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*NEVER train breathing efficiency in the pool or underwater breath holds unsupervised. We don’t and neither should you.

Over the past year, we’ve been getting more and more questions regarding our integration of breath work with the competitive swimmers we coach.

The focus of this post will be on the ways we are integrating breath work both in and outside of practice … for those interested in learning more of the science/physiology behind what we are doing, we’d encourage you to reference Brian MacKenzie and Rob Wilson’s various articles and podcasts on the subject. I’ve broken our article down into four sections: pre-workout/pre-competition, post-workout/post-competition, during a workout, and evening/prior to bed.

While we are strong advocates of nasal breathing while workout out/training, obviously breathing efficiency in the pool is not practical (it can be utilized while kicking with a board). Our primary use of nasal breathing will be while on the wall during rest periods. During light aerobic swimming, this won’t be too much of a challenge for most of you. What we look to develop is how quickly you can initiate nasal breathing when you are “redlining.” Improvements in this area will indicate a few things … improved efficiency/effectiveness with nasal breathing, an improved tolerance to CO2 levels, as well as a psychological/emotional adaptation in terms of your ability to maintain composure under stress.

Why do we want to nasal breathe during rest intervals?

1. You will recover quicker and be able to have a higher work output on subsequent repeats/sets.
2. You will improve your body’s ability to tolerate CO2
3. Psychological/emotional adaptation in terms of your ability to maintain composure under stress
4. Engage diaphragm

Pre-Workout/Pre-Meet warm-up

Immediately prior to starting warm-up, the team does 10-12 rounds of cadence (1-1-2-1).

This should help “warm-up” the respiratory system and also be mildly “up-regulating.”

Post-Workout/Meet

We’ve greatly cut-down the amount of swimming in our warm downs and have replaced the swimming with a 1-1-1-1 breathing protocol.

A post-meet warm down used to typically be in the 800-1200 yard range (approx. 15–20 minutes). We now typically employ something along the lines of 3 rounds of:

3-4×50 easy on a :40 intervals and 4 rounds of the 1-1-1-1 protocol.

Post workout we will typically do 4–10 minutes of the protocol.

As I mentioned earlier, we have cut about 1/3-1/2 of our typical warm down volume, as the swimmers feel completely recovered.

Within Training Sets and at the conclusion of training sets

One of our favorite training sets is “Bolles 50’s”

8×50 with each being attacked as if it is the only swim of the set (we don’t want people “saving up” or looking to “hold an average” … done right the swimmers should not be able to sustain the same speed from #1-#8 … true distance swimmers with high breathing efficiency in the pool can be an exception).

The set starts with a lot of rest (the first 4×50 are on a 2:00 interval, so everyone is getting around 1:30 rest; the next 2×50 are on a 1:30 interval and the final 2×50 are on a :50 interval).

Here is how we do the set now:

After the first 4×50, immediately upon finishing the 50 do two rounds of :20 nasal breathing + exhale hold.

Then, After #5 and #6 (which are now on a 1:30 interval), we go one round of :30 nasal + inhale hold.

When #8 is complete, we go 3 rounds of :30 nasal + exhale hold and then 3 rounds of :30 nasal plus inhale hold.

After the 6th round of breathing the swimmers will generally feel 100% recovered with no need for “easy swimming.”

Examples incorporating breathing protocols into a set

3 rounds of 3×100 as follows:

3×100 @ 1:30 best average
Immediately upon finishing the 3rd 100 transition to nasal-only breathing as quickly as possible, and then nasal breathe for 1:00 and then begin the second set of 3×100.

6×300 for time.
Upon finishing each 300 transition to nasal-only breathing as quickly as possible, and then nasal breathe for 2:00 and then begin next 300.

20×25 fast.
Upon finishing each 25 transition to nasal-only breathing as quickly as possible, once you can take 5 consecutive nasal only breaths start the next 25

Examples incorporating inhale holds and exhale holds

Our most standard breathing protocols during long rest periods or at the end of sets involves incorporating rounds of :20-:30 of nasal breathing with “inhale” and/or “exhale” holds.

3 rounds of 3×100 as follows:

3×100 @ 1:30 best average
Immediately upon finishing the 3rd 100 transition to nasal-only breathing as quickly as possible, and then go three rounds of (:30 nasal breathing + inhale or exhale hold)

6×300 for time.
:30 rest after the odd # 300’s, after the even # 300’s transition to nasal-only breathing as quickly as possible, and then go three rounds of (:30 nasal breathing + inhale or exhale hold)
Take another :10-:15 rest and begin the next 300.

