Train Your Brain

Since you’re reading this blog, I’ll assume you’re a runner. You might consider yourself fast or slow, but if you get out there on the road regularly and have the desire to improve, you’re a runner as far as I’m concerned. As a runner with the desire to improve, what do you do? Hopefully you are working different energy systems by varying your running speed and not always plodding along in the same fashion over and over again. (You’re not? Hang in there, I’ll cover that in another post eventually!)

So you’re physically training. What else is there? You need to train your brain! You may not realize it, but your brain is in control of many things that affect your running. Your brain decides:

·         “It’s too early” (It’s not; get your lazy butt out of bed and go run!)

·         “It’s too hot” (Rarely. Dress appropriately, be adequately hydrated, slow down, and get out there.)

·         “It’s too cold” (Even more rarely. Dress appropriately, warm up, and get out there.)

·         “It’s raining” (What, are you afraid to get wet? Look, today I ran 9 miles in 59° rain, and I ended up less wet than when I was running two weeks ago in 80° dryness!)

·         “My legs were tired, I just couldn’t hold my pace today.”

Let’s talk about that last one. Chances are, that “my legs are tired” idea comes directly from your brain, and not because your legs told your brain they were tired. Scientific studies have shown that what we perceive as exhaustion is really just your brain trying to convince you how tired you are based on how much effort you’re expending.

“What we call exhaustion is not the inability to continue; it’s basically giving up,” Samuele Marcora Ph.D. said in a recent interview with Competitor.com.  “The reality is that the neuromuscular system is actually able to continue. My idea is that it’s basically a safety mechanism like many other sensations. So you have sensations motivating you to take a certain course of action for survival. Think about thirst or hunger or pain. All these sensations are there to make us do something. That is actually beneficial for our survival, and I think perception of effort does the same.”

This makes some sense, however, just like you can train your muscles, you can train your brain. But How?

One idea is that we have a limited supply of willpower. Waste it on something else, and you may not have enough of it when you need it in a race or training run. Here are some tips from The Science of Running

1.      Prioritize

Don’t waste willpower on inconsequential problems. Far too often we stress over small decisions with little or no payoff, and just end up causing decision-making fatigue. Don’t stress over what to eat for breakfast or what color shorts to wear.

2.      Make Important Decisions Automatic

Just like teeth brushing, make the key decisions in your life and in running, automatic. Research shows that automatic decisions drain less of your willpower, so take advantage of it.

3.      Plan

If you know you have a big race, test, challenge, or event coming up, plan it out so that you aren’t depleting your willpower going into it. Look at it like training and simply taper off things that suck your willpower going into the event.

4.      Train

The mind can be conditioned. How we respond to challenges and tests of self-control become ingrained into us. You can change how your brain activates and that can be a good thing or a bad thing. You can actually increase your capacity to deal with depletion of willpower. You can train to have a bigger reserve or take smaller scoops out of that reserve with each challenge. In other words, practice using your willpower.

You can train your use of willpower with some of the following:

• Deciding not to eat something that’s bad for you
• Going to bed at a regular time each night
• Running each day or X times per week.
• Plan some key training runs when you are already tired from your weekly routine
• Pre-Stress your brain with complicated puzzles and games before an intense workout

 If you want to raise your running performance to a higher level, consider adding brain training to your next race training plan!