September 2, 2024 • 52 mins
In Episode #20, Ashley and Matt discuss the book 'Endure' by Alex Hutchinson. They share their overall thoughts on the book and highlight the importance of the mind in determining physical limits. They discuss the role of motivation, perception of effort, and self-talk in endurance performance. They mention a study that shows the impact of positive self-talk on endurance and discuss the different forms of self-talk: motivational and instructional. Matt shares his personal experience of using self-talk during a challenging hike. They encourage listeners to utilize the power of their internal dialogue in a helpful way. They discuss the role of mindfulness, visualization, and relaxation techniques in managing mental fatigue. The episode concludes with the importance of belief and developing a firm conviction in oneself to achieve greatness.
You can find Endure by Alex Hutchinson HERE
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
How does one go about developing a healthy relationship with their thoughts and producing
(00:05):
helpful or facilitative self-talk? Positive thoughts do feel kind of fluffy and when you get
to a higher and higher level in your career of competition or just pressure, like those positive
thoughts don't feel as helpful because you're in such a high stress situation. When you're younger,
those positive thoughts maybe make more sense, but I feel like that doesn't feel as helpful when
(00:30):
you're in a high pressure game situation where the game is on the line. It's then in those moments
that you realize that the things that you say to yourself have to be a little bit more constructive
and instructive and when you use those constructive and instructive lines, you can feel yourself
actually like doing the things that you want to be doing. So if I'm in a championship game,
(00:51):
if I say something to myself like, next tackle, I'm gonna time better. If you give yourself a
little bit more instruction, it's gonna be a lot more effective instead of try harder next time.
Something that you need to start experimenting with and understanding what's gonna be most
beneficial to you. My advice to young players or young athletes would be to just start recognizing
(01:12):
your self-talk and recognizing if what you're saying is helpful or hurtful. If it's helpful,
how can you keep replicating that? If it's hurtful, how can you put a pause to that and
turn it to be more helpful? Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Ditto.
(01:34):
I'm Ashley Hatch here with my co-host, Dr. Matt Moore. Matt, how are you doing today?
I'm doing really well. All I gotta say, Ash, is I did it. What did you do? I finally did it. So I
climbed a mountain today in the state of Utah. One of the highest, I don't think it's the highest,
(01:57):
it's like the second or third highest. It's called Mount Timpanogos. Nice. For those people that are
familiar with the state of Utah, you'll know that mountain. It was really hard and I think it'll be
a great transition to our book for today. But my body is really tired. Here I am complaining
(02:22):
to a professional athlete about how my body is tired. No, Mount Timp is no joke. I've had some
teammates that have done it and they said it's really hard. So I applaud you. It is a climb.
There's one point where you have to crawl. Because it's so steep. Not hands and knees,
but your feet in your hands and you have to climb up the mountain. And you're already dead
(02:47):
at that point. It was good. We got up at like 3 a.m. this morning. Who's we? You and your family?
Your friends? Me and my brother. So I have a twin brother for those that don't know. He does look a
lot like me. And then he brought his friend who talks way too much. Oh my gosh. He's one of those guys.
(03:12):
You know those people that just ask very little of you and then it's just this like tangent and
then another tangent and then another tangent. So the whole time you're just going yeah okay yeah
cool yeah oh wow and then what else oh wow are you okay yeah he did that for six and a half straight
(03:33):
hours. Wonderful guy. Wonderful guy. But he talked a lot. Nice. Other than that it was a wonderful
experience. How are you Ash? How are things going? Good. Just in the grind of season we won our game
this weekend. It was a huge win against Kansas City. For one? We didn't just beat them. We whooped them.
(03:59):
You beat the living beepity bleep. Yeah so that felt good. And now we're just prepping for our game in
San Diego this weekend. So yeah things are good. And you're flying out here tomorrow? Friday. Friday.
Okay. Yeah. How's San Diego doing? Are they contending? All of them are I guess. Yeah everyone is. They are not having
(04:24):
as good of a season as I'm sure they would have hoped but it's still plenty of time in the season
for people to turn things around so we're gonna have to give them our best for sure. What have
you done recently that is not soccer related? That's been fun. Well lately I've been so tired
(04:46):
after training. Sleeping. So I've been watching The Bachelor, catching up on The Bachelor. Oh nice. There's a new season of The Bachelor?
Well I mean it started like a while ago. I just haven't watched it because I've been busy and then
I've been so tired lately that I've just been reading and stretching in the front room while
(05:07):
watching. I'm also sewing still but I'm working on a big project right now. I'm trying to make a dress
so it's a lot of steps and I'm giving myself a very long timeline to finish it so I don't rush it.
So I'm slowly chipping away at that and that's been fun but sometimes requires more energy than
(05:29):
I'm ready to give it depending on the day. So when we're on episode 345 you'll finally be done with
hopefully I'll be wearing my dress. Okay with The Bachelor, who's The Bachelor right now? The one
that you're watching? Jen. It's like there's only one or two. Oh Bachelorette. Sorry Bachelorette. Yes Bachelorette.
(05:53):
The Bachelorette I think starts in a couple months. They already announced it in January right?
Maybe it is January but we already know who it is so yeah you're right maybe they're recording now.
Yeah and then I feel like The Bachelor always comes out when there's not a whole lot going on
like dead of winter. Yeah that's true. And The Bachelorette is kind of spring summer.
(06:18):
Yeah. Wholesome show. Yeah for sure. It's great. A great distraction show. Yeah there you go.
But yeah. Awesome. Do you want me to transition my awesome example transition to our topic for today?
Sure go ahead. As I pointed out listeners at the first of this conversation I climbed a mountain
(06:43):
today. It's 11,753 feet so it's no joke 7.25, seven and a quarter mile one way so you got like 14 and
a half miles round trip. I endured the process. What honestly though and I just posted this on LinkedIn
(07:05):
and I know we talked about this last time with Diane and Iad as well. You can do hard things.
Cardio is not my thing. It never has been. I'm a bigger individual. I'm not big by any means but
I'm a bigger individual and so running and that constant pounding on my body just doesn't feel
(07:30):
good and I don't think it ever will no matter how much weight or whatever I become. Anyways
it was apparent to me during the hike especially on the way down you get to like
two miles down and you think you're almost there and then you're like oh we still have four miles
(07:54):
left and so it's this just this constant like oh another two miles oh another mile and a half
oh another quarter mile. I use some of my own tricks as a mental performance coach today
and they talk about this in this book that we're going to be talking about today ladies and gentlemen
(08:15):
and I'm going to mention what I did on my hike today but I want to first
kind of introduce the book and then give like your overall thoughts on the book as well. I'll give
my overall thoughts and then we maybe can break down some of the highlights especially from a
psychological standpoint what we found as a result of reading this wonderful book. So what book are
we talking about? That book is called Endure and now I'm forgetting the subtitle. Do you have the
(08:41):
subtitle in front of you? Yes it's right here. It's Endure Mind of the Dead. I think it's
Mind Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance. Yeah amazing book. Author is Alex
Hutchinson. I think the revised version just came out a year-ish ago. I think that's what I have
(09:06):
revised updated. Yeah I think it's like 2023 if I'm not mistaken maybe 2022 it's not that old.
Yeah. So let me ask you Ash, overall thoughts just kind of from a 30,000 viewpoint what did you think
of it? I absolutely loved this book. Jeff got it for my birthday I think a couple years ago
(09:29):
and I think that the author did a great job of telling stories with so much
science and data and research like integrated into it but it wasn't bland and it wasn't boring.
I think it's very applicable to my line of work when it comes to just endurance athletes and endurance
(09:50):
training and a lot of it is about limits of the mind and the body and there's a lot of controversy
among different scientists about is it your mind that fatigues first or is it your body that's
your mind that fatigues first or is it your body or is it both or and it's just so many examples
(10:11):
with endurance athletes and just real life people examples that I absolutely loved it. I think I've
read it like twice already and yeah I give it a 10 out of 10. Oh that's great I loved it. You love it so much. Yeah.
Awesome and I highly recommend this to anyone curious about human potential in general.
(10:39):
I if I had to rate it you gave it a 10 out of 10 I think I would give it
8.5 maybe maybe 8.75 at the at the most in my mind. Not a nine. You won't round out to a nine. Yeah I don't think I'm gonna go
in the 90 percentile because then you're getting like a minus. Here's why Mr. Professor coming out.
(11:02):
I know here's why it's like a b plus b for me. Like you said I'll first start with the really good.
