You’ve just finished the competition you’ve been waiting for. You had prepared yourself physically to do better results this time, but the control of your emotions has failed you… Have you finished the test making too many mistakes? Have nerves played tricks on you and have you put more feet than necessary? Have you crashed in a tricky area and followed the competition thinking about your shit instead of concentrating on the next area?
If so, don’t worry, don’t despair.
There is a key to controlling your nerves and avoiding this type of situation that is so common in trial… And it’s concentration.
Our sport is very complex and every detail counts. In trial, concentration is key. Any mistake takes a foot or more. It is a sport that presents many stimuli that can divert our attention: the difficulty of the zones, the long queues, the rivals watching you while they wait, the zone judges, the public, your own feelings on the day of the competition, the mistakes made in previous areas, physical fatigue, self-confidence…
When Rafa Nadal talks about the concentration he needs to maintain in tennis, it makes me laugh. In tennis, when they are about to start playing the point, the entire audience falls silent just so that the players can concentrate. If Nadal had to arrive at an area, wait for the eternal queue that forms, isolate himself from the pressure of having your opponents studying the area and observing you in detail or endure the noise that surrounds you… Then we’d see.
But, as a good trial rider, the area is your natural habitat and to survive there you need to maximize your ability to concentrate.
That’s why I’m going to share with you these 3 sports coaching techniques that will help you focus.
1. Focus on your breathing:
Imagine a river running down a mountain and the water in this river is dirty and full of garbage. Imagine that at the foot of the mountain there is a fountain that takes water from this river. Would you drink from this water?
Inside our heads, under our helmets, something similar happens. All your thoughts, both positive and negative, flow uncontrollably through your mind. The difference with the river example is that you are not aware of the amount of trash in the water and you drink a lot of toxic thoughts that cause you to become nervous, overwhelmed and lose self-confidence.
To prevent these kinds of toxic thoughts, what we need to do is filter the water. How? Instead of letting our thoughts flow freely, let’s direct them toward our breathing.
The technique is very simple. Take a deep breath and imagine the path the air takes from your nose to your lungs. Pay attention to how your chest swells and your abdomen expands. Hold your breath for a few seconds and exhale by slowly releasing the air through your mouth.
Imagine the path of air as it passes through your throat to your mouth and pay attention to how your abdomen contracts, your chest deflates, and your ribs go down. Once you’ve released all the air, hold for a couple of seconds before taking another breath.
Taking 3 to 5 slow, deep breaths will bring you to an optimal state of concentration to start the zone. If you are still waiting in line, after these breaths you can take the opportunity to perform your visualization until your time comes. Step back a bit if you have to.
2. Visualize yourself in the zone
Once you have been able to observe the area and notice the more complicated details, you simply have to imagine making the area in an easy and fluid way.
Visualization is not about imagining the possible mistakes you can make and how to solve them, but about imagining that you pass the area easily, naturally and enjoying yourself to the fullest.
The more times you can imagine yourself doing the zone this easy way, the easier it will be for you to see yourself getting through the zone. The visualization, in addition to helping you concentrate, will allow you to better manage your nerves while waiting in line or when entering the area. If you want to learn more about this visualization technique, in this article we give you all the keys.
3. Create routines that you stick to no matter what:
It’s as simple as performing a series of gestures in the same way in a specific situation.
For example: before starting the zone you touch your right boot and then your left. You get back on track. Then you take a deep breath and mentally tell yourself a key phrase that activates and influences you positively, such as “come on Dani, head!”
To those who see us from the outside it might seem that we are maniacs and that we make these gestures without realizing it or because of some kind of superstition, but in reality it is a ritual of concentration that will make all the difference.
What happens is that, when we always make a series of gestures before a situation, generating a sequence, we are creating a conditioned stimulus.
I, after having done my routine many times of touching one boot and then the other just before starting an area, have created a conditioned stimulus. In this case, every time I make those gestures I’m telling my body and mind to get ready because I came with a challenge.
So every time I’m going to start a zone, I do my ritual of gestures that tell my body to get ready and my mind to focus.
Each person can create their own routine. You have to choose the gestures that you want or that help you. I touch my boots because when I first started riding I was wearing my father’s boots, which were a bigger number and didn’t hold me up enough. When I was finally able to buy a pair of my size I kept touching my boots because when I didn’t I didn’t feel ready and I made silly mistakes at first.
These techniques can be performed separately or in combination. Practice them during training as well so that when you put them into practice on race day, they come out easier and faster. You have to train them, as you would with any other physical exercise, to improve their effectiveness when putting them into practice.
I hope you found this article helpful and that these techniques will help you control those nerves that take over you before a zone.
If you want to know all the keys to physical preparation and sports coaching for trials, you can read us
here
