Emotional Intelligence in training and racing

'Emotional intelligence' is one of those terms that suddenly finds itself as part of every day language many of these types of phrases come out of the corporate world. Some people might call it Corporate bull*^it, I like to think of them as a neat way to package up ideas :-) Although in the academic communities there is much debate and controversy about how it should be defined, what it is and if indeed it is an 'intelligence'

Lat Year Joe wrote and interesting blog article about athletes and their temperament, you can read it here http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008_11_01_archive.html
he highlighted his observations about athletes that displayed and even temperament and its benefits.

In lay terms Emotional intelligence (EQ) refers to our ability to understand and manage our emotions and those of others and groups around us. In the corporate world the need for strong levels of EQ and well as IQ (verbal reasoning, problem solving etc) in managerial and leadership roles is becoming more and more recognised. In my view this is an area that is only just starting to get the level of understanding and recognition it deserves in sport and in particular in endurance sport. Sports psychology is a relatively new field of exploration as it has only been with us in a more formal sense for 30 years or so, quite a short period of time in human evolutionary terms.

So why is developing our EQ ability important to us as athletes? I can really relate to this question, when I was in my teens and an aspiring squash player, I used to lose my focus and find all sorts of reasons to blame other things and other people for hitting the ball into the tin or out of court. My competitive nature would take over to the point where I lost perspective on the bigger and more important goal like...d'oh! 'winning the match'. My McEnroe like outbursts at referees only helped me get to greater levels of frustration and my opponents to greater levels of confidence in getting the better of me.

In endurance sport we will often see this emerge in different ways, athletes that race every training session and leave their best efforts on the training track whilst under performing at their key races, athletes that do everybody else's training sessions except their own and wonder why they just don't perform on race day or maybe they just need to do a 'few more miles' in the week before their big race because 'I don't want to lose fitness'. As a coach I see these as regular themes that emerge with athletes and in particular with age-groupers. We tend to look at the elites or the best in our club for our inspiration, taking on those really tough sessions that the pros recommend in all the magazines. We sometime manage to convince ourselves that those sessions are the ones we should be doing regardless of our conditioning, recovery time or the fact that we have other things like...work to fit into our lives. External motivation from these kind of sources can be very positive when we keep in mind the key goals that we are aiming at and that the sessions we do are purposeful and focused on those goals.

One strong predictor of success according to a number of psychologists is a persons ability to 'delay gratification' to put our impulses aside for a period of time in order to gain an even greater reward. There were some famous experiments undertaken at Stamford University by Walter Mischel in the 1960's with children being given a marshmallow and told if they wait to eat it for 20 minutes they can have another 2. These children were then observed through there school years and those that managed to delay gratification in the tests turned out to be significantly more successful. Similar results have been reported by others researchers.

I was chatting with Chris Jones the former British Triathlon Federation Head of Performance last year and we were discussing this subject, he was explaining that for him one of the most critical factors that determines an athlete's ability to make it at the highest level is 'emotional control'. Not just the athletes ability to perform under pressure at the big events although that clearly is ultimately what its all about, but the ability focus on their day to day training consistently and professionally. Some good athletes find this extremely challenging, and you can hear conversations that go something like this ' how did your last two sessions go? I was down to do 5x3 minutes but I did 8 x3 because I feeling really good... and how did the session go today...well I felt really tired when I got up, and I was down to ride for 2 hours but ended up doing 60 Min's and coming home. Maybe those situations are indicative of the reasons why some athlete's remain good and never reach their true potential.

Can we improve our EQ or is it just how we are? Nature or nurture.. one of the ultimate questions, its my belief that its both nature and nurture, some athletes have a natural gift in understanding themselves and controlling their emotional impulses, whilst some of us have to work at it, so its something we can all improve. Becoming more self aware is a great first step, start by reminding yourself before your workout of the purpose of your session. Sense check it as you go along, if its meant to be a steady run check that's what you are doing? If not hold yourself back even if that means letting others go ahead. Use technology to help, heart rate, power meters are all tools that can help. Record your workouts, not just the numbers but how you are feeling, did the session end up as you intended? Did you go as hard as you needed to? If not what got in the way? What could you do next time?

Do we get better at it with age and experience? For sure but like many things its something that demands our attention or before long we end up stale, ill or injured.

Keep training smart comrades !


Refs
Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., Peake, P. K. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions. Developmental Psychology, 26(6), 978–986.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books