I love the stories that he told. There were so many fascinating stories that he mentioned
in the book and then it was backed especially from like an educational academic lens backed by all of
(11:24):
this evidence this research. That was amazing super interesting. Here's where I got lost and this is
where my own biases kind of come in and my interests. It was a lot of physiology. For me I felt like it
was 80, 20, 90, 10 almost in terms of physiology versus psychology. I was hoping for a little more
(11:51):
psychology and research that talked more about psychology. Now he did talk about it but for me
it was like the last 30 pages of the book 20 pages of the book maybe and then most of it was
about this runner having to do this thing and this runner doing this thing and this runner doing that
thing. So if you like running and you like physiology in my humble opinion and breaking these
(12:15):
barriers of human performance especially in the sport of running and track and field you will love
love love the book. I was slightly disappointed 8.75 so it wasn't a lot but it was just a little
coming from the an actual sport psychology lens. I wish there was just more of that within
the book. That's fair. Obviously you disagree you think that's fair?
(12:41):
Yeah I think it's fair especially coming from your perspective of your profession. I think with my
profession I like learning about those things as well and I think that he does a decent amount of
I don't know I guess we should just dive into it because like the things that I pointed out were
actually more psychology I don't know like psychological based instead of I'm getting on
(13:09):
my ologies mixed up. Psychologically? Yeah and what was the other one? Physiologically.
Yeah yeah or just physical you can say physical. Yeah physical thank you for us non-academic people
but yeah no I think that's a fair assessment I can understand why you would say that and so I think
(13:32):
your your rating is fair but as I was reading this book there was a lot of things that I feel like
that I highlighted that like things that we have talked about before and I thought it was really
cool to see it in a from a different person and in a different lens and in a different context
and so I really enjoyed that aspect of the book as well. Even just some of the same like exact same
(13:55):
like words or examples of like on page 225 I underlined non-judgmental self-awareness when
he's talking about marathon runners and like he talks about for a marathon runner like so your
body will start to feel tired or hot or you'll have shortness of breath or whatever it is or like
(14:22):
cramps or whatever and that's like sending signals to your mind right but he talks about this in
in the perspective of a marathon runner and how they have to have non-judgmental self-awareness
and not panic when they are receiving these like signals and these signs and not to get like overly
like worried about them and he says that marathon runners need to learn to monitor how your body
(14:45):
actually feels and suspend judgment about it and so I feel like it's so fascinating when you look
at endurance athletes and how interconnected the physical and the mental are and it's like
it are those physical signs like actually happening is it is it because your body's actually
(15:06):
physically tired or are you reaching new limits that your mind is telling you that you've never
reached before and so it's saying okay it's time to like shut down and like how are you able to
push past those limits because we know that we can and there's a lot of studies that he shares
in here that show that like whether it's motivation or whether it's a placebo effect or there's other
(15:30):
as other things that we can do to help increase our performance and a lot of those times a lot of
times those things are I don't want to say like tricking our mind but I guess distracting
our mind from what we're actually feeling and so I know for me I've had many instances in my career
(15:52):
whether it's like fitness tests or a 90-minute game where like sometimes I'm good at this and
sometimes I'm not great at it and I can feel it affect my performance.
So many good things in there. It's one of the highlights for me in terms of you know why I
(16:12):
rated it the way I did and why I did very much enjoy the book. He does he highlights
the crucial role of the brain the mind and it determining physical limits and so the mind has
this limiter of an of endurance and for me what really stood out were three things in terms of
(16:33):
in terms of the mind motivation perception of effort and self-talk. Those three significantly impacting
an athlete's ability to be able to endure pain and push beyond these perceived boundaries some
of them are actually happening to the physical body but some of them are perceived and being able to
(16:55):
to push past those limits is has been at least in many of the stories that he shared significantly
impactful in a very positive light for many of these athletes. For me what you were mentioning
and alluding to also is this beautiful word of acceptance. You know it's really hard to judge
(17:20):
ourselves whether it's physical whether it's mental whether it's spiritual emotional etc.
And especially as an athlete it's really hard to judge when you're running a 26.2
mile marathon to judge how you're feeling and to be judgmental about those feelings or to be
judgmental about the physical limitations or perceived limitations that are happening.
(17:45):
But if we can get to the point of acceptance and just seeing it for what it is then we're shifting
the perception and in theory promoting more of this facilitative experience. That for me
is kind of what you were alluding alluding to at least in my mind. Yeah. The one huge thing
(18:05):
and I'm going to share a study that he shared in his book that really stood out to me from
Indoor in terms of psychological tenants skill set strategies etc. self-talk. Basically what you say
to yourself has a great impact on how you perform and in fact here's a direct quote from the book.
(18:28):
I don't have the page number but it's coming straight from this book straight from Alex's
well it might not be Alex actually because he's alluding to a study here. Anyways this is what he
said in the book just like a smile or frown the words in your head have the power to influence
the very feelings they're supposed to reflect. Page 66. 66 thank you Ashley. Yeah I had that.
(18:54):
Yeah then he talks about this amazing study about how cyclists who implemented positive self-talk
and how this self-talk group for these cyclists lasted about 18 percent longer than the control
group and their rating of perceived exertion. There we see that perception again climbed more
(19:15):
slowly throughout the test. The study if you're wondering what it is it's titled talking yourself
out of exhaustion the effects of self-talk on endurance endurance performance fascinating
right 18 percent is pretty significant. Now here's something I want to touch on especially from kind
of an academic lens. We hear these terms positive self-talk and negative self-talk all the time and
(19:40):
yes I think those are the quote unquote correct terms coming from a lot of different studies and
a lot of different literature avenues if you will. I don't love those terms positive and negative it
paints too much of a black and white picture for me there's a lot more gray area as it pertains to
(20:01):
self-talk and so usually when I work with athletes I phrase it either helpful or hurtful self-talk
because if you think about it what can be perceived quote unquote positive for one person
could be negative for another person and vice versa. One example of this that I use all the time
(20:22):
is how motivation or how athletes use trash talk as motivation. Have you ever done that? Have you
ever whether it's external or internal like trash talk so it's so it's objectively negative
yeah you're utilizing it in a facilitative way. Yeah for sure I think maybe not the same type of
(20:45):
trash talk as other people but I mean I think it's similar to when maybe a coach says something
that you don't like or says you're not good enough for like we talked about last episode and using
that in a positive way to kind of like motivate you to prove someone wrong in a helpful way. Yeah
mm-hmm yeah yeah. Great example another example I remember using this with soldiers when I was
(21:10):
working with the US Army it probably isn't the most helpful to think about chocolate chip cookies
when you're performing an obstacle course and you're having to test in front of your drill
sergeants. It's a positive thought chocolate chip cookies objectively are very wonderful
(21:32):
but it might not be the most helpful and then so the idea is subjectively choosing the most helpful
thoughts in the context of the right situations is going to in my opinion produce the best outcome
and then Alex alludes to influence directly these feelings that they're supposed to reflect which
(21:53):
is then going to produce this behavioral component these actions. Yeah. So from the literature
instead of using positive negative for me again helpful versus hurtful there are essentially two
different forms of self-talk one is what's called motivational self-talk and one which is called
(22:13):
instructional self-talk so motivational is I can do this you got this let's go those type of phrases
you're motivating internally yourself to get through or to perform at a high level
instructional self-talk is wrist in or elbow flexion or plant foot as I go to kick my pk
(22:35):
you're using instructional cues internally to help you perform better those essentially
are two different forms of self-talk and then you can throw in this helpful hurtful type of protocols
in terms of it being the most facilitative or hopefully being the most facilitated for you as
the as the performer now here's what I did today I told I told you I was gonna share what I did
(23:00):
today I wanted to because I knew we were gonna have this conversation today and specifically
about self-talk and so I wanted to put it into play and wanted to see how it was gonna help me
again I'm not I'm not a runner don't love to run don't love more than usually three miles I'm like
yeah I'm good I think that's enough for me but this was over 14 miles and so I'm coming down
(23:25):
on this trail I'm at like mile 12 so I got like two and a half miles left and I wanted to like
get down I was kind of sick of being on the trail at that point yeah and so I decided okay I'm gonna
go for a little jog down the trail down the mountain but it of course hurt my knees were hurting
hips were hurting ankles were hurting muscles etc what I did self-talk wise helpful wise
(23:51):
motivation wise is I use this phrase called through the pain I've done this before I know
I've talked about this with some athletes before because I could feel it on every little jog on
every little step my muscles were aching and joints were hurting but in my mind I kept repeating and
I did it out loud as well on some instances through the pain through the pain through the pain
(24:15):
through the pain and it was very facilitative I was able to jog pretty much those last two and a
half miles and I got down much faster than I thought I could and I know it was because I was
utilizing the power of the mind because what we say to ourselves has enormous influence because
we're going to believe it or we're not going to believe it you have that power to believe in what
(24:41):
you're saying or not to believe in what you're saying and so here's my challenge for everybody
in whatever domain you might find yourself in utilize this power this influence of
your internal dialogue and start to change what you're saying to yourself in a helpful way
(25:01):
because I know there's been studies done on this as well generally speaking what we say to ourselves
is very negative or very hurtful as much as 90 to 95 percent has been analyzed with some of these
studies has shown that what we say to ourselves is hurtful which just sucks like we're doing
