Deep practice

Pursuit Athletic Performance

TEAM Pursuit Athletic Performance

Deep Practice:
Exploding Our Ultimate Potential

© PURSUIT ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE


Today’s Topics
• 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


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?



What Limits Us From Achieving Our Very Best?

“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 You Get With Deep Practice:
Myelin

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



Myelin Defined
•“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”
1: Cook, Gray, MOVEMENT: Screening-Assessment-Corrective Strategies, 2010, On Target Publications, pg. 314


Deep Practice
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 (Deliberate) 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, awak
e


Deep 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


More on Myelin

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.



What is Skill?
• 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.


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!)



Deep Practice
+ Time + Myelin
= Talent (and skill)
-Dan Coyle, author of “The Talent Code



What Might Be Our Biggest Challenge?
Our subconscious need / drive to avoid it! (practice)

• Deep deliberate practice involves spending LOTS of
energy struggling for an uncertain outcome!
•Our subconscious mind/brain dislikes spending energy
for uncertain payoffs!

Look for ways to trick your subconscious by…
•Surrounding yourself with support groups and behavioral cues.
•Document and track progress: journal and testing.


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

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:

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.



From Pavel: “Grease The Groove”

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
Source: Pavel’s “The Naked Warrior”



Mental Training
Where Your Mind Goes, Your Energy Will Follow

• 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 Training

• 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! 


Mental Training

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 Guide
For Excellence in Sports, Health, and Life


Mental Training

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!
•?



Mental Training
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



Mental Training

• 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)



Mental Training
Positive Creative Affirmations

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 Training
Positive 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 Training

•Positive thinking and positive focus create
MOTIVATION and ENTHUSIASM,
•Which in turn IMPROVES performance outcome,
•Which in turn FUELS motivation to continue.



Mental Training
Examples of Daily Affirmations To Create Motivation

•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 Training
Daily Affirmations: Rules to Live By

•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


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

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