Potega nauki?

[DeZoo]

Jest to wiadomosc podana przez PAP

"Puls Medycyny" o tajemnicy sukcesów Adama Małysza
Sukcesy skoczka narciarskiego Adama Małysza są w dużej części zasługą stosowanej przez jego psychologa terapii biofeedback - informuje gazeta "Puls Medycyny".
Biofeedback jest metodą psychoterapii pozwalającą kontrolować procesy zachodzące w organizmie. Uczy panowania nad własnymi reakcjami, pomaga odpowiednio relaksować się, rozluźniać mięśnie, oddychać, a tym samym radzić sobie w ekstremalnych warunkach.
W latach sześćdziesiątych była stosowana przez amerykańskich astronautów, a obecnie korzystają z niej osoby narażone na stres, w tym sportowcy. Pomaga także w leczeniu wielu chorób.
"W praktyce wygląda to tak: badana osoba jest podłączona do aparatu, który wychwytuje pewne formy aktywności organizmu (np. potencjały elektryczne w mięśniach). Następnie informacja ta płynie do aparatu, który ją przetwarza i w bardziej dla nas przyswajalnej formie, np. w postaci wychylenia wskazówki lub świecących się diod wraca do badanej osoby".
"Kiedy już te informacje do nas dotrą, staramy się na ich podstawie wpływać na procesy zachodzące w organizmie badanej osoby, poprzez ich świadome kontrolowanie" - tłumaczy na łamach "Pulsu Medycyny" psycholog Małysza, dr Jan Blecharz z krakowskiej AWF.
"Metoda biofeedback to co prawda tylko jeden z elementów wchodzących w skład treningu Adama Małysza, ale jestem przekonany, że ma niezwykle istotny wpływ na jego sukcesy. Pozwala mu się wyciszyć i skupić przed skokami, a to bywa w sporcie decydujące" - uważa Blecharz.
Małysz był rewelacją ubiegłego sezonu. Zdobył złoty i srebrny medal mistrzostw świata, Puchar Świata i wygrał prestiżowy Turniej Czterech Skoczni. W piątek w fińskim Kuopio wystartuje w turnieju inaugurującym nowy sezon, którego ukoronowaniem będą igrzyska olimpijskie w Salt Lake City.

[PAwel]

Dzięki Tytus za tekst.

Chyba używałeś tej metody w VI, olimpijskiej księdze

[DeZoo]

Ostatnio bardzo mnie zaineresowały teksty Wojtka o potedze psychiki na osiagane przez nas wyniki...
Zaczelem rozmawiac z kilkoma znanymi mi medalistami w biegach i widze ze wszyscy oni zawdzieczja swoje sukcesy treningom "psychicznym". Kiedys tez czytalem jakis tekst o naszej czolowej sprinerce szewinskiej ona tez ponoc takie "czary" uprawiala.
Chyba tedy droga....

[wojtek]

Mam taki aparacik do biofeedback . Cala rzecz polega na zmianie opornosci skory .
Ogolne zasady sa takie jak przy aparaturze do wykrywania klamstw . Na terenie Stanow aparaciki te sa ogolnie dostepne w cenie okolo 12 $ ,  w sieci sklepow elektronicznych Radio Shack .

Jest wiele stron poswieconym zagadnieniu . Oto jedna z nich z licznymi gadzetami :
http://webideas.com/biofeedback/index/



(Edited by wojtek at 12:35 am on Nov. 21, 2001)

[adamm]

Podobno dzięki zapewnieniu informacji zwrotnej można nauczyć się kontrolować dowolną czynność organizmu. Włącznie z pochłanianiem pokarmu lewą lub prawą połową żołądka.

[Ryszard]

Na marginesie chciałbym powiedzieć, że zanim dr Blecharz dysponował aparaturą do pomiaru różnych funkcji organizmu, pracował z Polarem. Model, zapisujący każde uderzenie serca (beat to beat) rejestruje również zmienność rytmu serca. Dane te są przetwarzane na wartość liczbową, która wyświetla się na ekranie. Jest to tzw. relaksacja. Im stopień relaksacji wyższy tym zawodnik bardziej odprężony i wyłączony. W ten sposób można ćwiczyć różne techniki relaksacyjne i wykorzystywać je w konkretnych sytuacjach. Skoczkowie włączają system koncentracji np. tuż przed oddaniem skoku - gdy pali się czerwone światło i czekają na zielone. Wtedy adrenalina powoduje bardzo silny wzrost tęna. Gdy pobudzenie jest za duże skok najczęściej jest nieudany. W podobny sposób koncentrują się strzelcy, łyżwiaże figurowi i inni gdzie ważne jest wyłączenie się z bodźców zewnętrznych.

