Developing Your Greatest Skill, the Language of Your Mind for Increased Performance

By Rachael Cadden

*Photo courtesy of www.EricNelsonPhotography.com

Before building anything, a foundation is set. In athletics, architecture and mental conditioning.

The foundation is the basics. By understanding and mastering the basics, we can go deeper, then improve, enhance and accelerate your mental conditioning for personal and athletic achievement.

This entry is setting the foundation that will be your accomplice in increasing your performance, pushing beyond your limits and defying the impossible.

All of us have our own internal language.  It is what we tell ourselves, consciously and unconsciously, and drives our achievement or lack thereof regardless of intention or will. Usually influenced or taught to us growing up by others. Some we learned and created from our own experiences and circumstances. We all have an internal language of belief about ourselves, what we can do, our surroundings and how it inhibits, limits or accelerates us from/into personal excellence and achievement.

Example, we all grew up believing the sky is blue. In our young state we didn’t question it. What if the sky really isn’t blue? What if it was actually purple. What if I told you what you “thought” about the sky being blue your entire life isn’t actually true. Would you believe it or be open to believing it? Think about it and just notice how your mind may combat and even question the absurdity. It is the same with ingrained language patterns and beliefs. Often the mind, for survival or protection, does the same. It combats anything that challenges the story we’ve believed.

These old languages/beliefs/stories are the driving force that often limits advancement.

This example is obviously far fetched and will allow you to see, think and be more aware of your own thoughts in your performance and accomplishments. It’s broad and very general, most of my work is individualized and personalized, but these examples will provide insight for developing your mental conditioning by first being aware. It is your personal responsibility,  notice them, be willing to let them go and give yourself a new language. How? By practicing.

Let’s challenge what language or thoughts you have been holding onto, what stories you have been telling yourself and your belief about what you can lift, run, PR, perform, achieve, race, accomplish and crush. It begins with your awareness. Notice your thoughts going into a WOD (workout of the day), a WOD that is a challenge for you, one that scares you or involves movements that you are not “good” or “strong” at. How quick are you to think or state your reason why you are not good or strong at something. Are you beginning to see?

Awareness and thinking independently of your old beliefs is a process and isn’t remedied or conditioned overnight. It requires your action and like any skill, involves PRACTICE. The practice of being aware and thinking independently of your old beliefs. Almost every WOD does this for me.  Once you have uncovered something, you will find another layer of stories and beliefs in your language/thinking to let go of. It no longer serves you or your performance so why rehearse or hang onto it?

By the way, most of your thoughts that pertain to belief about yourself aren’t true. You just believe they are because it “feels” true.  Challenge them! I dare you.

By doing so you give up the right to blame circumstances and outside excuses and move beyond reasons.

Training, practice and conditioning the language of your mind will enhance and develop an elite mindset for personal and athletic achievement.

Developing the language of your mind obviously overflows into all areas of your personal life, career and successes.

It’s time to learn a new language and give up your right to keep telling your story. Are you willing?  Welcome to the revolution!

What have you been thinking?

Comments and questions welcome.

Stay tuned, next up: Visualization and Tapping Into Your Animal Brain.

Rachael Cadden, Neuro Linguistics Practitioner & Mindset Coach

Available for individual, group and specialized consults

• Contact Rachael at: Rachael@VerveEnterprises.com
• You can read this post at it’s source at:    Mind Wide Open

What exactly is a ritual?  The definition that applies here is “a consciously chosen  practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner.”

What is the difference between a habit and a ritual?  Habits are, more often than not, unconscious behaviors that because of convenience, environment, peer pressure, societal norms or a myriad of influences; sneak in and take over.  A ritual is consciously chosen, then practiced until the point is reached that little conscious thought is needed.

One day I was laying out a meal plan for client.  ”Eat every 3 hours” I said.  ”Minimize fats in the morning, minimize carbs in the evening.”  Before I could continue, she was rolling her eyes and had her hands on her hips.  ”What?” I asked.  ” I can’t just stop at 10 o’clock in the morning to eat!” she complained.  I had heard this before.  Usually when I heard it I tried to do a work around or crunch lunch earlier or something to appease the client.  This time was different.  I had a mini-epiphany. “Why not?” I asked.  ”Huh?” she said, rather puzzled.  ”Why can’t you stop at 10 o’clock for a few minutes and eat something?”  I queried.  ”Well, I have clients and calls and meetings…” she stated rapid fire until I cut her off.  ”Who makes your schedule?” I asked.  ”Well I do, but…” I cut her off again.  ”Listen, if you were a diabetic and you didn’t eat something at 10 oclock, you would do a face plant on your desk by 11.  Would you find a way then?”  Now I had my hands on my hips.  ”Of course!” she said “But I’m not…”  Again I interupted.  ”So it’s NOT that you can’t, It’s because it’s not important enough to you.”  She was quiet.  ”I can’t make it important enough for you to change behaviours,  but YOU can!” I offered.  ”You must consciously choose to though.”

