Strength Psychology Instruction Manual

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NOTICE The information presented is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. This publication is presented for information purposes, to increase the public knowledge of developments in the eld of strength and conditioning. The program outlined herein should not be adopted without a consultation with your health professional. Use of the information provided is at the sole choice and risk of the reader. You must get your physician’s approval before beginning this or any other exercise program.

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Strength Psychology Instruction Manual

By Mike Gillette


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Table Of Contents Mike Gillette’s Personal Story of Strength

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The Mindset of Mental Toughness

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Exercise One: Mindfulness

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Exercise Two: Concentration

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Exercise Three: Relaxation

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Exercise Four: Visualization

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Exercise Five: Autogenic Practice

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Exercise Six: Progressive Muscle Relaxation:

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Afrmations & Goal Setting Principles

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Other Products From Mike Gillette

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Personal Story of Strength.... Mike Gillette I live an unusual life. It’s been an amazing life. I’ve dreamed big, worked hard and done my best to make strong decisions. Decisions that have helped me get to those dreams. But the truth is I never expected to have this life. As a kid, I was a million miles from the person I am today. I was small, weak and seemingly afraid of everything. My story is one of weakness transformed into strength and second changes. This is my story. story. I was the result of an unintended pregnancy. My parents married. That marriage was unhappy. My parents split up when I was three years old. At that point it was just my mother and I. We were poor. For four years we had no car. The glasses in the cupboard in the kitchen were the beer glasses my mother had stolen from bars that she frequented. The jelly for my morning toast came from those little plastic containers that she would shove into her purse. And there were men. Men I might see just once and others who would come back. My mother pursued bad relationships. Her talent for bad relationships was such that when I was six, we moved across the country to get away from one of


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these guys. All of her stuff and all of my stuff had to t into one single suitcase. But when we got to New Mexico, he found us. Six months later, we moved again. Same suitcase. This time we were lucky. lucky. He didn’t follow us. My mother’s next relationship nearly killed her. She met a man who beat her. Badly. How badly? Growing up, I saw my mother get punched, kicked and shoved. One night she was thrown down a ight of stairs. I was seven years old when they got together. I was eight the night of the rst really bad beating. We left that next day. But then, we went back. We left other times, after other beatings, but we always went back. We would always leave in a hurry, so I learned to keep my most cherished possessions in a small box under my bed so I could grab them quickly. Growing up, I was often left alone. The adults left for work early in the morning. So by age eight I was in charge of getting myself up, fed, dressed and scrounging up the two quarters I would need to ride the city bus. The bus stop was a mile away a way.. So on a good day, I only walked two miles to school and back. But if I couldn’t nd enough quarters, I’d have to walk twice that far to get home. Even in winter. One night when I was still eight, I woke up around 10:30 pm and discovered that I was home alone. My mother and step-father had snuck out after I had gone to sleep. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared. So I went looking for them. It was winter and there was snow on the ground. I walked from our apartment building on the edge of town, some four miles to the downtown bar district of Iowa City. That’s where they were. In these days we were still poor. The kind of poor where I had to answer the telephone because we were often behind with rent and they didn’t want to talk


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to the landlord. There were days when I was hungry all day. And there was alcohol. Every morning, beer cans and bottles were strewn all over the house. Drugs too. There were days when I would wake up and have to walk around random adults who’d be passed-out on the oor. If you’ve ever watched that TV show Cops and noticed that wherever the cops go, Miami, Alaska, it doesn’t matter, on the inside of every house they respond to, all the houses look the same. Chaos. That was how we lived. My mother had grown up attending church. But church didn’t stick with her. By the time I was 10 years old, I had gured out that my mother was practicing witchcraft. Spells, spirits, tarot cards, everything you have ever heard of. And it was no secret; it was all out in the open. Now, I don’t know what you think about things like that, but it’s a very dark place. By the time I turned 11 I had “graduated” to being left home alone overnight. I didn’t like it. And as I got older, the violence continued. One particular night, after having her head beaten against the wall while simultaneously being choked, my mother spent several days feeling dizzy. She nally went to a doctor and a brain tumor was discovered. It was inoperable. After a year of cancer treatments, she died. I was fteen. After she died, I continued to live for a time with my step-father. step-father. Then my


