TENNIS. “There is an element of mystery”, concedes Bertrand Pulman, professor at Sorbonne University, when he observes “the sacred fire” in some athletes of whom we do not know “if they were born like this, if it comes from their upbringing or a bit of both”. But what strikes the sociologist who once studied scientists and their passion for research, before moving on today to the observation of top-level athletes, are four obligations to move from performance to excellence: “work, training, self-sacrifice and mental involvement”. This is what he explains in his fascinating book “Hyperformance. Listen to what the champions tell you” (1), that Science and the Future has already mentioned about star footballers like Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Kylian Mbappe … In these pages, we meet a whole impressive people of athletes and coaches, that the sociologist, like anthropologists surveying the Amazon, l ‘Arctic or Guinea-Papua, went to question. And especially on prime terrain … the central court of Roland-Garros, where he was given permission to attend training sessions for champions. This is why we find here tennis players with extraordinary careers, some of whom, such as Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer, will play again on clay in front of the French public from May 31, after the qualifiers (from Monday May 24, closed to the public in these times of Covid-19, see box below). What are the secrets of “hyperformers” capable of hyperformance, in other words of performance beyond what is expected? Science and the Future asked Bertrand Pulman, who insists on the pleasure of practicing sport.
Sciences et Avenir: Is the typical hyperformer Rafael Nadal?
Bertrand Pulman: Yes, for me, it’s Nadal. With an extraordinary capacity for concentration, which I observed during his training. He is also an extremely sympathetic boy, who is absolutely not in a register where he would constantly think of victory. He knows very well that it does not work like that. Focusing on winning is dangerous, it’s self-destructive.
Do you make a radical difference between hating defeat and loving victory?
The latter can be very paralyzing. Once you’ve won, you can run out of engine.
There is a striking photo in your book, where we see the sprinter Trésor Makounda with visually impaired dark glasses running near his race guide Gautier Simounet. What does it mean?
With this very moving photo, I wanted to make the reader feel that what I am telling is accessible to everyone. The lessons that can be learned from top-level sport do not only concern people with exceptional physical qualities but can benefit everyone.
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To a 10th in the world who wants to become 1st in the world as well as to the 5 millionth in the world who wants to progress to the 4 millionth place. Handisport provides an extraordinary demonstration of this because it is practiced by people who implement the methods and principles set out in my book when, at the start, they are placed in a very difficult situation.
“The border between the individual and the collective is largely porous”
Does this image also show that the individual and the collective, here a duo, go together? You never win alone, says Rafaël Nadal in one of your pages …
Even in seemingly individual sports, tennis, golf, skiing, boxing… there is always a “back office” behind top performance. As a sociologist, I wanted to show that the border between the individual and the collective is largely porous. When a very high level tennis player like Federer, Djokovic, Nadal moves, he has a whole team with him. Federer, for example, comes to major tournaments with his stringer, because he wants his racquet to always be strung by the same person and on the same machine. The latter’s work is absolutely crucial for Federer to achieve his performances. And the latter knows it perfectly, because at the end of a match, he will publicly thank all the members of his team. To return to the photo mentioned above, it illustrates a two-way sharing. Of course, it is the running guide that favors the performance of the visually impaired sprinter but it can be seen the other way around. Thanks to his collaboration with visually impaired athletes and by agreeing to run slower than he would spontaneously, Gautier Simounet obtained two gold medals at successive Olympic Games. It is quite extraordinary.
GAUGES. The Roland-Garros tournament is also adapting to the Covid-19. In terms of gauges, here are the three steps to remember according to the official website :
-> from May 24 to 28, 2021, the qualifications will be played behind closed doors.
-> from May 30 to June 8: the stadium will welcome 5,388 spectators per day; the reception capacity of each establishment open to the public is limited to 35% of their maximum capacity with a ceiling of 1000 spectators.
-> from June 9: the Philippe-Chatrier court will be able to accommodate 5,000 people and access to the stadium will be subject to the presentation of a health pass. The spectator gauge across the stadium will reach a maximum of 13,146 spectators on June 9 and 10. The reception capacity of each ERP will be limited to 65% of their maximum capacity, with a ceiling of 5,000 spectators.
Work, training, self-sacrifice, mental involvement… The first two are not exactly the same thing?