20×25 fast.
Upon finishing each 25 transition to nasal-only breathing as quickly as possible, once you can take 5 consecutive nasal only breaths start the next 25. At conclusion of set go three rounds of (:30 nasal breathing + inhale or exhale hold)

The final breathing protocol we employ is an Apnea protocol (1-3-2-0 or 1-4-2-0). This is done in the evening prior to bed and has been a huge help in terms of recovery, quality of sleep, as well as CO2 tolerance.

Feel free to reach out via Instagram with any questions about breathing efficiency in the pool!

By Charles Oxley

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training.” — Socrates

A key to health & longevity is to keep active as late into our lives as possible. It’s undeniable that movement is integral to our physical and mental well-being, and therefore the quality of life, now and as we age. How should you be training for life?

Move your body more and move your body well.

Move More

The more we move, at any age, the healthier we are. It’s no surprise that you’re most likely to move more doing something you enjoy over something you don’t. Pick something you enjoy (important to note, by ‘enjoy’ I don’t mean ‘find easy’, but instead something where you find a joy in the effort of performing the movement).

I like to ask clients, “What’s the one thing you do movement wise for an hour but only feels like only 5-minutes?”
Hiking, Running, Skiing, Cleaning the house, Tennis, Walking the dog, Surfing, Weightlifting, MMA, Dancing, Triathlons, Yoga, DIY, Rock Climbing, Kicking/Throwing a football with the kids, shooting hoops, Pilates, Sailing, Hunting, Calisthenics, Gardening….

There are literally hundreds of activities that come up. Going forward, we’ll call this your ‘Recreation’.

It’s inclusive in that it can be anything, can be multiple things and can change over time, the only caveat being it must be done with good movement.

Move Well

This is moving safely and as the body is designed to move. Moving well allows us to remain active, and therefore healthy, as we age. It’s all very well to move a lot now but if it’s done badly it’s likely to be at the expense of being sedentary or in chronic pain at some point in the future.

This is where the true role of exercise comes in.

Exercise should be a dedicated time to focus on testing, developing and improving the fundamental skills and quality of how well you’re moving in a general sense and specific to your recreation.

It’s to support your ability to do your recreation and therefore an investment into your future quality of life. While your approach to physical activity should lead you to move more, it is equally important that it leads you to move well.

So far, we’ve covered,

Approach to Physical Activity: Recreation – move your body more + move your body well

How: Perform your recreation to move more and include exercise to move well

Why: Improve your quality of life in the short and long-term

Distortion of Exercise

However, if you think about it the majority don’t take this approach toward their physical activity. Instead, you see a distorted and different meaning to the word exercise, a word that’s become the leading approach people believe they need to take:

Approach to Physical Activity: Exercise.

How: Go hard or go home, push through the pain, wear expensive sports gear, go to a gym, use every ounce of self-discipline, do what you see on Instagram, in magazines and adverts. It doesn’t matter if you enjoy it or not, just move as we say.

Why: It’s good for us. It’s what we’re meant to do and what everyone else does…

Here, ‘exercise’ means something different to the role presented earlier. It’s meaning has been constructed and reinforced by advertising, social media and leads to our own actions being based on what others are doing rather than what we want to do.

It has stripped away a solid grounding in ‘why’. In fact, the ‘why’ is very vague and has little to no concept or regard for your future quality of life. Without this foundation, the ‘how’ becomes very tribal and explicit in an attempt to take up the slack. Not only does the ‘how to exercise’ not value moving well, you also can’t pick what you do based on what you enjoy. It’s a do ‘this’ and not ‘that’ approach.

An approach that doesn’t value the joy in effort, only the effort. It doesn’t matter if you like what you’re doing or not, it just has to be something that complies with what culture defines as exercise.

As a result, the word ‘exercise’ in our current culture evokes certain subtle connotations, restrictions, and expectations in our minds as to what ‘exercise’ is.

This has created a boundary around physical activities that are considered exercise and therefore, by default, those which are not.

Rather than being inclusive, it becomes divisive. From our earlier list of recreational activities, we can see that not all would fit into this current cultural role of ‘exercise’.

Exercise: hiking, running, skiing, tennis, surfing, weightlifting, Pilates, MMA, triathlon, Pilates, Calisthenics, Yoga, Rock Climbing, shooting hoops

Not Exercise: cleaning the house, walking the dog, kicking/throwing a football with the kids, DIY, hunting, sailing, dancing, gardening

There are some that could go in either, but that just reinforces the point that there are division and ambiguity where there shouldn’t be. If you enjoy an activity where you move, and you move well that’s all that really matters.

