There’s a simple recipe to turn frustration into new skills on and off the bike.
There’s nothing worse than not riding something you know you should be able to ride: the dab, the bulk, the ride around, the high of a bike. It’s so frustrating, but what if I told you that embracing the frustration is the start of something incredible? That feeling of frustration, like even anger, is the signal that we need not only to learn new skills faster and become better riders but to grow a better brain.
You should know, though, when you fail to listen to the frustration, there’s a downside, but I’ll get to that.
You should also know that you won’t get in here, or here, or here. Nope.
Today I’ll show you why mountain biking in particular is the perfect sport to build a better brain.
There’s a simple recipe to turn frustration into new skills on and off the bike. There are six ingredients you’re going to need, but first, what we’re talking about is neuroplasticity – a brain capable of change, of making and strengthening new neural networks or pathways under certain conditions. “Neuro” is for neuron, the nerve cells in our brains and nervous systems; “plastic” is for changeable, malleable, modifiable.
It was only a few decades ago scientists believed our brains were hardwired by the time we hit 25, but now we know that’s not true at all. So, the question is, how do we create new neural pathways at our age?
Our neural networks are built through play when we’re kids, so rolling around, tumbling, and being upside down all help create a massive, messy network of connections that gets pruned down as we stop this type of play.
As adults, we tend to move more linearly. Road cycling, running, and walking are good examples.
Here’s what Stanford Neuroscience Professor Dr. Andrew Huberman has to say:
“To be clear, I think exercise is wonderful and healthy, can improve cardiovascular function, maintain strength, bone density, all that good stuff, but just working out or doing your exercise of various kinds will not change your nervous system. It will maintain it and it can certainly improve other health metrics, but it is not going to open up the window for plasticity.”
Dr. Andrew Huberman
All right, so what kind of movement does it take to open up that window for plasticity?
“So, there are three main modes of movement, and it turns out that your brain doesn’t really know where your body is except through that proprioceptive feedback. The main way it knows is through three planes of movement that we call pitch, which is like nodding – so if I nod like this, that’s pitch; then there’s yaw, which is side to side, which is like shaking my head no; and then there’s roll from side to side. The brain knows the orientation and position of your body relative to gravity depending on whether or not your brain and your head are actually engaging more in pitch, yaw, or roll, or some combination because if I lean down like so, or like so, it’s a combination of pitch, yaw, and roll.”
Dr. Andrew Huberman
Okay, let’s pause here for a second. Can you see why mountain biking might be ideal for this? Like, think about our rides, we’re up, we’re down, our whole sport is about how to position ourselves to resist gravity, fighting compression, when to lean into a corner or not, braking, changes in velocity. But why? How does it work?
“Sitting in our ears are these semicircular canals, and they’re these little tubes where these little stones – they’re actually little bits of calcium – roll back and forth like little marbles. When we roll this way, they roll this way, when we pitch, when we go from side to side, there’s some that sit flat like this and they go like marbles inside of a hula hoop, and then we have roll, there’s some that are kind of at 45 degrees to those, and it’s kind of pitch, yaw, and roll.”
Dr. Andrew Huberman
Okay, great. That sends signals to the rest of our brain and body that tell us how to compensate for shifts relative to gravity. Guys, this is us, and if you like being part of this club, you should definitely sign up for our weekly email where we share finds like this so that we could be on our bikes in our 70s and our 80s, just like Northshore Betty. “I’m going to be 76 this fall, and I’d be happy to be 70 again. Like, 70 seems young to me, you know?”
So the only other thing I think it’s helpful to know is that given the right conditions, there are three chemicals in our brains that we could tap into that trigger the plasticity that allows us to learn new skills faster and fire up new pathways in our middle-age brains, and they are:
Epinephrine, which increases alertness. You know that feeling as you approach something sketchy on the trail, you get super alert?
Acetylcholine, which increases focus and allows you to hone in on what needs to change.
Dopamine, which, as Huberman says, is usually associated with pleasure, but its role here is the molecule of motivation.
In order to tap into these chemicals, we have to embrace the things on the trail we can’t do, you know, within reason. Listen to yourself, but I want you to listen to this:
“The way to create plasticity is to send signals to the brain that something is wrong, something is different, and something isn’t being achieved. I think this will completely reframe the way that most people think about plasticity. Most of us think about plasticity as okay, we’re going to get into this optimal learning state or flow, and then suddenly we’re going to be able to do all the things that we wish that we could do. I hate to break it to you, but flow is an expression of what we already know how to do. Errors, and making errors, out of sync with what we would like to do, is how our nervous system is cued through very distinct biological mechanisms that something isn’t going right, and therefore certain neurochemicals are deployed that’ll signal the neural circuits that they have to change. Making errors over and over and over again is the route to shaping your nervous system so that it performs better and better and better.
