How Important Is Mental Toughness For Triathlon?

I chuckle each time I hear the wisdom attributed to baseball’s Yogi Berra: “Baseball is 90 per cent mental. The other half is physical.” As a former baseball player, I can attest to the importance of a strong mental component to the game. I just don’t get his math.

Since taking up golf about three years ago, I have also learned of the mental component to the game. I like what golfer Bobby Jones said: “In golf, the most important distance is the five inches between the ears.” A similar quote of Jones is, “The object of golf is to beat someone. Make sure that someone is not yourself.” Both speak clearly of a mental component to the game.

Is there a mental component to endurance sports like triathlon, duathlon, and aquabike?

That’s the question I explore in this post.

Our Mind Contributes to Physical Endurance

Dr, Samuele Marcora appears to be the foremost expert on the relationship between the mind and endurance sports performance. He is widely cited in articles and posts on mental toughness in endurance sports.

In Mental fatigue impairs physical performance in humans, Dr. Marcora and his colleagues documented the effect of mental fatigue on physical performance. They claimed that their research provided “experimental evidence that mental fatigue limits exercise tolerance in humans.” They also concluded that these limits came through a higher perceived difficulty, rather than physical effects related to the cardiovascular, respiratory and muscular functions.

In his article titled “Quitter”, Matt Fitzgerald, author of RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel, writes of another of Marcora’s tests, this involving ten members of a university rugby team. Team members were told to ride at 90 percent of their personal VO2 max power until exhaustion. On average, they rode about 12 minutes at 242 watts. Then, after supposedly being exhausted, they were immediately told to ride as fast as possible for five seconds. Their average power was now 731 watts.

The researchers’ conclusion was that the mind in addition to the body dictates an athlete’s performance.

Mental Toughness Can Be Trained For Triathlon

The good news is that we can increase the mental component of endurance sports through our training. Following are two approaches I found while preparing this post.

Training With An Attitude

TriDot Head of Coach Development and senior triathlete, Kurt Madden told me, “I find it really intriguing that we spend so much time on the physical aspect of training. But the mind can work with you or against you.”

In an effort to incorporate the mental component in triathlon training, Kurt has identifed four factors he uses to help triathletes achieve amazing results, no matter their age or gender. These factors come from a combination of Kurt’s experience as a 45+ year ultra distance endurance athlete and his study of sports psychology.

• The “grit” factor

In Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth develops the “hypothesis that what really drives success is not ‘genius’ but a unique combination of passion and long-term perseverance.” Some people can look at any challenge, embrace it, and push through related pain. This “grit” can come from early life experiences, such as a difficult family situation, or from a “learn it as you go” approach.

• Intention to be successful

Kurt has observed that “those people that do better mentally in longer events have the intention to be successful.” Those with this attitude not only believe they will be successful, but take action to ensure that they succeed.

“Intention” builds on enthusiasm, or positive attitudes, and on grit. Kurt encourages athletes with an intention to be successful to spot their “short term wins”. These wins confirm the success of their actions, producing the biochemical (hormonal) changes in our bodies that almost guarantee success.

• Willingness to be uncomfortable

While speaking with me for the post titled How To Slow Age-Related Drop in Running Performance, Kurt cited the tendency for older athletes to avoid being uncomfortable. However, to increase mental toughness, it is necessary to embrace some discomfort.

“When we are uncomfortable, there is a good thing that happens: we grow.”

Kurt has learned that one way to train our mind to embrace discomfort is to force ourself to go a little beyond where we think we need to stop. Relax, embrace the current discomfort, and go a little further.

• Staying “in the moment”

In introducing this factor, Kurt referred to The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance, a book written by George Mumford whom Michael Jordan credits “with transforming his on-court leadership of the [Chicago] Bulls.”

“Staying in the moment” avoids fretting about what has happened and forecasting too far ahead as to what could happen. Winning athletes include in their arsenal an ability to brush off mistakes or other failures and focus on doing what they know they are capable of.

Training While Mentally Fatigued

In “Brain Endurance Training Improves Dynamic Calisthenic Exercise and Benefits Novel Exercise”, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, researchers Neil Dalloway et al, provide background on Brain Endurance Training (BET), at least partly based on Dr. Marcora’s research. The authors begin with the fundamental assumption that “perceived exertion is a limiting factor in endurance exercise.” By creating mental fatigue on top of the fatigue from physical training, the athlete adapts to performing under a higher level of fatigue and therefore a higher level of perceived exertion.