This is far from the approach to physical activity discussed earlier of ‘move your body more and move your body well’. We seem to have majorly distorted the role of exercise in a narrow group of activities and ways of performing those activities.

Societal Effects

You can see why some in society enjoy ‘exercise’ and some don’t. Those that enjoy this version of ‘exercise’ are those that have their recreation fall within the boundary while those that don’t typically enjoy exercise have their recreation fall outside.

It’s a matter of luck if your recreation falls within what is culturally defined as exercise. Those that don’t have their recreation fit within the boundary, gardening, for example, are not necessarily people that don’t like to move at all.

But they see their recreation doesn’t fit into the ‘exercise’ boundary so believe it has no value to them doing it. They may believe it’s not of benefit physically, mentally and sadly socially.

Most people enjoy moving in some capacity but culture trumps physiology. The cultural expectation behind the word exercise trumps a lot of peoples innate physiology to move. Instead, it causes them fall into one of the following categories:

• don’t like exercise but force themselves to exercise
• don’t like exercise so don’t exercise
• are scared to exercise

On the other hand, those that have their recreation fall within the ‘exercise’ boundary are also likely to not continue moving as late into their lives as possible. Due to the ignorance of moving well and instead focusing on volume and intensity, they will increase their chance of injury or chronic pain that will leave them less active or sedentary in old age. How many people do you know with a bad ________ (insert a joint or body part)? How do you think that bad________ will feel in 20 years?

We can see this approach is harmful to most. We now have a significant section of people in our society that is moving a lot less than they would, moving and hating it, or not doing it safely. These people are reducing their quality of life now and as they age. All due to the distorted approach to the physical activity we are presented with and believe in our culture.

You are built to move. We have inbuilt physiological reward systems for moving. But we are seeing many people who feel socially restricted from doing so.

Ask Questions – Seek Answers

It’s important to question and understand your approach to the movement you do or don’t do. Ask yourself, “What do I actually value and what are the things I am told to value?” It’s sometimes hard to tell the difference. But it’s important to continually question and evolve.

Why do you exercise?

By Jeff Ford

The term functional fitness has been subjected to a beating of misuse by fitness enthusiasts. Sadly, even most trainers may not fully understand the concept or utilize it correctly. Most of us would say that functional fitness is anything that relates to daily living activities. However, that definition could include practically every exercise.

Are you truly training what you think you are? Are you optimizing the training you’re putting so much time and effort into? If you think you can merely swim, bike and run your way to better fitness, you’re kidding yourself.

Endurance athletes are amongst the worst when it comes to functional fitness training that’s missing the mark. Throw in a few planks and lunges and that’s functional fitness. Oftentimes, these sessions are not treated as part of the overall training plan, but are thrown in and used as a side project or slotted in randomly around your sport training.

A functional movement is one that is compound, found in nature, and scalable. You not only have to prioritize the position of each movement, but place these movements into different sequences to challenge the body.

Here are four reasons why functional fitness changes the game.

Range of Motion

When you move your body through full ranges of motion, your mobility magically improves. The world you live in today decreases your range of motion. There’s an overall reduction in all of your joint areas due to sedentary lifestyles. Functional training leads to larger range of motion improvements than any stretching could ever supply.

Mechanics

Whether it’s an athlete who adds functional training or the everyday person, positive changes in joint mechanics happen. It’s one thing for someone to have range of motion, it’s another to know how to effectively use that range of motion. By adding functional fitness, your body learns to stabilize through ranges of motion and move in the manner it was supposed to.

Strength

People not practicing functional training plateau. You can only make so many strength improvements without it. Think about the individual who performs kneeling push-ups, how long do you think it takes that person to get to a real push-up? The answer is forever. By performing fewer repetitions in a functional and correct manner, you get strong.

Fewer Injuries

Functional fitness allows a for a reduction in injuries. When it’s implemented into the routine, you will be less banged up from performing your sport or from life. You will become less fearful of simple tasks like bending over and will have confidence in getting down and up from the ground. An action many of us take for granted.

Despite the chronic overuse of #functionalfitness, it’s training that must be part of your plan. This is actually one of those scenarios where you should indeed follow the crowd. Yes, these movements mimic daily life and yes they do wonders for the body. But, unless you truly understand what functional fitness is and how to implement it, it’s very easy to miss the point.

