The Power of Belief in Athletic Performance

Today’s episode features John Kiely.  John is a senior lecturer in Performance and Innovation at the University of Limerick.   In addition to his current work with doctoral and Ph.D. candidates, John is a frequent keynote speaker, and has extensive athletic performance training and consultation experience.  His coaching, consulting and advisory work includes numerous sports such as rugby, soccer/football, track and Paralympics.  In his time as an athlete, John won multiple titles in kickboxing and boxing.  John appeared years ago on episode 113 of the podcast. Training is much more than simply putting together a series of sets, reps and exercises, but invokes the “totality” of a human being.  This totality includes not only the body and mechanical forces, but also the mind and one’s environmental influence.  In other words, your training results are a factor of both your program, perceptions and environment, and the roles of the latter must not be minimized. On today’s show, John will cover training on the level of placebo and nocebo effects, the impact of an athlete’s beliefs and perception of the training session, coaching practice to engage the mind, as well as the idea of a “screen for beliefs” when starting a period of training with an athlete.  This is an awesome episode that really helps us understand the fullness of the processes involved within adapting to a training stimulus or program. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, Lost Empire Herbs, and the Elastic Essentials online course. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for FREE (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points: 3:51 – What John means by the idea: “The worth of a training program is not contained in the prescription” 15:06 – Looking at training on the level of placebo and nocebo effects 25:28 – How to ethically and optimally leverage the placebo effect in coaching 33:18 – What type of intellectual participation is ideal for athletes in the course of a training day 46:23 – How perception of the training session is going to have a substantial impact on how an athlete will adapt 52:57 – Program repeatability and novelty elements in training 58:27 – John’s take on a “screen for beliefs” in athletic coaching “From a practical perspective, going back to the 40s and 50s, (the great coaches) were good communicators, inspirational, they were able to get ideas and perspectives out of their heads, into the athlete’s heads” “Some great coaches have really average programs, but the key is that the athlete buys into them” “It’s important what people’s health behaviors are, but what’s really important is how people believe their health behaviors are” “How can I screen an athlete for their beliefs” “What (removing perception of threat) allows you to do is release more resources (to training)” “So all placebo is, is I’m taking a cue from the external world, I’m believing the future is a little brighter, and I can release more resources” “Releasing resources can be thinking, thinking demands energy, it demands cerebral blood flow” “Even a coach’s facial expression, if interpreted as negative, has a negative effect on athletes… I need to be conscious that if I give negative signals, it is going to affect the training” “We have made the assumption that you can predict training outcomes, but the evidence is completely against that” “It’s what athletes are paying attention to, and how they are interpreting those signals” “If you want something to hurt more, think about it more” “The reality is, it is not the physical act that activates the stress response, the stress response is activated by your perception of what is going to happen, and how your body needs to prepare for that”