Researched in two parts: Mental Toughness and Exercise Induced Emesis

What is Mental Toughness and how to Develop It?

David Yukelson, Ph.D., Coordinator of Sport Psychology Services
Morgan Academic Support Center for Student-Athletes, Penn State University

Definition: Mental toughness is having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to:

• Generally cope better than your opponents with the many demands (e.g., competition, training, lifestyle) that are placed on you as a performer

• Specifically, to be more consistent and better than your opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, resilient, and in control under pressure (Jones et al, 2002)

Key psychological characteristics associated with mentally tough elite athletes Jones et al (2002):

1. Self-Belief:
• Having an unshakable belief in your ability to achieve competition goals
• Unique qualities that make you better than your opponents.
2. Motivation:
• Having an insatiable desire and internalized motivation to succeed (you really got to want it)
• Ability to bounce back from performance setbacks with increased determination to succeed.
3. Focus:
• Remain fully focused on the task at hand in the face of competition-specific distractions
• Able to switch focus on and off as required
• Not being adversely affected by others performance or your own internal distractions (worry, negative mind chatter)
4. Composure/Handling Pressure:
• Able to regain psychological control following unexpected events or distractions
• Thriving on the pressure of competition (embracing pressure, stepping into the moment)
• Accept that anxiety is inevitable in competition and know you can cope with it

Developing Mental Toughness

1. Starts with the right attitude and state of mind (know what your core confidence is all about):
2. Confidence comes in knowing your are prepared and having an unshakable belief in your abilities to reach intended goals
3. Also linked to mentality of being a “Competitive Warrior”
• Jerry Lynch (2002): “Confidence is about who puts it on the line, who has the courage to compete like a warrior without fear of failure”
• Courage to leave it all out on the athletic field, play with heart, determination, and full focus
4. Program your mind for success ahead of time with positive affirmations and expectations
• Expect the best from yourself; affirm what it is you are going to do to be successful
5. Confident goal
6. Focus on those things you want to occur, rather than things you’re afraid might go wrong
• Script Success: Visualize yourself performing the way you want (confident, energized, full focus)
7. Routinize Your Behaviors: Develop a systematic pre-performance routine that clicks on desired mental-emotional state of mind (practice, pre-game, competition)
• Practice (once you walk through the gate, you commit yourself to giving it everything you have the entire practice – this includes making a commitment to listening, learning, executing skills/drills with precision and full focus)
• Pre-game competition – develop a systematic routine for engineering the environment and getting yourself ready
• During Competition (once you walk b/w the lines, you are committing yourself to being mentally tough and a great competitor throughout the entire game).
8. Poise and Composure: learn how to let go of mistakes quickly if things do not go the way you want
9. Key part of mental training is about compensating, adjusting, and trusting
• If plan A does not work, go to plan B or C
• Use of “Focal Points” are effective to help focus attention back onto task at hand
• Be persistent, don’t allow frustration to undermine your confidence/focus
10. Take control of Negative Self-Talk: Reframe “stinking thinking” into positive task oriented suggestions
11. Starts with awareness of situations that cause you to get frustrated, rushed, intimidated, lose focus – then reframe the negativity into positive.
12. Look at failure as a stepping stone for future achievement:
13. Champions approach to overcoming adversity: Play to win as opposed to fear making mistakes

He missed 9000 shots, missed 26 game winning shots, lost 300 games – Michael Jordan, NBA 6 time World Champion “I failed over and over, that is why I succeed”

14. Focus on the process of competing well, winning will take care of itself
15. Be a difference maker, step up and have a peak performance when it matters the most

VOMITING:
Causes of sports-related vomiting are diverse. It is well established that stomach emptying is markedly slowed during endurance exercise. Mental and emotional stress can also slow gastric emptying. However, there are three key factors that predispose athletes to vomiting. These include dehydration, drinking beverages with high sugar content, and high exercise intensity at more than 75% VO2 max. All of these factors tend to slow gastric or stomach emptying.