If you establish a new behavior as a ritual, then you don’t have to apply that conscious effort.  This isn’t about will power.  Will power is thinking about it every time and muscling through what seems uncomfortable or different.  You need to make each behavior change a ritual so you can apply that conscious energy to the next behavior or situation.  Any worthwhile life or lifestyle design plan has multiple behavioral changes involved.  If you’re going to try to “will power” your way through ALL of them, you will likely burn out or blow up.  We just can’t sustain that much brainpower over so many tasks.  So start with one or two. Take some time to ritualize the behavior or action, then add one or two more.   Once you have done this for a while, you will look back and realize that you really can “consciously chose” your life.

When you “lose” body fat, the fat cell (also called an adipocyte) does not go anywhere or “move into the muscle cell to be burned”, as it was suggested to you (although that’s not too far off).

The fat cell itself,(unfortunately) stays right where it was – under the skin in your thighs, stomach, hips, arms, etc., and on top of the muscles – which is why you can’t see muscle “definition” when your body fat is high.
Fat is stored inside the fat cell in the form of triaglycerol. The fat is not burned right there in the fat cell, it must be liberated from the fat cell through somewhat complex hormonal/biochemical pathways.
When stimulated to do so, the fat cell simply releases its contents (triaglycerol) into the bloodstream as free fatty acids (FFA’s), and they are transported through the blood to the tissues where the energy is needed.
A typical young male stores about 60,000 to 100,000 calories of energy in body fat cells. What triggers the release of all these stored fatty acids from the fat cell? Ahhh, that’s what we all want to know, right?
Well, it’s simple: When your body needs energy because you’re consuming fewer calories than you are burning (an energy deficit), then your body releases hormones and enzymes that signal your fat cells to release your fat reserves instead of keeping them in storage.
For stored fat to be liberated from the fat cell, hydrolysis (lipolysis or fat breakdown), splits the molecule of triaglycerol into glycerol and three fatty acids. An important enzyme called hormone sensitive lipase (HSL) is the catalyst for this reaction.
The stored fat (energy) gets released into the bloodstream as FFA’s and they are shuttled off to the muscles where the energy is needed. As blood flow increases to the active muscles, more FFA’s are delivered to the muscles that need them.
An important enzyme called lipoprotein lipase (LPL), then helps the FFA’s get inside the mitochondria of the muscle cell, where the FFA’s can be burned for energy. If you’ve ever taken a biology class, then you’ve probably heard of the mitochondria. This is the “cellular powerhouse” where energy production takes place and this is where the FFA’s go to be burned for energy.
When the FFA’s are released from the fat cell, the fat cell shrinks and that’s why you look leaner – because the fat cell is now smaller. A small or “empty” fat cell is what you’re after if you want the lean, defined look.
It was once believed that the number of fat cells could not increase after maturity, only the size of the fat cells could increase (or decrease). We now know that fat cells can indeed increase both in size (hypertrophy) and in number (hyperplasia) and that they are more likely to increase in number at certain times and under certain circumstances, such as 1) during late childhood and early puberty, 2) During pregnancy, and 3) During adulthood when extreme amounts of weight are gained.
Some people are genetically predisposed to have more fat cells than others and women have more fat cells than men. An infant usually has about 5 – 6 billion fat cells. This number increases during early childhood and puberty, and a healthy adult with normal body composition has about 25 to 30 billion fat cells. A typical overweight adult has around 75 billion fat cells. But in the case of severe obesity, this number can be as high as 250 to 300 billion!
The average size (weight) of an adult fat cell is about 0.6 micrograms, but they can vary in size from 0.2 micograms to 0.9 micrograms.
An overweight person’s fat cells can be up to three times larger than a person with ideal body composition.
Remember, body fat is basically just a reserve source of energy and fat cells are the like the storage tanks. Unlike a gas tank in your car which is fixed in size, however, fat cells can expand or shrink in size depending on how “filled” they are.
Picture a balloon that is not inflated: It’s tiny when not filled with air – maybe the size of your thumb. When you blow it up with air, it can expand 10 or 12 times it’s normal size, because it simply fills up.
That’s what happens to fat cells: They start as nearly empty fat storage “tanks” (when you are lean), and when energy intake exceeds your needs, your fat cells “fill up” and “stretch out” like balloons filled with jelly (not a pretty picture, is it?)
So when you get leaner, you don’t actually “lose” fat cells, you “shrink” or “empty out” fat cells.
Take-home lessons: 1. Calories count! The signal that triggers your body to release adipose from fat cells is an energy deficit… you have to burn more than you eat.
2. Cut calories conservatively. Starving yourself may cause quick weight loss at first, but never works long term because it actually decreases the activity of fat burning enzymes that release fat from the cells. To avoid this “starvation mode” use exercise to BURN THE FAT, not very low calorie crash diets.
3. Get control of your weight now. If you are gaining weight, and especially if your weight is climbing upwards out of control, make a decision to STOP RIGHT NOW. Your fat cells might be multiplying, making it more difficult to burn fat in the future. NOW is the time!
4. If you’ve already lost weight, you must be forever diligent. Your fat cells are not gone, they have merely “shrunk” or “emptied out.” Fitness is not a 12 week program, it’s a lifestyle. To stay lean you have to eat clean and stay active
5. Genetics are only a minor factor. You may not have control over how many fat cells you were born with, but you do control the major factors that determine how much fat you store: lifestyle, exercise, nutrition, mental attitude.
Genetics are not an excuse. The past is not an excuse. Your present condition is not an excuse. You can either make excuses or get results, but you can’t do both.