The work is carried out in all registers, physical and mental. Training is about both the short and the long term. When business leaders ask me to talk to them about hyperperformance and top-level sport, I insist a lot on that. You have to prepare. This means not only preparing for the meeting which will take place in a week’s time, but also in the long term, which ties in with a number of sustainability concerns. Top athletes know it. Federer, for example, has this intelligence of a particularly careful preparation, which explains in particular the few physical problems experienced during his career. This is one of the secrets of its longevity.
Do you have to be a masochist to be hyperformed? The resistance to pain is still raised to a very high degree …
Masochism, if sublimated, can impart extraordinary strength. There are very hard sports, such as swimming, cycling, where athletes suffer greatly. But do you know that some athletes have told me that after quitting, even a year or two years later, they missed feelings of pain. There are certainly biochemical sources (dopamine, endorphins…) that play a role. You have to be able to push back the limits of pain. Usain Bolt’s coach says he once explained it to the great sprinter this way: “You can very well feel pain in a very important final and if you haven’t learned to keep it at bay, you won’t run your final! Whereas if you learned it, you could win it! “ This teaching can be useful for everyone. Don’t give up too quickly, tell yourself that you can always do a little better, hold out a little longer. This is one of the things that is important to teach your children, so that they become able to achieve certain goals.
“Hyperformers love what they do”
Acquisition of automatisms “which no longer pass through the brain” also seems essential. Can this only be achieved by training tirelessly?
Skier Alexis Pinturaut says it: “In competition, I let my body do its work, because it reacts faster than if I had to go through the brain box” ! When a skier goes over 100 km / h on a descent and is slightly off balance, he needs reflexes that allow him to restore balance in real time when everything is going extremely fast. It’s the same for the reflex volley of a tennis player or the diving of a goalkeeper… These gestures must have been repeated so many times in training that they are triggered almost automatically. It is the acquisition of these automatisms which allows the high level athlete to face the unforeseen, and even to improvise… If we think too much during a tennis match, we are done!
Concentration, the word comes up on many pages as a necessity. Is it an evil of our time to lack them?
Concentration is the attention, interest and also the pleasure we get from doing something in the present moment. I often ask my audiences in a little provocative way to think about the activity that they are naturally going to be most focused on, during which their minds are not going to frolic. Those who have a naughty spirit like me guess that this is the moment when we make love! And it is true that if we take pleasure in doing it, we are not going to start thinking about everything else simultaneously, we are entirely focused on what we are doing. I believe this is one of the secrets of the hyperformance of top athletes: they love what they do. This is one of the secrets of the longevity of Federer, who loves to play tennis, to be on the circuit and devotes himself entirely to it, whether on the field, in his relations with his sponsors, during press conferences …
But there are sometimes blockages that prevent access to this … secret?
An example that struck me as very revealing is that of Chinese tennis champion Li Na, who won two Grand Slam titles (she is no longer active today). She had a very good career but at a certain point she felt blocked and changed coaches. This new Western coach, the Argentinian Carlos Rodriguez living in Belgium, explains very finely that the sport had become a little mechanical for her. That it was important to make Li Na feel again the pleasure she felt in playing tennis. He kept telling her “you play tennis because you like it”. Without giving into the stereotype, Li Na had followed a Chinese education, more in the register of duty than in that of pleasure. Our education indeed plays a very big role in the acceptance that we have or not the pleasure that we take in things. This is one of the reasons why it is important to make young people play sport, because they can take extraordinary pleasure in it. A pleasure that is both physical and psychic, which is also good for their ability to concentrate. I learned that the startup “Bike n’ Learn“does business training by making people pedal at low speed. We found that they were much more focused on their intellectual activity if they simultaneously had a physical activity!
A little wink to finish, on Winston “no sport” Churchill, who would have said that his secret form was not to play sport!
It is largely mythical. I wondered when he could have said that. The historian François Kersaudy, one of the great French specialists of the character, assured me that there was no material testimony of this matter, and that it does not appear in the bibles of Churchillian quotes published in Grande -Brittany because it is not attested. Winston Churchill was a great sportsman who played golf, polo, swimming, who piloted a plane… If he said “no sport”, it was with a lot of humor.
1) “Hyperformance. Listen to what the champions tell you”, by Bertrand Pulman, editions du Palio, 2021, 194p., € 19.90
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