James Lowsley-Williams: Cycling is very much a physically demanding sport,
but the more you do it the more you realize how big a part psychology plays. In this video,
I'm going to give you tips and tricks that you can implement to hopefully squeeze out a bit
more speed or just squeeze out a bit more of the enjoyment and experience of the sport we love to
do. The great thing about these techniques is you don't need to go and be on a horrific diet,
or go and do an extra-long five-hour ride. No, this can be done anywhere, anytime.
Psychology in sport and in cycling has been very much documented over the years, especially at the
pro and top-level, finding every tiny advantage to beat their rivals. Some say cycling is 20%
physical, and 80% mental but how do we tap into that 80%? How do we get the most out of it? How do
we go and enjoy our riding that bit more? [music]
Now I'm going to go through a few techniques that us cyclists can put into practice
out on the road to kind of better our experience and get better on the bike. I'm no psychologist,
so I did manage to get in touch with Dr. Chris Hartley who's a Sports Psychologist and Lecturer
at Sterling University here in the UK, to find out what he says about cycling and the
psychology of sport. [music]
I'm here joined with Dr. Chris Hartley from Sterling University. Hopefully,
Chris, you're going to give me a slight insight into what we're going to be doing today and also
why psychology is so important. I guess we should start off with that really big
question that I guess all the viewers are going to be asking, "Why is psychology so important
and how can it transform you as an athlete?" Dr. Chris Hartley: Thank you, James. I think
it's a great question. To be honest, a lot of people might think about sports psychology and
the psychology behind cycling as something that's a bit of a dark heart or a bit of a mystery.
It probably brings to mind for most people The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters.
One thing I would like to stress is that if you think about what cycling is, effectively,
it's a series of behaviors. Your mind and the thoughts you have, the emotions you feel will
impact on those behaviors. Actually your ability
to cycle to the best of your ability but also to get the most out of the cycling experience.
It is ultimately governed by mental processes, by the thoughts you have, the motivations you have,
the feelings you might either use to your advantage or that you might wrestle with and they
might get in the way for you. I could actually just flip the question right back to you, James.
Based on your writing experiences and experiences of racing in the past if you're going to put
a percentage on it, how big do you feel the mental component was to your own performances?
James: It's huge for me. 100% because if I feel stressed before an event or I feel super nervous,
I've had moments where I've been on the start line at a national event with a big crowd,
felt so nervous that it's actually completely screwed my performance. Then I've had moments
where I've turned up at the race, I've felt really good, really confident, I've seen myself visually
winning the event and done incredibly well. It gives you that extra sense of--
I guess it gives you a little bit extra energy. We can use that as well going back to the Tour de
France. If you're wearing the maillot jaune, it is said to give you that extra boost. That extra 10%.
Yes, I'm thinking a big high percentage. 70, 80%, is mental.
Chris: That's usually what you find people say. They say it can be 50% upwards towards 80%,
even 90% of your performance could be governed by the psychology of your performance. The irony is
that we spend so much time out on the bike doing long rides. We spend a lot of time maybe even
doing conditioning work, looking at our nutrition. I'm willing to bet that most viewers out there,
how many hours have you actually dedicated to developing that mental side of your performance?
James: It is clear that psychology can play a massive part. With that in mind, Chris has come
up with a list of techniques that you can do out on the bike. Hopefully, you can train yourself
mentally as well as physically. [music]
Chris: The first thing that I would like you to do is to just build awareness of how you react
to things when you're out on the bike. The mind is really good at hooking you with all sorts of
thoughts and feelings. Some of them more helpful than others. I almost like to think of it as
there's a future magnet, your mind will get drawn towards thoughts about things that could happen
and go wrong, but there's also a past magnet where your mind will get drawn to things that have gone
wrong. Things that you think about that might not be very helpful while you're out on the road.
Your first task, James, is just to notice those things, write them down, you could even if you
wanted to look extra cool, ring a bell on your handlebars every time you notice yourself getting
hooked with a thought or a feeling. Try and notice what kind of impact that has on your riding.
Just build that awareness to start with. James: I've been tasked with noticing my thoughts.
Straight away, I'm thinking the weather. Today is pretty grim. It's rainy, cloudy, quite slippery,
so I'm going to take a little bit more care and I'm going to go that little bit slower especially
on the descents. Then I've got hills. I've got a 7% climb and a 20% climb on that route. Straight
away, I'm thinking, "Oh, I don't like climbs the best of times especially in the wet and the cold."