ourselves such a disservice by talking crappy to ourselves and so change that change it to just
(25:26):
little tweaks to help it and to facilitate whatever domain that you might find yourself in
with all that to say ash especially in terms of self-talk in your experience
what have you done in your career maybe in your life in general as it pertains to self-talk and
how have you found because I know we've discussed this over the years how have you found self-talk
(25:51):
specifically to be a helpful tool for you psychologically I mean I feel like self-talk
is everything because I feel like the the way that you're talking to yourself shows in your body
language and in your performance and it's very obvious when you're watching an athlete and they
(26:13):
make a mistake what they are saying to themselves after that mistake has been made and they're
saying to themselves after that mistake has been made and I've been on both both sides of it I've
had good self-talk where actually I have a story that I feel like will help articulate this well
on the positive side I was probably like 10 or 11 years old playing in a at a UCLA Bruins Cup
(26:41):
Club tournament it was 77 and it was really fun and my team was doing really well I was in the
box defending a corner kick and I accidentally scored on my own team and I was so upset but I
was like determined to use that moment to like give myself momentum to help my team score a goal
(27:07):
to get it back and I did I did exactly that like I was able to just like let it go I don't know
why I was able to do this at such a young age but I was able to let it go and like be like okay I'm
going to go get it back from my team and like literally maybe like two minutes later I helped
my team score like two goals and we ended up winning the game and I had a really good discussion
(27:30):
with my dad about and he was just like I'm so proud of you for like not letting that moment ruin
the rest of the game but I've been on both both ends of it where I've had moments in the game
where I've let myself talk because of a mistake prevent me from trying things again and I think
self-talk is just crucial especially in a game like soccer where you it's a game of moments and
(27:56):
the team that has more positive or effective moments is most likely going to win the game
and it's such a mental battle because there's so much unpredictability there's so many different
factors and if you aren't talking to yourself effectively in the game you're most likely not
going to be performing effectively you're most likely not going to be talking to others effectively
(28:20):
and constructively so it kind of your body language isn't going to be effective or helpful
to yourself or those around you so I think self-talk is huge when it comes to all those
aspects and when it's not good it's really not good and it doesn't help anyone else around you so
I would say yeah it's really important yeah I have a question to follow up on that but really
(28:45):
quickly for those that might be of interest to this self-talk is essentially stemming from this
therapeutic lens of cognitive behavioral therapy basically cbt cognitive behavioral therapy
it focuses on the power of thought and how thought influences emotions and how emotions
(29:07):
influence physical and or behavioral consequences and vice versa as well when we're moving it's
affecting how we feel and then the thoughts and so again with cbt especially the focus is on
changing our relationship with thoughts it has shown to be over the years very effective very
powerful it is not the only therapeutic lens that can and should be implemented in a lot of
(29:34):
especially sports psychology instances but nonetheless it's can and is very very effective
and again it focuses on this power of developing a healthy relationship with our thoughts and in our
internal dialogue here's my follow-up question to you or for you
young athletes they're learning about self-talk they understand that what they say to themselves
(29:58):
is important how would you and now experiencing this power of self-talk and implementing it I
mean you just said that self-talk is everything how does one going how does one go about developing
a healthy relationship with their thoughts and or producing helpful or facilitative self-talk what
(30:19):
did you do kind of explicitly and deliberately over the years to to do that yeah I mean I feel
like I love how you shared positive and negative thoughts isn't usually the most helpful because
a lot of the times I feel like the positive thoughts do feel kind of like fluffy and I think
(30:40):
you feel kind of like fluffy and when you get to a higher and higher levels in your career of
competition or just pressure I feel like those positive thoughts don't feel as helpful because
you're in such a high stress situation if that makes sense so I feel like when you're younger
(31:01):
those quote-unquote positive thoughts maybe make more sense just because you're learning the
difference between like what you're saying to yourself matters and so using like oh positive
like oh I'm good or I can do this I guess those are like more like what you're saying motivational
self-talk but I feel like that doesn't feel as helpful when you're in a high pressure game
(31:24):
situation where the game is on the line or you're down and you need to be able to dig deep or you
are feeling some sort of pain but it's the type of pain that's okay to push through but how do you
dig deep and push through that pain and I feel like it's then in those moments that you realize
that the things that you say to yourself have to be a little bit more constructive and instructive
(31:48):
and when you use those constructive and instructive lines you can feel yourself actually
like doing the things that you want to be doing so if I'm in a in a championship game and I'm like
just like saying fluff positivity things like like okay like it's still going to be helpful right
like okay I can do this or it's all right next one those are still going to be helpful but if
(32:11):
I say something to myself like okay next one next one I'm going to keep on frame or next tackle I'm
going to time better or next through ball I'm going to put more spin on it or like you give
yourself a little bit more instruction is going to be a lot more effective instead of just like try
harder next time so I feel like it's it's something that you need to start especially as a young
(32:38):
athlete experimenting with and understanding what's going to be most beneficial to you and
like what phrases are going to be most beneficial to you because it's not the same it's not the same
for everyone a good example in the book that you already talked about was that the cyclists who use
positive self-talk and how they were able to go further the example that he used in the book was
(33:00):
the the self-talk group learned to use certain phrases early on in their in their cycling
workout of like okay feeling good and then as they went on throughout their workout and things got
harder they said things like push through this and so it goes back to what we talked about at the
(33:21):
beginning of like it's okay to recognize that this is hard and I think or I'm feeling pain or I
haven't been able to do this before or I made a mistake you need to recognize those things in
order to be able to push past them or to move on past them whatever they may be and so I feel like
this is a good example or the example that you use of hiking the mountain of like push through
(33:43):
the pain or what was it that you said through the pain yeah through the pain it's accepting
and understanding like where you're at but then also accepting and acknowledging that you can
go further whatever that is and so yeah for me a lot of the times it's if I make a mistake it's
(34:03):
like okay like how am I going to get over this I'm going to say okay next time I'm going to do this
or next I'm just going to go for it again and I'm not going to give up or um it's you know I'm
getting better like you know what's that saying pain is weakness leaving the body my coaches used
to say that all the time when I was younger and I was like that's so stupid but I feel like it's one
(34:28):
of those phrases that helps us when we say it we understand that okay this may be hard but I'm going
to get better and so for me he also says in this book that he encouraged the bikers to practice
using these phrases and figure out which which ones felt most comfortable and most effective
(34:51):
and so I think that also just alludes to that we have it's not going to be the same for everyone
some people might say I don't want to say feeling good at the beginning I want to just say I'm
I'm feeling fine or whatever it is what it is you know that's one of our favorite sayings from the
from that book uh the neutral thinking who's that author Trevor Mollard yeah um that's one
(35:14):
of Jeff and I's like favorite quotes now it's just it is what it is we'll have to talk about
that book at a different time yeah yeah so my advice to young players or young athletes would
to be just start recognizing your self-talk and recognizing if what you're saying is helpful or
hurtful and if it's helpful how can you keep replicating that if it's hurtful how can you
(35:38):
put a pause to that and turn it to be more helpful god I love all of that
very similar ash when I when I'm asked this question especially by young athletes like
okay well how can I develop helpful self-talk phrases words strategies etc almost everything
(35:59):
you just said if I had to simplify it and maybe add just a little bit more I usually tell them one
it needs to be authentic it needs to come from you don't use your mom's phrasing or your dad or your
coach or if they do say something that you really like and it feels authentic to say that that's
okay too you need to believe it so when you say I got this or push through the pain do you believe
(36:25):
really that you can push through the pain or do you believe really that you've got this because
if you don't you need to maybe get a different phrase and or prepare differently so that that
phrase can have validity behind it and then three you just said it is it helpful in those moments
whether it's training or competition or you're presenting in front of a group in business
(36:49):
is it going to help because if it is perfect I remember again working with some soldiers around
these protocols authenticity is it helpful and then do you believe it and some of it was just
pure vulgarity strings of vulgarity and swear words with some other words mixed in but it worked
(37:14):
for them and I asked them is this authentic yeah do you believe it yeah is it helpful for these
moments yeah okay then do it yeah and then you can experiment with it and come back and say
and come back and say oh it was kind of helpful but not really maybe I'll change it up xyz or
it really sucked I need to change it up that's the process and it's a skill set talking to yourself
(37:37):
is a skill set going back trial and error coming and reflecting changing things up going and
experimenting coming back changing things up etc so for those that are interested experiment with it
and challenge yourself to to find those phrases or words it can be just one word if you want
to start implementing into your own internal dialogue because I promise it's going to be
(38:03):
helpful um I want to switch gears just a little before I do is there anything else about self-talk
in particular that you needed to punch in there no I think we covered it really well yeah okay I
think we did too I think that was wonderful here's my other thing that I just love from
indoor by Alex Hutchinson in terms of especially the psychological component of his book he explores
(38:31):
how mental fatigue affects physical performance so he explores like how stress and prolonged
cognitive tasks so he goes over a lot of different studies relating to this how they can reduce
physical performance it's amazing based off of this how truly intimately connected the mind and
(38:55):