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grandparents and nally, my biological father in Arizona. None of those situations went well. I had absorbed so much negativity by that point in my life that I was a mess. How much of a mess? Drugs. Alcohol. How much? As much as I could. And not surprisingly, surprisingly, none of that was helpful. I started to care about things less and less and eventually I stopped caring completely. In February of 1981, I had hit the wall. I was 18 years old when I decided to commit suicide. I checked into a motel and consumed a ridiculous amount of booze and pain killers. Then I laid down on the bed and just waited to die. Much to my surprise, I woke up the next day very much alive. This led me to conclude two things. Number one, I must be hard to kill. Number two, since I was still alive, then maybe there was a reason for that, a reason I had been given a second chance. A couple of months went by and I reconnected with someone from my past. This was a girl that I had dated in high school a couple of years earlier. In those days we had little in common, but I was always drawn to her. She was a good person, the kind of person I would have liked to have been if only my own life had been different. But now I was back in touch with her, on the phone, writing letters and a few months later I moved back to be with her. We were ofcially a couple again. And we did things together. One of those things was going to church. And later that year, the same year my life almost ended, was also the year that my life really began as a follower of Jesus Christ. Now, I’m not here to discuss religion; I’m just telling my story. And it would be dishonest if I were to leave out what I consider to be the most important part of that story. So what happened next? Well, it was very simple. I wanted to live as differently as I possibly could from who I used to be. I wanted to help people. I wanted to


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be a cop. But I was too young. College? Well, I didn’t have the money for that. And then I realized that the Army had college money and also seemed kind of cool. So off I went. Things clicked for me in the Army. Army. It was a place where the harder I worked, the more I was rewarded. Now, of course, this is not the only place where that happens, but it was the rst place that I had discovered that. And it was a place where I started dreaming big. Plus, they paid me to jump out of airplanes. When my enlistment was up, I became eligible for an ROTC scholarship and I started college. Then, on December 16th, 1984 I went out for the day. I went to go on a rock climbing expedition with some friends of mine. It was east of Tucson in Vail Canyon. We were going to climb out of Vail Canyon, but the only o nly way to do that was to rappel into Vail Canyon. The way to do that was to rappel off of an abandoned railroad bridge. It was a good distance from our vehicle to the bridge itself. And when we got to the bridge I realized that I did not have my hardware with me. So rather than walk a half mile back to the truck and a half mile back to the bridge, a friend of mine suggested that I use some of his hardware. He had a piece of gear that I had not used before. I told him I don’t know how to hook myself up to this. He said don’t worry; I’ll take care of that. What I didn’t know at that moment is that he was hooking me up incorrectly. So when it came my time to go, standing on the top beam of an abandoned www.criticalbench.com

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railroad bridge, from which I had to jump off, swing underneath, catch myself, stop swinging, then rappel in a controlled fashion to the canyon oor, nothing happened. Nothing actually happened to engage that rope to provide friction and allow me to slide in a controlled fashion, (which is what rappelling is), down to the canyon oor. Instead, I found that as soon as I started to grab onto the rope nothing was slowing me down, nothing except my hands. At the time I was wearing leather gloves and some old military fatigues and I realized that something was dreadfully wrong as I began screaming towards the earth. The only thing that I knew that might save me from dying was to grab onto the rope with every possible part of my body. body. I grabbed with my gloves and wrapped my legs around the rope. I tried to hug the rope with my upper body, even my neck. At that moment, I was experiencing the most painful kind of pain I had ever felt in my entire life as that rope burned through the leather gloves, turning my hands to hamburger, burned through my trouser legs, burned through the shirt I was wearing, cut my entire upper body and my right leg raw. It was the most intense pain I had ever experienced, until… I slammed into the canyon oor, breaking my back and my ankles. Later that same day I was wheeled into an emergency room and I met my future orthopedic surgeon who was going to piece me back together. This particular orthopedic surgeon was a former Army surgeon, so he understood the world that I came from and was planning on going back into. And I asked him, what are my chances? How long is it going to take for me to get back to where I was? And he said the good news is you’re going to walk again. You will not run; you will not jump out of any more airplanes. I was a very young man. I was married. I had a baby at this point and I had no “plan B”. All I wanted to do was complete my college degree, get commissioned


