Mental and physical resilience: what is most important?

Mental resilience and physical resilience: both are undoubtedly important if we want to get high -level performances.

Consequently, every athlete, regardless of the sporting discipline they practice, should engage in both mental and physical training.

As a coach and ultra-runner, I believe mental resilience is more important than anything else, because it's thanks to our mind that we can focus our attention on what's truly important, especially in stressful situations. That's why it's thanks to our mind that we can apply our physical abilities.

Highly challenging situations, therefore of greater stress, require high physical skills that can only be manifested if the athlete has an adequate level of mental resilience.

A very good and resistant footballer will not be able to put all his skill in the field in an important final if he has not had adequate mental strength that will allow him to manage pressure and stress.

Mental resilience: is it really so important?

When we train our body, we train our muscle tissue. Not only that: we develop and train neural networks in our brain. In other words, when we make physical training, we create neural networks that send signals to the muscles in relation to how to activate according to increasingly effective specific methods.

Mental resilience and quality of training

The way we perform our physical training is of fundamental importance. On this it depends on how much the training will be productive. The greater the number of productive training, the better the results we will be able to obtain.

The main way we can improve the quality of our training is through attention. Thanks to our ability to pay full attention during the training process, we can implement what is known as intentional practice. This is the training modality in which mental presence allows the athlete to achieve high-level performance improvements.

Eliminates distractions

Training while remaining mentally present means eliminating distractions as much as possible during training. Most athletes don't make this effort; in fact, they do everything they can to distract themselves from the stress of training performance.

Enter any gym and you will see a lot of people on the treadmill or on the exercise bike that train by listening to music or looking at the smartphone. Of course, they are certainly involving their body, but attention is not aimed at measuring the quality of their commitment. They are in fact distracted by music or social networks.

Without full attention, we cannot be aware of our posture, our breathing, or all the proprioceptive aspects related to our body's perception in space. Without full attention, therefore, it is very difficult to monitor and be aware of all those aspects that allow us to improve.

Mental resilience: some advice to improve it

• Enter gradually in your workouts some sessions without music (maybe you could listen to music only in the exhaust sessions that do not require great commitment) in order to keep your attention on your body
• Develops a personal ritual that helps you find concentration
• Create anchors that allow you to enter a functional state of mind where your ability to focus is emphasized.
• Spend some time improving your breathing with these simple exercises.

Do you want to further improve your mental resilience and move on to the next level? Discover my sports coaching programs!