Posts Tagged ‘practice’

« Older Entries

Building A Foundation

Monday, May 24th, 2010

Thanks for checking back again this week.  I appreciate you coming back to check out my blog this week and hope that you’ll tell a friend about it. 

Try This At Home……………………….

Gather together blocks of different sizes and shapes.   You’ll need some that are very small and light and some that are big and heavy.  Have your child build a tower using the smallest, lightest blocks on the bottom and the biggest, heaviest blocks on top.  Have him note how many blocks he uses and how high the tower gets before it topples over.  Next, have him build another tower using the biggest, heaviest blocks on the bottom and the smallest, lightest blocks on top.  Again, have him note how many blocks he uses and how high the tower gets.  Explain that the towers of blocks are like his success in life.  The bottom layer of blocks in the tower equals the amount of work and practice he puts into his activities. If he is diligent and works hard on the basic skills, he is laying a foundation of big, heavy blocks for his tower, and his tower will be sturdy and high.  Likewise, if he skips practice, or doesn’t master the basic skills of his activity, he is laying a foundation of small, light blocks for his tower and it won’t get very high before it topples.

                                             ****************************************************

From the day your child is born, a foundation of knowledge, experience and morals is being laid which his entire life is built upon.  Just as your child isn’t ready to head off to first grade without first learning all of the things that are taught in kindergarten, he isn’t ready to play the game, before he’s learned the rules and basic skills that go along with it.

It isn’t uncommon for your child to want to put the cart before the horse and skip to the fun part, the game, race or fancy tricks, but without a foundation he won’t be nearly as successful.  Practice isn’t always fun, but it is a necessary part of becoming good at anything.  The whole idea is for the boring part to become automatic, so your child doesn’t even have to think about it.  Later, in the most critical, challenging and stressful moments, he can fall back on the boring basics and they will carry him through.  When he is challenged the moral, physical and academic foundation he built will keep him from toppling over.  The beginning stuff may be boring, but it is vital to being able to do the fancier stuff later.

In soccer for example, your child and his team will have a much better season if they first work on building up their fitness through running, and the basic skills of dribbling, trapping and passing the ball. 

I was surprised the first time the national team coach sat me down and showed me an entire years training and racing plan, and then a multiple year plan for making the Olympic team.  I was used to following a training schedule, but it had never occurred to me that my day to day workouts were part of a carefully calculated plan that built upon itself month after month.  Beginning with the end of the previous season, my training schedule built upon itself in frequency, duration and intensity all culminating at the years ultimate goal, the World Championships.  My training was based on five heart rate zones.  In the early months of the season I did long easy miles, working in zone one and two and building a low intensity base of endurance; the miles gradually increased until I was riding for four to five hours at a time.  Later, zone three, four and five were added, but without the foundation of miles I wouldn’t have been able to handle nearly as much volume and intensity.  When training and racing got tough I was able to fall back on the foundation I’d built and it helped keep me from collapsing during a race or tough workout.

 The next time your child is being impatient and wants to get to the good part, remind him of the towers he built and explain that building a strong, solid foundation is vital to his success.

For more information on me and my children’s books please visit www.erinmirabella.com

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Building A Foundation, Goal Setting, self-discipline | 2 Comments »

Self-discipline

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Try This At Home…………………..

Take your child to a hill that is safe for him to run up, preferably at a time when no one is around.  It doesn’t matter how long, short, steep or gradual the hill is, just something he can run up.  Park the car where you can’t really see the hill.  Tell him you are going to wait in the car and that he should go run up the hill as fast as he can and then come right back.  Tell him you’re going to wait in the car.  When he gets back, go back to the hill with him.  Have him run up the hill as fast as he can again, but this time watch him run up the hill, or better yet, run up it with him.  When you have both caught your breath, ask him if he ran up the hill harder when he was by himself, when you were with him, or if he put in the same effort both times.  Explain that pushing himself to run up the hill just as hard when he was alone, required discipline.  Explain that discipline is the ability to push and motivate himself to do something when no one is watching.  Then, since you are there, you and your child can run up the hill a few more times if you want, it’s a great work out, and you can test your own discipline. 

                                                                  *********************************************

A lot of the time during my cycling career I trained by myself out on the road, with no one to push me but myself.  I remember standing at the bottom of a hill on a blistering hot day in California, thinking how funny it was that a person would torture herself by going repeatedly up a hill as hard as she could with no one watching.  I did it because it was what my coach had scheduled me to do that day and more importantly, because it was what it was going to take to accomplish my goal.  That is discipline; it is not something that necessarily comes naturally, but instead a learned thing, a practiced thing. It is what sports can help instill in your child, especially if he has the right coach and role models. 