All the GHP training programs utilize functional fitness at their very foundation. This complements your sport training and performance while ensuring you stay healthy and play the long game.

Functional Fitness Inside SH//FT All-Access

Take advantage of a world-class functional fitness and training program inside SH//FT All-Access. Training is programmed into 6-week cycles with specific purposes. Learn more about SH//FT All-Access here.

By Darrel Wang

There are an outrageous number of thoughts that go through your mind when training…

I’ve listed them in sequential order (in my mind, anyway).

• Am I dying?
• Cutting 10% off the workout won’t be that bad…
• Did I leave the oven on? I should quit and go check.
• No… I’m being silly… there’s some 12-year-old in India training harder than I am right now…
• Wow… I am almost done. Only two more minutes to go.
• Let me just look over at (insert training partner’s name) and see how far they are along…
• I’m not going to let them beat me.
• Done.

Sound familiar?

During these “tough” training sessions (most are), you’ll be surprised that a lot can be overcome by performing one simple action.

Smile.

That’s it. Just smile.

Now, I’m no “expert” but I have experienced my fair share of tough training evolutions and combat zones, so this advice is based purely on what I have found helps me to withstand “suffering” a little more.

The next time you find yourself in the deepest, darkest parts of your brain (for the Tactical Athletes, maybe it will be your next 10K Ruck??), just smile for a few seconds – there’s a good chance that you will turn your mindset around.

“Expect adversity and expect to overcome it.” — Someone smarter than me.

Take a breath.

Did you breathe through your nose or your mouth? The breath is a very powerful thing. It literally keeps us alive. Using your breath correctly however, is not as simple as inhaling and exhaling. How you breathe can have a massive impact on your overall health, well-being and performance

The various body parts are designed for specific purposes. Yes, everything is related and there is some overlap between the parts, however each has their own special skill. I talk about this more in my article about the differences between nasal breathing and mouth breathing.

The nose has little hairs and complex sinuses which have evolved to BREATHE. It is primarily part of the respiratory system. The mouth has a tongue, teeth and salivary glands, It is PRIMARILY part of the digestive system. Although both structures and their functions are related, they both have a primary function that is made obvious by their structure. Just because you can breathe through the mouth, doesn’t mean you should. Likewise, just because you can shove food up your nose, and it may eventually reach your stomach, doesn’t mean you should.

When we use the nose for its intended purpose, an interesting thing happens; Nitrogen Oxide (NO) is released from the paranasal sinuses.

Nitrogen oxide is quite an amazing substance

It does a number of things when we breathe:

Sterilization

Nitrogen Oxide sterilizes the air we breathe, which is very beneficial for those who work in an office environment or travel on planes frequently. These little hotbeds of colds and flu can be better survived through employing nasal breathing.

Bronchial Dilation

Nitrogen Oxide is a bronchial-dilator. It assists to open the airways. This is great for asthmatics or anyone with breathing difficulties. This also has performance implications for sport and exercise.

Ventilation Perfusion

Nitrogen Oxide assists in ventilation perfusion. Most of the time blood sits in the lower lobes of the lungs. Nitrogen Oxide helps bring the blood from the lower lobes to the upper lobes increasing oxygen uptake. In other words, it helps oxygen get from the lungs to the blood. Nasal breathing can improve this oxygen uptake by 5-15%.

Nasal breathing is more efficient breathing. Due to the size of the nostrils and nasal cavities in comparison to the mouth, the nose better controls how much oxygen we take in and importantly, how much carbon dioxide we breathe out.

Take a breath, man…

Ever been told to take a big, deep breath; maybe when you’re angry, stressed, upset?

The problem with taking a BIG breath, particularly a big mouth breath, is that you will follow that up with a big exhalation. When we breathe out too much air we blow off too much carbon dioxide.

We inhale Oxygen and exhale Carbon Dioxide. The Oxygen moves from our lungs, into our blood and into the tissues where it’s needed most. Carbon dioxide is like the exhaust, a waste gas created from our metabolism; essentially the breakdown of carbohydrates and fat. But Carbon Dioxide is far more than just a waste product. Carbon Dioxide plays an essential role in the utilization of Oxygen; how our body uses it.

When our blood is fully oxygenated

We have around 95-99% Oxygen Saturation (SpO2). You can’t get any more than that. It’s like filling a glass with water. Once it’s full, it’s full. BUT 99% Oxygen Saturation doesn’t mean the oxygen is in our tissues, like the brain and the muscles, where it’s needed. For it to get into our tissues, we need Carbon Dioxide. Carbon Dioxide acts like a doorway between the blood and the tissues. If we breathe out too much Carbon Dioxide, the door remains shut and the Oxygen cant get from our blood to the tissues. But, when we retain some Carbon Dioxide, the door opens and oxygen flows freely into the tissues.

