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The Importance of Ritual...

Tuesday, 01 November 2016 23:10

By Anthony Brown (usatriathlon.org)

Rituals for athletes are not a new idea but their importance needs to be stressed. It may be a Saturday morning when you wake up at 4 a.m. You roll out of bed like you always do. Quietly sneak out of your room (if you have any company) and head to the coffee maker to brew a fresh cup. Down a quick glass of water and eat a banana slathered in freshly ground peanut butter from the local market. Use the bathroom, check your email and weather one last time, and then grab the gear you will need to head out the door....

You travel to your destination, jamming to your personal music of choice and getting pumped up and ready to _____ (fill in the blank with an activity of choice). You perform your neuromuscular warm-up then your dynamic warm-up consisting of Frankenstein walks, hurdles, lunges and accelerations. If meeting with a group you may have some mild chatter about your co-workers or a funny story about what happened to you this past week. Then you take off to tackle the workout that was prescribed in TrainingPeaks or some other media.

Your main concern up to this point has been your workout and what you will do at the workout. The interesting thing is that what you did before the workout really impacts your performance. Let us throw a wrench into your morning routine. Assume you overslept and now you do not get the food or your normal checking of weather is gone and you overdress. This creates stress but not the good kind, and you feel off your game the remainder of your workout or day.

Having a ritual can actually help you perform better. When you learn to swim, you first learn drills to master technique. At first it is hard with the stress of when to breath and how to stroke and you don't get to just go out and perform the effort. Mostly you’re focused about everything else. Once you create muscle memory you focus less on form and drills and more on the efforts.  READ MORE