Self-discipline is doing something not because you want to, but because you know you should.  Discipline is pushing yourself hard, even when no one is watching.  It is putting everything into your workout, even though every muscle in your body is screaming in pain, and it is not eating a cookie, even though they are sitting there on the counter taunting you.  Discipline is what it takes to succeed and true discipline is self contrived and motivated. 

If your child is school aged, ask him to think about the last time his teacher had to step out of the room for a minute.  Ask him what happened.  Did all of the kids keep working?  Did some of the kids get up and goof around?  What did they do?  Explain that those students who stayed in the seats and kept working demonstrated self-discipline.

If your child is younger, you can use this analogy.  Ask your child to think of a time when you asked him to pick up his toys while you were doing something else.  Ask him what happened?  Did he pick up his toys, or did he play with them instead?  Did he wait to pick them up until you were in the room?  Explain that picking up the toys, even though you weren’t in the room, showed discipline.

We all are capable of self-discipline; we just have to make up our minds to do it.  Some days are easier than others, and each of us is more disciplined at certain activities than others.  The more something means to your child, the more disciplined he will be.  The beautiful thing about discipline is this, even if your child failed a hundred times before to be disciplined in a certain area, each day is a new day to try again.  Practice makes perfect!

Discipline comes in handy with sports, but it will be even more important when your child is studying for a test, heading off to college, or starting his first job.   Help your child start practicing self-discipline and try to set a good example; your child will reap the benefits of being disciplined.

Please, share this blog with a friend!  For more information about me and my children’s books, please visit www.erinmirabella.com

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in self-discipline | 1 Comment »

Lacking Motivation

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Sorry, no try this at home section this week.  I couldn’t think of anything good.  If I come up with something, I’ll add it to next week’s post.

This week’s post is a request from a friend whose daughter is tired after school and unmotivated to go to practice.  Although she doesn’t feel like going, she loves it once she gets there.

My friends daughter may be “just a kid,” but we can all totally relate to how she’s feeling.  I can’t even count the number of days that I think I’m going to work out after I put the kids to bed, but instead end up dragging myself to the couch exhausted and way to unmotivated to go into the cold garage and run on the treadmill.  There were days like that during my cycling career as well.  On the days when I was sore and tired, I could come up with 1,000 different reasons to procrastinate doing my workout.  (It always amazed me how urgent cleaning the refrigerator or alphabetizing my DVD’s became, when I was dreading hill repeats.)   I always ended up eventually doing my workout, but that doesn’t mean that I always felt like doing it.

My point is that my friend’s daughter is perfectly normal.  However, as a parent there are a few things to consider. 

Does Your Child Still Like The Activity?   

If the answer is yes, then I offer some tips later in the post that may help motivate her. If the answer is no, then it may be time to look into a new activity, or at least take a break for awhile.  I’m a firm believer in finishing what you start, so it’s alright to insist she finish out the season, or session.  Once she’s completed her obligation let her pick a new activity to try.

Does She Have Too Many Activities?

Kids have long, busy days, and it’s easy for them to feel overloaded and overwhelmed with activities.  Just like adults, kids need down time.  If your child has an activity every day after school, is feeling overwhelmed and starting to dread the stuff she loves, it may be time to lighten her load.

Or,

Maybe she isn’t too busy, but instead she just needs a few minutes to recharge before her activities.  Having a chance to eat a snack and relax for a few minutes might help her feel rejuvenated and ready to practice. 

On the flip side, sometimes once I sit down and relax, I find it’s a lot harder to get going again, especially if I’m being pulled away from my favorite television show.  If that seems to be the case, it might help to leave the television off.  You can always tape her favorite show for her and let her watch it later.

Remind them of their obligation.

In very few situations do our actions just affect us.  Remind your child that she signed on for the entire season or session, and that her team and coach are counting on her.  Ask her what would happen if all of the kids on the team were tired and decided to skip practice?  Ask her, worse yet, what would happen if all the kids showed up, but the coach decided he didn’t feel like it.  This is a great opportunity to help your child see the big picture and talk with her about fulfilling her obligations.