When you take big mouth breaths, when nervous or when exerting yourself, this can actually cause more problems. Sure it will oxygenate your blood, but in blowing out all of your Carbon Dioxide, the Oxygen won’t get where it’s needed. This can lead to things like fatigue and brain fog. CONTROLLING your breath is far more beneficial. The easiest way to do this is to use your nose. That’s what it’s for.

Try This

Inhale gently through your nose, pause, exhale gently through your nose, pause. Repeat.

The breath really is an amazing thing. It is integral to life. You can last several weeks without food. Several days without water. But you can survive just minutes without breath. Without the breath, we will die. But, it can be used poorly. Take advantage of the power of the breath, Nitrogen Oxide and Carbon Dioxide. Use your nose for its intended purpose. The nose knows.

If you’re an endurance athlete, here are some tips to help you improve efficiency and nasal breathing during physical exertion.

 

One of the most frequent questions we get on Shift is:

How do I change GHP programming to train for a long course/ultra-distance race?

The short answer is…

You don’t need to change much. We have found through our own experimentation and research that you do not have to train long to race long. It is our duty and pleasure to help educate athletes and coaches on why we have decided to go this route when there are so many other options for getting up the mountain. We have asked none other than our Shift Bike Coach and Physio Professor Doc Hickey to help explain the method behind the madness of the GHP training philosophy. Doc has a great way of taking complex theories like energy system development and simplifying them so we mere mortals can understand and execute with more confidence. Without further ado, here is the good Doc:

Endurance training is about energy system development and strength

At the most basic level, endurance training is about energy system development and strength. Energy system development is accomplished in the interval workouts, steady state efforts and conditioning pieces. The foundation of endurance is aerobic capacity. Aerobic capacity is best developed with high intensity work ranging from 4 to 20 minutes. Strength, ideal for improving movement economy, is built through resistance training.
Keeping the daily sessions short, yet intense keeps the hormone Cortisol in its hive. After 45 minutes of physical activity, Cortisol is released and begins to undo many training gains. Let me repeat, you have 45min to get high quality work in and done, before some of it can be wasted. When shifting away from the traditional high volume, low intensity training philosophy to the low volume, high intensity Shift approach there are some considerations to bear in mind:

1. When racing, trust the process and start slowly. Shift Sport coupled with Shift Fuel will turn your body into a fat burning machine, something that is essential for long distance success. By moderating your opening efforts your body will be burning fat as its primary fuel source. A blistering opening pace will send your body straight to the muscle & liver glycogen tanks which is not what you want to do. Save your glycogen stores for the last 45 minutes of the race. Use the nasal only breathing approach to help with this as well.

   From GHP Fuel Head Coach @happybellyrd ・・・ Sautéed Brussels and local squash with baked tater and broiled salmon. Encourage all to join @Shift community as you will reap the recipe and daily nutritional guidance for your sport and epic life #Shift #psepro #nutrition #mealprep #dinner

   A post shared by Power Speed Endurance (@Shift) on Jul 28, 2017 at 2:39pm PDT

   2. Strength work is endurance work in disguise. With increased strength, your movement will become more efficient. Also, conditioning sessions featuring multiple stations pre-fatigue muscles used in sport based movements. This stimulates the closing stages of an event.
   For example, a 20 minute AMRAP of 25 kettlebell swings paired with a 200m run produces the same metabolic conditioning effect as a 20-minute tempo run with the added benefits of:
   a. Strength from the kettlebell swings
   b. Improved biomechanics from the hard 200m efforts
   c. Psychological callusing from the cycling between high intensity resistance training and high intensity running

1. 1. 3. Try a dry run about 3 weeks out. On the stamina day (Saturday) 3 weeks before your event, increase your warm-up and cool down distance so that your TOTAL training time equals your projected finish time.
      For example, someone doing a 50-mile bike race with an estimated finish time of 3:30, is not going to ride 50 miles this day or even 3:30 consecutively. They would ride for about 2 hours and use the other 1:30 hours working on skill in the warm-up and cool down and also mobilizations. This session is an opportunity to practice fueling, hydration, positioning on the bike & mental rehearsal for the event. Take note, you will more than likely need more recovery as a result of this training day as well.

