Clearing the Path to Victory: A Self-Guided Mental Training Program for Athletes Paperback – January 1, 1994

I picked this book up after seeing it mentioned in The Purposeful Primitive by Marty Gallagher. Supposedly, Russian Olympic athletes were given mental training in accordance with the methods the book describes alongside their physical training.To my surprise and satisfaction, the book not only validated some of the techniques I self-developed for myself, but also provides additional information and methods to bolster mental fortitude and focus during performance. For some background, I compete in powerlifting in USAPL and my last meet Wilks score was 410. Before reading this book, I had already developed some focus techniques for relaxation and some mental processes that I go through before each lift. The word "developed" makes it sound a lot more methodical than it actually was--I had sort of just accumulated those processes and mental routines over time because they led to better results and improved proprioception and awareness of how to stimulate progress. I didn't really know anyone else who went through all this mental preparation and occasionally wondered if I was weird and overdoing it, but reading this book was absolutely illuminating.Aladar Kogler describes step-by-step progressions to mental training. For example, how to increase kinesthetic awareness, which is awareness of one's body and its positioning and sensations. It's applicable to things like estimating strength production and memorizing strength applied in different movements and the angle of movements, which is integral to all movement in sports. He also discusses self-control in regards to the body and one's emotions (for example, to reduce anxiety before a performance), and talks about honing concentration and reviewing past performances through "concentrative analysis" to pinpoint mistakes in movement or in mental focus. There are detailed exercises for all the skills discussed, which is incredibly gratifying. It's easy to vomit a bunch of tips and sayings, but not so easy to discover practical methods to improve an athlete's mental game.The neat stuff in the book starts with what Kogler calls Sport-Modified Autogenic Training. The basics involve being able to relax and direct attention to the upcoming performance, and reduce any distractions internally (like nervousness or wandering thoughts that detract from performance) and reduce susceptibility to external distractions. In my opinion, there's some parts of the chapter that sound a little brosciencey in their justification and not necessarily scientifically accurate, but the core of the mental training is quite applicable. During my own training there are cues or phrases I tell myself before the lift that help me dial in and stay focused, and the book brings up using verbal phrases that the athlete develops themselves to generate a focused mental state, like increasing aggression/determination before a performance. I've noticed that before my hardest yet successful attempts for rep maxes, my mental state is very different from the one I am in day-to-day. There's a focus only on the goal and awareness of the present moment, and everything is smooth and in-sync. No extraneous mental chatter or self-doubt. The system that this book describes is one that can improve an athlete's ability to transition into that focused mental state.Chapter 5 of the book gives some case studies of Olympic athletes and what their autogenic phrases were. Interestingly, this part was also an eye opener for me to see how different some athletes can be mentally, and how different their phrases could be in nature. It makes sense how something like running would be different from fencing (static vs dynamic sport, which Kogler brings up), and also how some emotionally-driven athletes benefit from emotionally-charged verbal phrases and others benefit more from factual, descriptive phrases. For a personal example, when I am shaken or doubting my ability to finish hard sets, thinking the word "optimal" to myself assists me in relaxing, forgetting about my fears, and focusing on making each rep as ideal in efficiency as possible. The focus on maximizing the efficiency of my bar path and the smooth movement of my body pushes any anxiety out my mind.There's a section in the book that uses the term "hypnosis," which is unhelpful because of its silly connotations these days. The essence of the method is to slip into an athlete's trance and prepare for a performance.The last section of the book details "Ideomotor Training," which is one way to say visualization or imagery training. The ideomotor bit refers to how visualizing a movement will actually cause muscle microcontractions and activate neurons in the brain that would also normally fire if the movement was performed. It's the same word as in the term "ideomotor effect," which is how suggestion of an action can cause some unconscious muscle movement, and gets brought up in regards to dowsing and Ouija boards. In this case, the ideomotor training involves visualizing actions or movements as preparation and to boost confidence and motivation. Visualization really does help with confidence--I've consistently had times when I have been feeling exhausted or unsure about a heavy set and after visualizing myself perform the set, I regain my readiness.Certainly ideomotor training may be a fancy-sounding term for it, but it's good to have the term to describe what I had been doing. I've heard this quotation attributed to some Russian weightlifter: "I've already lifted the weight a million times in my head, so there is no hesitation on the platform." Imagery can be very powerful for an athlete.In conclusion, this is a useful book and I would recommend it.

This is a great book to truly learn mental training. It provides many tools to help athletes reach their maximum potential.