Pre Exercise Test/Race Anxiety

I was asked recently about how to deal with pre FTP test anxiety. I think it's important to first realize that a little stress before an activity or competition can actually be beneficial. The fight or flight response has allowed our species to survive by outrunning and fighting predators for thousands of years so why can't we use it to get us up the road faster? 

Of course too much or the wrong kind of stress can be detrimental to performance. That's why I like the "inverted U hypothesis" when it comes to visualizing how that fight or flight stress response can limit or enhance performance. If you're falling asleep at the left of the curve you probably won't have your best effort. If your heart rate is up a little and you are excited, can control your breath, and have positive thoughts then your arousal level is probably at the top of the bell curve. If your heart rate is very elevated and you’re having negative thoughts you’re probably on the right of the curve.

You can find this graph and article here. I highly recommend it.

If you can't control your breath and you start to have negative thoughts then your arousal has turned into anxiety and you are moving to the right of the curve. You might worry "what if I don't hit my target?" If you don't hit your target who cares? Michael Jordan missed 9000 shots. You were going to wake up tomorrow and get after it again anyway. There are so many factors, some even outside of our control, that can negatively impact our results.

Another thing to consider are your expectations. What do you expect? That you will smash your old FTP effort? Is it possible you might not? Of course! Accept that any result is possible. Accept that every result, “good” and “bad,” will come during the process. Is the result going to stop you from continuing on?

Adding on in October 2024

I was hanging out with Matt Stephens in October 2023 with my client Kristen and he was telling us about his experience at the Giro d’taliia in the 90’s. He was lined up with Marco Pantani and Mario Cippollini being blessed by the Pope. I can’t imagine the spectacle of all that. I asked him how he managed nerves at a time like that. He said he would remind himself that when he wasn’t feeling excited to race he always had a bad race. He lacked that arousal state and excitability to have a good race. When he reminded himself of that he actually was able to welcome the nerves with open arms.

The main problem is our thoughts. The same feeling can take us in many directions based on our thoughts. If you notice negative thoughts accompanying that pre activity arousal state that is something to consider working on. One simple and effective way is breathing and meditation. Our breath is something we always have, even on the start line. When we focus inwards and on our breath we can get more into the now. The more we can focus on the now the less we can focus on what can go wrong in the future. Let’s focus on the now and what we can do best in the present moment and remember these butterflies are needed to optimally smash the pedals!

Ride on!