Dr. Andrew Huberman
Great, so before we put this into an easy recipe to turn your next ride into new skills and a better brain, first, you’re going to need those six ingredients:
- Diet and Exercise: At first, I kind of skipped right over this. Yeah, yeah, it’s always diet and exercise ’cause if you’ve been mountain biking for a while, you’re probably fit and thinking about what you eat. But, you know, we’re not all at this point, especially for those learning to mountain bike in middle age, and according to the University of Utah, you will further your neuroplastic change if you also eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, and connect with others. So these are really the table stakes.
- Novelty is Key: Let’s hear why this is so important. “If you’re good at handstands, guess how much plasticity doing handstands for half an hour is going to create for you? Zero. Zero. Your body is fully comfortable walking on your hands. I see these people walking on your hands, being upside down, being inverted, you know, your circus solo performers, they’re very comfortable there, and there is zero learning, zero plasticity because the failures and errors and the relationship to gravity are very typical for that individual.”
Okay, so when we’re riding trails we know like the back of our hands, it’s going to be all flow, you’re not going to unlock the brain chemicals required. But I argue, though, it could be a trail you ride a lot with features you avoid or things you goof every time and move on. I started going to dirt jumps for the first time last year, and by the way, if you’re a beginner, it’s all novelty for you. You’re shifting, breaking, balancing, picking your line. I could literally feel my brain forming new connections when I first started mountain biking. I dream about it at night; I’d fear my next ride. Here’s why it’s number three:
- Our relationship with gravity: The more novel that a behavior is in terms of your relationship to gravity, the more it will open up the opportunity for plasticity. Have you ever seen somebody who just jumped out of a plane for the first time? If you’ve seen somebody after that, they are in this incredible state because their body and brain are flooded with all these neurochemicals because it’s very novel to them. However, you know, I’ve got friends from communities that do, you know, have done thousands upon thousands, maybe tens of thousands of jumps, and they’re always alert and aware, but it becomes pretty regular for them. That’s the point I talked about our obvious relationship with gravity earlier, so let’s just park that for now because next up, we need to have:
- Contingency or like Serious Incentive: Meaning you have to want it bad, or conversely, not having the skill could have dire consequences. And I think in our case, it’s often a combination of the two. My friend Sue, who’s a super strong rider, just told me how much she hates having to get off her bike when she can’t do something, when it interrupts her flow. And for me, I used to ride up to this like 18 to 24 in drop and grab the brakes every single time, and then I just end up riding around it again. So the incentive for me is serious because I know I should be able to ride small drops, it’s just a skill I’m missing, but at the same time, I know if I hit that drop and it doesn’t go well, I could hurt myself.
- Errors, Failures, Mistakes: The annoying things we can’t do are really the key ingredient. Here’s why. People understandably get frustrated like they’re trying to learn a piece on the piano and they don’t know how, they can’t do it, or they’re trying to write a piece of code, or they’re trying to access some sort of motor behavior and they can’t do it, and the frustration drives them crazy. “I can’t do it, I can’t do it!” When they don’t realize that the errors themselves are signaling to the brain and nervous system: something’s not working. And of course, the brain doesn’t understand the words “something isn’t working,” the brain doesn’t even understand frustration as an emotional state. The brain understands the neurochemicals that are released, namely epinephrine and acetylcholine, but also we’ll get into this, the molecule dopamine when we start to approximate the correct behavior just a little bit. Errors are actually the thing. We’ll also talk about what happens if you don’t embrace the frustration, and spoiler alert, not all plasticity is good. But the final ingredient is:
- Good Quality Sleep: Because that’s when the magic really happens. That’s when your brain rewires itself so you’re able to do the new skill, the switchback, the drop, the nose wheelie. And if you’re like me, I think we can expect too much too soon when we’re trying to learn new skills. MTB coach Roxy and I talked about this in this video, and the neuroscience really backs her up. You’re probably not going to master a manual in a few attempts. We learn, we try, we fail, we go to bed, and in the trying, our brain has isolated the neurons where the errors are happening and starts to rewire them. We try again the next day, and we might fail again, and that’s to be expected, but that moment when the wheel comes off the ground, like just a little bit, wow, nice. That’s enough to fire off some dopamine, not for pleasure, but to motivate you to keep going, and then you go to bed again, and this continues for a few days, and then all of a sudden, that skill starts to come together. And if you look back on how long you wanted it, how long you wished you could do that thing, it actually does start to come together pretty quickly.