body are and how when we're exerting physical or sorry when we're exerting psychological energy
how that affects physical I was just talking to my students about this the other day my exercise
psychology course and we brought this up and I asked them I'll give you an example of how this
(39:17):
how you probably have experienced this I said how many of you have taken finals before
in almost all of them except for maybe the freshmen raise their hands
and I said okay after a week or maybe just one eight hour bout in the library of studying for
(39:37):
your finals you're sitting how do you feel after you're done and all of them said oh my gosh I'm
so fatigued I'm so exhausted I just want to go home and sleep it's like even physically you feel
that way and they all said yeah and I know you can attest to this when we're doing mental fatigue
(39:58):
protocols or we're experiencing cognitive stress it's going to affect us physically and so being
aware of that first and foremost like you were mentioning Ashley and then implementing some
strategies and they talked about this in indoor like mindfulness like visualization relaxation
techniques like breathing it's going to help you as the athlete you as the performer manage this
(40:24):
mental fatigue which is then going to optimize physical performance because of how intimately
connected the mind and body are anyways I found that fascinating I think there were some wonderful
studies wonderful examples that he shared in relation to that let me ask you especially in
(40:45):
terms of mindfulness visualization relaxation techniques similar to self-talk what role has
those things played in your performance in your career and maybe even backing up further what
role has mental fatigue played in terms of it affecting your physical performance all of that
(41:07):
there's a lot of questions in there hopefully you can remember um yeah there were a lot of questions
in there but I love I also loved this part of the book and I'm glad that you brought it up because
there's also a part that I wanted to bring up of this uh perceived exertion because it's something
um what's it called what's the name of the guy the borg scale is that the guy's name um so we
(41:36):
input our rpe's after every training so rpe is rate of perceived exertion and we do it on a scale
of one to ten one being easy ten being like the absolute hardest and the reason why we do it is
so that our our strength and sports science team um they can track how we perceived the session
(42:01):
to be and then also compare that with the numbers and see what we actually did and they do it to
plan our sessions but from my perspective I think it's really cool that they track our rpe's because
I feel like it's them acknowledging that how we think how hard we think it was also comes into play
(42:24):
compared to how hard it quote unquote actually was when it comes to like the numbers and the
actual data and so I think that just shows that like how how we perceive things actually matters
and does affect our physical fatigue um anyway I just thought that was a really cool insight to
(42:45):
hear like where this measurement came from and like why we do it and like why it's important
and he also brings up in the book which sorry I'm not answering all your questions that you asked
but um he says if you could train the brain to become more accustomed to mental fatigue then
just like the body it would adapt to the task of staying on pace and would feel easier so like
(43:10):
to kind of answer your question answering my question yeah to kind of answer your question
like yes training your brain to either like cope with or to manage the mental fatigue
is important and I think that's the things that I do to help do that are meditation breathing
(43:31):
journaling I use all of these different methods at different points in time but I do think there's
another level there's managing but then there's also conditioning and being able to just like
increase that mental flexibility that mental strength and so yeah I feel I feel like there's
(43:52):
a distinction between same as a physical right I take ice baths and I do things to recover to help
me manage the symptoms that I'm experiencing in that moment but I'm also training really hard
and running and doing all these things to build on the foundation of my whether it's endurance or
(44:14):
my strength and I'm doing things to help help myself become more physically superior than I was
at the beginning of the season or in the middle so I think there's a distinction between the two but
I do think it's very important to train the mind and also have these tools to help yourself
mentally like cope with the stresses of everyday life or just sports in general or whatever it is
(44:44):
but as I was reading this too I thought a lot about moms and how like we we like joke about
this thing called like mom strength but it's like I think it's a real thing but I think it's because
they don't have time to actually stop and think about how they actually feel and
when we sometimes have time to stop and think about how we actually feel I feel like sometimes
(45:07):
like oh I I feel more tired than I thought I would or whatever it is but I feel like mom's just
I know when I think about my mom when she had four kids all two years apart growing up it was just
go go go go and there was no time to be like oh how do I perceive how what's my rate of perceived
exertion today it's like no I just do it and you keep doing it and you just get better you create
(45:28):
this like endurance which I feel like turns into like super human mom strength but anyway I was
thinking of moms too as I was reading this but yeah so those those are kind of my roundabout
answers for you all in all it's really important I love it I love bringing in the mom example
(45:49):
ultimately ash at least how I am interpreting a lot of what you just said
interpreting a lot of what you just said things like mental fatigue and incorporating strategies
like mindfulness visualization imagery realization techniques etc you're wanting to get to a point
(46:10):
and I could argue this you could argue this with physical performance as well with of self-regulation
and to do that you need to prepare and train and practice and then repeat repeat repeat so when not
if mental fatigue and or physical fatigue occurs you're self-regulated to be able to know ooh I
(46:34):
need to incorporate breathing ooh I need to incorporate maybe a two-minute imagery session
ooh I need to incorporate meditation I haven't done my meditation today or ooh I need to take my
ice bath ooh I need to do some deep stretching that's regulating the process but to be able to
get there psychologically especially just like the physical you need to practice you need to be
(46:55):
deliberate about it and um consistent with it so yeah anyways um those are pretty much my thoughts
pretty much my thoughts on this really wonderful 8.75 out of 10. Just kidding. Book anything else
(47:16):
Ashley from your end in terms of uh bringing up some some highlights from your experience
in reading this book? Yeah I mean I feel like if we could probably talk about this book for like
10 hours straight because there's just so much and the things that we just talked about were like
only a few things but I think a good a good place to end is you alluded to it earlier you said it
(47:39):
earlier is this is this word belief and at the end of the book in like the last couple chapters
um the author talks about the Kenyan runners do you remember this or no? Yeah yeah I do.
And I was I read it again last night and I was just like so inspired by it but I feel like it's
(48:00):
a good place to end just because I feel like I know I do this a lot of us get stuck in like
staying within these like confines or these boundaries or this pattern and this is how
we're supposed to do things um but if you look at the Kenyans and how they run as an example
(48:24):
um it's quite inspiring because he talks about how I don't know if it was him or someone went
to go run with these Kenyans and to understand why they're so good. Someone else. Yeah someone
else went to train with these Kenyans and to understand why they're so good at what they do
and essentially he said that everyone wakes up in the morning and just starts running with the
(48:50):
fastest runners and they just run for as fast and as long as they can and when they can't run
anymore they just stop and then they go home rest repeat and do it again and it's just so crazy
because if you think about it from I'm sure like there's a lot of like running and conditioning
coaches who probably just like are like this is crazy because a lot of runners have these specific
(49:16):
specific times these specific splits and like they want to start the the race off at this pace and
at this moment they want to do this but he talks about how that if you start the race knowing how
you want to finish it then you don't leave any room for something amazing to happen you don't
leave any room for yourself to kind of to surprise yourself and I just thought it was so cool it was
(49:43):
just like such a outside of the box thinking let's see I wrote down I wrote down a quote
okay yeah this is what he said he said referring to the Kenyan runner he said he noticed he wakes
(50:04):
up every morning with a firm conviction that today will finally be his or her day they run
with the leaders because they think they can beat them and if the harsh reality proves that they
can't they regroup and they try again the next day and that belief fostered by a long-standing
international dominance of generations of Kenyan runners becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
(50:27):
so I just thought that was really powerful and I feel like it's a really good way to live your life
is just to wake up and believe that every day that you can run with the best and if you can't that's
okay you try again tomorrow but anyway I feel like that's a really good a really good way to
live and a good lesson to learn by because it's like why not like why not surprise yourself why
(50:51):
not push yourself and see what your limits are and I feel like a lot of us are too scared
to like even come close to those limits um so that's my mic drop from the end of the book from
endure but I really liked it it's I think a very common theme this you said it firm conviction
aka belief in yourself a very common theme with alex honnold with diana niad with these kenyan
(51:18):
runners if you want to do something great start to develop this like conviction firm conviction
within yourself that you could get better that you can accomplish these things boom amen awesome
well thanks everyone hopefully uh you enjoyed the conversation and go out and get the book it's
(51:41):
it's well worth the read a lot of wonderful stories a lot of awesome research that backs up all these
stories as well so yeah all right ash awesome I'll try and see if Jeff can put in the link
in the notes somewhere but anyway hope everyone enjoyed and enjoy the rest of your day and week
audio bye you
How does one go about developing a healthy relationship with their thoughts and producing
(00:05):
helpful or facilitative self-talk? Positive thoughts do feel kind of fluffy and when you get
to a higher and higher level in your career of competition or just pressure, like those positive
thoughts don't feel as helpful because you're in such a high stress situation. When you're younger,
those positive thoughts maybe make more sense, but I feel like that doesn't feel as helpful when
(00:30):
you're in a high pressure game situation where the game is on the line. It's then in those moments
that you realize that the things that you say to yourself have to be a little bit more constructive
and instructive and when you use those constructive and instructive lines, you can feel yourself
actually like doing the things that you want to be doing. So if I'm in a championship game,
(00:51):
if I say something to myself like, next tackle, I'm gonna time better. If you give yourself a
little bit more instruction, it's gonna be a lot more effective instead of try harder next time.