Yes, I guess I'm going to be feeling a little bit of pain there. Then it's length. It's going
to be a long ride so hopefully I'll get through it but I guess I've got to stay positive. Here goes.
[music] Chris:
Okay, James, now that you've had the opportunity to build some awareness of how you tend to react
to things when you're out on the road, I'm now going to invite you to try and create a little
bit of space between that reaction so that you can hopefully produce a more calculated
response to when they do show up. For example, we could see that in the lead-up to the Tour,
Bernal encountered a range of setbacks and also in the Tour, he encountered a range of setbacks.
It's unavoidable in sport. That's always going to happen in one way or another.
The key thing is though he didn't just react to those things and engage in a lot of unhelpful
ways of riding, behaving, et cetera. He kept pushing on in spite of those setbacks. That was a
calculated response that he was able to do in that situation. What I want you to do is to just be
mindful when you do find yourself getting hooked by those things, and just try and
notice them curiously. The best example I could give you is next time you're out on the bike, and
you're feeling pain. Perhaps you're doing a big climb, just see if you can almost take a little
bit of a step back and notice the pain curiously. Almost like you're a curious scientist who's never
encountered pain before. If you do that, you give yourself that bit of space to realize, "Actually
pain is just a sensation. It doesn't have to control my actions." Let's give that a go.
James: Easier said than done. [music]
Right, those are the climbs done. I've got to say,
definitely noticed the pain but this time didn't act on it. I was just thinking the
pain is there, it's just a sensation. Yes, definitely easier said than done.
[music] Chris:
Okay, James, now that you've built that awareness of how you tend to react to things on the road,
and you've also had that opportunity to create some space between the reaction and the response
by being mindful of the sensations that show up in a non-judgmental manner,
the next thing I'm going to invite you to do is you're going to have to make a choice
of what to do with the thoughts and the hooks that do show up.
Simple experiment you can try. Just dangle your arm down by your side, and tell yourself
over and over again. "I cannot control my arm. I cannot move my arm. I cannot lift my right arm."
As you do that, just lift your arm. That will hopefully show you that you don't have
to let your thoughts control your actions. I also personally don't believe we have as much control
over our thoughts as we like to think we do. For example, you can't just delete your earliest
childhood memory if I was to ask you to do that. We have to make choices with what we do with
thoughts when they show up, when we're out on the road. Pogačar didn't let his thoughts control his
actions. I'm pretty sure he had lots of thoughts while he was out on tour that were negative,
unhelpful. Sometimes he might have felt like easing off a bit, but he chose what he wanted
to do with those thoughts when they did show up. My suggestion for you is next time you're out on
the road, you find a thought come up that's perhaps a bit unhelpful like, "I'm not really
feeling up for this. I'm going to get dropped." "This is a massive climb." That sort of thing.
Just thank your mind for that thought, accept it, stop struggling with it. Your mind's just
doing its job of trying to distract you. Make that choice to just accept the thought
and persist with the task at hand anyway. James: The first task is telling my arm
not to lift up but lifting my arm anyway. Take note all. I cannot lift my arm. I cannot lift
my arm. I cannot lift my arm. I cannot lift my arm. I cannot lift-- I'm lifting my arm.
Right, so I guess that does mean that my thoughts don't control my actions. Yes, this time I've got
to put it into practice. On this climb, I'm going to fight it hard, I'm going to attack it and I'm
going to want to stop but I'm going to persist. [music]
There you have it. That was a hard effort. I felt the pain. I wanted to stop,
but I didn't. I kept on with it and definitely, I reckon I did a pretty good time there. I guess
I've been in this situation quite a lot especially in races where you're on the back, you're in the
gutter, you're suffering, and your mind, your body, is telling you to stop but you don't. You
push on and that's actually where you get probably the best results. Definitely give that one a go.
[music] Chris:
Now the fourth tip is that I want you to try and
choose helpful stories. Now what I mean by that is we can all relate to a rider or a friend
who probably tells themselves unhelpful stories about the kind of rider they are. For example,
"I'm not someone who can ride hills," or, "I'm not fast on the flats." That sort of thing.
Actually, they sell themselves a bit short even before they have the opportunity to try the task.
