How to Tame your Adrenaline | By Unleashing It!

“Do you see the happiness? All coming from the inside. This is what you do.  

This is what you instill in your athletes: Inner strength and self-confidence.”

- Father of a young athlete

We all like excitement. It makes us feel alive. In my work, I train others to create it on the range, target after target, round after round. Yet, I constantly hear coaches, parents and even some professionals in my field say that athletes need to be calm. And worse, they insist on using calming techniques like “Square Breathing” in order to be mindful and stay calm. But being calm will fail, and square breathing will fail as well. (Instead, at the end of this article I’ll give you an uncalming ladder-breathing technique I created.)  

Calmness is like eating warm ice cream

Imagine going to a concert. The band plays your favorite songs and you are very excited.  Your friend taps you on the shoulder and says, “Be calm.”  You scrunch up your face and go, huh?

Imagine slowly climbing to the top of Space Mountain on a rollercoaster and then, down it goes with you letting out a squeal. Your friend taps you on the shoulder and squeals, “Be calm.” 

You shake your head and scream, “Say what?”

Imagine your graduation day. You sit with your peers in anticipation of being called up for your diploma. You look around at your parents and you beam an ear to ear smile.  Your friend taps you on the shoulder and whispers, “Be calm.” You give her a blank stare.  

None of these examples makes any sense. But as often happens in trap shooting when nervous energy seems to render you skill-less, it’s easy to believe that you need to be calm — especially with others telling you as much. Clearly an excess of nervous energy needs some change in order to bring your game under control. But you don’t want to calm it, and I’m going to suggest the exact opposite. Rather than damping it down and going for a sense of calm, you’ll do far better to increase your adrenaline and get into an awesome sense of explosive energy.  Stepping into the post should rank as one of the most exciting moments of your life. 

And I’ll let you in on a secret. High performers only look calm. They are in fact adrenalized to an extremely high level, so much so that it feels calm — to them. And they never want that calm/wired feeling to end.

Example of adrenaline pushing calm off the rails

One of my international skeet shooters had his first international competition in two years. We met and did some preparatory work, but he floundered with my first question.: “How is your Zone?”  Pretty good, he said. I can hit every target, but I’m not picking up the targets as fast as I normally do.” 

For a skillful athlete like this shooter, one thought came to my mind — adrenaline, and not an excess of it. A deficit. Just to be sure, I took him through a diagnostic exercise — a hybrid visualization. At the start his adrenaline was strong, but it seeped away and by about the fifth station it had dropped to dangerously low levels. In the real game of wind, cameras, officials and facing other top performers, he’d have failed. 

Enter adrenaline

This is where boosting adrenaline comes in, as all shooters have to have a consistently high level across all stations and all rounds in order to have sharper vision, sharper reflexes and proper control. We figured out precisely where he needed to infuse greater degrees of adrenaline — pretty much starting from station 2. After that, we reviewed the round again, and now, fully flushed with adrenaline, he knew that his upcoming competition would be successful. 

At the competition, he held his own but ended up in the middle of the back after day one — a 45 out of 50 — which while being a decent score in a world class event, essentially gave him zero chance of winning anything. We talked via the internet after this slow start, and I took him through a couple of more exercises to wire him up even more. He finished the last three rounds with a 74 out of 75. 

While the great comeback was a mute point with respect to winning anything, I knew that what he had learned would help him in his upcoming selection match in March. Little did I know that his current event was not finished. He still had the mixed doubles and men’s team events. Both he helped turn into gold medal performances. Proper use of adrenaline was the difference.  And, wow, what a nice difference it was.

Building adrenaline

Now it is your turn. There is a visualization exercise where you can practice building adrenaline for your next shooting competition. As it is designed to get your system kick started with adrenaline, first check with your doctor if you have a low-level of fitness, a heart condition or any health concerns. 

1. Grab your shotgun in dryfire mode as well as a floor mat for this visualization. The mat represents the post.
2. Stand beside the mat and pump yourself up so that you feel very aggressive on the gun.  I ask my athletes to build their adrenaline up to an eight out of ten level. To do this, remember past life experiences, shooting or otherwise, that gave you a pleasant adrenaline surge. Feel the intensity and slowly increase it. When you have the eight out of ten feeling, step into post one and imagine obliterating all five targets. Step off the mat (out of the post) and then step back in as it becomes post two. Feel your adrenaline and destroy all the five clays in post two as well. Then the mat becomes post three, four and five to finish out the round.  
3. Start again at post one and visualize an All-American already in the post. Imagine them shooting a few shots, and then you imagine stepping right into their shoes as you step onto the mat. Feel their energy as you do this, run your routine and crush all five targets. Do the same with posts 2 to 5.  
4. Start again at post one and imagine yourself standing on the trap field with your squadmates. Imagine building yourself bigger and bigger and taller and taller until you can barely see anyone but the monster you. Then step onto the mat and into your monster shoes and crush the five clays with your crazy adrenaline. Do the same for posts 2 to 5. 

At this stage of learning this adrenaline approach, there is no such thing as being too aggressive or too adrenalized, as you’ll learn the level that works for you. As well, it’s easier to taper off your adrenaline than it is to increase it. With it, you’ll feel good, powerful and insulated from all the drama around you.  

Oh, and here’s that ladder visualization technique I promised:

1. As you inhale, imagine climbing up a ladder where you feel your adrenaline increase with each step.
2. Sustain that adrenaline level, and as you exhale, imagine yourself walking across the platform to the next ladder.
3. As you inhale again, imagine going up a second ladder where you feel your adrenaline increase with each step, yet again.
4. Repeat the sequence until you climb yourself up to the adrenalized level you require—an eight!  

Summary

So you see, no square breathing here, no calmness, only highly wired-in adrenaline. I perceive nervousness as uncontrolled adrenaline, much like a series of irregular ocean waves. For high-performance to be consistent, your adrenaline needs to be more like a tsunami that overrides all emotions and eliminates any wave-like fluctuations. It is the only way for an athlete to perform for any chance of winning — gold medals included.