How visualisation boosts your performance as a cyclist
Imagine going back in time to your final English exam. You have just taken your seat, and the exams are being handed out by the teachers and supervisors. You are sitting in the gymnasium, and when you look around, you see your classmates with whom you have spent the past years.
You slide your chair closer to the desk. It is completely silent, except for the occasional squeak of teachers’ shoes across the brown, glossy gym floor. The coordinator gives the signal that you may begin and wishes you good luck. What do you see, what do you feel, what do you smell? Are you nervous? What does the gym smell like? Are you focused, or do you want nothing more than to run away as fast as possible? This—what you are doing right now—is called visualisation.
What is visualisation?
Visualisation, mental rehearsal, or imagery is, as a cyclist, an important mental skill that you can use in various ways to build self-confidence and improve performance. Visualisation is about deliberately taking time for yourself to imagine a situation as vividly as possible.
You essentially replay the event like a movie in your mind, trying to include as many details as possible and engaging all of your senses. Your brain cannot distinguish between reality and a vividly imagined experience.
Neural pathways: improve communication within the brain
As a result, you create neural pathways in your brain that make it feel as though you have already been there. These neural pathways facilitate communication between your brain cells and store information that can help you improve specific skills.
When you eventually reach an important moment in your career, you have a much clearer understanding of what is expected of you, and the situation no longer feels new. Your nerves decrease, you know what to do, and your behavior becomes more automatic. This leads to better performance.
When to use visualisation?
Visualisation to reduce pressure and boost confidence
Broadly speaking, there are two situations in which you can use visualisation to your advantage. First, you can visualise stressful or high-pressure moments in the future and integrate them into your daily or weekly routine.
For example, imagine you have a race early in the season in the Dutch polders or the Flemish Ardennes. You know that at kilometer 10 there is a right-hand turn where the race will split in the crosswinds. What you can do is visualise those first 10 kilometers—and the moments beforehand in the starting grid—anticipating what is going to happen and where you have control and influence.
How tense are you? Were you able to warm up properly? When do you move into the starting grid? Which row are you in? What is the plan? On which side do you want to pass other riders once the race kicks off? Are there crashes happening around you? What kind of setbacks do you encounter, and how do you deal with them?
By thinking through these details so thoroughly and visualising them in advance, you ensure that none of these elements feel new when the race actually takes place. You are no longer caught off guard. This approach frees up space on your internal hard drive, allowing you to focus on performing and executing your task.
Here you can find a great video on visualisation by ice hockey player Mike Cammelleri.
Visualise to motivate
The second situation in which visualisation is especially useful is when you visualise your dream goal during moments that are mentally and physically demanding. What do you want to achieve as a cyclist? Do you want to become a professional, or are you already a pro aiming to win a specific race?
When you have to complete a long endurance training session alone in cold rain at five degrees, visualizing these big dreams and goals can help motivate you to push through.
In those moments, you can clearly picture your dream. You see yourself signing your professional contract or crossing the finish line with your arms raised in victory.
Even when you do not feel like it, this visualisation helps you carry yourself through the session. You just have to push through that cold barrier for a little while longer—it is only temporary.
How to visualise properly
Using the PETTLEP model you can get the most out of visualisation as a mental skill. It uses 7 elements that will help you boost your mental images and therefore boost your performance
Physical
With the physical aspect, it is meant that visualization works best when the physical conditions are replicated as accurately as possible. For example, when visualizing a time trial, you might lie in your time-trial position. It also means including the physical responses in your body that belong to the situation.
Think of an elevated heart rate in the finale, tension in your shoulders and forearms while fighting for position, or the pressure and burning sensation in your legs during the final kilometers of a hard race or a long climb.
Environment
The environment in which you visualize should be made as realistic as possible. For example, go to the climb where an important race will be decided and visualize the final minutes there. Sit on your bike on the rollers or the indoor trainer when you want to visualize a time trial or a finale.
Look up images or footage of the course, corners, finishes, or wind-exposed sections so that you can recall the environment in which you have to perform as concretely as possible.
Task
Not every sport requires the same points of focus, and within cycling this may be even more true. Per discipline and per role in the race, there are dozens of possible focus points.
Think of positioning in the peloton, following accelerations, pacing on a climb, controlling your breathing under pressure, or maintaining an aerodynamic position in a time trial.
It is important to choose one—or at most two—focus points to pay attention to during a visualization. In other words: define your task.
Timing
As shown in the video of ice hockey player Cammalleri, the timing of the visualisation is in realtime.
In cycling, this works in the same way. Visualize a ten-minute climb in ten minutes, or a five-kilometer finale in real time. This ensures that every movement, thought, and decision is stored in your system, and that the neural connections in your brain make it feel as if you have already experienced the situation. As a result, you free up working memory to focus on your task during the race.
A good way to practice this is to take your local training loop, visualize it, and time yourself. How close are you to your personal record?
Learning
Imagery is a mental skill. By practicing it regularly, you develop it into a skill that can grow with you as a cyclist.
Start small by visualizing just one corner, one attack, or a short section of a climb. As you become more proficient, you can gradually include more complex situations, such as entire races or multiple scenarios. In this way, visualization always aligns with your current level and stage of development.
Emotion
Emotions are an integral part of sport and are essential as a driving force behind peak performance. This is just as true in cycling. Therefore, make sure that during visualization you also evoke the emotions that belong to the situation.
Think of nervousness before the start, doubt when the pace increases and you feel your legs, frustration when you are caught, or determination when you decide to push on or launch another attack.
By deliberately including these emotions, you train not only your performance, but also your mental resilience.
Perspective
When visualizing, you can adopt different perspectives. You can visualize from an internal perspective, as if you are on the bike yourself and looking through your own eyes. In addition, you can also use an external perspective, for example seeing yourself riding from behind or gaining an overview of the peloton and the race situation from a helicopter view.
It is valuable to practice with multiple perspectives and discover which works best for you. There is no right or wrong here—everyone develops their own preference.
Visualisation script
What you then do, based on these seven conditions, is write a script like a true Hollywood director. From start to finish, you describe your visualization script as clearly and vividly as possible, with as much detail as you can. This way, you prime your brain effectively and know exactly how to respond in the visualized situation.
Did you find this interesting?
My name is Lex Ligtenberg, and I am a sports psychologist specializing in cyclists.
As an ambitious cyclist, do you experience so much doubt before an important race—and so much tension in your body—that it holds back your performance and makes you feel unable to show what you are truly capable of?
Then schedule a free Mindset Scan and let me help you eliminate those doubts and rebuild your self-confidence, so you can finally live up to your potential.