Something that you need to start experimenting with and understanding what's gonna be most
beneficial to you. My advice to young players or young athletes would be to just start recognizing
(01:12):
your self-talk and recognizing if what you're saying is helpful or hurtful. If it's helpful,
how can you keep replicating that? If it's hurtful, how can you put a pause to that and
turn it to be more helpful? Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Ditto.
(01:34):
I'm Ashley Hatch here with my co-host, Dr. Matt Moore. Matt, how are you doing today?
I'm doing really well. All I gotta say, Ash, is I did it. What did you do? I finally did it. So I
climbed a mountain today in the state of Utah. One of the highest, I don't think it's the highest,
(01:57):
it's like the second or third highest. It's called Mount Timpanogos. Nice. For those people that are
familiar with the state of Utah, you'll know that mountain. It was really hard and I think it'll be
a great transition to our book for today. But my body is really tired. Here I am complaining
(02:22):
to a professional athlete about how my body is tired. No, Mount Timp is no joke. I've had some
teammates that have done it and they said it's really hard. So I applaud you. It is a climb.
There's one point where you have to crawl. Because it's so steep. Not hands and knees,
but your feet in your hands and you have to climb up the mountain. And you're already dead
(02:47):
at that point. It was good. We got up at like 3 a.m. this morning. Who's we? You and your family?
Your friends? Me and my brother. So I have a twin brother for those that don't know. He does look a
lot like me. And then he brought his friend who talks way too much. Oh my gosh. He's one of those guys.
(03:12):
You know those people that just ask very little of you and then it's just this like tangent and
then another tangent and then another tangent. So the whole time you're just going yeah okay yeah
cool yeah oh wow and then what else oh wow are you okay yeah he did that for six and a half straight
(03:33):
hours. Wonderful guy. Wonderful guy. But he talked a lot. Nice. Other than that it was a wonderful
experience. How are you Ash? How are things going? Good. Just in the grind of season we won our game
this weekend. It was a huge win against Kansas City. For one? We didn't just beat them. We whooped them.
(03:59):
You beat the living beepity bleep. Yeah so that felt good. And now we're just prepping for our game in
San Diego this weekend. So yeah things are good. And you're flying out here tomorrow? Friday. Friday.
Okay. Yeah. How's San Diego doing? Are they contending? All of them are I guess. Yeah everyone is. They are not having
(04:24):
as good of a season as I'm sure they would have hoped but it's still plenty of time in the season
for people to turn things around so we're gonna have to give them our best for sure. What have
you done recently that is not soccer related? That's been fun. Well lately I've been so tired
(04:46):
after training. Sleeping. So I've been watching The Bachelor, catching up on The Bachelor. Oh nice. There's a new season of The Bachelor?
Well I mean it started like a while ago. I just haven't watched it because I've been busy and then
I've been so tired lately that I've just been reading and stretching in the front room while
(05:07):
watching. I'm also sewing still but I'm working on a big project right now. I'm trying to make a dress
so it's a lot of steps and I'm giving myself a very long timeline to finish it so I don't rush it.
So I'm slowly chipping away at that and that's been fun but sometimes requires more energy than
(05:29):
I'm ready to give it depending on the day. So when we're on episode 345 you'll finally be done with
hopefully I'll be wearing my dress. Okay with The Bachelor, who's The Bachelor right now? The one
that you're watching? Jen. It's like there's only one or two. Oh Bachelorette. Sorry Bachelorette. Yes Bachelorette.
(05:53):
The Bachelorette I think starts in a couple months. They already announced it in January right?
Maybe it is January but we already know who it is so yeah you're right maybe they're recording now.
Yeah and then I feel like The Bachelor always comes out when there's not a whole lot going on
like dead of winter. Yeah that's true. And The Bachelorette is kind of spring summer.
(06:18):
Yeah. Wholesome show. Yeah for sure. It's great. A great distraction show. Yeah there you go.
But yeah. Awesome. Do you want me to transition my awesome example transition to our topic for today?
Sure go ahead. As I pointed out listeners at the first of this conversation I climbed a mountain
(06:43):
today. It's 11,753 feet so it's no joke 7.25, seven and a quarter mile one way so you got like 14 and
a half miles round trip. I endured the process. What honestly though and I just posted this on LinkedIn
(07:05):
and I know we talked about this last time with Diane and Iad as well. You can do hard things.
Cardio is not my thing. It never has been. I'm a bigger individual. I'm not big by any means but
I'm a bigger individual and so running and that constant pounding on my body just doesn't feel
(07:30):
good and I don't think it ever will no matter how much weight or whatever I become. Anyways
it was apparent to me during the hike especially on the way down you get to like
two miles down and you think you're almost there and then you're like oh we still have four miles
(07:54):
left and so it's this just this constant like oh another two miles oh another mile and a half
oh another quarter mile. I use some of my own tricks as a mental performance coach today
and they talk about this in this book that we're going to be talking about today ladies and gentlemen
(08:15):
and I'm going to mention what I did on my hike today but I want to first
kind of introduce the book and then give like your overall thoughts on the book as well. I'll give
my overall thoughts and then we maybe can break down some of the highlights especially from a
psychological standpoint what we found as a result of reading this wonderful book. So what book are
we talking about? That book is called Endure and now I'm forgetting the subtitle. Do you have the
(08:41):
subtitle in front of you? Yes it's right here. It's Endure Mind of the Dead. I think it's
Mind Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance. Yeah amazing book. Author is Alex
Hutchinson. I think the revised version just came out a year-ish ago. I think that's what I have
(09:06):
revised updated. Yeah I think it's like 2023 if I'm not mistaken maybe 2022 it's not that old.
Yeah. So let me ask you Ash, overall thoughts just kind of from a 30,000 viewpoint what did you think
of it? I absolutely loved this book. Jeff got it for my birthday I think a couple years ago
(09:29):
and I think that the author did a great job of telling stories with so much
science and data and research like integrated into it but it wasn't bland and it wasn't boring.
I think it's very applicable to my line of work when it comes to just endurance athletes and endurance
(09:50):
training and a lot of it is about limits of the mind and the body and there's a lot of controversy
among different scientists about is it your mind that fatigues first or is it your body that's
your mind that fatigues first or is it your body or is it both or and it's just so many examples
(10:11):
with endurance athletes and just real life people examples that I absolutely loved it. I think I've
read it like twice already and yeah I give it a 10 out of 10. Oh that's great I loved it. You love it so much. Yeah.
Awesome and I highly recommend this to anyone curious about human potential in general.
(10:39):
I if I had to rate it you gave it a 10 out of 10 I think I would give it
8.5 maybe maybe 8.75 at the at the most in my mind. Not a nine. You won't round out to a nine. Yeah I don't think I'm gonna go
in the 90 percentile because then you're getting like a minus. Here's why Mr. Professor coming out.
(11:02):
I know here's why it's like a b plus b for me. Like you said I'll first start with the really good.
I love the stories that he told. There were so many fascinating stories that he mentioned
in the book and then it was backed especially from like an educational academic lens backed by all of
(11:24):
this evidence this research. That was amazing super interesting. Here's where I got lost and this is
where my own biases kind of come in and my interests. It was a lot of physiology. For me I felt like it
was 80, 20, 90, 10 almost in terms of physiology versus psychology. I was hoping for a little more
(11:51):
psychology and research that talked more about psychology. Now he did talk about it but for me
it was like the last 30 pages of the book 20 pages of the book maybe and then most of it was
about this runner having to do this thing and this runner doing this thing and this runner doing that
thing. So if you like running and you like physiology in my humble opinion and breaking these
(12:15):
barriers of human performance especially in the sport of running and track and field you will love
love love the book. I was slightly disappointed 8.75 so it wasn't a lot but it was just a little
coming from the an actual sport psychology lens. I wish there was just more of that within
the book. That's fair. Obviously you disagree you think that's fair?