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as an ofcer and go back b ack into the Army. Army. I had, in one day, ended the life I had wanted, the life I had planned for myself. The next four-and-a-half years were spent trying to recapture my physical self. It was a very rocky time. It was a very frustrating time. I came face-to-face with depression. And it was also a very confusing time because, up to then, I had been doing everything that I thought I was supposed to be doing. I was working hard. I was having good results. But that accident changed everything. It took me years to get beyond what a doctor had said was going to be an inactive life. A life of just walking around. A life of not being b eing the kind of person, doing the kinds of things that I dreamed of doing. But somehow, I was able to persevere. To get past the pain, the setbacks and become someone on the road to the life that I had originally desired. The thing that was hard for me to keep in mind during those four-and-a-half years of pain and frustration and wondering about the unknown was that I should not


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have even survived that fall. That I had actually been given a second chance. Those were things were hard to see at the time. So how does this story turn out? Hard work got me back to where I wanted to be and needed to be physically. And once that happened, I was able to go back to dreaming big. And over the years I’ve continued to work hard and my dreams have gotten bigger. And today I’m accomplishing goals that even a few years ago would have seemed impossible to me. I went from a scared person to this person. I went from a weak person to the person that I am now. I have been given the strength to live an amazing life, to do amazing things. Things that people who knew me back in the day would never believe. Strength is choices and during this video presentation I will be sharing with you and encouraging you. Encouraging you to dream your biggest, work your hardest and to choose to do those things that make you strong.


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The Mindset of Mental Mental Toughness What is Mindset? Mindset is the process of increasing your ability to handle all kinds of Stress physical, mental, and emotional — to make you more “combat “comb at effective”. effective ”. Your mind, body, and emotions become more responsive and stronger through Mindset Training. Mindset is a Learned Skill Mindset is not related to genetics. If you don’t have it, you just haven’t learned it. Anyone can choose to learn to focus at any stage in his or her life. Mindset allows achievement regardless of talent. You You can learn whatever mechanical skills you need but only through mindset can you discover your real limits. Mindset Begets Discipline Discipline leads to your Peak Performance State or (PPS). PPS refers to the optimal state of physiological and psychological arousal for performing at your optimum. Arousal is reected in heart rate, muscle tension, brain wave frequency, blood pressure, and other measures. PPS is accompanied by a distinct pattern of emotions. You You are most likely to experience PPS when: Confdent

Relaxed


Challenged

Focused

Instinctive

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Effects of Emotions Emotions are important because they’re connected to arousal. Emotions are biochemical events in the brain which lead to powerful changes in the body. These changes either move you closer to or further away from your PPS. Fear moves you away, away, condence brings you closer. closer. Discipline is Mental, Physical & Emotional What you think, how you act, what you eat, quality of your sleep, and your level of tness, have profound pr ofound effects on your emotional state. Tough Tough thinking, tough tou gh acting, tness, proper rest, and diet are prerequisites for feeling tough. Mindset is not just mental. Discipline Manifests Itself Physically The body is physical; skill is physical; and emotions are electrochemical events in the brain which are also physical. People make the mistake of believing that what they think, particularly negative thinking has little effect on their performance. Since you can’t see emotions, you may view them as not as real or important as physical aspects. Thoughts and emotions are real and are as linked to achievement as talent and skill. Assessing Your PPS Performing toward the upper range of your talent and skill is directly related


