Five ways a word that generates a snigger can help you achieve your racing goals
That word is ‘arousal’.
Trying to introduce the concept of ‘arousal’ and its effect on performance can sure generate a few laughs, believe me. Imagine explaining it to a group of primary school aged hot-shoes and their parents!
So what’s it all about, and why should you bother about it if you want to go faster?
Arousal is the degree to which you are ‘up for it’ (no please, stop sniggering now…), ‘geed up’ or ‘wound up’. Having a higher level of arousal doesn’t necessarily mean you are more ‘in the zone’. It simply means you’re closer to being manic than you are to being asleep. Being more manic means your heart will beat faster, your breathing rate will increase, you’ll take in fewer sights and sounds from the world around you and you’ll have more adrenaline pumping throughout you. It also means you could well have more thoughts racing through your head, and probably not all positive ones either.
Here then are the five ways arousal can help you achieve your racing goals:
1st Way
- Block out the irrelevant
More arousal will narrow your field of vision. At times there will be all sorts of peripheral rubbish going on around you that have absolutely nothing to do with helping you go faster.
2nd Way
- Hit the sweet spot of your emotions
Your arousal level can affect your emotions. If you take one thing from these articles on motor sport psychology, remember that performance is an emotional event. There are a set of emotional levels at which your best performance exists. Get the set-up on the arousal and then the emotions right and you’ll be flying. (Unless you’ve got the right tools, it’s a lot easier to change the rear tyre pressure though, isn’t it, but is that where the next tenth is going to come from?)
3rd Way
- Kick back and recover
Champions recover their expended energy better than non-champions. When it’s time to rest, boy do they rest. These quality athletes can drop their arousal level when they need to and take advantage of down-time.
4th Way
- Avoid complacency
Some of you will need a higher level of arousal to perform than others. You folks are similar to a race horse that needs a dab of mustard under the tail! When it’s a low pressure event, being able to up your arousal as you need to can stop you being too laid back and unfocussed.
5th Way
- Get a solid sense of personal control
Control is everything with performance. The more you control your car or bike the more confident you get, right? Well what if, even when events and others are piling on the pressure, you knew you could control your arousal, just as you wanted to?
* The Mindset for Racing Finish Line *
There is no ‘off-the-peg’ solution to giving you optimum performance for a certain level of arousal. Thankfully, we are all different, even if in motor sport, we are all racers.
Dependent on whom we are, what we are doing and when we are doing it, there will always be an optimum level of arousal to get the most performance gain at that time. Quick riders and drivers are always aware of their arousal level, aware of what it should be and have the skills to turn it up or down as needs be. Their tool for changing arousal is a dial, not a switch.
The better the athlete, the finer the dial.
You know what the top guys do and what you should be doing, don’t you?
Enjoy your racing and never give up.
See you at the tracks.
Mike Garth
Sun1400
www.sun1400.com
Motor Sport Psychology
Motor Sport Performance Coaching
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