(12:41):
Yeah I think it's fair especially coming from your perspective of your profession. I think with my
profession I like learning about those things as well and I think that he does a decent amount of
I don't know I guess we should just dive into it because like the things that I pointed out were
actually more psychology I don't know like psychological based instead of I'm getting on
(13:09):
my ologies mixed up. Psychologically? Yeah and what was the other one? Physiologically.
Yeah yeah or just physical you can say physical. Yeah physical thank you for us non-academic people
but yeah no I think that's a fair assessment I can understand why you would say that and so I think
(13:32):
your your rating is fair but as I was reading this book there was a lot of things that I feel like
that I highlighted that like things that we have talked about before and I thought it was really
cool to see it in a from a different person and in a different lens and in a different context
and so I really enjoyed that aspect of the book as well. Even just some of the same like exact same
(13:55):
like words or examples of like on page 225 I underlined non-judgmental self-awareness when
he's talking about marathon runners and like he talks about for a marathon runner like so your
body will start to feel tired or hot or you'll have shortness of breath or whatever it is or like
(14:22):
cramps or whatever and that's like sending signals to your mind right but he talks about this in
in the perspective of a marathon runner and how they have to have non-judgmental self-awareness
and not panic when they are receiving these like signals and these signs and not to get like overly
like worried about them and he says that marathon runners need to learn to monitor how your body
(14:45):
actually feels and suspend judgment about it and so I feel like it's so fascinating when you look
at endurance athletes and how interconnected the physical and the mental are and it's like
it are those physical signs like actually happening is it is it because your body's actually
(15:06):
physically tired or are you reaching new limits that your mind is telling you that you've never
reached before and so it's saying okay it's time to like shut down and like how are you able to
push past those limits because we know that we can and there's a lot of studies that he shares
in here that show that like whether it's motivation or whether it's a placebo effect or there's other
(15:30):
as other things that we can do to help increase our performance and a lot of those times a lot of
times those things are I don't want to say like tricking our mind but I guess distracting
our mind from what we're actually feeling and so I know for me I've had many instances in my career
(15:52):
whether it's like fitness tests or a 90-minute game where like sometimes I'm good at this and
sometimes I'm not great at it and I can feel it affect my performance.
So many good things in there. It's one of the highlights for me in terms of you know why I
(16:12):
rated it the way I did and why I did very much enjoy the book. He does he highlights
the crucial role of the brain the mind and it determining physical limits and so the mind has
this limiter of an of endurance and for me what really stood out were three things in terms of
(16:33):
in terms of the mind motivation perception of effort and self-talk. Those three significantly impacting
an athlete's ability to be able to endure pain and push beyond these perceived boundaries some
of them are actually happening to the physical body but some of them are perceived and being able to
(16:55):
to push past those limits is has been at least in many of the stories that he shared significantly
impactful in a very positive light for many of these athletes. For me what you were mentioning
and alluding to also is this beautiful word of acceptance. You know it's really hard to judge
(17:20):
ourselves whether it's physical whether it's mental whether it's spiritual emotional etc.
And especially as an athlete it's really hard to judge when you're running a 26.2
mile marathon to judge how you're feeling and to be judgmental about those feelings or to be
judgmental about the physical limitations or perceived limitations that are happening.
(17:45):
But if we can get to the point of acceptance and just seeing it for what it is then we're shifting
the perception and in theory promoting more of this facilitative experience. That for me
is kind of what you were alluding alluding to at least in my mind. Yeah. The one huge thing
(18:05):
and I'm going to share a study that he shared in his book that really stood out to me from
Indoor in terms of psychological tenants skill set strategies etc. self-talk. Basically what you say
to yourself has a great impact on how you perform and in fact here's a direct quote from the book.
(18:28):
I don't have the page number but it's coming straight from this book straight from Alex's
well it might not be Alex actually because he's alluding to a study here. Anyways this is what he
said in the book just like a smile or frown the words in your head have the power to influence
the very feelings they're supposed to reflect. Page 66. 66 thank you Ashley. Yeah I had that.
(18:54):
Yeah then he talks about this amazing study about how cyclists who implemented positive self-talk
and how this self-talk group for these cyclists lasted about 18 percent longer than the control
group and their rating of perceived exertion. There we see that perception again climbed more
(19:15):
slowly throughout the test. The study if you're wondering what it is it's titled talking yourself
out of exhaustion the effects of self-talk on endurance endurance performance fascinating
right 18 percent is pretty significant. Now here's something I want to touch on especially from kind
of an academic lens. We hear these terms positive self-talk and negative self-talk all the time and
(19:40):
yes I think those are the quote unquote correct terms coming from a lot of different studies and
a lot of different literature avenues if you will. I don't love those terms positive and negative it
paints too much of a black and white picture for me there's a lot more gray area as it pertains to
(20:01):
self-talk and so usually when I work with athletes I phrase it either helpful or hurtful self-talk
because if you think about it what can be perceived quote unquote positive for one person
could be negative for another person and vice versa. One example of this that I use all the time
(20:22):
is how motivation or how athletes use trash talk as motivation. Have you ever done that? Have you
ever whether it's external or internal like trash talk so it's so it's objectively negative
yeah you're utilizing it in a facilitative way. Yeah for sure I think maybe not the same type of
(20:45):
trash talk as other people but I mean I think it's similar to when maybe a coach says something
that you don't like or says you're not good enough for like we talked about last episode and using
that in a positive way to kind of like motivate you to prove someone wrong in a helpful way. Yeah
mm-hmm yeah yeah. Great example another example I remember using this with soldiers when I was
(21:10):
working with the US Army it probably isn't the most helpful to think about chocolate chip cookies
when you're performing an obstacle course and you're having to test in front of your drill
sergeants. It's a positive thought chocolate chip cookies objectively are very wonderful
(21:32):
but it might not be the most helpful and then so the idea is subjectively choosing the most helpful
thoughts in the context of the right situations is going to in my opinion produce the best outcome
and then Alex alludes to influence directly these feelings that they're supposed to reflect which
(21:53):
is then going to produce this behavioral component these actions. Yeah. So from the literature
instead of using positive negative for me again helpful versus hurtful there are essentially two
different forms of self-talk one is what's called motivational self-talk and one which is called
(22:13):
instructional self-talk so motivational is I can do this you got this let's go those type of phrases
you're motivating internally yourself to get through or to perform at a high level
instructional self-talk is wrist in or elbow flexion or plant foot as I go to kick my pk
(22:35):
you're using instructional cues internally to help you perform better those essentially
are two different forms of self-talk and then you can throw in this helpful hurtful type of protocols
in terms of it being the most facilitative or hopefully being the most facilitated for you as
the as the performer now here's what I did today I told I told you I was gonna share what I did
(23:00):
today I wanted to because I knew we were gonna have this conversation today and specifically
about self-talk and so I wanted to put it into play and wanted to see how it was gonna help me
again I'm not I'm not a runner don't love to run don't love more than usually three miles I'm like
yeah I'm good I think that's enough for me but this was over 14 miles and so I'm coming down
(23:25):
on this trail I'm at like mile 12 so I got like two and a half miles left and I wanted to like
get down I was kind of sick of being on the trail at that point yeah and so I decided okay I'm gonna
go for a little jog down the trail down the mountain but it of course hurt my knees were hurting
hips were hurting ankles were hurting muscles etc what I did self-talk wise helpful wise
(23:51):
motivation wise is I use this phrase called through the pain I've done this before I know
I've talked about this with some athletes before because I could feel it on every little jog on
every little step my muscles were aching and joints were hurting but in my mind I kept repeating and
I did it out loud as well on some instances through the pain through the pain through the pain
(24:15):
through the pain and it was very facilitative I was able to jog pretty much those last two and a
half miles and I got down much faster than I thought I could and I know it was because I was
utilizing the power of the mind because what we say to ourselves has enormous influence because
we're going to believe it or we're not going to believe it you have that power to believe in what
(24:41):
you're saying or not to believe in what you're saying and so here's my challenge for everybody
in whatever domain you might find yourself in utilize this power this influence of
your internal dialogue and start to change what you're saying to yourself in a helpful way
(25:01):
because I know there's been studies done on this as well generally speaking what we say to ourselves
is very negative or very hurtful as much as 90 to 95 percent has been analyzed with some of these
studies has shown that what we say to ourselves is hurtful which just sucks like we're doing
ourselves such a disservice by talking crappy to ourselves and so change that change it to just
(25:26):
little tweaks to help it and to facilitate whatever domain that you might find yourself in
with all that to say ash especially in terms of self-talk in your experience
what have you done in your career maybe in your life in general as it pertains to self-talk and
how have you found because I know we've discussed this over the years how have you found self-talk
(25:51):