So now we know the ingredients are diet and exercise, novelty, relationship with gravity, serious incentive, errors, and sleep, but how do we put them together to unlock those brain chemicals to learn new skills faster and level up your riding and get that bonus afterwards? Here’s how we put it into action:
This first one is all mine because it’s mountain bike specific, but you know, I think you’ve got to leave home with the expectation that you’re going to stop and take time to work on something. You’ve got to have that skills mindset. Take time to play; not everything needs to be at warp speed.
I just got tired of screwing up the same things every time, and I started leveling up by watching skills videos for that drop I’d ride around every time. And I decided, “Okay, this time I’m going to stop, I’m going to analyze this thing, I’m going to session it, I’m going to roll it, I’m going to get Glen to pull me into it, and I’m going to conquer this Trail Nemesis.” And then I started doing that pretty much every time I rolled into anything I flubbed, which is a lot, or avoided, and you know what? It just has made riding so much more fun.
Huberman adds that you want to be rested and calm, not tired or wired, and you know you should pick a time of day when you do your best learning.
Okay, so now you’re on the trail and you’re going to embrace your errors and the frustrations. “The da,” you know, these moments we hate, the things we can’t do, these are now opportunities to level up and improve our brains in general.
So recognize the moment and just embrace the frustration, ’cause remember, that’s what triggers those three neurochemicals that allow you to learn the new skill. And now you’re ready to session the feature, but in short bursts, like 15 to 30 minutes max, according to Dr. Huberman. Here’s why it’s a mistake to try and learn a lot of information in one learning bout as an adult:
What these papers from the Lab show, and what others have gone on to show, is that the adult nervous system is fully capable of engaging in a huge amount of plasticity, but you need to do it in smaller increments per learning epoch or per learning episode. So you want to solve for that one thing. The secret to motor-based neuroplasticity is focus. So let’s say if you did laps and laps of a line at Whistler hoping to get better, your brain doesn’t know what error to solve for.
Huberman says we’re capable of massive changes in our brain, but it’s easier to work on small errors at our age. So you want to pick a feature or a skill you want to learn. You’ll know which one it is when you’re ticked off enough, and maybe it’s like an uphill banked switchback.
Cool, now your brain knows what to work on, and then all that’s left to do is get a good night’s sleep.
“Remember, it’s Focus, rest, Focus, rest, Focus, rest, Focus, rest. We focus very intensely; we can’t do the thing, we can’t do the new movement, we can’t do the golf swing, we can’t learn the math. We try, we try, we try, we try, we sleep a few nights, and then all of a sudden, we can do it, right? Because the rewiring actually occurs during deep rest or naps, but mostly during deep sleep. So don’t worry about it if you’re not nailing the manual or the track stand or the switchback immediately, but it probably helps if you can lather, rinse, repeat. That’s right, your assignment is to ride it again tomorrow, return to the scene or something similar, and just practice, practice, and that’s it.”
Dr. Andrew Huberman
And before I tell you about an unexpected bonus, like beyond your rad new skills, you should probably know that plasticity can also be negative. Check this out: If you are uncomfortable making errors and you get frustrated easily, if you leverage that frustration toward drilling deeper into the endeavor, you are setting yourself up for a terrific set of plasticity mechanisms to engage. But if you take that frustration and you walk away from the endeavor, you are essentially setting up plasticity to rewire you according to what happens afterward, which is generally feeling pretty miserable. So now you can kind of start to appreciate why it is that continuing to drill into a process to the point of frustration, but then staying with that process for a little bit longer, and I’ll define exactly what I mean by “a little bit,” is the most important thing for adult learning. Wish I’d known that earlier. I was on a big old plateau for a long time, and then I just started picking off features from my “can’t do” list, and it feels so good. It’s fun to stop and figure stuff out.
How about you? Do you session features, or is it hard to slow your roll? Tell me in the comments, I want to know!
And let’s not overlook the fact that more skills and greater confidence are just like insurance policies against falling and hurting yourself. But that’s not the bonus. The bonus is that when we achieve plasticity, it doesn’t just end at the trail. Your brain remains plastic for a while, so if you go home and read something that you need to learn, or you practice the piano, or you’re learning a new language, your ability to learn those things is enhanced as well.
So what else do you want to achieve? I mentioned earlier that I like to study how to do a new skill before I hit the trail, but instead of any old random YouTube video, I recently found out how we learn matters from mountain bike coach Roxy. This is a great place to start building new skills, and it’s coming up right now.