R.

[Mifor]

Jak to się ma do biegania? Tu mamy długotrwały
jednostajny wysiłek fizyczny, tam skupienie przed jednostkowym elementem technicznym.
Inna specyfika. Rozumiem jeszcze przy sprincie, ale co możemy kupić z tych technik przy długim biegu?

Jacek

[wojtek]

Learning to relax while running will help you run faster



This is a very interesting study ("Biofeedback and relaxation techniques  improve running economy in sub-elite long-distance runners." Ciard et al,  1999. Med Sci Sp & Ex, 31(5), pp 717-722) because it is one of the first to  demonstrate how to improve running economy, one of the most important  endurance performance factors.



Seven competitive runners completed the study. Initially, their fitness was  tested in the lab to establish VO2max, lactate threshold, running economy  and peak running velocity. To do this, the subjects had to perform a  discontinuous incremental treadmill test. Each stage lasted five minutes and  was followed by five minutes rest. Males started at 14kph, females at 12kph,  and each stage was increased by 1kph until the athlete could not complete  the five minutes. Oxygen consumption (VO2,ml/kg/min) heart rate,  ventilation rate and blood lactate concentrations were measured for each  stage. From this test the researchers established the VO2max of the athletes  and their lactate threshold. VO2, heart rate and ventilation rate at lactate  threshold were used as measurements of running economy.



Each athlete then completed a six-week training programme involving 12  sessions of relaxation techniques and biofeedback running training. The  relaxation techniques used were Progressive Muscular Relaxation (PMR)  and centering. PMR involves contraction, then relaxation of muscles and  centering involves breathing techniques and the use of key words. Once the  PMR and centering techniques were established, the athletes were given a  heart rate monitor and were asked to practise lowering their heart rate using  centering. They also performed biofeedback running training. After each  relaxation session the athletes ran on the treadmill at 70% of peak velocity  while receiving visual biofeedback of oxygen consumption, ventilation rate  and heart rate. The athletes were asked to practise lowering each of these  variables with the relaxation techniques they had just been practising.



After this six week period, the results were very encouraging. The athletes  were re-tested as they were at the start. Results showed that they had  learned to lower their heart rates by 2.5%, oxygen consumption by 7.3% and  ventilation by 9.2%. Furthermore, the tests also showed that no  improvement in fitness had taken place. The researchers therefore concluded  that the athletes' ability to run at lactate threshold with lower heart rates,  breathing rates and oxygen consumption was due solely to their increased  ability to relax while running.





From Peak Performance Online Newsletter, December, 1999

[wojtek]

Ta sama sprawa ale znacznie lepiej wytlumaczona

If you let your mind control your heart, you can improve your performances.

Can your mind make you a better athlete? Sports psychologists believe that the way you think, your ability to relax, the manner in which you regulate your state of arousal, and your confidence, concentration, and determination all help determine how well you can perform. On the other hand, sceptics contend that athletic activity is mainly a matter of muscle and heart and sometimes make jokes, such as, 'If the mind matters so much, Einstein would have been a 2:05 marathoner'.

Despite such doubts, scientific studies have often supported the idea that mental strategies can improve exercise capacity. Interestingly enough, one of the best-validated ideas has been the notion that a few skillful tweaks of the nervous system can improve muscular efficiency, lowering the energetic cause of specific exercise intensities and thereby permitting athletes to work at higher-than-usual levels.


Release the handbrake
How could a shift in mental status help you run, cycle, or swim more economically? One idea is that a change in arousal - a shift to a more relaxed and less uptight state - can ease muscle tension and allow the legs and arms to flow more smoothly and with less resistance as one trains and races. The contention is that having too-tight muscles is a bit like driving a car with the hand-brake on. Just as the brake keeps the vehicle from rolling along with maximum speed, overly tight muscles waste energy and diminish muscular power. Of course, critics caution that one must somehow find a balance between tightness and looseness; if there is too much relaxation, an athlete might lose the determination to work at a high rate, actually lowering workout and race quality.

