Think back to the last time you quit.<\/p>\n
It may have been as recently as this morning\u2019s training ride where your legs screamed blue murder as the group attacked. Doing your best to hang on to the group, you hit a limit, something in you snapped and you just couldn\u2019t pedal anymore. Forced to say goodbye to the group, you limped back home rueing the fact that your legs failed you.<\/p>\n
Or was it in a race over the weekend? The event may have started out fine, but then it became harder and harder to get those legs working. Your heart rate was through the roof, your lungs just couldn\u2019t seem to get enough air into them. Then that entire-body fatigue started to set in, raising a bunch of doubts and questions about whether you\u2019re cut out for this. The fatigue built up to a point where you just couldn\u2019t continue anymore.<\/p>\n
Exercise physiology researchers refer to this as exhaustion, and it\u2019s measured as Time To Exhaustion (TTE) in fitness tests. It\u2019s a phenomenon we know too well \u2013 when our legs fail us. It\u2019s that point you reach that you just cannot, no matter what you do, push beyond and you end up quitting. Task failure, that\u2019s another technical term for it.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, there is a new trend in the exercise research realm that is bringing into question the reasons we commonly ascribe to why we reach exhaustion and task failure. Until now we have believed that the reason why task failure happens is because of some physical failure. For example, we run out of glycogen reserves to fuel the muscles \u2013 the dreaded bonk. Or we\u2019re just pushing ourselves beyond what our muscles are capable of handling \u2013 not enough FTP. Finally, the most common reason is the \u2018lactic burn\u2019 that escalates to a point we just can\u2019t handle anymore, not even 1 second more.<\/p>\n
What does this have to do with a mental game? That burn you experience is most definitely a physical thing, but it is also just as mental. Quitting because of the burn is more task disengagement than failure. You are consciously or subconsciously choosing to end the task. It\u2019s not your legs that have failed, unless of course you\u2019ve got a cramp or torn a muscle, but that your mind has disengaged. You have reached a point of pain you are not able to or willing to endure any further. Think of it as a pain threshold, a point of suffering that you are willing to get to and endure, but no more than that. This is your psychological limit, how determined, motivated and willing you are to suffer in pursuit of your training or racing goals.<\/p>\n
By assuming that our legs fail us, we have no say over where our limit of exhaustion actually is. By seeing it as a form of task engagement, we can then ask ourselves how much longer can we endure it for and find ways of pushing our limits further. That limit of exhaustion is quite elastic in nature, it\u2019s not a fixed thing. It comes down to how much you can suffer and where your \u2018sufferability\u2019 reserves are?<\/p>\n
In practical terms, for a sprinter, it\u2019s the difference in being willing to hang on to a max effort sprint for just a few more seconds at the line. For an endurance rider, it\u2019s being able to sit in that slow poison zone for just a few more minutes to ride a competitor off your wheel.<\/p>\n
The first step in improving your sufferability is realizing that it can be trained and not being bogged down by the assumption that your time to exhaustion limit is unchangeable. The second thing you want to do is prime yourself by anticipating that you\u2019ll be experiencing the hurt locker for longer than ever before in your upcoming workout or race. Thirdly, spend more time in that hurt locker to get more familiar with it. The longer you spend near that point of failure the more you will learn about yourself and what it will take to endure for just that little bit longer. Finally, you\u2019ll need to employ some nifty mental focus techniques like motivational self-talk, visualization and mental imagery to unlock the potential your brain has for redefining your limits.<\/p>\n
Physical limits do indeed exist, but what we\u2019ve got to get our head around (pun intended) is how to shift our willingness to endure fatigue on the bike. Our willingness to push that point of exhaustion out just that little bit further may be the difference between achieving our goals, or quitting again. So, the next time you feel that burn and are tempted to soft-pedal, tell yourself that this is an opportunity to redefine your limits, keep pushing for longer than you have before.<\/p>\n
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