How to develop willpower using the example of triathlon

When you find yourself in such a situation, the ability to continue despite physical suffering is commonly called willpower or mental resilience, and there is scientific evidence that this resilience can be nurtured … In other words, you can learn to endure much greater discomfort with serious physical exertion.

Building willpower is essential for triathlon because the more physical suffering and discomfort you can endure, the longer you will swim, cycle and run at the proper speed before collapsing in exhaustion.

Recent scientific research shows that mental toughness is of great importance for overall endurance performance in sports … Samuel Marcora from the University of Bangor in Wales suggested that the ability to withstand the most severe sports loads depends, to a greater extent, not on physiological characteristics, but on the ability to endure mental suffering.

That is, we begin to fail by the end of a workout or cross-country race, not because there is too much lactic acid in the muscles, but because the effort it takes to continue is too painful to tolerate. In the end, we give up.

Of course, you don't feel like you are giving up. When you strain all your strength before the finish line, but still slow down, despite your efforts, it seems that this body has reached its limit, and the mind and psyche have nothing to do with it. However, Markora conducted several experiments that proved otherwise.

False exhaustion

In one of them, a scientist asked a group of cyclists to pedal as fast and as long as they could. When the participants in the experiment could no longer maintain their initial speed, he asked them to stop, and then pedal without any interruption at the fastest pace, but for only five seconds.

In the first part of the experiment, cyclists were able to maintain an average power of 242 watts for 12 minutes before giving up. But immediately after that, they were able to hit 731 watts in five seconds. If cyclists stopped pedaling due to fatigue and were physically unable to maintain 242 watts, how could they wind up 731 watts without rest?

The fact that in a short time they were able to surpass their previous result threefold, and even after the “exhaustion” set in, proves that, in fact, they chose when to stop pedaling, and physical exhaustion has nothing to do with it.

If will is the only thing that limits achievement in triathlon, and at the same time it can be nurtured, then how is it done?

There are two options

The first and most obvious one is exercise until you lose your heart rate … The more unpleasant sensations and discomfort in training, the more chances you have to know the real capabilities of your body (although you will never know them to the end, because fatigue makes even strong-willed and hardened triathletes slow down).

Of course, you should not get tired too much and often, because constant exhausting workouts do not have a very good effect on health - fatigue builds up in the body, and then you simply cannot exercise at full strength. Instead, you can train yourself to stress and overcome with basic weekly workouts.

This can be short, very intense workouts, or moderately intense, but long so that you can get tired enough with them.

The second way to pump your willpower is do whatever you can to increase your motivation to train and cross, because the more serious your reasons are, the more suffering and stress you can withstand, and the greater success you can achieve.