The Reward

Your child may say that she loves the games, but doesn’t want to practice.  Unfortunately, that’s just not how it works.  Explain that the game is the reward, but in order to earn the reward, she has to do the work. Also, she probably wouldn’t like the games as much, or do as well, if she didn’t practice for them.  Whether she’s at school, playing sports, or at home doing chores, there is always going to be something that she likes doing the least, but it still has to get done.  No one wants to pick up the dog poop, but if you want to experience the joy and companionship of a dog, you’ve got to do it.  Likewise, everyone likes sledding down the hill, but you can’t enjoy the fun if you don’t walk up the hill first.

Throughout my ten year cycling career my ultimate goal was the Olympic Games.  Ten years is a long time to stay motivated, and there were times that I struggled.  However, I knew that I’d have to put in the work if I wanted to make the Olympic team. That is why, no matter how much I procrastinated, I always did my workout.  I knew that for every workout I skipped, one of my competitors was doing hers.  For me, the reward was so important, that I was willing to do the work no matter how I felt.

Remind your child that she isn’t alone.  It’s normal to feel unmotivated sometimes.  The real test is whether she’s going to give in to it.  If she likes what she’s doing, it’s worth doing all the way.

For more information about me, or my children’s books, please visit www.erinmirabella.com.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in motivation, values and morals | 2 Comments »

Goal Setting, Part 2

Monday, January 25th, 2010

 Try This At Home……………..

Next time your child fails at achieving her goal, have her make a list of everything that she did well and a list of all the things that did not go well.  Then have her analyze the second list and come up with ways to fix or improve upon them.   Once those things are fixed, have her try again.

                                                             *************************************************

We’ve all failed to accomplish a goal at one time or another.  It’s normal to feel lousy when it happens, but the more productive response would be to figure out why it happened.  Cavett Robert said, “Life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds you down or polishes you up, is for you and you alone to decide.”  You can let your failures control and define you, or you can learn from them and use them to your advantage.  The choice is yours.

Fear of failure was the thing that I struggled most with during my cycling career.  I was so afraid of not being perfect that I would agonize over the possibility of failure.  Like everything in life, the thing that you dwell on is what comes to be, and left unchecked my fear became a self fulfilling prophesy.  Fear of failure is a separate post all to itself, but I mention it because in learning to deal with my fear, I learned an important lesson about failure…….While failure is unpleasant, it doesn’t make you a failure and it isn’t the end of the world.  It’s simply a step toward becoming successful.  You won’t find a successful person out there who hasn’t failed a few times in the process. 
                                                           
We all want to protect our kids and hate to see them fail, but as I’ve said over and over again in my blog posts, your child will learn far more from failing than they will from success.  Sure, failure isn’t any fun, but it can teach a valuable lesson. 

                                                                                    Reasons Why We Fail

We Went About It Wrong

Most likely the reason your child failed is because she went about it the wrong way.  This is the most valuable lesson in failing.  If she can realize where she went wrong and fix it, then the next time she’ll be successful. Help her analyze the situation and figure how she can improve.  

Lack of Motivation/ Follow Through

If your child seems unmotivated to do what is necessary to accomplish her goal, then it might be time for her to access if the goal is still important to her.  Sometimes priorities change.  My husband quit his wrestling career in the middle of a tournament.  In the middle of a match, he decided it just wasn’t fun anymore.

The other option may be that she just doesn’t want to put in the work.  She wants the reward that comes with accomplishing her goal, but she isn’t willing to do what it takes to get there.  In the end if she fails at her goal because of her work ethic then she’ll learn an important life lesson.  Letting her learn this lesson the hard way, while she is young, is the best gift you can give her.

Lack of focus

Your child may fail to accomplish her goals, because she isn’t focused enough at the task at hand.  She needs to choose which goal is most important and give that the most attention.  She may not know how to focus.  Focusing is a learned thing and is something that is crucial to success in all aspects of life.  Check out my previous prioritization blog for tips on teaching your child to prioritize and stay tuned in a few weeks for my post on the art of focusing. 

Unrealistic Expectations

Your child’s goals may be unrealistic.  If she fails to meet her goal it’s a great opportunity for her to be completely honest about why it happened.  She may have inadvertently set herself up for failure by setting an unrealistic goal.  Help her learn to set realistic goals.  This doesn’t mean that she can’t dream big, it just means she has to be realistic about things like her timetable, talents, abilities, etc.  Some goals take a long time to reach, and some people are better suited at achieving some goals than others.  