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to your ability to maintain your Peak Performance State. Mobilizing your body’s performance potential requires a very special kind of psychological and physiological balance. Feelings of relaxation, calmness, alertness, focus, condence, and enjoyment form the basis of this delicate state and reect a very special condition of bodily arousal. Emotions mirror what’s happening deep within your body’s physiology. physiology. For example, feeling relaxed reects the amount of electrical energy being transmitted through the muscles of your body. body. When your muscles feel tight it means a great deal of bioelectrical energy is being delivered, feeling loose means just the opposite. Feelings of condence or aggression reect a very specic bio-chemical balance in the body. Feelings of helplessness and fatigue are rooted in opposing bio-chemical processes. Blood sugar, adrenaline and hormones are a few of the factors that inuence our moment-to-moment feelings and emotions during training or competition. When feelings shift from condent to fearful, changes occur in the brain’s chemistry that inuence coordination, balance and concentration. Peak State vs. Normal State The way you really feel and the way you need to feel to perform at your best level


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may be worlds apart. In the context of Mindset Training, the way you really feel is your ‘real’ self and the way you need to feel to perform at your best is what we’ll call your ‘________’ self. (Fill in that blank with a term that is meaningful for you: warrior, champion, hero, etc). Understanding how the two interact is fundamental to harnessing your potential. Feelings and emotions are owing all the time, some positive and some negative. Emotions are really body talk carried on by the body’s chemical messengers. Positive emotions generally signal balance and health; negative emotions typically signal unmet needs of some kind. Each and every negative feeling and emotion that you experience serves a purpose. Mindset comes from responding to negative messages in appropriate ways; if you totally block them out, meeting your needs becomes nearly impossible, meaning that your physical performance will go into a steep decline. We know the feelings and emotions we need to feel during training and performance to perform at our best PPS level, but the reality is that what we need to feel may be the opposite of how we actually feel at that moment. Feelings of condence, high energy, relaxation, enjoyment may never appear or suddenly evaporate at the rst sign of trouble.


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Condence may be replaced with fear, relaxation with tightness, energy with fatigue, enjoyment with frustration or anger—the list goes on and on. Corresponding changes in brain chemistry and physiology accompany these shifts in feelings. When basic needs for food, rest, sleep, water, and so forth are not met, mindset and PPS control quickly become unattainable. The same thing holds true emotionally: when ones emotional needs are not adequately met before competition, particularly those associated with self-worth, the problems with nerves, self-doubt, frustration, and perceived failure are inevitable. Fundamental to Mindset is Physical Fitness A low tolerance for physical stress typically means the battle will be lost before it begins. Once an athlete reaches his physical limits, it’s like unplugging a computer from its power source. Mindset requires physical exibility, strength, and resiliency. The same thing holds true emotionally. emotionally. Mindset requires a great capacity for mental and emotional stress, responsiveness and resiliency. This capacity is acquired only through exposure to a specic level of stress. Too Too little stress and overprotection, or too much stress and over stimulation, reduces your capacity for coping effectively with the challenges of training and competition. All of this takes discipline.


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Disciplined Thinking The thoughts and images you carry in your head have precise emotional consequences. Undisciplined thinking will kick your emotional targets far out of range. External Discipline The way you carry your head and shoulders, the look on your face, the way you walk, your body language, also have precise emotional consequences. Acting the way you feel generally intensies whatever emotion that may be present. Acting the way you want to feel to achieve PPS moves you closer to your desired emotional state. Emotional Response Practice If you’re hoping for a new emotional response to the same old problem and you have not had a chance to practice, the odds are against you. Emotional responses need time and stimulation to grow, just as muscles do. Emotional responses require practice time—the more intense, the better—to train the underlying biochemical mechanisms. Tough Thinking This is simply your ability to use words and images to control your PPS. This means disciplined thinking during training. Tough thinking keeps you from losing your temper when you make a mistake or from giving up when the battle appears lost.