specifically to be a helpful tool for you psychologically I mean I feel like self-talk
is everything because I feel like the the way that you're talking to yourself shows in your body
language and in your performance and it's very obvious when you're watching an athlete and they
(26:13):
make a mistake what they are saying to themselves after that mistake has been made and they're
saying to themselves after that mistake has been made and I've been on both both sides of it I've
had good self-talk where actually I have a story that I feel like will help articulate this well
on the positive side I was probably like 10 or 11 years old playing in a at a UCLA Bruins Cup
(26:41):
Club tournament it was 77 and it was really fun and my team was doing really well I was in the
box defending a corner kick and I accidentally scored on my own team and I was so upset but I
was like determined to use that moment to like give myself momentum to help my team score a goal
(27:07):
to get it back and I did I did exactly that like I was able to just like let it go I don't know
why I was able to do this at such a young age but I was able to let it go and like be like okay I'm
going to go get it back from my team and like literally maybe like two minutes later I helped
my team score like two goals and we ended up winning the game and I had a really good discussion
(27:30):
with my dad about and he was just like I'm so proud of you for like not letting that moment ruin
the rest of the game but I've been on both both ends of it where I've had moments in the game
where I've let myself talk because of a mistake prevent me from trying things again and I think
self-talk is just crucial especially in a game like soccer where you it's a game of moments and
(27:56):
the team that has more positive or effective moments is most likely going to win the game
and it's such a mental battle because there's so much unpredictability there's so many different
factors and if you aren't talking to yourself effectively in the game you're most likely not
going to be performing effectively you're most likely not going to be talking to others effectively
(28:20):
and constructively so it kind of your body language isn't going to be effective or helpful
to yourself or those around you so I think self-talk is huge when it comes to all those
aspects and when it's not good it's really not good and it doesn't help anyone else around you so
I would say yeah it's really important yeah I have a question to follow up on that but really
(28:45):
quickly for those that might be of interest to this self-talk is essentially stemming from this
therapeutic lens of cognitive behavioral therapy basically cbt cognitive behavioral therapy
it focuses on the power of thought and how thought influences emotions and how emotions
(29:07):
influence physical and or behavioral consequences and vice versa as well when we're moving it's
affecting how we feel and then the thoughts and so again with cbt especially the focus is on
changing our relationship with thoughts it has shown to be over the years very effective very
powerful it is not the only therapeutic lens that can and should be implemented in a lot of
(29:34):
especially sports psychology instances but nonetheless it's can and is very very effective
and again it focuses on this power of developing a healthy relationship with our thoughts and in our
internal dialogue here's my follow-up question to you or for you
young athletes they're learning about self-talk they understand that what they say to themselves
(29:58):
is important how would you and now experiencing this power of self-talk and implementing it I
mean you just said that self-talk is everything how does one going how does one go about developing
a healthy relationship with their thoughts and or producing helpful or facilitative self-talk what
(30:19):
did you do kind of explicitly and deliberately over the years to to do that yeah I mean I feel
like I love how you shared positive and negative thoughts isn't usually the most helpful because
a lot of the times I feel like the positive thoughts do feel kind of like fluffy and I think
(30:40):
you feel kind of like fluffy and when you get to a higher and higher levels in your career of
competition or just pressure I feel like those positive thoughts don't feel as helpful because
you're in such a high stress situation if that makes sense so I feel like when you're younger
(31:01):
those quote-unquote positive thoughts maybe make more sense just because you're learning the
difference between like what you're saying to yourself matters and so using like oh positive
like oh I'm good or I can do this I guess those are like more like what you're saying motivational
self-talk but I feel like that doesn't feel as helpful when you're in a high pressure game
(31:24):
situation where the game is on the line or you're down and you need to be able to dig deep or you
are feeling some sort of pain but it's the type of pain that's okay to push through but how do you
dig deep and push through that pain and I feel like it's then in those moments that you realize
that the things that you say to yourself have to be a little bit more constructive and instructive
(31:48):
and when you use those constructive and instructive lines you can feel yourself actually
like doing the things that you want to be doing so if I'm in a in a championship game and I'm like
just like saying fluff positivity things like like okay like it's still going to be helpful right
like okay I can do this or it's all right next one those are still going to be helpful but if
(32:11):
I say something to myself like okay next one next one I'm going to keep on frame or next tackle I'm
going to time better or next through ball I'm going to put more spin on it or like you give
yourself a little bit more instruction is going to be a lot more effective instead of just like try
harder next time so I feel like it's it's something that you need to start especially as a young
(32:38):
athlete experimenting with and understanding what's going to be most beneficial to you and
like what phrases are going to be most beneficial to you because it's not the same it's not the same
for everyone a good example in the book that you already talked about was that the cyclists who use
positive self-talk and how they were able to go further the example that he used in the book was
(33:00):
the the self-talk group learned to use certain phrases early on in their in their cycling
workout of like okay feeling good and then as they went on throughout their workout and things got
harder they said things like push through this and so it goes back to what we talked about at the
(33:21):
beginning of like it's okay to recognize that this is hard and I think or I'm feeling pain or I
haven't been able to do this before or I made a mistake you need to recognize those things in
order to be able to push past them or to move on past them whatever they may be and so I feel like
this is a good example or the example that you use of hiking the mountain of like push through
(33:43):
the pain or what was it that you said through the pain yeah through the pain it's accepting
and understanding like where you're at but then also accepting and acknowledging that you can
go further whatever that is and so yeah for me a lot of the times it's if I make a mistake it's
(34:03):
like okay like how am I going to get over this I'm going to say okay next time I'm going to do this
or next I'm just going to go for it again and I'm not going to give up or um it's you know I'm
getting better like you know what's that saying pain is weakness leaving the body my coaches used
to say that all the time when I was younger and I was like that's so stupid but I feel like it's one
(34:28):
of those phrases that helps us when we say it we understand that okay this may be hard but I'm going
to get better and so for me he also says in this book that he encouraged the bikers to practice
using these phrases and figure out which which ones felt most comfortable and most effective
(34:51):
and so I think that also just alludes to that we have it's not going to be the same for everyone
some people might say I don't want to say feeling good at the beginning I want to just say I'm
I'm feeling fine or whatever it is what it is you know that's one of our favorite sayings from the
from that book uh the neutral thinking who's that author Trevor Mollard yeah um that's one
(35:14):
of Jeff and I's like favorite quotes now it's just it is what it is we'll have to talk about
that book at a different time yeah yeah so my advice to young players or young athletes would
to be just start recognizing your self-talk and recognizing if what you're saying is helpful or
hurtful and if it's helpful how can you keep replicating that if it's hurtful how can you
(35:38):
put a pause to that and turn it to be more helpful god I love all of that
very similar ash when I when I'm asked this question especially by young athletes like
okay well how can I develop helpful self-talk phrases words strategies etc almost everything
(35:59):
you just said if I had to simplify it and maybe add just a little bit more I usually tell them one
it needs to be authentic it needs to come from you don't use your mom's phrasing or your dad or your
coach or if they do say something that you really like and it feels authentic to say that that's
okay too you need to believe it so when you say I got this or push through the pain do you believe
(36:25):
really that you can push through the pain or do you believe really that you've got this because
if you don't you need to maybe get a different phrase and or prepare differently so that that
phrase can have validity behind it and then three you just said it is it helpful in those moments
whether it's training or competition or you're presenting in front of a group in business
(36:49):
is it going to help because if it is perfect I remember again working with some soldiers around
these protocols authenticity is it helpful and then do you believe it and some of it was just
pure vulgarity strings of vulgarity and swear words with some other words mixed in but it worked
(37:14):
for them and I asked them is this authentic yeah do you believe it yeah is it helpful for these
moments yeah okay then do it yeah and then you can experiment with it and come back and say
and come back and say oh it was kind of helpful but not really maybe I'll change it up xyz or
it really sucked I need to change it up that's the process and it's a skill set talking to yourself
(37:37):
is a skill set going back trial and error coming and reflecting changing things up going and
experimenting coming back changing things up etc so for those that are interested experiment with it
and challenge yourself to to find those phrases or words it can be just one word if you want
to start implementing into your own internal dialogue because I promise it's going to be
(38:03):
helpful um I want to switch gears just a little before I do is there anything else about self-talk
in particular that you needed to punch in there no I think we covered it really well yeah okay I
think we did too I think that was wonderful here's my other thing that I just love from
indoor by Alex Hutchinson in terms of especially the psychological component of his book he explores
(38:31):
how mental fatigue affects physical performance so he explores like how stress and prolonged