This allows the athlete to perform under stress, that is, conditions of mental fatigue. However, the real goal is for their endurance performance to be increased when the mental fatigue component is no longer present, such as on race day. According to the article’s authors, BET has been demonstrated to improve performance in cycling, running, and other activities requiring muscular endurance.

Cognitive Training Tools

Soma Technologies is a company which provides products following this approach. The company’s website says, “We Monitor Cognition, We Analyse Fatigue, We Optimize Performance.” The company also claims, “Soma has been proven to create psycho-physiological changes in the brain, enabling athletes to perform at higher levels with less perceived effort and make better decisions under fatigue.”

As I was preparing this post, I received an email from Soma, introducing their guide, “How to Design A Cognitive Training Plan.” This document is for coaches who want to incorporate mental toughness training into their athletes’ plan.

When reading through the guide, it surprised me to see the melding of mental (cognitive) and physical loading. For example, you may be aware of words such as periodization and progressive overload from triathlon training manuals. But did you know that there is a mental toughness equivalent to these? And, just as there are different components to comprehensive swim, bike, or run training programs, there are different components to cognitive endurance training.

Eating Your Way To Mental Toughness

Learning that mental toughness is connected to how we fuel our bodies shouldn’t have surprised me. Physical training, nutrition and hydration, and rest and recovery are deeply intertwined.

In a Fast Talk Labs podcast titled “The Role of Nutrition in Optimizing Mental Performance,” Dr. Kate Kresge explained the relationship between nutrition and mental performance in endurance athletes. She began by emphasizing the need for good blood flow to the frontal lobe of the brain, which is crucial for mental performance and toughness.

Adequate blood flow supports the brain’s ability to produce neurotransmitters like dopamine and adrenaline. These neurotransmitters are vital for the proper functioning of the brain’s frontal lobe, which governs key aspects of mental toughness, such as focus, decision-making, and resilience.

The adrenal glands, located above the kidneys, produce adrenaline, while dopamine is primarily synthesized within the brain. Notably, adrenaline can also be derived from dopamine. The production of these critical neurotransmitters requires three key nutrients: tyrosine (an amino acid), vitamin B6, and vitamin C.

Nutrient Sources:

• Tyrosine: Meat, poultry, fish, almonds, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, eggs, cheese
• Vitamin B6: Beef liver, tuna, salmon, shrimp, potatoes, bananas
• Vitamin C: Red, yellow, and green peppers, oranges, grapefruit, lemons, limes, kiwi fruit, broccoli

Electrolytes also play an essential role in facilitating the transport of these nutrients into cells, highlighting the interconnected nature of nutrition and physiology. If you find yourself struggling with mental toughness during training, consider focusing on adequate protein intake and maintaining proper electrolyte balance. According to Dr. Kresge, noticeable improvements can occur within a week.

Related post: Electrolytes: Vital for Hydration of Senior Triathletes

What I Have Learned About Increasing Mental Toughness for Triathlon

It’s clear that there is a mental component to endurance sports, like triathlon, duathlon, and aquabike.

Those of you who know me, also know that I am an average triathlete having focused on sprint triathlons. I have not engaged specifically in mental endurance training because I have only recently learned about it. However, I relate to what I have heard and read about mental fatigue and mental toughness.

Over the years of triathlon training and racing, I believe I have sometimes struggled with the effects of mental fatigue, but also developed greater mental toughness.

For me, the quickest way to increase mental toughness has been being consistent in my training. Consistency builds confidence. When writing this, I was thinking of the triathlon swim.

I recall several races in which I became light-headed early in the swim, either through altitude or poor pacing. However, through plenty of pool and open water swims in different conditions, I had become confident in my ability to maintain calm and respond to the current situation without panicking. That’s a small example of mental toughness.

From what Dr. Krege said, I plan to double-down on paying attention to nutrition and hydration.

What Works For You?

This has been a high level introduction to the subject. Is there a part of this you wish to learn more about? Please share your questions or requests below and I will work to get answers.

Please also share what you have learned about increasing mental toughness. What advice do you have for those new to triathlon training?

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Affiliate Disclosure

This post was originally published on August 28, 2024. After hearing the interview with Dr. Kate Kresge, I added information about the roles of nutrition and hydration.

• Category: Racing, Training