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Example… During training when your lungs are burning and you feel exhausted, think: “As tough as this situation may be — I am tougher!” Tough Acting This is simply your ability to use your body to control your Peak Performance State. This means disciplined, precise acting during training and competition. Like tough thinking, tough acting is a powerful weapon with which to control fear, anger, anger, helplessness, and doubt. When you feel that your energy is gone: Force yourself to look as fresh as if you’d just rolled out of bed on the best day of your life. When you make the worst mistake possible: Immediately turn away from that mistake and show nothing on the outside but supreme condence. When a crisis is approaching: Look approaching: Look calm. Act calm. Become calm.

"Bad things" can either be physically dangerous or simply unpleasant. If the bad things in your life can 't physically hurt you, then stop sto p bein being g afra afraid id of the them. m... — MIKE MI KE GILLE G ILLETTE TTE —

Trouble-Shooting Toughness Those who consistently respond effectively when things get difcult possess certain emotional skills. But many more do not. So it’s important to examine the


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untrained emotional responses to stressors, when people simply give up inside. What we will refer to as surrendering. Excuse-making is one of the most common forms of surrendering. People also use the withdrawal of effort to control their nerves. Surrendering is particularly common among those who have been labeled gifted or talented. To preserve their reputation, they create excuses to explain poor performances. These excuses help protect their ego. Although surrendering can lessen pain and reduce nervousness, it carries a stiff price: never fullling one’s potential. When you withdraw energy, motivation, or effort, everything starts shutting down, meaning that the battle to bring your talent and skill to life will be lost.

Discipline is not what you WANT WA NT to do do. . Di Disc scip ipli line ne is not what you SHOULD do. Discipline is what you ACTU AC TUAL ALLY LY do do. . — MIKE MI KE GILLE G ILLETTE TTE —

Anger Once one learns to control the surrendering response, the next emotional obstacle will be anger or negativism. People who fuel their training with negative emotion never achieve real mindset. Anger and negativism often serve as misguided attempts to protect oneself from pain and, like surrendering, can drive nervousness away. But once that connection is made, the temptation to use negative thinking to control surrendering and emotional pain can become powerful. Negativism ows in two directions, inward or outwards. Of the two, self-directed anger and negativism disrupt Peak Performance State control the most and inicts the greatest damage. Fueling performance with anger is like pouring gasoline on a re to keep it going. The re will burn, but it will burn out of control.


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Anger Abuse To reduce pressure: Telling yourself you’re stupid or you ‘suck’ reduces expectations and helps control nerves. To increase arousal: People use anger to get themselves more stimulated. Anger mobilizes ghting energy. energy. To prevent surrendering: Anger surrendering: Anger can help overcome fear. Nobody likes feeling helpless and many will gladly trade fear for anger. These examples demonstrate why so many get off track with negative emotion. Although superior to surrendering as a s a strategy for managing pressure, negative emotions won’t take you where you want to go.


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Learn From the Military The military has a system of toughening individuals. Undisciplined, unfocused, unbrave young people are transformed within eight to twelve weeks into soldiers mentally tough enough to conquer the ultimate fear; the fear of dying.

Testing your limits leads to self-discovery. Hiding from them leads to selfdeception... — MIKE MI KE GILLE G ILLETTE TTE —

Marching and Mindset Why is the practice of marching so crucial to the making of a soldier? Consider that there is no marching on the modern battleeld. Nobody stays alive very long marching into the face of the enemy. It is because marching is not what’s done during battle, marching is for between battles. How do marching soldiers look on the outside? No visible sign of weakness, fatigue, no sagging shoulders, no negativism, no fear. What you do see is focus, condence, and precision. Marching prepares soldiers for battle by making them practice being decisive and looking strong and condent regardless of how they feel. Marching teaches discipline, sustained concentration, decisiveness and poise, all essential elements in conquering fear. The Process Transitioning from fearful to fearless occurs in response to following a strict behavioral code: A precise way of standing, walking or sitting, quick and decisive response to commands. No hesitation is tolerated. Any visible sign of weakness or negative emotion of any kind is simply not permitted. Regular exposure to high levels of mental, emotional, and physical training stress