cognitive tasks so he goes over a lot of different studies relating to this how they can reduce
physical performance it's amazing based off of this how truly intimately connected the mind and
(38:55):
body are and how when we're exerting physical or sorry when we're exerting psychological energy
how that affects physical I was just talking to my students about this the other day my exercise
psychology course and we brought this up and I asked them I'll give you an example of how this
(39:17):
how you probably have experienced this I said how many of you have taken finals before
in almost all of them except for maybe the freshmen raise their hands
and I said okay after a week or maybe just one eight hour bout in the library of studying for
(39:37):
your finals you're sitting how do you feel after you're done and all of them said oh my gosh I'm
so fatigued I'm so exhausted I just want to go home and sleep it's like even physically you feel
that way and they all said yeah and I know you can attest to this when we're doing mental fatigue
(39:58):
protocols or we're experiencing cognitive stress it's going to affect us physically and so being
aware of that first and foremost like you were mentioning Ashley and then implementing some
strategies and they talked about this in indoor like mindfulness like visualization relaxation
techniques like breathing it's going to help you as the athlete you as the performer manage this
(40:24):
mental fatigue which is then going to optimize physical performance because of how intimately
connected the mind and body are anyways I found that fascinating I think there were some wonderful
studies wonderful examples that he shared in relation to that let me ask you especially in
(40:45):
terms of mindfulness visualization relaxation techniques similar to self-talk what role has
those things played in your performance in your career and maybe even backing up further what
role has mental fatigue played in terms of it affecting your physical performance all of that
(41:07):
there's a lot of questions in there hopefully you can remember um yeah there were a lot of questions
in there but I love I also loved this part of the book and I'm glad that you brought it up because
there's also a part that I wanted to bring up of this uh perceived exertion because it's something
um what's it called what's the name of the guy the borg scale is that the guy's name um so we
(41:36):
input our rpe's after every training so rpe is rate of perceived exertion and we do it on a scale
of one to ten one being easy ten being like the absolute hardest and the reason why we do it is
so that our our strength and sports science team um they can track how we perceived the session
(42:01):
to be and then also compare that with the numbers and see what we actually did and they do it to
plan our sessions but from my perspective I think it's really cool that they track our rpe's because
I feel like it's them acknowledging that how we think how hard we think it was also comes into play
(42:24):
compared to how hard it quote unquote actually was when it comes to like the numbers and the
actual data and so I think that just shows that like how how we perceive things actually matters
and does affect our physical fatigue um anyway I just thought that was a really cool insight to
(42:45):
hear like where this measurement came from and like why we do it and like why it's important
and he also brings up in the book which sorry I'm not answering all your questions that you asked
but um he says if you could train the brain to become more accustomed to mental fatigue then
just like the body it would adapt to the task of staying on pace and would feel easier so like
(43:10):
to kind of answer your question answering my question yeah to kind of answer your question
like yes training your brain to either like cope with or to manage the mental fatigue
is important and I think that's the things that I do to help do that are meditation breathing
(43:31):
journaling I use all of these different methods at different points in time but I do think there's
another level there's managing but then there's also conditioning and being able to just like
increase that mental flexibility that mental strength and so yeah I feel I feel like there's
(43:52):
a distinction between same as a physical right I take ice baths and I do things to recover to help
me manage the symptoms that I'm experiencing in that moment but I'm also training really hard
and running and doing all these things to build on the foundation of my whether it's endurance or
(44:14):
my strength and I'm doing things to help help myself become more physically superior than I was
at the beginning of the season or in the middle so I think there's a distinction between the two but
I do think it's very important to train the mind and also have these tools to help yourself
mentally like cope with the stresses of everyday life or just sports in general or whatever it is
(44:44):
but as I was reading this too I thought a lot about moms and how like we we like joke about
this thing called like mom strength but it's like I think it's a real thing but I think it's because
they don't have time to actually stop and think about how they actually feel and
when we sometimes have time to stop and think about how we actually feel I feel like sometimes
(45:07):
like oh I I feel more tired than I thought I would or whatever it is but I feel like mom's just
I know when I think about my mom when she had four kids all two years apart growing up it was just
go go go go and there was no time to be like oh how do I perceive how what's my rate of perceived
exertion today it's like no I just do it and you keep doing it and you just get better you create
(45:28):
this like endurance which I feel like turns into like super human mom strength but anyway I was
thinking of moms too as I was reading this but yeah so those those are kind of my roundabout
answers for you all in all it's really important I love it I love bringing in the mom example
(45:49):
ultimately ash at least how I am interpreting a lot of what you just said
interpreting a lot of what you just said things like mental fatigue and incorporating strategies
like mindfulness visualization imagery realization techniques etc you're wanting to get to a point
(46:10):
and I could argue this you could argue this with physical performance as well with of self-regulation
and to do that you need to prepare and train and practice and then repeat repeat repeat so when not
if mental fatigue and or physical fatigue occurs you're self-regulated to be able to know ooh I
(46:34):
need to incorporate breathing ooh I need to incorporate maybe a two-minute imagery session
ooh I need to incorporate meditation I haven't done my meditation today or ooh I need to take my
ice bath ooh I need to do some deep stretching that's regulating the process but to be able to
get there psychologically especially just like the physical you need to practice you need to be
(46:55):
deliberate about it and um consistent with it so yeah anyways um those are pretty much my thoughts
pretty much my thoughts on this really wonderful 8.75 out of 10. Just kidding. Book anything else
(47:16):
Ashley from your end in terms of uh bringing up some some highlights from your experience
in reading this book? Yeah I mean I feel like if we could probably talk about this book for like
10 hours straight because there's just so much and the things that we just talked about were like
only a few things but I think a good a good place to end is you alluded to it earlier you said it
(47:39):
earlier is this is this word belief and at the end of the book in like the last couple chapters
um the author talks about the Kenyan runners do you remember this or no? Yeah yeah I do.
And I was I read it again last night and I was just like so inspired by it but I feel like it's
(48:00):
a good place to end just because I feel like I know I do this a lot of us get stuck in like
staying within these like confines or these boundaries or this pattern and this is how
we're supposed to do things um but if you look at the Kenyans and how they run as an example
(48:24):
um it's quite inspiring because he talks about how I don't know if it was him or someone went
to go run with these Kenyans and to understand why they're so good. Someone else. Yeah someone
else went to train with these Kenyans and to understand why they're so good at what they do
and essentially he said that everyone wakes up in the morning and just starts running with the
(48:50):
fastest runners and they just run for as fast and as long as they can and when they can't run
anymore they just stop and then they go home rest repeat and do it again and it's just so crazy
because if you think about it from I'm sure like there's a lot of like running and conditioning
coaches who probably just like are like this is crazy because a lot of runners have these specific
(49:16):
specific times these specific splits and like they want to start the the race off at this pace and
at this moment they want to do this but he talks about how that if you start the race knowing how
you want to finish it then you don't leave any room for something amazing to happen you don't
leave any room for yourself to kind of to surprise yourself and I just thought it was so cool it was
(49:43):
just like such a outside of the box thinking let's see I wrote down I wrote down a quote
okay yeah this is what he said he said referring to the Kenyan runner he said he noticed he wakes
(50:04):
up every morning with a firm conviction that today will finally be his or her day they run
with the leaders because they think they can beat them and if the harsh reality proves that they
can't they regroup and they try again the next day and that belief fostered by a long-standing
international dominance of generations of Kenyan runners becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
(50:27):
so I just thought that was really powerful and I feel like it's a really good way to live your life
is just to wake up and believe that every day that you can run with the best and if you can't that's
okay you try again tomorrow but anyway I feel like that's a really good a really good way to
live and a good lesson to learn by because it's like why not like why not surprise yourself why
(50:51):
not push yourself and see what your limits are and I feel like a lot of us are too scared
to like even come close to those limits um so that's my mic drop from the end of the book from
endure but I really liked it it's I think a very common theme this you said it firm conviction
aka belief in yourself a very common theme with alex honnold with diana niad with these kenyan
(51:18):
runners if you want to do something great start to develop this like conviction firm conviction
within yourself that you could get better that you can accomplish these things boom amen awesome
well thanks everyone hopefully uh you enjoyed the conversation and go out and get the book it's
(51:41):
it's well worth the read a lot of wonderful stories a lot of awesome research that backs up all these
stories as well so yeah all right ash awesome I'll try and see if Jeff can put in the link
in the notes somewhere but anyway hope everyone enjoyed and enjoy the rest of your day and week
audio bye you
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