In addition to decreasing the resistance to motion, relaxation might work in another key way. Basically, the idea is that if you can tone down the excitement in your nervous system, there will be less nervous-system stimulation of the heart and respiratory muscles. This would lead to lower heart and breathing rates at particular exercise intensities, reducing both the oxygen and calorie cost of exerting oneself (and thereby enhancing economy). Critics contend that you might not be able to move along at your normal paces if your heart and breathing rates dropped off (there'd be too little blood and oxygen delivered to your muscles, they say), but supporters of relaxation point out that the lungs could still oxygenate the blood effectively with more modest breathing rates - and that the heart may already be pumping 'surplus' blood because of over-stimulation by the nervous system.

Do mental-relaxation strategies really work? If they did, they could definitely benefit your performances. In the world of running, for example, just a 1-per cent amelioration of economy could shave 20 to 30 seconds from an average runner's 10-K time. With a 3- per cent gain, there would be a greater-than one-minute improvement, enough to push the 41-minute 10-K harrier down into the magical 'thirty-somethings.'

Benson's contribution
Awareness of relaxation techniques for athletes actually dates back to the 1970s, when a noted medical doctor named Herbert Benson started taking an avid interest in exercise. Benson, the author of the very popular book, The Relaxation Response, which showed large numbers of people how to use relaxation therapy to soothe their simmering blood-pressure readings, began interviewing successful long-distance runners and concluded that the use of mental strategies had a marked impact on their performances. He became fascinated by the idea that relaxation techniques could lower the oxygen cost of running, thereby upgrading economy and improving performances.

That wasn't a bad idea, since research had already shown that mental techniques could induce a 'hypometabolic state' in individuals who were at rest. In a unique study to determine the effects of relaxation on exercise, Benson first taught a group of four males and four females (only two of whom had been engaged in prior physical training) how to carry out the 'relaxation response'. This involved sitting quietly in a comfortable position, closing the eyes, and then deeply relaxing all the muscles, beginning at the toes and working up to the face. Subjects were instructed to breathe through their noses and become more aware of their breathing patterns, and with each exhalation, the word 'ONE' was stated silently. The focused breathing and muscle relaxation continued for a period of 20 minutes, after which the subjects sat quietly for several minutes, first with closed eyes and then with them open.

Relaxation beginners often have trouble 'getting into' such efforts, but Benson enhanced his students' abilities to relax by encouraging them to avoid worrying about how 'successful' they were at relaxing. Pupils simply maintained a passive attitude and permitted relaxation to occur at its own pace. Distracting thoughts popping into the mind during the technique were ignored or were pushed out of the brain with the rather relentless use of the word 'ONE'.

After the subjects had practised Benson's relaxation technique twice daily for a period of at least six months (!), they were ready for a bit of exertion. During the exercise test, all eight individuals pedalled an exercise bicycle at a constant intensity for 30 minutes, but only during the middle portion of the workout (from minute 10 to minute 20) did the subjects attempt to use their learned relaxation responses. Their heart and oxygen-consumption rates from this middle portion of the workout were compared with those from the first and last 10-minute periods, when no special relaxation was attempted.

While the relaxation didn't have any effect at all on heart rate, it did decrease oxygen consumption by as much as 10 per cent in a couple of subjects and by 4 per cent overall, a statistically significant change. Although it appeared that Benson's technique actually worked, critics carped that the chosen exercise heart rate - a mere 100 beats per minute - was too low for the study to have much applicability to serious athletes. In addition, those interested in weight loss complained that they needed workouts that used more oxygen and burned more calories, not less. Those people wanted to tense up a bit, not relax, during their training sessions.


How does it happen?
Of course, many people also wondered exactly how changes in nervous-system activity could diminish oxygen consumption. A subsequent study carried out at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland attempted to answer that question. At NIH, 10 college athletes worked out on exercise bicycles at an intensity of about 60 to 70 per cent of max heart rate. Half the subjects looked at beat-by-beat displays of their actual pulse rates while they exercised and were instructed to lower their heart rates during exertion, while the other half were unaware of how fast their hearts were beating and received no encouragement to slow them down. The athletes who were using displays of internal, usually unavailable physiological information in an attempt to regulate what was happening inside their bodies were utilising a technique called biofeedback.