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to accelerate the toughening process. Precise control and regulation of sleep, eating, drinking, and rest. Rigorous tness training with an enforced schedule of recovery. recovery. Mindset Strategies Change your thinking to change how you feel – feel – The connection between thought and emotions works two ways: the way you feel affects the way you think; the way you think affects the way you’re feel. The important element here is that you can exercise substantial control over the direction and content of your thoughts. Take Responsibility For What and How You Think One of the most powerful things you can do to suppress negative thoughts is to say “Stop” to yourself and immediately begin processing positive thoughts and images. Commit to not allowing negative feelings to lead you into negative thinking. You aren’t always responsible for negative feelings, but you are


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responsible for any negative thoughts that you permit. Remember, nobody but you is inside your head. Never Think or Say Can’t; Never Think or Say Hate “I can’t believe it. I can’t do it. I hate myself.” These are examples of non-tough thinking. They build emotional roadblocks. This type of inexible thinking always leads to problems. Think / Visualize in Vivid Emotional Terms – • • • • •

“I will put myself on the the line every day.” day.” “I will not give up.” “I will not turn against myself during tough times.” “I will come totally prepared to train every day.” day.” “I will not show weakness on the outside.”

Live in the Moment – This is one of the great secrets of peak performance in competition. A here-andnow mental focus during training makes accessing your talent and skill much easier. A present-centered focus, is the key to performing well under pressure. pre ssure. During competition, thinking about the future lets fear beat you; thinking about the past lets frustration beat you. Live in the moment when training and in competition. Remind Yourself Yourself to Love the Struggle Love the process, the ght, the breakthroughs and the struggles. Loving to win is easy. Loving the process moves you to a whole new level of skill. Loving the battle happens because you make it happen.


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Know Why This Fight is Important Before You You Begin; Then BEGIN Without a clear commitment to ght, you probably won’t. It’s too painful and requires too much energy. You You need to ask yourself, “Will I put myself totally on the line and risk losing – giving everything I have to give?” The journey into mindset is forever fore ver.. You You never nally na lly arrive, never nally “get it” and never nally get over the top. You only get stronger or weaker, closer or further away; you only grow or don’t grow. The objective is to continue growing, moving forward, challenging yourself to reach beyond and replace weakness with strength.


Strength starts internally and manifests outwardly. Strong thoughts become strong goals. Strong goals become strong deeds... — MIKE MI KE GILLE G ILLETTE TTE —

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Exercise One: Mindfulness Right now, take 60 seconds to pay attention in a particular way to your breathing. The particular way that you are going to pay attention to your breath is by doing so non-critically. non-critically. You You will simply experience what you experience as you experience it. So, sit on your chair… and focus on your breathing. In and out. Keep your eyes focused on a spot in front of you, or you can even close the eyes, whatever is most comfortable for you. And take a moment… sixty seconds… to pay attention to something that we rarely pay attention to, and that is your breath. Feel it. Feel it coming in through each nostril and out through the mouth. Notice the sensation of warmth or coolness in the breath, and what it feels like to pay attention to the breath. Continue to do this. If any distractions, thoughts or feelings impede your focus on breath, simply recognize their presence and continue to breathe, recognizing them as neither important at this time nor unimportant. If you can do this exercise for one minute, then you can gradually increase it to three minutes, ve minutes and eventually ten minutes. Doing so will allow you to intuitively know how to stay focused on the present and to, noncritically, see thoughts as just thoughts. This means the gravity of circumstances can be just that, accepted in the moment as they are, even though the thought of dwelling on these realities can be overwhelming. Such acceptance does not imply liking a situation or outcome. Acceptance in no way implies that you want something negative to happen, but it does suggest that you lay it out on the oor before you, see it as it is and move on from there with whatever you have at this moment. Mindfulness is a life-altering attribute that can be cultivated with a few intentional moments each day. day.


