deep practice

© PURSUIT ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE© PURSUIT ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE

Pursuit Athletic Performance

Deep Practice:

Exploding Our Ultimate Potential

TEAM Pursuit Athletic Performance

• Some Critically Important Questions

• All About Myelin and Skill

• What Is Deep Practice?

• Universal Concepts • What are the unifying elements of skill development across all sports?

• Mental Training: where your mind goes your energy will follow• Your inner critic

• Positive affirmations

• Summary: Swim-Bike-Run



Today’s Topics

© PURSUIT ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE


Some Critically Important Questions

• What limits us from achieving all that we want?

• How much do talent or genes really matter?

• What really determines who we become?

• How much control do we really have over our ultimate potential?



The Answers May Not Be What You Think!

• We are all told a beautiful story, but is it true?

• Its not all in the genes, its in the brain…

-and you can change your brain!

• Muscles are dumb; movement, thoughts, and feelings happen in the brain.

• The secret lies in deep, deliberate practice.

But Why?


“Every human movement, thought, or feeling, is a precisely timed electric signal traveling through a chain of

neurons – a circuit of nerve fibers.”


Dan Coyle, Author of “The Talent Code”

What Limits Us From Achieving Our Very Best?



Source: http://www.thestrengthandconditioningblog.com/2012/09/is-your-strength-training-deliberate.html

What You Get With Deep Practice: Myelin

• “A pattern is born to our perceptive brain as well as our behavioral brain, and recognizable situations and responses are linked.

• The more we observe and use the linked patterns, the more the chain of circuits fire, and the more padding we dedicate to insulating the frequently used circuits.

• Speed develops as the insulation of the cables connecting our favored circuits gets thicker.

• This insulation is called myelin, and we make it according to the perceptions and behaviors we practice most or least.1”



Myelin Defined

1: Cook, Gray, MOVEMENT: Screening-Assessment-Corrective Strategies, 2010, On Target Publications, pg. 314


A life in music: what did I learn?

• Relentless• Rehearse vs. Practice – frame it differently• Sitting right at the edge of struggle• Persistent• Mindful• Focused • Determined• Completely absorbed • Fun!


Deep Practice

• Mindfulness: being fully present in the moment

• A higher degree of precision: perfect technique

• Attentive repetition: working in the sweet spot at the edge of your capabilities

• Developing a working perception of the skill: create vivid images in your mind’s eye

• Learn to feel it: connect, build, alert, repeat, attention, edge, tiring, awake



Deep (Deliberate) Practice


People who have a high level of success…

• Seek mastery• Make practice playful, fun, and interesting• They stop, correct mistakes, and go on• Are engaged in the process vs. being

focused on a potential outcome • Have a different “relationship” with practice


Deep Practice

Definition: The fatty insulation that wraps nerve fibers, increasing signal strength, speed, accuracy.

• A living structure that deteriorates as we age: requires consistent practice (a moving target!).

• EFAs are the primary building blocks of myelin.

• Scaffolding: The more we generate impulses, encountering and overcoming difficulties, the more scaffolding we build.

• Bandwidth: regulates velocity, signal strength, accuracy.



More on Myelin

• Hard: technical, precise, methodical, first reps are critically important.

• Soft: read & react, like snowboarding, mtn biking.

• Myelin wraps – it does not unwrap!

• Groove a groove EASY

• Change a groove HARD

• Baby steps: slow it down; attentive repetition.

• Targeted, mistake focused practice.

• Sweet spot at the edge of your capabilities. © PURSUIT ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE© PURSUIT ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE


What is Skill?

Myelin wraps – it does not unwrap!

• Resist trying to “tweak” or modify an existing skill or pattern.

• Rather, go back to the beginning and re-groove (myelinate) a NEW pattern.

(more soon on why your brain

won’t want to do this!)



What is Skill?


Deep Practice + Time + Myelin

= Talent (and skill)

- Dan Coyle, author of “The Talent Code


• Deep deliberate practice involves spending LOTS of energy struggling for an uncertain outcome!

• Our subconscious mind/brain dislikes spending energy for uncertain payoffs!



What Might Be Our Biggest Challenge?

Our subconscious need / drive to avoid it! (practice)

Look for ways to trick your subconscious by…• Surrounding yourself with support groups and behavioral cues.

• Document and track progress: journal and testing.

Chunking • Break it down to its smallest parts, then combine them

progressively into a meaningful sequence.

• Take it ONE step at a time.



Universal Concepts: What Are The Unifying Elements Across All Sports?

Interweaving • Example: 3x 5min (5min) vs. 15min straight

• Do it - take a break - then do it again - then take a break - then do it again.

• Quick, short, intense, then walk away, before coming back to it again



Universal Concepts:

Repetition • Over and over and over and over (10k hours?)

• Repetition is construction

• What Navy Seals (Zero Dark Thirty) and musicians do!



Universal Concepts:

Fundamentals • Where the best athletes always come back to, over and

over again.

• Mastery.

• The better you become, the more important THESE become.



Universal Concepts:

Imagery • Pictures are the language of the brain.

