BRISBANE, Feb 8 - Sprinters will go to amazing lengths to get that edge to win a race or make the cut for the Olympics.
But Queenslander Fiona Cullen has broken from conventional methods - she’s being hypnotised to qualify for a berth in Beijing.
Cullen is going under'' to go faster and she says the mind-blowing’’ practice has her running PBs in training after two sessions with hypnotist Stuart Walter.
The 28-year-old marketing consultant is the country’s No.2-ranked 100m hurdler behind Sally McLellan and is strongly in the mix for a place in Australia’s 4x100 relay team.
In a business where fractions of a second mean the difference between success and failure, Cullen believes hypnosis gives her an advantage on her rivals.
And what’s more it’s legal.
Under advice from coach Eric Brown in attempting to make her first Olympic team in three attempts, Cullen visited another hypnotist during 2007 and has credited Walter with sparking her recent improvement. This time I've done a lot of things differently and hypnotherapy is one of them,'' she said. I feel like I’m a different athlete out there. And everyone’s commented, my coach and many other athletes and spectators. Obviously there's some stuff that we're doing that's really working.'' Badly troubled by nerves in the past, Cullen said the hypnotism had helped her kick the problem. For the first time tomorrow, Cullen will combine hypnotherapy with her training when she works with Walter and Brown together during the Queensland titles in Brisbane. I have an extreme desire to get the best results I possibly can and the biggest hurdle to clearing hurdles is clearing my own mind first,’’ she said. Taking my unconscious mind out of play because it can't react fast enough and it's not the thing that's been trained. My body’s natural muscle reflexes react quicker than my brain can consciously tell them to react so they have no place in my race. I need to get those out of the equation which is what the hypnotherapy is helping me to do. And of course when you’re in an event which is over in 13 seconds every bit of edge is important.
``A relaxed muscle is a fast muscle.’’
Hypnotherapy isn’t the only out-of-the-ordinary tool Cullen has adopted for Olympic success.
A part-time director of Flying Fi Enterprises, she is offering shares in herself to help raise the $58,000 needed to make it to Beijing in top shape.
Cullen, who markets herself as ‘in the business of clearing hurdles’, has already acquired $18,500.
I guess a little bit in forsaken income from not being able to work part time.
Man, I’m pissed off by this! What the fuck are the IOC doing? They should fund athletes! We athletes are what gives the IOC its revenue and we’re the show, so we should get paid, if not directly for our performances, then indirectly for training expenses.
Or the IOC should at least set up Olympic Training Centres of some sort around the World where athletes can get some sort of assistance.