If she has failed to reach her goal the first thing she should look at is her timetable.  Maybe her goal would be more achievable if she gave herself more time.  She may also need to add in some additional sub-goals.  Maybe her plan is missing a few steps.

The harder thing for her to do will be to access her abilities. She may find her talents lend themselves better to a new and different goal. She may find she has more to lose by continuing her pursuit than she does by throwing in the towel.  The choice is never an easy one, but this too is an important lesson to learn. 

Part of learning to set goals, is learning what to do when it doesn’t work out.  It is an important skill set for your child to develop.  Learning from their failure will make them successful.

For more information on myself or my children’s books please visit www.erinmirabella.com  My book, Gracie Goat’s Big Bike Race, is an excellent way to talk about overcoming fears with your child.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Goal Setting, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Setting Goals

Monday, January 18th, 2010

Try This At Home……………………..

Using the steps below, have your child set a goal that he can accomplish in the next month or two.  (or less)

                                    ********************************************************

Did you set a new years resolution this year?  Did your kids?

This post may have been more appropriate as the first one of the New Year, but hopefully it’s still relevant because you are sticking to your resolution.  If you didn’t make a resolution, or you’ve already given up on your resolution, don’t lose heart, this is the perfect time to get back on track. 

A New Years resolution is just a fancy way to say you’re setting a goal for yourself.  Occasionally you’ll hear someone say they aren’t a goal oriented person, or they don’t really know how to set goals, but most likely these people are setting goals everyday.  Every time they make a to-do list, a honey do list, or leave the house expecting to arrive at a destination at a particular time, they’ve set a goal.  They just may not realize it. 

Your kids do the same thing.  They may not know the word goal, but they set goals for themselves all the time.  They may want to ride a bike like their big brother, own a certain toy or score a goal in their next soccer game.  When my son Micah was about a year and a half old, he wanted to jump so badly.  He would bend his knees, crouch way down and throw himself upward, but his cute, little, flat feet never left the ground.   Finally, with enough practice, he got some air.  I tell you this, because if a one year old can set a goal and find a way to accomplish it, anyone can.

It’s never too early to teach your child about setting goals.  Having goals will help him to be successful, give him a purpose, help him learn to manage his time and resources, and give him a sense of accomplishment. 

I’ve found that often people are good at setting goals; they just have no idea what to do after that.  Here are some basic things you can teach your child about achieving his goals.

Make a Goal

If your child doesn’t already have a goal, have him come up with one.  Like I said, he probably already has a goal; he just may not have defined it as such.  Have him write his goal down.  Explain the importance sharing his goal with another person, because they can help with accountability and problem solving.

Break It Down

Next, ask him how he thinks he can go about reaching his goal.  Let him come up with some ideas.  Some goals are simple, like I need to get a load of laundry done today. The only thing you have to decide in order to accomplish that, is when specifically you’re going to do it.  Other goals are more complex, like making an Olympic Team.  Goals like that are so lofty, that they need to be broken down into mini sub-goals.    The sub-goals work like stair steps. Each time you accomplish a sub-goal you move one step closer to the big one. I think most people fall short of their goals, because they fail at this step. 

Here is an example.

  1. Set a goal.
  •  Running a mile in ten minutes.

     2. Break it up into mini-goals. 

  • Buy running shoes
  • Find a place to run and measure off a mile using the car odometer. (Find land marks at the quarter mile markers as well.)
  • Run a quarter mile
  • Run a half mile
  • Run three quarters of a mile
  • Run 1 mile
  • Time yourself while you run 1 mile.
  • Run a mile is less than twelve minutes.
  • Run a mile is less than eleven minutes.
  • Run a mile in less than ten minutes.

Set A Deadline

On a calendar, have him write his final goal on a specific date and highlight it.  That is his deadline.  Then, have him work backward and figure out when each sub goal needs to be accomplished in order to accomplish his final goal by the deadline.  Have him identify the deadline for each sub goal on the calendar as well.

Developing a Plan

Now that he has a goal, and sub goals, he will need to decide what needs to happen in order to accomplish his first sub goal.  Maybe he needs to put some other activities on hold so he has more time to devote to his goal.  He may need to do some research, get more sleep, or set a specific time each day he will practice.  Have him write his plan down.

What You Can Do

Be interested.  Ask him how his plan is going and help him trouble shoot.

