Mental Training Exercise

One of my favorite introductory exercises for mental training is a simple activity you can try right now.

Hold your arms straight out in front of you, parallel to the ground. Keep holding…

…keep holding…

Eventually, you’re going to experience some discomfort. Notice both the sensation and the reaction you have to it as separate perceptions. The sensation itself, and its magnitude, are nothing more than information, just like the colors of objects in front of you or the pitch of sounds you may hear. Your reaction is something different from the sensations themselves.

…keep holding…

Notice the desire to end the discomfort. Now tell yourself that this is a sensation that will remain, exactly like this for the rest of your life. At this moment, it is tolerable…we know that because you are tolerating it. So, your desire to lower your arms comes is an aversion to the sensations or a cling to the notion of different sensations.

…keep holding…

Attend to the raw sensations. They may be unpleasant, but your life is not in danger. See the sensations with curiosity and interest. See your reactions to those sensations as manifestations of your mind. When you separate the actual sensations from your reactions to them, it becomes possible to stop clinging to the desire for your circumstances to be different.

You can lower your arms now.

This glimpse into the truth of the sensations versus your reactions to them becomes the first critical step in training your mind for difficult training and races. You can translate the arm-holding exercise into a workout when you run harder intervals or give a harder effort at any point in the run. Notice the sensations as information. See your reactions, aversion, desire for an end, and clinging for different sensations as manifestations of your mind. It’s fine to have those feelings. The key in this exercise is to fully appreciate that they are different from the sensations themselves.

Tell yourself, at minute 2 of a 3-minute hard interval, this is actually a 5-minute interval (or this is how life is going to feel now, forever) and watch the subtle shift in your perception of that moment. If you are focused enough, even in the second it takes you to tell yourself these things, you’re distracted just enough that the effort is mitigated slightly. Now, accept the sensations and, rather than struggling with them, feel them fully. Relax into them and embrace them, not as a victim but as a curious observer. See that this moment is tolerable and becomes slightly easier without aversion, avoidance, or clinging.