How to Use The Rhythm of the Season to Build a Stronger Mind

Imagine this: You volunteer for a performance psychology study designed to understand how athletes respond under pressure. You complete a grueling 20 minute FTP test, return a week later, and are told to set a personally meaningful goal along the lines of “improve on last time.”

You settle into a rhythm, determined to outperform your baseline. Everything is going smoothly—until halfway through, the data screen you’re relying on suddenly shuts off. No power metrics. No heart rate. No pace. Just you, your breath, and your perception of effort.

You’re instructed to keep going. The researchers frantically try to reboot the system. How do you respond in that sudden moment of uncertainty? Do you spiral, surge, steady yourself, or give in? And what determines the difference?

A new study exploring these very questions points to one answer: Mental Toughness (MT) 1 —not as a fixed personality trait, but as a set of trainable, state-dependent psychological skills you can intentionally develop.

And winter—yes, the season of cold air, dark mornings, and long hours on the trainer or treadmill—is arguably the best time of year to train them.

The GES Model of MT: A Practical Framework for Winter MT Training

The research team behind the Goal–Expectancy–Self Control (GES) model argues that mental toughness is activated when something threatens your ability to achieve a meaningful goal. In their experiment, the threat was data loss during a hard test. In winter training, the threats are different but familiar:

• Monotony of indoor riding
• Cold, uncomfortable environments
• The “why am I doing this?” moments

The GES model breaks mental toughness into three trainable components:

1. Challenging Goals: Clear, personally meaningful targets that stretch your limits.

2. Self-Efficacy: Your belief that you can execute now and ultimately succeed, especially under pressure.

3. Self-Control: Your ability to stay disciplined, regulate emotions, and resist the urge to stop. Winter is an ideal environment for training all three. Indoor rides, sauna exposure, and cold-water immersion are controlled stressors that let you practicing showing up, regulating your mind, and learning how to execute despite while being uncomfortable..

Below are winter-specific strategies mapped directly onto the GES model.

1. Indoor Training: A Mental Toughness Gym

There’s nothing quite like the mental landscape of a long indoor trainer or treadmill session: no coasting, minimal stimulation, and an unrelenting focus on effort. Instead of just surviving winter riding, you can use it to train MT deliberately.

Adopt a Challenge Based Mindset

• Accept that indoor training may feel harder. Engage anyway, knowing that doing so helps build mental toughness.
• Set process goals for each indoor session (e.g., “Hold smooth power during the final 10 minutes,” or “Maintain my focus on cadence every minute”).
• Use time-based segmenting: break a long ride into short blocks with a specific intention for each.
• Occasionally ride with reduced data—cover your screen or restrict it to cadence only for certain intervals.Learn how to pay attention to the subtleties in your mind and body.

How to Build Self-Efficacy Indoors

• Start a “mental wins” log after every trainer workout. Capture one sentence about how you handled the tough parts. Write these down in your TP notes and share with your coach.
• Use attentional anchors (e.g., breath rhythm, pedal stroke cues, posture checks) to remind yourself you can stay composed even when bored or uncomfortable.
• Reinforce success with deliberate self-talk at the end of each interval: “I managed that surge; I can handle the next one.”
• Remember, how you show up today will train how you show up on race day.

How to Train Self-Control Indoors

• Practice urge surfing: notice the impulse to stop, adjust intensity, or zone out—then intentionally stay engaged.
• Use controlled discomfort intervals: 3–5 minutes at a challenging RPE where your sole goal is to regulate breathing and maintain steady effort.
• Create “environmental constraints”: ride with no music or fan for short blocks to train emotional regulation under mild stress.

*Indoor training becomes not just a physical workout, but a mental skills lab.

2. Sauna Training: A Controlled Environment for Emotional Regulation

If you have access, sauna exposure offers a number of performance enhancements, both physically and psychologically. Sauna is a potent MT training tool as it forces your own internal confrontation with discomfort in a controlled environment without distraction. The psychological benefits come from staying composed when your body is screaming for escape.

Train Challenging Goals in the Sauna

• Set a goal for presence: remain mentally engaged throughout the session.
• Use micro-goals (“one more minute”) to practice structured perseverance. Work to extend your time slowly over repeated sessions.

Build Self-Efficacy Through Discomfort

• Notice the story your mind tells when the heat rises, and work to reframe them more neutrally:

From: “I can’t do this,” TO “I get to do this.”

From: “This is pointless,” TO “This is making me more mentally tough.”

From: “I want out,” TO “Just one more minute.”

• Link the sensation of discomfort with past experiences of pushing through difficult intervals. Start building a mental history of successfully dealing with challenging environments. This will serve you well come race day.

Train Self-Control Through Breath and Behavior

• Use breathing as your control anchor. When everything else feels hard, remember that breathing is your primary source of control.
• Practice shifting your self-talk from panic to presence:

• “I can be calm here.”
• “One more breath.”

*Sauna sessions become a mental rehearsal for late-race fatigue, when your mind wants relief but your goals demand composure.

3. Cold Immersion: Precision Training for the “Don’t Panic” Reflex

Cold exposure uniquely trains the exact psychological skills athletes rely on in stressful moments: calm under pressure, breath control, and emotional stabilization. The winter months provide plenty of opportunities for cold immersion - tolerating blustery winter conditions, taking cold showers, cold plunges etc.

Challenging Goals for Cold Work

• Set a time or breath-based target before entering the water.
• Commit to entering calmly—not bracing, not rushing. Noting the immediate tendency in mind and body to want to escape these initially hard moments.

Self-Efficacy Through Tolerance

• Every successful session reinforces:

“I can handle intensity. I can stay composed.”

• Notice how your confidence changes with repeated exposure.

Self-Control Under Physiological Stress

• Use controlled breathing techniques to ride out the first 20–30 seconds when the cold shock hits.
• Focus attention on a single point: breath, forehead, or a mantra like “soften.”

*Cold work trains the exact psychological pivot you need when a workout or race suddenly gets harder: pause, breathe, execute.

4. The Mental Skill Most Athletes Skip: How You “Put Away” Each Workout

After every winter ride, sauna session, or cold immersion, you have a brief but powerful moment to lock in the mental gains.

This is where self-efficacy is built.... When you finish, take 10–20 seconds to say something to yourself like:

• “I stayed focused even when I wanted to stop.”
• “I handled discomfort with control.”
• “I proved I can regulate my mind under stress.”

These micro-reflections strengthen your mental toughness circuitry and make the skill increasingly accessible during spring and summer training.

When approached intentionally, winter training becomes a controlled laboratory for developing the psychological capacities central to the GES model of mental toughness. The skills you build now—goal clarity, self-efficacy, and self-control—become the mental foundation that supports your best performances later in the season.

– Dr. Justin Ross, Human Performance Psychologist and Endurance Coach