these stresses.

Compliments of
Jeff Hewitt, Team Director, International Race Coach

< Previous