A Beautiful Mind-The Untapped Power of The Human Brain that every athlete should know about!

The Human Brain has been described by many scientists as the most complex structure in the known universe. While this may be a fairly arrogant claim, it has been estimated that our minds can store up to 2.5 petabytes of information.That’s the equivalent of 13 million hours of video streaming- that’s a lot of Netflix and Chill with the missus!! Its ability to process vast amounts of information and produce higher order consciousness makes up the people we are. Our likes, our dislikes, our ambitions and our deepest desires are all inside that little noggin of ours- everything about us as a person is essentially contained within our mind. A labyrinthian network of billions upon billions of neurons is constantly firing electrical impulses which control the tiniest movements of muscles to the abstract thoughts and ideas, which dictate the decisions we make in our lives.

There is a certain elegance and beauty about what we currently understand about the human mind, but I believe there is even further beauty in what we don’t. One of the biggest questions that endurance athletes and exercise physiologists have is what role the brain plays in controlling exercise and pushing your body to its physical limits.An excellent example of how powerful the human mind can be when it comes to attempting to achieve a goal and enhancing endurance performance is the story of the life of David Goggins, a former Navy SEAL and ultra-endurance runner.

I recently listened to one of his podcasts and was blown away about the trials and tribulations that he has endured throughout his life. One of the most poignant events he spoke about was his first ultra-marathon run. In order to qualify for a major Ultra-marathon event, he had to complete a 100 mile run around a running track within 24 hours. Even with appropriate training coming into such a gruelling event, the body would be pushed to its absolute physiological limits. However, David claimed that he had only previously accumulated a total of 50 miles in the previous 6 months!!! You don’t have to be a physiologist or an exercise scientist to know that this is utter madness.

Now many of you will read this and say “why would he put himself through this?” or “why has he done no training for this?”. Yes, it is insanity that he has done literally no training for this event, but that’s not the point here. The point I’m trying to make is that this man is a pure example of what it is to be driven-to strive for a goal that is seemly unattainable, but not stopping until it is achieved.

For the first 50 miles or so he said he felt pretty good, but when he reached the 80 mile mark he claimed that he felt his “body was starting to shut down”. He was moments away from going off the side of the track and collapsing from exhaustion until he started thinking about his life and what he had endured. His difficult upbringing, his struggles with obesity, his heart problems. All of these thoughts came rushing into his head and suddenly all of that pain and fatigue left him and he continued to run. At the 24 hour mark he had ran 110 miles!!!! He had finally finished and his body started going into shock, he started suffering immense pain all around his body. He said that he had never felt pain like it in his life, but he “never felt better” in his life.

While I would never recommend going into such an extreme sport with so little training, this serves as a stark example of the role that the mind can play in regulating endurance performance when we start to become fatigued. So, what is going on here? How can the brain push the body on to continue exercising, even if our physiological systems are crying out to stop?

Multiple theories have been put forward explaining the mechanisms behind this phenomenon, but a new emerging theory which seems to show some promise is the Integrative Governor Theory. According to this theory, the psychological drives of the mind are competing with the physiological systems of the body. Both the mind and body are feeding information forward and back through neurological, metabolic and hormonal processes which regulate the intensity of exercise. A common mechanism of our physiological systems, such as the Krebs Cycle, is to down regulate its own activity to protect bodily tissue from being damaged. Our physiology tends to overcompensate with this mechanism and so we have a reserve of energy we often don’t use. However, a strong enough psychological drive can override these body defence mechanisms in order to keep exercising.

(Gibson, Swart and Tucker, 2017)
Figure 1

Based on previous experiences of activity or deep motivational drives, an expectation of upcoming physical activity from the distance to be travelled or the intensity required to complete an exercise task can regulate this upcoming activity through messages from the brain to the active muscles. As exercise activity continues, feedback from metabolic, hormonal and neurological systems in the muscles sends messages back to the brain to tell it if the body is going too hard or not hard enough. As we reach the end of an exercise task, the protective mechanisms of our physiological systems begin to outweigh our psychological drive to keep exercising and thus we fatigue. The Figure 1 above demonstrates the processes that I have described.

Going back to our mental friend, David Goggins, he was capable of overriding these physiological defense mechanisms where he was able to maximise the energy output of these systems, but to a point where he began to seriously injury his bodily tissues. He provides us with an example of how the human body is capable of pushing itself beyond previous expectations, however, we must be cautious when we are pushing ourselves to these limits as we can place demands on the body which could result in serious hormonal, metabolic or musculoskeletal dysfunction.

The Human Brain is truly a fascinating organ, which can allows us to achieve feats that are seemingly impossible to the average person. But, this power is not just limited to the genetic freaks of high performance sport. It can be accessed by anyone, including those who see themselves as “average”. David Goggins described himself as someone who was extremely overweight and who had no goals at an earlier stage of his life. However, he was able to achieve something, which boggled the minds of everyone who knew him and has left a lasting impression on me as to what is physically possible. I had a theoretical understanding of what a human was physically capable of doing, but this man has opened up my eyes of what is “actual” possible- and I hope he has opened up yours. So…. with all that said, what’s your excuse!!