ANDY LANE OPINION Peak performance


Today’s most successful athletes are not only in top physical condition, they also employ an array of psychological skills to help them win. By Andy Lane


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ERAINT THOMAS WON the 2018 Tour de France finishing 1 minute 51 seconds faster than Tom Dumoulin, his closest rival. Given the race is over 3,500km and 21 stages, this is a very small margin of victory. Thomas maintained a remarkable degree of consistency, covered attacks from rivals, picked up valuable time bonuses that put pressure on his rivals, and attacked when an opportunity arose. One pivotal one was when Thomas won Stage 12 at Alpe d’Huez in a sprint finish, and from this point he led until eventual victory in Paris. As a sport psychologist watching, what can we learn from Thomas’s performance, and how might a sport psychology help other riders or competitors taking part in multistage endurance events perform better and enjoy the event more? Thomas’s remarkable consistency required being


able to ride hard when feeling tired. In competition, masking signs of fatigue is very important. Showing signs of fatigue can give an opponent motivation to attack. Masking fatigue is also important in the context of your own team. If the team leader appears to fatigue, then this can create a mindset that simply finishing the stage is okay rather than winning. If the leader acts confidently, and inspires team members to feel energetic, this sense of collective positive mood then helps the team leader sustain a positive mindset – a virtuous circle. To be able to stay positive when experiencing


intense fatigue, we should look at ways to manage how you interpret your inner dialogue. First, it is important to recognise that intense exercise feels tough and how you interpret that is a decision that is not inevitable; recognising that there is some degree of choice is the key part to learning to reinterpret those signals. During intense exercise, an intense heartbeat, burning sensations in the working muscles, and heavy breathing provide messages that tell you to slow down. You don’t have to reduce intensity of course. I encourage use of skills such as self- talk and imagery to manage this negative inner dialogue. Re-appraising this inner dialogue as unhelpful noise and so making a decision not to follow its message is what is needed. Re- appraising these feelings as a necessary part of goal attainment, and therefore you expect to feel them, also helps. In terms of managing performance, I encourage focusing on what is needed to deliver performance in that moment. If riding an uphill section, for example, focusing on being relaxed in the upper body and getting a rhythm in the legs, something often done by using an image of steam


engine wheels and seeing the circular motion as your feet in the pedals, is useful. By keeping the focus narrow and in the here and now, the evaluation that you can do it stays positive. Via this mechanism, self-confidence to keep going at that intensity remains and performance remains at the required intensity. Not being overwhelmed by the size of the task


is key part of a successful mental preparation. It would be easy to start thinking you can’t ride hard in the first few days, and somehow saving yourself for later in the race. Thinking how you might feel on day 19 on day 1 is not useful as there are too many things outside of your control. Even thinking how you might feel at mile 50 at mile one involves a lot of guesswork – you don’t know how the other riders will race, which is one hugely uncontrollable variable. And so teaching yourself to focus on the controllable factors, breaking the task into small chunks, can help create a mindset that you can do each one, and if this is done as a team exercise, it can create a mindset that the team can do it. In summary, Geraint Thomas produced a set of remarkable performances to win the 2018 Tour. He showed mental strength, a strong inner self-ability, and worked well in a successful team. Psychological skills in terms of working on focus, recognising how your mood might affect another’s mood, and how their mood might influence yours is worth considering. Your interpretation of fatigue is crucial for endurance performance, and so strategies that help you manage that better should be useful. n


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Andy Lane is a Professor of Sport Psychology at the University of Wolverhampton. He is a Fellow of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES). He is Health Professional Council-registered and a British Psychological Society Chartered Psychologist. Telephone 01902 322862 Twitter @andylane27


AUTUMN 2018 SOCIETY NOW 13


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