Acceptance Intervals, Lead Challenge Training and Brain Endurance Training

I’m changing things up a bit here in my blog/newsletter, Substack. My focus is going to be a bit more rambling, a bit more of my approach to mental and mental performance. Truth is, I don’t like spitting out stuff that you’ll likely see on a thousand blogs. A thousand therapists all spitting out the same crap. Lord if I see one more person talking about the benefits of CBT or ACT, EMDR or blah blah, I’ll likely puke.  Here’s me, the real Neal deal. Like it or not. (If not, you probably could just move along .)

Opening Up – Acceptance Intervals

The author working on acceptance mid -race. Maybe too relaxed?

A couple weeks back I entered a phase of training focusing on power intervals on the bike. These short three- to four-minute-high intensity efforts are designed to boost maximal aerobic power. I’ll also get a neuromuscular stimulus. These can be rough. My coach wants me do peak and fade in other words I shouldn’t pace them. Go all out and hang on. That way you get the best bang for your buck and you’re in the zone as fast and as long as possible. I don’t recommend them for inexperienced athletes as learning to pace is priority and without prior training it could be a great way to get injured. (Don’t do these at home unless your coach recommends them, or you’re very experienced, seriously.)

The mental tool I’ve been using to get through these is acceptance of discomfort.  Opening up to thoughts, feelings, sensations and emotions. All of it. When you do a hard effort, your mind is going to tell you to stop and slow down. Your minds job is to protect you, “pain no good, stop.” That goes for emotional pain too. However, when we open to discomfort, we’re able to put more energy and focus into the process.

Here's what I did and you can try this as an experiment: On your next set of short intervals tell yourself  “no, I don’t like this, stop” fight with it a bit… recover a moment, go again and tell yourself “yes, I’m okay with this, I got this” open up to the sensations, be curious, don’t fight the sensations,  or your mind pushing you around, you can even thank your mind for trying to protect you. Really, open up to the discomfort, explore that pain cave a bit. Get really curious.

Did you notice a difference?

Personal Training

Training for Lead Challenge keeps moving forward. Noticing gradual changes in fitness that I haven’t experienced in years. Why is that? Why did training not go as well in the previous four years? I have a couple theories: First, the amount of stress I was carrying post COVID was huge, my mother was sick for several years, my dog got sick another year, for the first time ever I was laid off. Stress adds up, when we’re not mindful of it, it’s going to affect our training, we’re just not going to get a lot more out of it. It’s like trying to squeeze more out of an orange that just doesn’t have any juice left. Stress has decreased, I’m able to sleep better and I’m just smarter with my training. Second, I’ve noticed that my inexperience on the bike likely led to easier efforts than I could have, should have, produced. In any endurance activity that we don’t have a lot of experience with it’s hard to really nail down your paces. It took me years to really sus out my training paces for running, and I’m still working on that recovery pace. This is normal, I see people beating themselves up for not going the ‘correct pace’ think about it – it’s a skill that you learn with lots and lots of practice, it’s not something that comes intuitively. When I go for a run with my daughter, she’s often running at a tempo effort and it’s hard for me to convince her to go slower. I was he same way in high school, and that led to shin splints that kept me from training for the longest time. Be kind to yourself as you’re figuring it out.

Digging into Brain Endurance Training

Starting to dig into something called Brain Endurance Training (BET). BET is a cognitive (mental) training approached designed to improve mental stamina, reduce perceived exertion and delay fatigue by engaging the brain demanding tasks while exercising. It’s based on the idea that mental fatigue, not just physical fatigue, can impair performance, especially in endurance sports. Wow, this sounds amazing. The gist of it is that you do some sort of mentally fatiguing tasks like memory, attention, or decision-making exercises simultaneously with or before physical training. Like doing math problems before doing my intervals this week.

The goal is to train the brain to maintain focus, performance and decision-making under fatigue, simulating real-world cognitive demands of competition. So, it may be especially useful for those of us ultra-runners and ultra-cycling and other endurance events. This sounds really cool in theory, and there’s great research out there that starts to back it up by Samuele Marcora and Walter Staiano. I’m going to take a deep dive in the coming weeks…. But…here me out. Like I mentioned earlier that stress in life impacts performance. Brain Endurance Training does nothing to address personal stressors. It’s kind of like trying to have someone do bicep curls with a broken arm. It ain’t gonna work.  You got to deal with the stuff underneath first, the same goes with any other mental skills training… deal with the big stuff that underlies it all. Then start building the strength.

Okay till next time!

-       Neal

Keep in mind, information I put out here is for educational and entertainment purposes. While I am a therapist and mental performance coach, I am not your therapist or mental performance coach, reach out to me if you’re here in Colorado and interested in working together.