Psychology > physiology

Psychology trumps physiology and I don’t mean it in the ‘David and Goliath’ way. A variation in the psyche can bring about tremendous change in our ability to perform physical activities.

We can jump further, run faster and hit harder, than we normally can, simply by beginning to believe that we can. Sports coaches have known this for ages and I found a lot of resources on the internet about sports psychology including some cool sounding ones such as ‘self-hypnosis and better performance’.

My own interest in this topic got piqued over this last long weekend (weekend + extra two days for Chinese new year). I found that because I had more time in the mornings it was almost 11 am before I would finish my morning exercises for the first two days. I was taking almost 3-3.5 hour to finish my exercise quota because the breaks were too frequent and too long. Even though I remember consciously trying to speed up I just felt too tired to perform faster and had to really struggle hard simply to continue.

I decided that I could not afford so much time once the work week started and I may have to lighten my exercise load to accommodate the demands of my body. This was a new sensation for me, for those who know me it would be very evident, I hate to give ground or give up in general.

However, I figured that since my performance was suffering maybe I had something such as sleep debt or maybe something more sinister such as heavy muscle fatigue and had better pay heed to my body.

Come Monday morning (also a holiday) I decided that I would only exercise as much as I comfortably could in an hour without worrying so much about my quota. The defeatist attitude with which I started my session had a genuine unpleasantness. Even though I kept telling myself that I would take it easy I kept trying to meet my original exercise goals and by the end of the hour was so near where I should have been that I continued for a few more minutes and completed my set.

I was simply ecstatic, this meant that I did not have to alter my original program and would be able to adhere to the timeline for my long term goals. In fact I felt so good about completing Monday’s program that I was still pepped on Tuesday morning and actually finished my program 3 minutes before time.

This made me wonder why I had so much trouble in the first place. My guess is that when my mind went into holiday mode it somehow weakened its resolve to workout and this got my body feeling vary even though it had plenty of energy. What got me out of the situation was the tussle between my conscious and sub-conscious mind. (though I can’t exactly figure which one wanted what)