Improve Your Concentration To Improve Your Running and Juggling
Training for a marathon takes motivation, focus and concentration. Joggling can make it even harder.
You may find that the hardest days are those when you’re training schedule calls for a 20 miler. But it’s not that the running or joggling is necessarily hard. It’s more that the thought of spending hours and hours on your feet can get you down. In Chicago, you’ll also experience cold weather, wind, ice and snow to zap your motivation. It’s enough to make some jogglers stay home.
To overcome negative, demotivating thoughts you should try training your brain. The folks over at Ego Development put together these 10 exercises you can do to increase focus and concentration. Read that post for an explanation. I’ve included comments as to how a runner or joggler might modify them.
10 Concentration Improving Exercises
1. Hold a thought. – See how long you can hold a picture of yourself juggling in your mind.
2. Count words. – Interesting idea. I’d use a computer document instead as you can use the word count feature of the word processor to see if your word count is right.
3. Watch an object. – Use one of your joggling bags or other juggling equipment to stare at.
4. Stare at a geometrical figure. To help with juggling, use the infinity sign as the geometrical figure.
5. Concentrate on your heart. Listen to your heartbeat. I like to do this as I go to bed. It’s interesting to see what goes on in your brain while you fall asleep.
6. Stare at a clock. I’ve seen people do this at work but I don’t think they were trying to improve their concentration abilities.
7. Visualize numbers. Funny, when I do this I say the numbers in my head.
8. Visualize an object. Again, use your joggling bag for this exercise.
9. Keep a dream log. Do this enough and you’ll get to a point where you may experience lucid dreaming. It’s pretty cool.
10. Concentrate on a single spot. This is a great exercise to do while joggling on a treadmill. I’ve stared at a single sport for over 25 minutes.
These are a couple of books that I really like for improving your mind. They’re enjoyable and if you really do the exercises you will notice a difference in how your brain works.
This Post Has 3 Comments
When I was in college, one of my classmates (Mike Ashcroft) was a Commonwealth Games champion and co-holder of the world record at prone rifle. This takes insane concentration — if memory serves, Mike’s record was 5998 out of a possible 6000 points.
Mike had a very large sheet of bright white paper taped above his desk, with a very small dot in the middle. He’d stare at it for hours. We all thought he was nuts, but apparently it worked.
i wonder what the 101 year old who is running the London Marathon does for motivation/improve concentration. I’m expecting you to meet him in April when you’re there and joggling!
If I do, I’ll get pictures.