How mindfulness can transform your training and performance

Want to unlock your true potential? Developing the ability to stay fully present with what you’re doing is just as important in sport as it is in life, say our experts. Clinical psychologist Dr Tim Pineau, co-developer of Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement (MSPE), and sports psychologist Dr Gemma Applegarth explain how active mindfulness works, why attention is the real currency of performance, and how training your mind can help you perform better under pressure – on and off the field.

How does active mindfulness work?
Active mindfulness refers to the ability to be mindful as the body moves. A generally accepted definition of mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn suggests that mindfulness is the awareness which emerges when we pay attention to the present – deliberately, on purpose and without judgement. Notice that the definition is not about sitting still, crossing your legs or emptying your mind – it’s about cultivating an attitude or a way of being.

This really is nothing new – for thousands of years people have practiced yoga, tai chi or Qi Gong, which are all forms of mindful movement. Here, the attention is not on the result, time or the performance so much as it is about noticing what you are experiencing. Noticing and being aware of what is coming up for you. This could include bodily sensations, thoughts or emotions.

How can mindfulness help us with our everyday training?
Your mind and body are intricately linked. Your mood, mindset, thoughts, emotions and memories all impact your performance and your ability to make good choices and think clearly while playing sport. Imagine you are taking part in an event and realise you have made a mistake. Perhaps you went off too fast on a training run or your timing was off on a pass to a team member, leaving your team vulnerable. Your ability to let go of the mistake and focus on this new reality will depend on your ability to really be in the here and now. If you find yourself ruminating, blaming yourself or overcome with frustration or anger, you are less likely to be able to think clearly and more likely to make further mistakes.

Studies on athletes who use mindfulness show that it can help you stay present, let go of difficulties, cope with performance anxiety, overcome particular mind blocks that get in your way and even help prevent injury through awareness of form, posture and footfall.

It’s not just your training that will benefit. We take the same thinking traps into all areas of our lives. For example, if we notice that we become angry when we make mistakes playing sport, it’s likely that we use anger as an initial response to other difficulties too. Becoming more mindful when playing sport leads to greater awareness in all areas of our lives.

We take the same thinking traps into all areas of our lives.

What are the key body signals we should be tuning into during training?
Mindfulness starts with tuning into something that can act as a metaphorical anchor to the present. When you consider an anchor on a ship, its job is to stabilise the vessel. As the ship is thrown around by waves, the anchor keeps it safe and secure. Our anchors to the present can offer us a similar experience. We will all be pushed around by the waves and currents of life. Tuning into an anchor that grounds us in the present gives us something stable to return to.

Which anchor you choose is personal. Meditation often starts with using the breath as an anchor. This can be helpful in sports as how we breathe is critical for allowing our body to function at its best.

We could use the breath, we could tune into the feeling of our belly rising and falling or we could tune into the sensations of our feet as they connect with the ground. It’s a good idea to connect with what supports you personally. We could use sounds. We could tune into the sound of the birds, the sensation of clothes on our skin or the movement of air around our faces. We could choose to notice colour, shapes, light or shadows.

How can we develop the skill of staying present when our minds get ‘stuck’ on unhelpful thoughts or we feel like giving up?
It starts with practice. Sometimes people try to use mindfulness for the very first time when they are stuck in difficult thoughts, and that’s difficult to do. Instead, we start by practicing when we are in a calmer place. After all, if we learning to drive, we probably wouldn’t have our first lesson in Piccadilly Circus, as the sensory overload would be overwhelming. We tend to start on the quieter roads and build our skills before tackling the city. Mindfulness is the same; we start with practising. 

On your next run or training session, set yourself a timer for 1 minute. Choose an anchor, e.g. the feeling of your feet on the floor, the tensing of your calf muscles, the sounds around you, and focus in on them. Every time you notice your mind has wandered, raise your hand, perhaps take a pause and restart. See how far you get before different thoughts or feelings get in the way. The aim here is not to be able to just focus without distraction, but to be aware of what the mind is doing. Becoming aware that the mind is taking you on a journey away from the present is the first step. Once you notice that the mind, which was focused on the feeling of your feet on the floor, is now on that movie you watched last night, you get the opportunity to choose – where do I want my attention to be in this moment? You’re waking up from autopilot and moving towards mindful awareness.

Can practising mindfulness help us to build mental flexibility, toughness, endurance or resilience?
When we become more mindful, we can respond to situations in a more flexible way. We develop the ability to take a step back from our thoughts, emotions and instant reactions. It’s like pressing the pause button and creating space to think, yet it’s all happening in real time.

How can we build mindfulness into our routine without it feeling like just another task?
Start with mindful shoelace tying. We all have to do this, so it’s happening anyway. Let’s just start by making it a more mindful experience, tuning into all the anchors of your senses. Putting on shoes and tying laces is a complex skill. It takes toddlers time to master, but as an adult, you do it on autopilot.

Tune into the feeling of your shoe slipping on. The sensation of your feet, the feel of the laces, the movement of your fingers. Perhaps thoughts will come up, like, “what on earth am I doing?” or you notice an urge to laugh or a thought about something irrelevant. Congratulations – you’re being mindful! It doesn’t take much; you can start with this. Then, during your workout, run or walk, choose moments to focus on being mindful for a minute, or set yourself goals e.g. “between these next two lampposts, I will tune into my thigh muscles as they support my body.” It’s interval training for your mind.

Have a plan in advance. Know which anchor you are going to come back to and practise coming back to it.

Can you talk us through a practical technique to help people stay calm under pressure during a challenging training session or competition?
It all comes down to practising coming back to the anchor. Have a plan in advance. Know which anchor you are going to come back to and practise coming back to it in increasingly stressful situations. Start by practising when you’re calm and build up. Develop some way of reminding yourself of the anchor. Some runners choose to have a ‘check-in’ point where they mentally scan their body or spend a minute focusing on their chosen anchor every kilometre. This helps to interrupt the loop of thinking that can get in the way. Us humans are great at talking ourselves out of things, but if we interrupt the flow of thoughts, we get better at noticing the original thought, e.g. “I can’t get up this hill,” for what it is – just a thought. Our choice is whether to follow it up with further thoughts that bring on an action of giving up, or to simply let it be.