1. 4. Not only do we write these workouts, we do them. I recently did a one-day 140-mile bike ride to raise money for my high school. The event was in May. My longest ride was an 80-mile fact finding mission in March. I also did a 60-mile ride 10 days out to dial in bike position. My local bike shop sponsored the ride and donated a Specialized Venge so I had to be sure of the fit (one of the cardinal rules of endurance sports is nothing new on race day!). As for the rest of my training, the other days were straight out of the SH//FT playbook, with no session taking more than 60 minutes. I completed the ride in less than 9 hours, raising $10,000 for my school. As an epilogue, a little over two weeks after this ride I took 2nd in my division at the Philadelphia International Amateur Time Trial, an event lasting less than 20 minutes. You do not have to train long to race long (or even short!).

 

“I am the greatest!” — Muhammed Ali

What do you think the late, great Muhammad Ali said to himself that made him come out and publicly claim that he was the greatest? Do you think his self-talk may have been overwhelmingly positive?

The next thing Ali said when he first made that famous declaration, which is not often quoted is, “…I said that even before I knew I was.”

We can be our own harshest critics. We say things to ourselves that we wouldn’t dream of saying to others. Why do we do this? What is it doing to our performance? How can we improve our self-talk and our performance?

The Self System

Your attitudes, abilities, and cognitive skills comprise what is known as the self-system. This system plays a major role in how we perceive situations and how we behave in response to different situations.

Self-efficacy is an essential part of this self-system. In his seminal 1977 paper, “Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioural Change”, psychologist Albert Bandura describes self-efficacy as “the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.”

In other words, self-efficacy is a person’s belief in his or her ability to succeed in a particular situation. When you have a high-level of self-efficacy, or self-belief, in your ability to perform a task, you are far more likely to be successful in the achievement of that task than someone with low self-belief.

Self-Talk

Our self-talk is inextricably linked to our self-belief, which affects our performance, which affects our self-talk. It is a never-ending circle. One affects the other and vice versa. When the chips are down and you’re struggling, your self-talk can raise you up or defeat you. For example, how many times have you watched an athlete make error after error, where one error seems to merge into another. Nothing is going right. In that type of situation, athletes will generally respond in one of two ways:

He becomes more and more defeated. His whole body language changes as he drops his head, moves slowly, arms down by his sides. He avoids getting involved in the next play or he avoids the ball.

OR, she keeps her head up. There’s a spring in her step. She is eager to get after it and be involved in the next play. She wants that ball.

How do you think the self-talk differs in these two situations? One is full of negativity and criticism. The other is positive, supportive and encouraging. Self-talk will enhance or diminish self-belief, and self-belief will enhance or diminish performance.

Did you watch the sideline footage of Tom Brady and Julian Edelman in this year’s Super Bowl? The Pats were down and out. Or so WE all thought. Those who that mattered, the guys on the field, knew differently. They were full of positive self-talk for each other, even while well behind and challenged in every facet of the game. And we all know what happened next.

Improving Your Self-Talk

When you face an obstacle, when a workout is getting tough, when you’re in a race and doubt is creeping in, what do you say to yourself? Is it positive or negative? Is it enhancing or diminishing your performance? The first step in changing your self-talk is awareness of what you’re saying to yourself. Here are some more ways to have a more productive conversation with yourself:

1. Crush any negative thoughts like a bug. Replace them with positive thoughts. Instead of: “I’m so far behind, I’ll never catch up”, use: “I’m going to keep pushing as hard as I can. I’m giving it my all. I’m going to catch the next person.”
2. Eliminate the word “CAN’T”. Instead of: “I can’t do double-unders. I’m so uncoordinated!”, use: “I’m going to keep working on these until I get them. I’ve got this.
3. Be grateful for obstacles and challenges. They can be a blessing in disguise. It’s the tough times, the hard things in life that make us who we are.
4. See failure as stepping stones to success. It’s from failures that we learn our greatest lessons. You learn far more from a defeat than you do from a win.
5. Don’t compare yourself to others. Be inspired by them.
6. Surround yourself with those who are positive and lift you up, not bring you down.
7. Accept constructive criticism with grace, but ignore the haters.
8. Use positive affirmations to improve your self-talk. Like anything, self-talk needs to be practiced and reinforced until it’s second nature. That way, when things are tough, you’ll already have the skill. Affirmations are a great way to develop this skill.

Your self-talk is crucial to your performance in sport and in life. Developing the skill of positive and supportive self-talk is a powerful performance enhancer. Start today by simply being aware of your self-talk. Then try some of the suggestions above for strengthening your self-talk skill.