16 Week Face of America Training Plan & Guide | Page 8
programs at various levels. This coincides with the
premise of knowing yourself/your individual athlete,
how competition is perceived, and how best to
prepare for the psychological as well as physical
demands of the sport. A coach should first use
personal observations, feedback, tests, and
questionnaires (as a guide) in order to determine how
their athletes perceive competition, as well as where
and how they focus their thoughts and energies to
perform within a given competitive environment.
To establish a foundation for a mental training
program, below are some components or aspects to
consider. To aide in determining what techniques and
or focus areas, guide your approaches based upon
what are widely considered the four fundamental C’s
of competition – those being concentration, control,
confidence, and commitment. As an athlete/coach, you
want to be able to improve the level of concentration
(competitive focus), ability to control
actions/responses to stimuli such as the competitive
environment, confidence in mental abilities just as much
as physical abilities, and commitment to make mental
training a part of your routine lifestyle.
Associated with concentration, consider allotting
time or attending to:
Identifying Attentional Styles (what you focus
on/attend to).
Tailor strategies towards improving event specific
Attentional Focus.
Incorporate pre-season races into pre-season
training schedules, then use them as
developmental research tools to help identify state
anxiety issues, and build strategies to improve
relaxation, confidence, and Attentional Focus
Incorporate mental training time into weekly
training/schedules.
Through repetitive actions such as practice and
dialog, make mental training a part of a routine
“lifestyle change.”
Learn the importance of Negative Thought
Stopping for training, competing, and the stresses
of daily life.
8
Associated with control, consider:
Learn what aspects are “controllable” (things you
can influence) such as mental race preparations
and those that are “uncontrollable” (beyond your
ability to influence) such as the weather
conditions on race day.
Coinciding with concentration above, reminding
yourself that you are in control, and by using
Negative Thought Stopping techniques, one can
re-gain control, focus, and momentum, etc.
Practice control in your mental imagery sessions
by acknowledging that negative or faulty
technique images will often be visualized during a
training session, and recognize the importance to
regain control, “rewind the tape,” and visualize
the moment again with correct form.
Teach yourself to use Attentional Cue Words
such as “smooth even pedal stroke,” “rotate
hips,” “relax shoulders and elbows,” to regain or
maintain control when technique falters, terrain
changes, or when focus drifts.
Associated with confidence, consider:
Establish realistic challenging goals, goals which
breed confidence and facilitate progress towards
culminating goals.
Clearly identify goals or objectives for training
each day.
Reinforce positive summaries of weekly training
successfully completed – as it boosts confidence
as you build towards competitions.
Reinforce positive thoughts – perhaps capitalizing
on recent successful performances, training
sessions, preparation, “I’ve improved dramatically
in the last X weeks,” “I’m ready,” “I’ve been
preparing for this day, looking forward to it, and
now it’s time – my time.”
Incorporate pre-season races into your training
schedule.
Develop self-efficacy (power, capacity, and belief
in your effectiveness).
Utilize imagery training to visualize defeating
higher-ranked competitors.
TP2 – Todd Parker Training Programs LLC, © All Rights Reserved