Mental Reps
The brain is like a muscle; it needs constant reinforcement to change.
No, the brain is not a muscle. It’s incredibly unique, but that doesn’t mean we can’t understand it better by thinking about it like a muscle in the context for this article.
In order to change the brain, viewing it like we would to strengthen a muscle is helpful. When you go to the gym, you know some ground rules you must follow in order to expect to see growth:
You can’t expect change overnight.
Consistency is essential.
Quality of quantity goes a long way.
Doing one session of mental performance training, or engaging in a mental skill one time during a week of practice won’t do anything. It’d be like going to the gym and doing some squats, then being frustrated by the fact that you don’t feel stronger the next day or week. Likewise, mental performance training requires time.
Consistency falls into this line of thinking as well. Having a structured practice to train your brain improves the efficiency of your training. For example, always engaging in 5 minutes of mental skills before practices and games will lead to noticeable gains compared to engaging in 5 minutes of mental skills when you feel like it.
Lastly, quality training will always outperform quantity. Mental reps don’t count nearly as much if you aren’t intentional about the quality you bring to the training. Let’s look at meditating for an example.
Athlete A meditates for 10 minutes a day. They are distractible, checking their phone throughout and not being disciplined in refocusing their attention. As soon as they finish, they check the box off in their mind of meditating for the day, and don’t think about it until tomorrow.
Athlete B meditates for 3 minutes a day. They are intentional about eliminating distractions before they begin. They are dedicated to trying their best throughout the 3 minutes to stay focused on their breath. After they finish, they continue to try and be present throughout the day in a way that is similar to their meditation practice.
While Athlete A meditates for longer each day, they are not going to gain as much from the practice as Athlete B, despite their reduced practice time.
I’m all about anchors when it comes to mental performance. As a result of this article, try bringing in the anchor of intentional into your next day or week of training. Being intentional means you’re focusing more energy than usual on doing the exercise in the moment as effectively as possible. This can, of course, lead to significant gains over time.
