Signs That You Are Stuck in a Practice Mindset

Most athletes understand that the goal of practice and training is to perform better in competition.   They develop confidence from practice and training, but when they step onto to the court or playing field, confidence dissipates or dwindles. When you think about it, it does not seem rational that an athlete can gain a high level of confidence from practice and then not have the same level of confidence in competition.

Some athletes simply get trapped in the practice mindset. They cannot let go of training and forgot the REAL purpose of training and practice. You have to keep in mind that the purpose of training is to develop confidence so you can perform their best when it counts - in competition. World-class athletes have a balanced routine between training and competition. They are dedicated to training and improving their skills AND have the utmost confidence in their ability when they compete. You must learn to balance both the practice mindset and the performance mindset. One without the other will prevent you from achieving your full potential in sports.

If you have the practice mindset down pat, but fall short in competition, then we need to discuss how to best transfer your practice or training to competition so you can play up to your true abilities. A “gamer” is an athlete that can get the most out of his or her ability and get the job done in crunch time. This should be your goal.

The practice mentality is characterized by high dedication, unwavering motivation, commitment to your goals in sport, analytical behavior, a cognitive mindset, improve technique, strive for perfection, and focus on improvement. On the other hand, the performance mentality is about a complete confidence in what you trained, an automatic or reactive mindset, the ability to win ugly or just get the job done without regard to how you get it done, and the mindset to rely on instincts or what you have practiced.

You now understand that balance of the practice and performance mindsets are necessary to achieve your athletic potential. It’s fine to strive for perfection and focus on future improvement, but when these characteristics are taken to an extreme, they can harm your performance in competition.

Here are a few common signs athletes you may be stuck in a practice mindset:

- You perform consistently well in practice, but fail to exhibit the same levels of performance in competition.

- You enjoy your practice routines or training more than you enjoy the thrill of a close competition.

- When you compete, your physical performance is hindered by over training or you have nagging overuse injuries.

- When competing, you are too obsessed with perfect mechanics or worry too much about performing with the correct technique.

- You have a hard time playing in the present moment especially when not performing up to your own standards. You work too much on fixing what may be wrong so you can play better the next event rather than trying to get the most out of your game today.

- You become very analytical about mistakes and dwell on errors. You spend too much energy trying to fix your technique that you lose sight of the real objective.

- You simply can’t trust what you have practiced or trained. You tighten up and over control your movements, swing, or serve in competition.

- In crunch time or during importance competitions, you are unable to perform with freedom and confidence. You tighten up and worry too much about mistakes.

- You try too hard to be perfect with your game and lose composure when your performance does not go exactly as planned.

If you can identify with one or more of the above scenarios, please contact Petr Julianov   so you can free yourself from the practice mindset and perform with greater confidence and consistency in competition

Everyone has different thresholds which are dependent both on genetics as well as learned and conditioned behaviors. When our minds (mental or emotional components) become overloaded, we suffer from a multitude of symptoms that everyone calls “stress”. When our bodies have been overworked, they break down. Our immune system weakens and we are more susceptible to illnesses. We also become more prone to injuries.

So, how do you know when it is time to take a break? There are both mental/emotional elements as well as physical components to consider.

Answer these questions on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being extremely poor and 5 being very good. Here are a set of questions to consider.

1. How well are you sleeping? 2. How good is your tolerance for problems, issues or confrontations that arise compared to normal? 3. How optimistic are you about things? 4. How well can you focus on things that need to get done in your life? 5. How well are you coping with disappointment, loss? 6. How vigorous and energetic do you feel? 7. How confident or doubtful are you about reaching your goals? 8. How achy or sore do you feel? 9. How tight are your muscles feeling? 10. How well are you recovering from an injury?

You are looking for a change in your physical and mental condition. You need to discern your normal disposition with a change. If you are normally a little sore after a hard workout the day before, it would be natural. If you feel disappointment about a bad race or not getting a promotion at work, it is understandable. If you are normally intolerable of problems, issues or confrontation — it is not necessarily an issue of over-doing things. It may be your nature.

Answering these questions with candid insight will lead you to the answer to the issue in question — do you need to back-off? Some of the items are objective. The scale is subjective. But, that in and of itself is telling. Subjectivity means from your perspective. At what point do you need to consider time off? If you have a deviation of 2 points or more (i.e. from a score of 2 to a score of 4) in three to four categories you may need some time off.

What happens if you don’t listen to your body (and mind)? Breakdown is inevitable. That breakdown can be emotionally or physically. When we don’t listen to our bodies, it will scream louder for attention. Will power will only take you so far. And then not even will power can sustain you.

For all athletes the question most commonly on their minds is - what are the effects of time off?

Losses: Good research exists on the “de-training” effect of athletes. Consider some research evidence: It requires four weeks for a runner’s legs to return to normalcy after a marathon. (This is cellular level damage the not subjective “I think I feel good enough to run.”) After 15 days of rest there is between 4-8% drop in your ability to maximally process oxygen (VO2max).

Blood volume decreases up to 10% after a three-week lay-off. After 10 days off it will take up to 30 days of training to recover the muscle enzyme levels critical to performance. Heat acclimation may be lost as well.

Gains: Time off allows for muscle recovery. Remember, training breaks down tissue and it is the rebuilding of the muscles that make us stronger/faster. It also allows for a mental break from intense and consistent training.

So, how much time off is enough? It is reasonable to expect that a more seasoned runner could take off more time with less effects. If you are going to completely take time off, you might as well do it for a month. Most of your conditioning will be lost within the first two weeks, so why not fully recover with four weeks.