After practising heart-rate lowering during four different workouts, the athletes viewing heart-rate monitors were tested in a fifth training session at a work load which had previously elicited a heart rate of about 65-per cent max. Observation of their heart rates during this test did help the athletes slow down their cardiac centres rather impressively (perhaps this may be one of the few useful applications of heart monitors). In fact, athletes viewing heart-rate displays exhibited a useful 22-per cent smaller increase in heart rate during exercise, compared to those pedalling along without such biofeedback. In addition, the individuals who looked at monitors used oxygen at approximately 6-per cent lower rates and reduced ventilation by around 14 per cent, even though actual exercise intensity had not been lowered.

In addition to showing that exercisers had at least some mental control over what was happening inside their bodies, this NIH study was valuable in a couple of other ways. First, unlike Benson's investigation, it used real athletes exercising at higher heart rates (about 126 beats per minute). In addition, it tested a popular hypothesis, which was that the nervous system could enhance exercise economy by partially de-activating its 'sympathetic system', the part of the nervous system which produces what physiologists have liked to call the 'flight-or-fight' response. Since sympathetic-system activity tends to hike heart and oxygen-consumption rates and increase muscle tension, that thinking made sense. However, the NIH researchers were able to show that levels of two key chemicals produced by the sympathetic system - adrenaline and noradrenaline - were actually no different in the lowered-heart-rate people, compared to controls. Something other than the sympathetic system seemed to be involved in making exercise more efficient!
Meanwhile, evidence supporting a 'mind-over-body phenomenon' continued to pile up. Research showed that subjects could either consciously increase or decrease heart rate during tests of physical strength. Such control was not a purely human endeavour; physiologists found that even monkeys could decrease their heart rates during weight-lifting activity. Investigators also demonstrated that cyclists could lower heart rate while pedalling at an intensity of about 75% VO2max.


Showdown at Otago
The Benson, NIH, and monkey studies were all steps in the right direction, but it remained for Sarah Caird, Gordon Sleivert, and Alexander McKenzie from the University of Otago in New Zealand to look at the benefits of relaxation and biofeedback in an even more relevant situation - with real-live athletes working at about lactate-threshold intensity. In the Otago work, eight competitive male and female distance runners were initially tested to determine VO2max, running economy, lactate threshold, and peak running velocity. For the following six weeks, the subjects took part in formal relaxation training three times each week.

During the first week, each athlete learned Phase 1 of Jacobsen's Progressive Muscular Relaxation (PMR) programme - and also a technique known as 'centreing'. PMR is a procedure in which individuals contract particular muscle groups and then relax them, attempting to release as much tension as possible. Athletes have reported that PMR makes muscles feel much looser, and the technique has also become a somewhat popular method of easing tension in individuals suffering from insomnia (there's no evidence that it makes athletes fall asleep during competitions, however).

Centreing is a relaxation and concentration exercise which emphasises abdominal breathing and the use of key words. As they engaged in centreing, the athletes were usually standing, with feet shoulder-width apart and hands resting on their abdomens. As part of the process, the runners focused on a point just behind their navels and were told to 'feel the relationship of their entire body' to this point. They also were attentive to the motions of their abdominal areas as they expanded and contracted during breathing. At all times, they attempted to breathe with their stomachs, not just with their chests. As they breathed in, the athletes repeated a cue word to themselves as a reminder to centre, usually either 'centre' or 'focus'. As they exhaled, they uttered another word reminding them to relax. After exhalation, and just before inhalation, they tried to focus on lowering oxygen consumption, heart rate, and ventilation. During the first week, 15 minutes each were devoted to centreing and PMR per session.

During the second week, five minutes per session were devoted to the relaxation stage of PMR and 10 minutes to centreing. During week three, five minutes and seven minutes were reserved for PMR and centreing, respectively. For week four, the athletes practised PMR and centreing for five minutes each. During the final two weeks, there was no special PMR instruction, but subjects trained at centreing for three to five minutes. However, the athletes attempted to practise PMR and centreing for a total of 15 minutes at home each day throughout the study.


The exercise
Ten minutes after the end of each relaxation and/or centreing practice, the athletes began cruising along on treadmills at lactate-threshold running velocity. Each treadmill effort lasted for 10 minutes; for the first five minutes, runners received no biofeedback, but during the second five minutes heart, oxygen-consumption, and ventilation rates were displayed on a screen in front of them. During this second five-minute period, the runners tried to lower these rates using the relaxation and centreing techniques they had learned (they didn't have to put their hands on their navels, though!).

