MAKE YOUR CYCLING BRAIN BETTER

BE BETTER THAN YESTERDAY

Say you want to shave a minute off your big Strava climb. First, set up A, B, and C goals. A is your ideal (shave a minute), B is something acceptable (shave 20 seconds), and C is guaranteed (getting out there, learning, and having fun). Too many athletes get bogged down by missing A goals, so striving for the small stuff keeps the ultimate goal in focus while making the process enjoyable. Giving your mind a fallback helps it relax, which sets you up for stress-free success.

BE BETTER THAN OTHERS

To be great, you need to harness a deep belief that you are great. Many people struggle with a subconscious that holds doubt and creates mental blocks. Retrain it. Spend five minutes in front of the mirror repeating short

affirmations such as I am unstoppable.

In training, find a moment when you are performing ideally and think of a word that encapsulates that moment. Maybe it’s ‘ease’, maybe it’s ‘grind’. Start associating that word in your mind with that feeling.

BE BETTER THAN MOST

To cue flow state, and get your body to take over your mind, you need to tell your prefrontal cortex (your decision-making mind) to STFU. It wants to tell you about the risk and pain going all-out could cause. Crush those anxieties by establishing a daily mental routine. Within the first hour of waking up, do your affirmations. On the bike, use your trigger words. In five months or so, your subconscious will start to believe your conscious mind. That’s when you can be great.