Breathing

I wrote a post a while back about how I'd started working with the book Sports Psychology for Cyclists. I read the whole thing, and then I went back and started working on the exercises. I've been doing this for two weeks now.

The two exercises that I wanted to write about involve breathing and visualizing smooth riding. I always start with several minutes of breathing. I've found it to be very relaxing. It also tends to clear my mind and leave me with more energy than I started with... this is nice if I still have a workout to do at night.

After some breathing, I start visualizing riding smoothly, emphasizing good technique. It actually took me a little while to get this right. Initially, my legs in the visualization were not turning smoothly, and, for the first few sessions, it took a few minutes for me to fix it. In particular, I kept "feeling" a lot of movement with my right hip. The way I eventually got it was to imagine my hips as a stable platform that I could pedal from.

Here's where it gets interesting. The book also suggests that you practice your breathing a few times while riding, particularly while doing intervals or other harder efforts. At this point, it doesn't ask you to do much more on the bike, just go into the breathing. So... here's what happened Saturday. I was just doing a moderate effort (nothing too hard scheduled in my plan yet) and I started focusing on my breathing. So, that was fine, it also has a calming influence on the bike. What I didn't expect was that my pedal stroke also immediately cleaned up (just like I had visualized!); with the more efficient pedal stroke, my cadence and speed crept up a little.

Maybe it doesn't sound like much, but I think it's pretty cool. It means, that without thinking about it, going into the breathing triggered the improved technique! It makes me wonder, as I progress with this mental work, what else can be linked or triggered by the breathing?