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Exercise Two: Concentration Concentration meditation allows you to practice moving your attention from one thing to another. Start by relaxing in your chair. Now pick a point on the far wall. It can be any point, a speck of paint, a color on the wall, a shadow or anything you that become aware of. Now x your attention on that spot, not removing your eyes from it. You may notice you want to shift your gaze, and if you must for just a moment you can, but quickly return your attention to that same spot. Now notice how easy it is to bring your attention to a specic point and to immerse yourself in this experience. See yourself being drawn to that point, and anytime an intrusive thought comes to mind, allow yourself to discard that thought in favor of your awareness of that spot. Experience that spot. Be a part of that spot. For just a few moments in time imagine that nothing else exists other than that spot. It may seem almost too simple, but this is important skill-building. By intentionally practicing the technique of directing your concentration to a specic spot, you will develop the skill of automatically directing your attention to those things in life which are more pleasant. The reason this technique works is that as you practice on a daily basis, the old habits of subconscious awareness of the same old things that you have noticed in life (such as frustration or discomfort), are replaced with the intentional ability to direct your thoughts.


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Exercise Three: Relaxation In this exercise we are going to practice recognizing the difference between tension and relaxation, and practice attaining a deep state of muscular relaxation. Sit comfortably in your chair, with the feet on the oor and the spine upright and away from the back of the chair. Scan your entire body for obvious tension and let that tension relax away. You You can do this exercise with the eyes open or closed, as most prefer to practice with their eyes closed. As your your hands hands rest rest on on your your thighs thighs,, you you are going going to tense tense them into into a st and hold hold that tension. Not so tight that you feel discomfort, but tight enough to feel the ngers in the palm of the hand, and the muscles in the ngers, the back of the hand and wrist become tight. Now hold that tension, paying attention to what tension feels like and count to three. Then slowly release the tension, opening your ngers and letting them rest on your knees. As you do, notice the sensation of relaxation in the muscles, the tingle of relaxation and how it feels to let go of that tension. Now repeat the process. Hold that tension in the sts, noticing and feeling the tension, counting to three and then relaxing. As you relax the second time, notice how deeply the muscles relax, almost twice as relaxed as the rst time.


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Exercise Four: Visualization Find a comfortable place to relax, scan your body for any tension and let those muscles go slack. Take in a deep breath or two, noticing how your heart rate slows and your breathing becomes smooth and rhythmic. When you are ready, close your eyes. And with the eyes closed, imagine that you are outside under a clear blue sky. It is not too hot or too cold. It can be a beautiful place you have been to before -or a place you would like to go to -- or simply a place of your own creation. Now take a moment to look into the sky and notice a single white puffy cloud lazily oating across the horizon. As it slowly moves across the sky it becomes smaller and smaller -- eventually drifting out into the horizon and disappearing. Take another moment to be mindful of your experience with visualization and when ready, ready, simply reopen your eyes.


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Exercise Five: Autogenic Practice Sit in your chair in a position that promotes awareness and comfort. Keep your spine straight and your feet on the oor. Begin by closing the eyes and focusing on the hands. In this exercise, it is okay to join the hands together by holding onto each other with the ngers and sometimes people nd when the hands are lightly joined that it makes this process easier. Now as you relax, focus on your hands and say to yourself, “My hands are ar e warm and heavy. heavy. My hands are warm and heavy.” As you do this, say it out loud, focusing on the sensation of warmth in the hands and the sensation of heaviness. Allow yourself to feel warmth and heaviness as you repeat, “My hands are warm and heavy. My hands are warm and heavy.” Now focus on your feet as your heart rate slows and your muscles relax. Say to yourself, “My feet are warm and heavy. My feet are warm and heavy.” Let yourself concentrate on these sensations of relaxation as your feet feel warmth and heaviness. After a few moments experiencing the sensations of warm and heaviness, reorient to the room and open the eyes. After completing this exercise, ask yourself, “Did I notice the change?” For some people the change in perception is very intense even the rst time. For others the change is less intense, with only heat or heaviness the primary sensation. This is the beginning of learning that you can control the responses of the autonomic nervous system. You have felt a change and now recognize your own ability to control sensations of heat, heaviness, calm or coolness. So the more important question is this: if you can control sensations of coolness, warmth and heaviness, could you also do so to control nerves? Stress? Or pain? www.criticalbench.com