Did the combination of relaxation and centreing work? You bet it did! While employing the relaxation and centreing (along with biofeedback from the displays) during the second five minutes of the treadmill rambles, the athletes were able to lower their ventilatory rates by over 9 per cent, oxygen consumption by greater than 7 per cent, and heart rates by almost 3 per cent. The 7-per cent amelioration of economy (oxygen consumption) would have translated into approximately a four-minute improvement in 15-K time for someone normally completing the race in about 60 minutes. That's a tremendous bonus, especially when you realise that the improvement was not the result of any upswing in actual physical fitness. The positive change was totally mediated by the mind!
Would the athletes have been able to move so economically without the displays (biofeedback)? That's an important question, since most of us are unable to view representations of what's going on inside our bodies on video monitors as we train and race. Of course, the biofeedback is a help, since it provides immediate information about how well one's relaxation-and-centreing strategy is working. If nothing is happening on the screen, one can try harder or slightly change one's mental focus. Again, that's where a heart monitor might come into play: while remaining at one's goal pace during a race, one could centre, relax, and use the feedback from the little device to determine how well the mental strategies were working. Note, however, that heart rate was much less responsive to the relaxation-and-centreing intervention than oxygen consumption and ventilation, dropping by just 2.54 per cent, versus 7 and 9 per cent, respectively. If your heart rate were 160 or so, that would be a downturn of just three or four beats, not much to look for, especially considering the fact that heart rate naturally tends to wander around, even when you're training at fixed velocities.

The New Zealand researchers do believe that relaxation and centreing might work without biofeedback, and in fact they were able to show that the athletes were still more economical after the study was over - when the biofeedback information was no longer provided. However, that's not the same as saying that biofeedback wasn't needed during the learning process as the athletes gradually developed the ability to lower their oxygen-consumption and ventilation rates.


Practical points
The bottom line is that the relaxation and centreing techniques are certainly worth a try. To achieve optimal results, one should use them immediately before one races or trains (in the Otago research, utilisation of relaxation and centreing techniques preceded running by no more than 10 minutes). For the techniques to have practical value, of course, another key point is that one must somehow not only be centred and relaxed but also aroused and determined enough to work at one's goal velocity. In a race or high-intensity-workout setting, that is a true juggling act, because arousal often produces increased muscle tension and higher heart rates, not relaxation and attenuated economy.

One way to learn to be both relaxed and aroused would be to schedule some high-intensity, high-relaxation sessions on the track. On the day of the week reserved for intervals or speedwork, you would go to the track, warm up thoroughly, carry out your stretching routine, use the PMR and centreing techniques which you have been practising so diligently, warm up a little more, and then run 800-metre intervals at 5-K pace while staying loose, relaxed, and centred - and yet absolutely determined to run at 5-K velocity. That is a combination of mental and physical training which has the potential for producing prodigious performance bonuses.

It's clear that mental strategies which employ relaxation and centreing have a lot of promise: the 7-per cent enhancement of economy at lactate-threshold speed obtained by the Otago athletes is something we all would like to achieve! It's also clear that one would have to practise the mental techniques fairly frequently and become very comfortable with them before they would really have value (remember that the Otago athletes worked on mental strategies every day for six weeks). Our recommendation is that PMR and centreing should become regular parts of your training. PMR appears to be a good way to enhance flexibility and ease muscle tension. When PMR is linked with centreing, athletes have a potentially very powerful way to exercise more economically - and thus at higher speeds during high-quality workouts and races. The ability to relax may also help us cope more effectively with really tough situations in races; if we can relax and centre instead of focusing on how bad we feel, we have a better chance of continuing the race at a desirable speed.

If PMR and centreing don't work for you, you should develop some systematic way to relax. Important studies carried out by one of the 'dons' of economy research - Don Morgan of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro - has shown that exercise economy does vary from day to day, without any corresponding changes in actual fitness. A key cause of this change in efficiency is your mood, with increases in tension being a key factor which hurts economy. These changes aren't trivial - ranging from 1.5 to 3 per cent, enough to have a big impact on your performances.

Owen Anderson


This kind of information is available on a regular basis in the monthly Peak Performance Newsletter online or in print

Peak Performance Online home

(Edited by wojtek at 1:34 am on Nov. 21, 2001)