Written by: Josh Horowitz

The one week, best ride of your life, last minute training program.

It’s one week till the first race of the season (at least it is here in sunny Southern California) and your training has been good, but not great. You’ve missed some important workouts and you haven’t quite lost all that holiday weight. You’re wondering, what kind of workouts can I do to improve leg strength and leg speed, increase my threshold power and VO2 max and lose 10 pounds in just one week?

Unfortunately, there aren’t any. It takes weeks and even months to see significant changes in the body through training alone. However, there is something you can do in just 7 days to significantly improve performance, motivation, focus and confidence, not just in your cycling pursuits but in every aspect your life. I call it, the 7 Day Mental Detox.

I should start by saying, this is not something I created. During my journey through the world of psychology and sports psychology, I’ve come across this concept several times in a variety of incarnations. I’ve heard Tony Robbins, Emmet Fox and even Deepak Chopra talk about it. It’s not a difficult program in the sense that it doesn’t require intervals, or meditation or hypnosis. In fact, you don’t even have to set aside 5 minutes a day to work on it. Nonetheless, it takes a great deal of hard work and above all, a true desire to change your mental game for the better.

This is not an easy plan and I’m not afraid to admit that even I have never made it through the this entire program. I’ve started it a few times, but I’ve never completed it. However, right now as I write this, I am making a vow to start it again on Tuesday morning when this article is published. I’m hoping the knowledge that some of you reading this will come along for the journey will give me that added incentive to see it through to the end. Afterwards, I look forward to hearing your stories of success and, let’s not say failure, but abandoned attempts. Let’s face it, if it were easy, everyone would do it.

This program is so simple that I can give the instructions it in just one sentence.

Think nothing but positive thoughts for one week.

By having only positive thoughts for 7 days you will permanently change the deep-seated thought patterns in your brain and the brain chemistry that has developed around them to keep them in place. Negative, self deprecating thoughts are like an old worn out pair of sneakers. They’re bad for your arches, the hurt your knees when you run and they look like your dog’s been using them as a chew toy, but they are comfortable and you are used to them so you keep them around.

These thoughts are comforting and reassuring, not just because we’ve cuddled up to them for so long but because let’s face it, they give us an excuse to fail. You get dropped on the group ride. I’m too old to keep up with these guys. You are the last one to make it to the top of a local hill climb. I’ve always been a terrible climber. You skid out in a corner on a fast descent and nearly go down. I’m a terrible bike handler. These thoughts take the sting out of failure, but they don’t help use move forward. In fact, they allow us to sink deeper into our own negative misconceptions about our selves and prevent any chance of acheving success in these areas. It’s time to change all that!

Negative thoughts are just like that pair of old shoes. You know they’re bad for you and they do nothing to solve your problems, but they’ve been around for so long that they are actually somewhat comforting, much in the same way that listening to sad music when you are feeling blue is soothing. It doesn’t make you feel better per se, but it tells you that it’s ok to wallow in your misery so you might as well enjoy it.

This comfort with negativy is what this program aims to eliminate. Let’s go back to the shoes. You buy a new pair. They are stiff and uncomfortable. They give you blisters at first and you are afraid to wear them out of the house lest they get dirty. But after a week, you break them in. The blisters turn to calluses and suddenly you are running faster and longer than every before.

The feelings you will experience when you begin this withdrawal process from negativity are like those first few days in the new sneakers. You may even relate it to the feelings of withdrawing from an addictive drug like nicotine. Your brain has actually become physically addicted to those thoughts. They’ve worn comfortable tracks into your mind like the groove in a record. You will actually become physically uncomfortable as you enter the mental detox. You will feel a desperate pull to return to those negative thoughts like an alcoholic might feel when he walks past a liquor store.

The first few days will be the hardest. After that, the positive thoughts will begin to flow more freely and the pull of the old habit of doubtful, negative thinking will dissipate. After a week, the new positive thoughts you’ve been filling your mind with, will have scratched out the old grooves that the negative thoughts created and worn their own, new grooves. Now, the positive, hopeful, optimistic thoughts will be the ones that pull you in, that you are addicted to.

The Detox Program

This is what you must do. For one week, you can not say or do anything negative. You must immediately banish negative thoughts as they come into your head. You must do this not just with cycling, but with all aspects of your life. Not only should you avoid thinking about what a bad climber you are or worrying that you might crash or get hit by a car, you also must not worry that you might lose your job, or worry that your girlfriend will dump you or even get angry when you see injustices on the nightly news.

NO MATTER HOW BAD YOU MAY WANT TO, YOU MUST NOT HAVE A NEGATIVE THOUGHT, ACTION OR FEELING.

And trust me, you will want to. Perhaps some of you are thinking, I’m a pretty positive person, this should be no problem for me, but consider the following emotions that must be completely avoided on this detox. Anger, Sadness, Irritation, Impatience, Doubt, Worry, Insecurity, Resentment, Hatred, Bitterness, Dislike, Nervousness, Disgust, Worry, Depression, Dejection, Despair, Unhappiness, Anguish, Misery, Anxiety, Angst, Dislike. You can’t be Too Hot, Too Cold, Itchy, Hungry, Uncomfortable, Tired, Sore, Bored. You can’t get angry at the driver who cuts you off in traffic or the rider in front of you who forgets to call out a pot hole on a group ride. You can’t get angry when you ride into that pot hole and get a double flat and you can’t get upset when no one stops for you and you have to shell out $30 for a cab ride home because you only brought one tube. Doesn’t sound so easy now, does it?

The Technique

So how is it done? How is it possible to simply banish negative thoughts with the snap of a finger? Although it is a difficult process, the technique for doing it is actually quite simple. First of all, do not try not to think of negative thoughts. Try this exercise. For the next 10 seconds, whatever you do, don’t think about purple polar bears. How did it go? Not so well I’d imagine. This time, for the next 10 seconds, instead of trying not to think about purple polar bears, instead try to think of something else like yellow panda bears. How did it work out this time? Better, right?

The technique for adhering to this mental cleanse is just as simple. Instead of trying NOT to think something negative, try TO think of something positive. In one word, affirmations. Every time a negative thought of any kind starts to sneak into your mind, you must IMMEDIATELY cancel it out with a positive thought or affirmation. You must have this affirmation ready at all times, somewhere in your mind where you can quickly and easily pull it out like a gunfighter with his six shooter. The affirmation can be any positive phrase. Anything with any positive connotation whatsoever. I have two that work for me in just about any situation. When I’m on the bike or in a cycling setting, the one I have my trigger finger on is, I’m a great bike racer. In any other situation, I’m a great person seems to work pretty well.

The words themselves don’t necessarily mean anything. What counts is the function that they serve, which is to block the negative thought before it takes root in your mind. Try to come up with a few affirmations that are unique to you, that trigger a positive feeling in your mind. Think of the feeling or thought that you wish to banish the most. Then think of the inverse, positive version of that doubt or fear and make that your affirmation.

Set Sail

Now that you have an understanding of the monumental task ahead of you, you are ready to embark on your journey. Before you began, you must decide if this is really something you are ready to do. You may even want to think it over for a few days before you begin. It’s a huge commitment and it’s not something you can casually approach. Prepare yourself for the possibility that it will be harder than you’d imagined and that you may at many points want to quit. Once you’ve purposefully determined your intention to complete this task, approach it like you’d approach a new goal on the bike. Love the challenge and even the pain and always keep your eye on the end goal of crossing the finish line, winning the race and having your best day ever.

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