Perhaps a more ideal approach (supported by research) is to do two high intensity workouts per week. Rest the remaining five days in the week. The evidence is strong that little conditioning will be lost over the four week period and your body and mind should recover perfectly.

A couple ideas for workouts: Get out on paths and trails. Get well warmed up with 10-15 minutes of easy running. Then, go 15 minutes at 5k to 10k pace and then warm down. You can also do Fartlek (Swedish for “speed play”) workouts. Get warmed up with 10 minutes of easy running then “play” with different paces over varying terrain. If you like the track, go do high intensity, short distance repeats (12-16×200 walk 200 recovery; or, 8×400 fast jog 400 recovery). Go from very fast to 5k to 10k to jog alternating in 4-5 minute intervals. Even very high intensity non-running workouts (i.e. cycling intervals) can maintain conditioning.

 For more information how to plan your training prosses call 303-601-1671 or email liftbar120@comcast.net

Thank you very much.

Colorado SportsTtraining

Nearly every sport requires strength, but what each sport really calls for is sport - specific - strength. Mxs plays an important, if not the determinant, role in creating sport - specific strength. An athletes ability to generate MxS depends to a great extend on the diameter or cross-sectional area of the muscle involved, more specifically, the diameter of the myosin filaments, including their cross bridges; the capacity to recruit FT muscle fibres; and the ability to synchronize all the muscles involved in an action.

Muscles size depends greatly on the duration of the hypertrophy phase, where the diameter of myosin/actin and the increase in protein content in the form of cross bridges depends on the volume and duration of the Mx S phase.

STRUCTURE OF THE MUSCLE Celle

A muscle consist of special fibers of a few inches long to more then 3feet that extend the entire length of the muscle. This fibers are grouped in bundles called FASCICULI, held together by a sheath called the PERIMYSIUM. Each fiber contains many threadlike protein strands called MYOFIBRILS, which hold the contractile units, the SARCOMERES. Each sarcomere contains a specific arrangement of the contractile protein’s myosin(thick filaments) and actin(thin filaments), whose actions are important in muscle contraction. The ability of a muscle to contract and exert force is determined by its design, the cross-sectional area, the fibers length, and the number of fibers within the muscle. The number of fibers is genetically determined and is not affected by training; however, the other variables can be. Dedicated training increases the thickness of muscle filaments, increasing both muscle size and force of contraction.

No matter what sport you injoy or what level you play, you have the potential for a peak performace - and realizing that potential is the goal of everyone who makes athletics patr of their lives. The adge you seek to maximize your performance is in harmoniouse relationship between physical and mental aspect of beeing.

Programming for the novice is the most important task a coach will encounter. Done correctly, it set the stage for a lifetime of proper training habits, and long - term progress. Insufficient attention to detail, and to the trainee’s response to training, during this phase can cost valuable progress that may not be recoverable later.

In one very important respect training novices is easy: virtually anything that makes a novice work harder then bed rest will produce positive result. As a result, many people have an erroneous impression on the quality of their training system.

The very essence of training is the correct application of the stress/adaptation cycle, and the outcome of this cycle is extremely dependent on the physiological characteristics of the individual to whom it is applied. As characteristics of the individual change, so must the stress, if the adaptation is to continue. Novice eventually become “trained” and move to the intermediate, advance, and possibly elite stages.

The elderly adapt to stress less efficiently; children and adolescent adapt more efficiently, but only to certain stresses; males respond differently than females; motivated athletes progress faster than casual trainees. Specific training organizations are necessary for each stage of life and of fitness, and the blanket application of the program across populations is absurd.

Yet I claim above that all novices respond to any stress by adapting - an apparent contradiction. The point is that in an adapted trainee, any stress serves to cause an adaptation, but as a trainee become more adapted to stress and more closely approaches the limits of genetic potential, the stress must become more and more specific to that individual trainee in order that adaptation can continue to progress.

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be”

“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”

“Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability.”

The ability to effectively design, organize, and implement training programs is an absolute requirement for success  in all ares of optimum performance. All seccesful athletes are trained individuals who exel in particular physical activity and usually have followed a well-designed, long-term training program over several years. In the field of sports, training is a process of repetitive, progressive exersises or work that improves the potential to achive optimum performance. For athletes, this means long-term training programs that condition the body, mind and spirit to the specifics of competition and lead to excellence in performance.

??????? DO WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW?

” The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best

- and therefore never scrutinize or question”

_ Stephen Jay Gould

Adaptation as a main law of training

If a training routine is planned and executes correctly, the result of systematic exercise is improvement of the athlete’s physical fitness, particularly strength, as the body adapts to physical load.In a broad sense, adaptation means the adjustment of an organism to its environment. If the environment changes, the organism changes to better survive in the new conditions.In biology, adaptation is considered one of the main features of living species.

Exercise or regular physical activity is a very powerful stimulus for adaptation. The major objective in training is to induce specific adaptation in order improve sport performance. This requires adherence to a carefully planned and executed training program. From practical point of view, the following four features of the adaptation process assume primary importance for sport training:

1. Stimulus magnitude(overload)

2. Accommodation

3. Specificity

4. Individualization

Immediate and delayed effects of training

Immediately after training session, performance usually worsens due to fatigue. Nobody expects to become stronger after one set or drills or a single training session. So, whydo multiple training sessions end in performance improvement? Improvemet happens because the body adapts to the training load.