The Monte Vista Invitational - Home of the Eliminator!

Choking Defined By Richard Ferguson, PhD Running Journal/October 2002 Have you ever had someone tell you not to choke before a big event in your life? Has a coach ever told you that? Do you ever think to yourself, "I just can't choke in this race?" Okay, so you know you don't want to choke, but do you really know what choking is? Choking seems to be when you begin to perform poorly and your performance then becomes progressively worse from there. It's as if you begin to struggle a little bit in a race and from then on you just don't feel very well and you struggle to the finish, even though you know you have prepared well and have run much faster in training. Why does this occur? Let's delve a bit deeper into the science of choking. Dr. Robert Nideffer has developed a model of choking that I will attempt to explain in the next few paragraphs. First, few of us ever choke when we do something that's not really that important to us. I don't hear about a lot of people choking when they train or when they mow their grass. Choking seems to occur in certain situations. One situation is when we personally label an event as very important. It may only be the Acorn Festival 5K, but if it's important to you personally then it becomes a "big" race! The other situation is when we fear failure in an event, such as getting beat by a particular competitor, running slower than we would like, or physically hurting during a race. Choking usually occurs in races that we deem important and in ones which we may be just a bit scared. Sound familiar? When we place great importance on an event or are fearful of negative things happening, we tend to get high levels of anxiety. When we get too anxious our thought process and even our physiology may change for the worse. Physiologically, our muscles tend to tighten when we are anxious. Heart rate and breathing rate can skyrocket when high anxiety occurs. We have all known someone to hyperventilate when they get stressed. This occurs because the breathing rate becomes so fast that too much carbon dioxide is blown off from the body, which makes the individual feel light-headed. The high anxiety can lead to shaking, and weak muscles as well. All of these responses can hinder performance and begin a downward performance spiral. Psychologically, if we make a life or death event out of a race or are scared to death of performing below our expectations, our concentration and thinking patterns may change as well. When we get very anxious our thoughts tend to narrow, which means we don't make decisions well. Could this be why people go out too fast in races or fail to maintain contact with runners at critical points during a race even when they feel good? Possibly. Anxiety also causes us to focus too much on ourselves and how we feel. This usually results in further anxiety, increased muscular tension, and ultimately, poor performance. In all reality, if we place too much importance on an event or have a tremendous amount of fear of failure, we will tend to have muscle coordination problems. We may rush and not be patient and we may not process information as we normally would, leading to poor decisions, tight muscles, and feeling fatigued. All of these increase the chance of having a really poor performance in a race that's important to us. In other words we might just "choke." So how can we decrease the likelihood of choking? The key is changing how we think going into a big race. Work to keep things in perspective. Focus on just going out and running your race and staying with your race plan, whether the race is the New York City Marathon or the Frog Leg Festival 2-Miler. Remember to have a consistent approach as you prepare for all competitions. Next, work to reduce fear of failure. Think logically as you go into a race. Remind yourself that you've prepared really well and that you will give nothing less than 100 percent effort during the race. Our preparation and our effort level are things under our control. There is no way we can control how fast other people are going to run, so don't waste mental energy thinking about other runners. Work on being positive, being relaxed, and reducing anxiety levels. If you do feel your muscles getting tense and tight, try to take a couple of deep breaths, tense your leg muscles, and then relax them. Couple this simple procedure with some positive self-talk. Also remind yourself that feeling a little anxious can be good because it signals your stress response is active and preparing you to be physically at your best. By changing your interpretation of the event, muscle tension and fatigue can be lessened. We probably can't totally prevent the choking process but we can lessen the likelihood of it occurring. By learning to relax in training and mentally rehearsing race situations during training, we will be better able to cope with the situation when it actually occurs. By psychologically simulating stressful competitive situations and developing mental plans to cope with the "big race" atmosphere we can learn to become less reactive to races we consider to be very important. By having less of an emotional reaction to important races, tension and fatigue can be controlled to levels that choking is less likely to occur. Try not to think about the outcome of the important race. If our thought pattern immediately before and during a race is focused on winning or losing we will get anxious. It's simply not good to think about the importance of a race during the race. Keep the focus in the present! Think about some technical aspect of running, like upper body relaxation or getting locked into a pack of other runners. In other words, be sure to focus on the process, not the product. Good process leads to good product. Remember that choking can't be 100 percent prevented, but it can be reduced through sound pre-race mental preparation and a process-oriented thinking pattern during the race!