How about YOU?

*

Dr Wells was already my friend on Facebook.

It really is getting smaller.

TVA is a large deep abdominal muscle that lies underneath your superficial abdominal muscles such as Rectus Abdominis (your six-pack) and your obliques (love handles). TVA wraps around your entire abdominal torso area and acts like a giant weight belt for the spine. When TVA is activated, it truly plays the role of providing a solid foundation or solid core. Core training is focused on using TVA to improve its strength so that it can provide a stronger foundation for the athlete.

To engage TVA, you simply draw your stomach in toward your spine. It’s the same as if you’re trying to make yourself skinnier trying to “suck in your gut”. More specifically, you’re not just drawing in your stomach you’re trying to draw in your lower stomach. If we take a center point of where we want you to draw your stomach in, the center point would be about 2 inches below your bellybutton. Focus on drawing your stomach in at this point so that your core is engaged and strengthening the connection between your pelvis and your torso. Be sure that when you draw your stomach in, you don’t hunch over. It’s very important to maintain good posture while engaging your core.

Draw your stomach in to fire TVA and engage your core during any and all activity including weight training, be it abdominal or other muscle group exercises, throwing during practice and especially during competition.

To supplement TVA, you can also engage your kegel muscles to more effectively train your core. Your kegel muscles are your lower pelvic floor muscles used to stop the flow of urine. If you have trouble finding them, the easiest way to learn how to contract these muscles is stopping the flow on your next trip to the washroom. These muscles play a supportive role in further engaging your core. Try drawing in your stomach and contracting your kegel muscles at the same time. This should give you an idea of how challenging it is to effectively train your core. This challenging endeavor may be why they’re so much confusion surrounding how to properly train your core however, a little time and focus on these two muscles will pay great dividends for your core training.

To train your core, all you have to do is engage these two muscles as mentioned earlier however, you may want to get comfortable with using them first. You can practice firing TVA and your kegels in the car or while walking through the grocery store. This is a great way to learn how to engage them properly before you move on to more challenging movements such as engaging your core during your javelin run up.

You may find that engaging your core limits your ability to take deep breaths to some degree however, over time, this slightly limited sensation should pass and you’ll be able to engage your core without it hampering your breathing. As a side note, make sure you’re not drawing your stomach up and in which would slightly compress your diaphragm. Focus on simply drawing your stomach in to avoid putting any excess pressure on your diaphragm and you should find it easier to maintain a normal breathing pattern.

Core training for javelin summary: Step #1: Draw in TVA 2 inches below your bellybutton to engage your core.

Step #2: Contract your kegel muscles and TVA to fully engage your core.

Step #3: Draw your stomach in and not up onto your diaphragm to engage your core.

Step #4: Keep your breathing constant and don’t ever try to hold your breath while engaging your core or doing any other exercises for that matter.

Step #5: As you’re learning, practice firing TVA and your kegels while sitting in the car or walking around and as you improve, engage these muscles to engage your core during all of your javelin training.

Become a free member and check out the “javelin throw core articles too” at www.throwjavelin.com. You’ll also find tons of exercises that focus on training for improved javelin technique and performance to help you get that next personal best throw before you know it!

Yours truly, Chucker.

About the Author

javelin throw enthusiast Byron Collyer is a well known javelin throw coach and training specialist. Byron Offers his expert javelin throw advice at his site www.throwjavelin.com which is loaded with javelin throwing tips, drills, secrets, weight and core training for javelin and more. Visit today and become a free member!

I had a hopelessly improbable goal in Japan, but I was driven by unstoppable intent. Like some tragic hero in an epic novel, I was ready to give up all in hopes of finding a master teacher who could reforge me into the man I longed to be, and I ended up plummeting through heart-tearing seasons of dark nights on my way to finding brightness.  (read more)