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Exercise Six: Progressive Muscle Relaxation: Relaxation: Forehead – Raise your eyebrows as high as they will go, as though you were surprised by something, and hold that tension while counting to three. Then relax those muscles, noticing the sensation of relaxation in the brow. Repeat. Eyes and cheeks – Squeeze your eyes tight shut, not so tight that it is uncomfortable, but feeling the tension in the cheeks and eyes. Hold that tension and count to three, noticing what the tension feels like. Now relax, noticing what the sensation of relaxation feels like. Repeat. Mouth and jaw – Open your mouth as wide as you can without experiencing pain in the jawbone, like you are yawning. Hold that tension and count to three, noticing what the tension feels like. Now relax, noting what relaxation feels like. Repeat. Notice how each time the exercise is repeated the sensation of relaxation doubles. Neck – (Be careful as you tense these muscles – do not strain, just a light tension in the muscles. Do not do this if you have any history of neck injury or pain). Face forward and then pull your head back slowly, as though you are looking up to the ceiling. Hold this tension for a moment, and then relax, noticing what this relaxation feels like. Repeat. Shoulders – Tense the muscles in your shoulders as you bring your shoulders up towards your ears. Hold that tension, counting to three and noticing what tension feels like. Now relax,


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Shoulder Blades & Back – Push your shoulder blades back, trying to almost touch them together, so that your chest is pushed forward. Hold this tension and count to three. Relax, taking a breath and noticing what relaxation feels like. Repeat. Again, notice how in repeating the exercise your awareness of relaxation is doubled. Hands and forearms – Make a st with your hands, hold that tension, and relax. Repeat. Upper arms - Bring your forearms up to your shoulders to “make a muscle” and hold that tension in the biceps, feeling it in the triceps and all of the smaller muscles of the upper arms. Count to three and relax slowly, feeling the sensation of relaxation. Repeat. Chest and stomach – Breathe in deeply, lling up your lungs and chest with air and holding that breath while you count to three. Now exhale, exhaling all of the air, feeling a sense of relaxation in the muscles of the chest and diaphragm. Repeat. Hips and glutes – As – As you squeeze your gluteal muscles together, feel the tension in these large muscles, and hold that tension as you count to three. And relax, repeating this process. Upper legs – Tighten your thighs. Hold tension – relax – repeat. Lower legs – Do this slowly and carefully to avoid cramps. Pull your toes towards you to stretch the calf muscles. Hold tension – relax – repeat. Feet - Curl your toes downwards. Hold tension – relax – repeat.


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Afrmations An afrmation is a positive statement that you say to yourself several times each day. Many people who use afrmations make a list of 5-10 statements and write them on a card. They repeat the afrmations to themselves regularly. Incorporating these positive thoughts into your day is a way to reduce any anxiety that you may feel, because the positive thoughts replace the negative thoughts. Examples of positive afrmations. a frmations. You You can use these as written, adjust adju st them, or write your own. I am calm and relaxed whenever I choose to be I believe I can do everything I take excellent care of my mind and body I pursue excellence in all I do I am the architect of my life; I build its foundation and choose its contents.

Goal Setting Principles Set specifc goals goals Set challenging but realistic goals Set long and short term goals Set performance-oriented goals (those things over which you can control) Set goals for training and goals for achievement Track all of your goals


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Develop goal-attainment strategies Consider motivation and goal commitment Provide support and feedback

Set

S.M.A.R.T. Goals:

Specifc Be clear in what you want to achieve. Measurable How Measurable How will goal be achieved? What will you be doing more or less of? Achievable Don’t Achievable Don’t set yourself up to fail Realistic Resourced Realistic Resourced & achievable with resources you have, access to new resources? Time-dependent Set Time-dependent Set a reasonable time limit.


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Strength Psychology Instruction Manual

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