Celebrate

Don’t forget to celebrate the milestones.  It is easy to be so focused on the final goal that the accomplishment of each mini goal is over looked. Make sure to give him a hug, tell him he’s doing a great job and how impressed you are with his persistence and discipline.  There doesn’t have to be a reward for each mini goal.  The sense of accomplishment should be reward enough, especially if the end goal is one he really wants to reach.

Stay tuned next week for part two of goal setting.  For more information on myself or my children’s books, Gracie Goat’s Big Bike Race and Shawn Sheep The Soccer Star, please visit www.erinmirabella.com

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Goal Setting | 1 Comment »

Warming Up

Monday, January 11th, 2010

I apologize again for not having a post for you last week. Thanks for checking back.

 Try This At Home…………………..

Take a frozen French toast stick and snap it in half. Tell your child that when she hasn’t warmed up before exercise, her muscles are cold, inflexible and less capable of working hard. Explain that exercising without warming up first, can cause injuries to muscles and tendons. Next, heat up a French toast stick in the microwave and show her that afterward it is supple and bends easily. Explain that just like the French toast stick, her muscles aren’t ready until they are warmed up. After a warm up, her muscles are lose, warm and ready to work hard. Note that a warm and bendy French toast stick doesn’t break, just like her muscles are less likely to be injured when they are warm.

                                                                                ********************************************************

Warming up is key to an optimum performance. If I jumped into a race or intense workout without warming up, my body revolted. I was miserable; I felt stiff, sluggish, extra sore and unresponsive. Plus, I was putting myself at a much higher risk of an injury. If you skip a workout you run the risk of being unprepared for an opportunity early on in your competition.

Everyone’s ideal warm up is a little different, but the concept is the same. A warm up is an easy exercise, like walking, jogging or jumping jacks, which increases blood flow to your muscles and slowly elevates your heart rate.

I personally found that I needed less of a warm up than some of my teammates. If I warmed up too much, then I was tired for my race. When I first moved to the Olympic Training Center they helped me develop a warm up program. I had always warmed up, but with their guidance I started using heart rate, and eventually wattage output, as a guide. Fundamentally there wasn’t anything wrong with the warm up I had been doing, it actually wasn’t much different from my new and improved one, but my new one was more specific and routine.

 At first, the warm up they prescribed was too much for me. The first time I tried it in its entirety was at my first World Cup in Italy. I followed my warm up as prescribed and I got to the start line feeling shaky. I still had a great ride, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I left some of it in warm up. Maybe it would have been an even better ride. My husband Chris helped me tone it down to a warm up that worked best for me. He pointed out that before my workouts; my warm up was much more concise. Generally my first effort of each workout was my best, so obviously a shorter warm up was enough.

Below is the warm up I did before races. I would ride easy for ten to fifteen minutes, depending on how I was feeling. Then I would ramp up from about 50-60% of my max heart rate to 70%. I’d hold it there for about three to five minutes and then I would increase it to 75-80% for another three or four minutes. Lastly, I ramp it up to about 90% for about thirty seconds to a minute. After that I would back off and ride easy for another five minutes or so until my heart rate had come back down. I’d get off the bike and stretch for a few minutes. Then I’d put my race gear on my bike and depending on my event that day, I’d do either several ten second sprints or one and a half kilometers at race pace. The first sprint usually felt pretty lousy but the second one was always much better. Afterward I would stay warm by riding easy for several minutes, off and on, until it was time to race. I liked to end my warm up about ten to fifteen minutes before my race. That allowed me time to get race gear on, use the bathroom, etc. More time wasn’t a bad thing as long as I could keep myself warm by riding easy.

 Here are some additional things to consider.

 In cold weather it is much harder to get warmed up and to stay warm.

In very hot weather you may have to warm up less and need to make sure you stay hydrated.

You need to be somewhat flexible. Murphy ’s Law says that if something can go wrong it will, so you have to expect that at least occasionally something is going to happen to throw a wrench in your plans. Your goal should be to get the perfect warm up before a competition, but prepare yourself to have to improvise.

 Help your child develop good warm up habits at a young age. Set a good example, and help her develop a routine that works for her.

For more information about myself or my children’s books, please visit www.erinmirabella.com

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Pre-competition routine | 1 Comment »

Raise your child’s game through competition and modeling.

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Try This At Home……………………………

Here is a great way to help you child improve in a sport or activity that he or she is already interested in and good at.  Find out who is the most celebrated person in that sport or activity and do some serious research on them. (Research them on the Internet, watch videos of them, etc.) Analyze the specific things that make that person successful and encourage your child to emulate and model them.  Have your child work on improving those characteristics or skills you identified.

