Mental toughness is a cop out. I believe mental discipline
trumps so called mental toughness all the time. All the champions I have been
around had incredible mental discipline. Making someone puke in a workout or
running someone until they drop does not build mental toughness. Find out who
will do the workout when no one is there to make them do it. Find out who shows
up and brings their “A” game every day no matter what the conditions and what
the circumstances. Those are the people who have mental discipline; those are
the people I want on my team.
Mia
You can’t expect young kids to have such qualities. how would you build those?
phillip bazzini
If I may comment on Mia’s question, my suggestion for young athletes in instilling discipline and accountability. For example, putting the equipment back in a strict and neat fashion, being on time, not teasing the slower athletes, being able to meet minimal physical goals after a reasonable amount of time (execute with grace and compentence 3D lunges, SL squats, pushups, quality rows with scap retract and downward rotation instead of scap elevation, running softly on the balls of feet, etc).
Another suggestion is read Rafe Esquith’s book, “teach like your hair is on fire” is a great book on developing classroom respect that can be adapted for the training environment. Hope that helps.
Joe Haefner
Great post! And thanks for those comments Phillip!
Alex
This is the exact mentality that has resulted in the “brainless conditioning” that you and the rest of your gym instructors provide. You fail to consider that the brain is linked to the body. What you believe determines how you act. Fatigue manifests in many ways – one of which is mental. Exposing the brain to regular hard work improves the brains ability to cope with fatigue, and allows the body to adopt a faster pacing strategy. Is your blog based on your random ideas that you can sell to the uneducated or are you going to occasionally lace it with some evidence?
Jay
Three thoughts.
In working with professional athletes it never ceases to amaze how “mental discipline” comes into play; money and the chance that you might fail doesn’t mean they bring the “A” game every day.
Second thought, the most specific thought/comment in the post refers to bringing one’s “A” game every day. For this reason I like to get to practice well before the athletes and watch their posture as they walk into practice facility (an all weather track in our case); when I see the slouch or hear the lack of intonation in their voice then I dig a bit, asking “why” without them felling accosted. If I find out that they simply stayed up too late watching Monday Night Football then we practice and we learn something; if they have a serious life issue then the skip the session planned and do some sort of maintenance. My point is that in my experience athletes may walk into practice without their A game yet sometimes they can find it in the warm-up, so I try to throw in a few more evaluation aspects – some PNS and some CNS and some postural – after the warm-up to see where they are. Obviously you need a lot of flexibility in your practice schedule to do this, but it might change the “B” game they brought to practice to an “A-.”
Finally, I would argue that often the time we over train the athletes is following great workouts or great performances; we fail to allow the athlete to fully recover and we lack the proper restorative qualities in our training. With that in mind, I have no doubt that Vern has a great feel for this and that this artistic aspect of coaching is, as he’s said in the past, a step or two ahead of any scientifically or clinically based CNS or endocrine test to measure fatigue.
Thanks for the post Vern and for publicly accepting dissenting voices on your blog as it forces us all to think.
Vernon Gambetta
I think you missed the whole point. try to take a deep breath and reread it. I have studied all of Noakes stuff (that is what I believe you are referring to) and Rattay. No one believes in the mind body connection more than I do. Go through and read previous posts. This precisely what I am arguing for with mental disciple. Mindful training is the only training that is truly productive.
By the way your comment on selling my ideas is uncalled for, you do not have to read the blog. I invite dissent, but don’t appreciate people questioning my motives. I can safely say that there are few coaches who do more reading and research than I do.
Vernon Gambetta
Great observations. That is what coaching is all about. Bring your “A” game does not mean you have PR every workout, it means you have your head into it and are mentally prepared to give the effort required to take a step toward the ultimate goal. There are many days when I have sent an athlete before they ever started warm-up because you sense they did not have it that day.Come back tomorrow refreshed and ready to go. Commonsense – Read the athletes. Takes no brains to bury them.
Paul Davis
My definition of mental toughness is ability to focus on the right thing at the right time for the right amount of time. This could fit mental discipline as well.