The act of vomiting is produced by a series of coordinated changes in G-I activity and in respiratory movements: salivation; sharp and deep inspiration; increase in intra-abdominal pressure; contraction of abdominal muscles; closure of the epiglottis and raising of the soft palate; forceful contractions of the stomach pylorus; and relaxation of the fundus, cardiac sphincter and esophagus. Gastric contents are propelled into the mouth and are expelled, usually accompanied by pallor and cold sweat. If retroperistalsis of the small intestine occurs, a greenish vomitus is produced.
An athlete’s ability to reach maximum performance is a direct result of physical and muscular performance, muscular and systemic stress tolerance, control and regulation of immune function, and adaptation to physical stress. In this complex sense, the gastrointestinal (GI) tract is also part of the system that controls and regulates adaptation and regeneration of the athlete. A well-balanced GI immune system and an optimized immune competence may protect the athlete from harmful pathogens; it may also protect against dietary as well as inhaled antigens. However, under conditions of mechanical and biochemical stress, the integrity of the GI mucosal block, particularly the epithelial hood, can be damaged, leading to a pathological uptake of toxic or immunogenic substrates. This may occur in endurance athletes, since gut symptomatology, nausea, vomiting, pain, bloating, diarrhea, cramping, and bleeding can be observed in up to half of all participants in endurance events. In addition, composition of stool and fecal microflora in endurance athletes has shown that there may be a specific need for nutritional support for mucosal immunity in highly trained but chronically stressed athletes. Proper diet during training and competition is a significant factor in guarding against GI symptoms and exercise-induced gastrointestinal side effects that may compromise immune competence and physical performance. The present review presents some important suggestions on the possible role of the GI tract in human performance and stress tolerance, and offers new insights about the influence of food quality on the immune system of the gut. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10519063

Vomiting is deleterious to the sensitive esophageal lining and frequent vomiting, causes inflammatory damage to the sphincter separating the stomach from the esophagus. Damage of the lower esophageal sphincter muscle leads to reflux and consistent irritation of the esophagus leads to inflammation which could progress to esophageal ulcers.

Intense exercise causes decreased blood flow to the gastric mucosa. Without sufficient blood supply the GI tract does not function as designed it rejects its stomach contents, and in some cases the contents of the intestinal tract (diarrhea). The ischemia (decreased blood flow) achieved by athletes in long endurance events also compromises the intestinal barrier, contributing to and compounding the GI symptoms.
The stomach and intestines are lined with a protective barrier formed by an intricate combination of membranes, junctions, mucus, and immunological factors. Different types of stress can breach this barrier, causing increased permeability of the gut lining and allowing entry of harmful bacterial toxins into the blood stream. This distressing concatenation of events may in turn cause inflammation and systemic complications as well as the nausea, vomiting, bloating, bloody diarrhea, and cramping seen in up to half of all participants in endurance events.

Performance, will let you know if your mental game is up to par (your par, not someone else’s), we (crossfitters) are performance based and everything else is moot. So you would measure your mental aptitude just like your fitness, is your Fran time decreasing? Are you lifting more in your Deadlift? Has your C&J technique improved? If so, I think it’s safe to say your mental game has improved along with everything else… You directly improve your mentality by directly improving your performance IMO.

As a side note, if you really want to meet pukie, may I suggest “Barbara”.

I couldn’t disagree more with AT’s statement that mental toughness has nothing to do with the physical realm, and find the ensuing statment “the physical realm can test the mental” actually contradictory to the first. Physical discomfort clearly stresses the mind and its ability to focus, pay attention, follow directions etc. It is not so hard to do 20 overhead squats with the PVC and maintain relatively good form, but toss on a few plates and the sweat, agony, shaking, all combine to pulverize the coaching admonitions that were so easily followed when there was only a plastic stick overhead. Even Tiger Woods’s mental toughness while putting is presumably tested by the physical requirements of his sport, though not as power-output intensive or exhausting as a set of thrusters and pull ups.

Ultimately, I think it is good to push oneself but probably not to the point of vomiting … it would be a tragic waste of valuable calories. So if you feel those chunks up chucking, swallow hard and knock out some BURPees.

When someone asks of the competitor: “Did you try your hardest?” If the competitor didn’t puke during or at the end does that mean they didn’t? I’m guessing the answer can be either/or.

So…just push yourself as hard as you can and if you vomit as a result…so be it…people throw up all of the time.

Smarter not harder doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive…sometimes you need both, and sometimes you need one or the other.

Situation dependent.