Next, find someone locally who is just a little better than you child and, if possible, have your child practice with him or her on a weekly basis.  Encourage your child to learn from them.  Monitor the situation to make sure you child is having fun and isn’t getting frustrated.

                         ******************************************

Competition makes you better.  If your child is always the best player on the team or in his or her league, then they aren’t being challenged and pushed to improve. If at all possible, find someone for you child to train with who can push and challenge them.  This will prevent their progress from becoming stagnant. Without competition your child ends up a big fish in a small pond. Later, it’s hard to move from the pond, where he or she is the star and accustomed to winning, to the lake or ocean, where he or she is just a little fish and won’t necessarily find success immediately.  (It’s not a bad idea to get a realistic idea of what you child can expect when they bump up to the next level, but I’ll save the details of that for another post.)

My first year training at the Olympic Training Center was a gradual immersion into the world of elite international racing.   My second year however, felt more like getting thrown into the deep end of a pool to see if I’d sink or swim.  Thankfully I didn’t sink, but that was in large part because I was training with stronger, more experienced women.  They pushed me every day, physically and mentally, and their presence both encouraged and forced me to raise my game if I wanted to succeed.

I vividly remember a training day at a World Cup selection track camp in Plano, Texas. Nicole Reinhart*, Karen Dunn and I were all vying for a spot in the points race at the upcoming World Cup, and each work out was considered by the coaches in selection. This particular work out was on the velodrome (a cycling track.) Our coach was driving the motorcycle and we were taking turns coming around the motor and leading out sprints to the finish line.  The goal was to win the sprint.  Karen and Nicole were much more experienced than me.  For the first few sprints my timing was all off; I would either go hard too soon, or I would kick too late.  I’ve very competitive, but instead of getting frustrated I tried to figure out what the other girls were doing that I wasn’t.  We were rotating through and taking turns leading out the sprints, so every third sprint I had an opportunity to watch them from behind.  I noted how they made their moves, when they made their moves, and how successful they were at it. I started copying their successes and by the end of the workout I was winning sprints. 

That year I trained with, lived with, and vied for spots against those same women, over and over again.  As difficult and stressful as it was at the time, it was probably one of the best things that could have happened to me, because I never became complacent and improved immensely.

Later on in my career I didn’t have that same benefit.  I found that training with guys was another way to raise my game.  This is one advantage women have over men, women always have the opportunity to train or practice against someone stronger and faster than them, because they can train with the men. 

I am grateful that I learned this lesson early on in my career. If you child has aspirations to make it to the next level, then he or she needs to constantly be looking for ways to improve.  Training with and modeling after people who are better are great ways to do that. Just like in a free market, we all benefit from healthy competition.

* Nicole Reinhart was a fantastic road sprinter, fierce competitor, a good, kind person, and someone I looked up to and admired. Her life was tragically cut short in a cycling accident during a race on September 17, 2000.  I’d like to dedicate today’s blog to her memory and encourage you to visit www.nicolefund.org for more information about her.

For more information about me or my children’s books, please visit www.erinmirabella.com.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Goal Setting, Modeling, Role Models, Strengths and Weaknesses, competition | 2 Comments »

Creating a pre-competition routine.

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Try This At Home……………………….

Sit down with your child and write out his or her pre-performance routine.  See below for details. 

                     **********************************************

Before I get into developing a pre-competition routine, I want to address one thing I forgot to mention in last weeks post.  Both your child’s expectations and the expectations they feel you have for them, can add to their nervousness.  Whether they finish first or last, their best is all you can ask of them, and all they can ask of themselves.  Focusing on doing my best versus winning always helped me stay calm. 

Now, for today’s post.

When I moved to the Olympic Training Center I was immersed into USA Cycling’s endurance track program.  They stressed the importance of a pre-competition routine and helped me develop mine, step by step.  For me, developing a pre-competition routine was a defining moment in raising my game to the next level.  It helped me focus, prepare and keep my nerves under control.

A pre-competition routine is a step-by-step procedure that, if followed, ensures proper preparation allowing for an optimum performance. 

Below is a general outline to develop your child’s pre-competition routine.  You may need to tweak it for your child’s specific needs. He or she can use this technique for sports, tests, and pretty much any other activity that requires peak performance.