• Make your images (in your mind’s eye) bright and colorful!



Universal Concepts:

Experimentation • Try something new.

• It is ok to go too far, slip and fall, then get up and try again.

• Explore movement and motion.

• Get out of your “comfort zone.”



Universal Concepts:

Teach It! • We learn better by teaching...

• And by seeking to understand…



Universal Concepts:

Mark The Spot • When you get it right (a perfect rep), stop and memorize

the feeling.

• Mark it!

• Emotionally reinforce the moment.

• Pause, then repeat!



Universal Concepts:

Exaggeration • To best learn a new move or groove a completely new

groove, exaggerate it!

• In order to feel safe and to groove the groove, you need to feel what its like to go too far.



Universal Concepts:

Focused – Fresh – Frequent – Flawless

• Focused: deliberate, thoughtful, attentive, precise

• Fresh: rest as needed, do not rush, do not train “tired”

• Frequent: repetition, daily practice, 1000 reps, 10,000 hours

• Flawless: don’t myelinize the wrong circuit

The goal is MASTERY



From Pavel: “Grease The Groove”

Source: Pavel’s “The Naked Warrior”

• You have an average of 50,000 thoughts per day!

• Many in the field of neurology believe neural connections make us who we are, e.g. they create that sense of self that we all have.

• Our sense of self is the story of “who I am.”

• Did you ever wonder why the story changes depending on whether we are in a good or bad mood?



Mental TrainingWhere Your Mind Goes, Your Energy Will Follow

• Your Negative Inner Critic: Have you grooved this groove in the thoughts, feelings, and words you have or say to yourself?

• Judging

• Criticizing

• Over analyzing

• Comparing

• Assuming

• Thinking! © PURSUIT ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE© PURSUIT ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE



Your negative inner critic:• Blames you for most things that go wrong

• Sets unrealistically high expectations for performance

• Compares your abilities and achievements to others where you appear less than adequate

• Keeps a perfect record of your mistakes but forgets to remind you of your strengths and abilities

• Has favorite degrading names for you




Source: JoAnn Dalhkoetter’s: Your Performing Edge –The Complete Mind/Body GuideFor Excellence in Sports, Health, and Life

Your negative inner critic:• Has a rigid set of “rules” that you “should” live by, and

scolds you for moving outside of those boundaries

• The voice we most often believe because it’s the groove we most often groove, unfortunately!

• ?




How Do We Groove a NEW Groove? • Awareness!: take note of recurring themes

• Thought STOPPING!

• “Stop it” “Shut up” “Stop this garbage” “There is no truth to this junk” “Stop the judgments”

• Add in a physical action to affirm the thought stopping, such as a snap of your fingers

• Positive Creative Affirmations:

• Make positive self statements continually




• Positive Affirmations: a way to immediately change and create NEW pathways

• Present tense, use a specific brief phrase, positive framing, anticipate success, make it permanent (I always…)

• Use words which convey emotion (I get excited and enthusiastic)




When you’re thinking: “This hurts too much!”

Say to yourself: “This feeling is connected with going faster and doing my best!”

When you’re thinking: “I hate bad weather and never do well in it.”

Say to yourself: “I perform well in any kind of weather; I handle adversity well; I’m mentally tough in bad weather; this is the perfect weather for me. ”



Mental TrainingPositive Creative Affirmations

When you’re thinking: “I am fat and slow”

Say to yourself: “I am getting stronger and faster with each training session. I feel myself floating along effortlessly!”

When you’re thinking: “I get distracted easily”

Say to yourself: “I can stay in the moment and concentrate effectively. I am focused and determined.”



Mental TrainingPositive Creative Affirmations

• Positive thinking and positive focus create MOTIVATION and ENTHUSIASM,

• Which in turn IMPROVES performance outcome,

• Which in turn FUELS motivation to continue.




• I believe in myself and radiate that inner confidence

• I am fully focused and self directed during my training

• I am strengthening my motivation and drive every day

• I am becoming better friends with my body every day

• I am strengthening my mind and body every day

• I like myself more and more each day



Mental TrainingExamples of Daily Affirmations To Create Motivation

• Make positive self statements constantly and continually

• Give yourself a PAT ON THE BACK for each small or large success you have! (even “just” showing up deserves that pat!)

• Don’t fight with negative thoughts – acknowledge them and then immediately replace them with a positive thought or affirmation

• Be aware of distractions and breathe out unwanted thoughts

• Associate vs. disassociate: body scan, check breathing, be fully present IN THE MOMENT



Mental TrainingDaily Affirmations: Rules to Live By



Summary: Swim-Bike-Run

• Begin at the beginning…

• Never take another bad stroke!!!

• Groove the groove: start on the floor, see it come to fruition on the roads and trails

• Master the basics and fundamentals

• Those cadence drills have a purpose!

• Moving target: chase weakness, imbalance, asymmetry

• Use it or lose it: get strong and stay strong

• Keep it fun!

deep practice

Sports

pursuit athletic

critically

fully present

youre thinking

myelin wraps

dan coyle

make positive

unifying elements