It was the cruelest twist of all. The cyclists in Christiana Bédard-Thom’s research study were 11 minutes into an all-out 20-minute time trial when—horror of horrors—the screen displaying their power, cadence, and elapsed time went blank. The researchers urged them to keep pedaling, but they had nothing to gauge their effort except their feelings. Exactly two minutes later, the screen flickered back on, magically “fixed.”
How did the riders handle this disruption? That would depend, according to Bédard-Thom’s hypothesis, on how mentally tough they were. When things go wrong, that’s when you find out how gritty you really are.
Mental toughness is a hot concept these days, among both academics and athletes. Its rise reflects the growing recognition that performance depends as much on the brain as on the body, but it has proven to be a slippery concept to define. Bédard-Thom, along with colleagues Frédéric Guay and Christiane Trottier of the University of Laval in Canada, recently presented an updated model to explain what mental toughness is and how to improve it. Her new study, published in the…