 1. Start by working backward from the start time of the competition.

 2. The last five minutes before the competition should be used for collecting thoughts, taking a few deep breathes and putting on gear, if it isn’t already on.

 3. Approximately 35-50 minutes before the start of the competition your child should begin warming up.  Types of warm-ups are unique to each sport.  Warming up is a completely separate post, but in general a warm up should start out easy and progress in intensity.  Go a step further than just saying that this time is set aside for warm up; have your child write down, minute by minute, the type of activities he or she will do and the intensity at which each will be done.  Remember that every athlete is different.  Have your child experiment to see what combination of warm-ups works best for him or her. Once you child finds their perfect warm-up recipe, write it down and stick with it.  I know many teams warm up together.  If that is the case, have your child join the team in warm ups.  If needed, he or she can add on additional exercises before or after the team warm up, or your child can talk to the coach about incorporating these additional activities into the team warm-up.

4. Now that you know when your child’s warm-up will start, you can help him or her calculate how much earlier to arrive at the field of play.  Account for things like equipment prep, pinning numbers, team meetings, and extra trips to the bathroom. 

5. If at all possible, have your child pack his or her sports bag the night before the competition.  If the sport requires a lot of equipment create a checklist so your child doesn’t forget anything important. Do as much prep work as possible before you get to the venue, (i.e. pin numbers, fill water bottles, prepare food, etc.)

6.  Lastly, create a music list on an iPod, MP3 player or CD that gets your child pumped up, focused and ready to compete. Have them listen to it while they are preparing to perform. (Where reasonable and safe.)   In addition to pumping them up, it will help them tune out unnecessary distractions and having ear phones in their ears will help keep people from interrupting their routine.

Here is an example of my pre-competition routine. The night before I tried, if at all possible, to get a least 8 hours of sleep.  I ate approximately two and a half to three hours before my race.  I arrived for my race an hour and a half before I was to compete.  I checked on my equipment and made sure that the appropriate gear was on my bike.  I laid out my helmet, shoe covers, gloves, cliff bar gel, etc.  I went to the bathroom and then climbed on my bike, with my music, to warm up.  I rode easy for 15 minutes.  Next, I got off my bike and stretched for 10-15 minutes.  Then I got back on the bike and did approximately a 10-minute wind up with the last 4 or 5 minutes at my threshold (Time trail pace.)  I ramped up my intensity by changing my gear to race gear and completing several 15-second sprints.  I then took one last trip to the bathroom, ate my gel, and finished with 5- 15 minutes of easy riding to stay warm.  During my warm-up I visualized myself doing my races perfectly.

Having a pre-competition routine will give your child security, confidence, and ensure that they do everything necessary to prepare for their event.  

For more information about me and my children’s books, please visit www.erinmirabella.com

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Pre-competition routine | 1 Comment »

Help your child combat nerves.

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Try This At Home……………….

Have your child make a list of the ingredients that make up his or her perfect performance, whether it is for sports, school, or something else.  For example, do they need to be aggressive, patient, calm, thorough, go harder on a certain cue, watch for a certain tactic, etc.  Once he or she has written it down, have them close their eyes and visualize having the perfect performance, by doing all of the things on the list. Have your child visualize this daily.  Next time he or she starts to get nervous, pull out the list and have them focus on the specific things he or she needs to do to be successful. Your child’s pre-performance routine is also important.   I’ll discuss that in next week’s blog.

                       ***********************************************

Are you one of those people like me, who gets nervous before competition, or are you more like my husband, Chris, who hardly gets nervous at all?  How about your kids?

If your kids get very nervous before their performance, they may not be competing at their best and worst-case scenario may develop an aversion to competing.   Pre-competition jitters are good to a point, but past that they become detrimental. Help your child deal with extreme nervousness, by discovering the root of the problem and teaching them tactics for combating their nerves.

During my cycling career I got extremely nervous before races.  The more important a race was to me, the more nervous I got.  Since track racing was my main focus, I was painfully nervous before every race.  Once I started racing I was fine, but it was not uncommon for me to make myself ill to the point of puking before a race.  The question always became, whether or not I could control my nerves enough to prevent them from negatively affecting my racing. Even through I loved track racing, I started enjoying road racing more, simply because I didn’t get as nervous for it. Thankfully I learned some tactics to combat my nerves, but it was still something that I struggled with at every race. 