For example, you might be someone that says, "I love pain." That might be a
helpful story to tell yourself in some situations. Your next task is a fairly simple one. I just want
you to get a mate to call you out on the kinds of stories that you tell yourself when you're out on
a ride. Some of them might be helpful, like, "I love pain." "I'm a good climber." Others might
not be so helpful. Like, "I'm slow on the flats," or, "I'm not really up for riding in wet weather."
What I want you to do, is to just try and be flexible with those stories you tell yourself.
It's your chance to be the kind of rider you want to be. Choose to tell yourself
helpful stories about you and just notice what effect that has on your riding.
James: I guess this is a technique that I'm most familiar with. Telling myself that I can
do it, and I can get through the challenge and I feel good and I'm enjoying that pain.
Think [unintelligible 00:12:12] the first time I did a 24 hour challenge with Mark Beaumont. Didn't
think I could do it but I persisted with it and I told myself I could and completed the challenge.
Then there's 24-hour Zwift. Didn't think I could sit on a bike for 24 hours especially on a turbo,
but I managed to do it. Then there's the trenching. Then there's Coast to Coast.
Then there's penny-farthing. Then there's Sunset Ride. Then there's the 300k across Wales and out
of all those challenges, I've completed all. I guess that's all thanks to my mental state
and telling myself I can achieve it. I can do it and not only that, I can enjoy it but thinking of
enjoyment well, I'm not really enjoying this wet- ?Conor: What are you talking about, Hank?
You love riding in the rain. James: Ah, true. Ha-ha.
[music] Chris:
Okay, James. The last tip for you now. Last exercise I want you to try. It's about changing
your metric of success. How do you measure success when you're out on the road? My top tip here is
that it's not all about positivity because things do go wrong. We don't have a lot of control over
the things that happen when we're actually out on the road or when we're out racing. A lot of people
choose to measure success by saying, "Oh if I won this race," or, "If I got top 10 finish," or,
"If I get KOM on Strava," that sort of thing. The problem is, is that we can't always control
those things because someone else might always have a better day than you. Things go wrong.
You might get a puncture, et cetera. What we tend to find is that it's more helpful if we focus on
controllable processes rather than uncontrollable outcomes. I think a good example actually if you
look at the Tour again, there was an interview of Pogačar before the final time trial.
As you know, he was one minute down from Roglič, but he managed to put two minutes back into him.
Pogačar, before the race, there was an interview where he said,
"From start to finish, I'm going to go full gas." He didn't say, "I'm going to win this."
Can you see the subtle difference there? It's process, "Going full gas," rather than outcome,
"I'm going to win this" because no matter what the outcome, he can always control
if he's going to go full gas or not. Even if he had lost to the time trial, he didn't come first,
he would still have been a success because he would have still been able to go full gas.
Things go wrong. Sometimes it's helpful to focus on those small controllable processes instead
because you're much more likely to achieve them. Next time you go out on the road, James,
rather than saying things like, "I'm going to get KOM on this segment," or, "I'm going to get a top
two finish in this next race," that sort of thing, say things like, "I'm going to commit to pushing
hard on this segment," or, "I'm going to commit to just showing up for the race," or, "I'm going
to hang in there and finish the race." That's the difference between focusing on an uncontrollable
outcome versus a controllable process. James: For this interval session,
I've got three times up [unintelligible 00:15:15] downhill, but I'm not going to think about the
KOM. I'm not going to think about the speed. I'm not even going to think about my max power. I'm
going to think about the process. I'm just going to think go balls to the wall. As hard as I can,
and I'll see how I get on. See you guys in three. [music]
One last thing you could try is going to do a two-hour ride on your own, and then go and do that
same ride with a group and just see which one's faster and which one you enjoy most. Sometimes
actually riding with a group will distract you from all that pain and suffering, and you'll end
up doing it quicker. Give that one a go and let me know in the Comments section below how you get on.
[music] I hope you enjoyed all those techniques.
I've got to say I've loved actually trying them, and doing them, and putting them into practice.
A massive thank you to Dr. Chris Hartley of Sterling University for giving up his time
and creating those techniques that we can try out and about. If you enjoyed this video, then give
it a big thumbs up. Let us know if you tried those techniques in the Comments section below, how you
got on, and I'll see you in the next video. [00:16:35] [END OF AUDIO]