One of my motivations for doing this weekly blog is to help the next generation overcome some of the detrimental hang-ups that I watched myself and other Olympians battle with during our careers.  Each of us had our own personal nemesis that, left unchecked, inhibited us from reaching our full potential.  A lot of the reason I would get so nervous was due to my nemeses, my unrealistically high expectations and fear of failure.  These are topics for their own blog posts, but I mention them because I think it’s important to get to the root of the problem.  You and your children might have different reasons for being nervous, but no matter the cause, here are some things that I found that helped me. 

I tried not to think; it was my worst enemy.  I have an overactive imagination and the what-ifs always got me.  One of the reason’s I trained so hard, was so that when race time came instinct would kick in.  If I could turn my brain off and go on autopilot, my body would take over and do what it did every day in training. I knew if I could just get to the start line with out psyching myself out, I’d be fine.

The what-ifs can be motivating for some, but for me they became all consuming.  I knew that in order to be successful at racing, I had to stop thinking about the end result and focus on the things I had to do  in order to be successful.  So, Instead of thinking about winning or losing, I focused on things like my pre-race routine, my aggressiveness and pack positioning during the race. (For those readers who aren’t cyclists, a group of cyclists is called a pack.)  Since in the end I couldn’t control what my competition did or didn’t do, I tried to stop worry about them and focus on what I could control.  If I focused on the small picture things, I found the big picture took care of itself.

Lastly, and this was something I was crummy at remembering, our past does not have to be indicative of our future.  Each new competition is just that, new.  It is a fresh start, and while it’s important to learn from our past mistakes they don’t need to define us.  In addition, Remind them  to have some fun.

Hopefully these will give you a starting point when it comes to fighting nerves. If you have any tactics that help you, please share them.

My children’s book, Gracie Goat’s Bike Race, addresses Gracie’s fears and anxiety’s.  It is a great book to read to kids who are nervous because they are worried about all of the what-ifs.  For more information on Gracie please visit www.erinmirabella.com.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Healthy Lifestyles, Overcoming fears | 1 Comment »

Prioritization- “Having it all” is a myth

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Try This At Home……..

Gather together as many balls as you can find. Tell your child that the balls are like the activities and responsibilities in their life.  Hand them two or three balls.  Explain that, like the balls, when they only have two or three activities and responsibilities to focus on, they can keep them all under control and do very well at them.  Then keep handing them more and more balls until they start dropping them.  Explain that, just like the balls, the more activities and responsibilities they take on, the more things get left undone or done poorly.   Too many balls lead to mediocrity.

                        *****************************************

I was freed from most of my unrealistic expectations the day that I realized that the expression, “You can have it all”, was a myth.  I realized that I can only keep so many balls in the air at one time and if I get over zealous my whole world comes crashing down. 

Our resources are scarce.  There are only so many hours in a day and we only have so much time, energy and money.   You can focus on doing a few things very well and allow some other things to lag behind. Or you can try to do everything, and the odds are that none of it will be done extremely well. You’ve heard the expression, Jack-of-All-Trades, Master of None.  For example, you may be able to have a career and be the kind of mother or father you want to be, but that probably means that you aren’t making it to the gym three days a week anymore and you need to hire someone to help clean the house.  Something’s gotta give!

Teaching your children to prioritize their activities and responsibilities at a young age is important.   It will help them to be successful in the things that matter most.  If they have too many activities and responsibilities they get spread too thin and aren’t able to excel at any of them.  When kids are young they should try all sorts of activities: different sports, instruments, arts, etc.  Exposing them to as many things as possible gives them a higher probability of finding their “perfect fit”, their passion.  That doesn’t mean they have to have an activity every night of the week, but they also shouldn’t have to just pick one sport or activity and be stuck in it.  Having said that, even young kids need to understand that something’s are more important than others and that they will be good at what they practice.   The best way to teach them responsibility and specialization is to make it a habit when they are young.  They need to finish their homework, study for their test, practice their instrument, go to soccer practice and/or set the table, before they play video games or watch TV.   Sit down with them and have them help you make a list of priorities. (This leads into the topic of making sacrifices, but we’ll save that for another post.)

Once your child finds their passion, specializing in it will bring them more success and with success comes confidence, which is always a good thing.  Specialization will also help them hone other skills, like time management, discipline, work ethic and goal setting. 

If your child wants to be really good at something, then they need to make it a priority. It doesn’t mean that they have to give up everything else, but some of the less important things are going to get less attention.  Something’s gotta give.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Goal Setting, Prioritization, Selecting a sport | 3 Comments »

« Older Entries