Where you put in work, that place is holy ground. My training used to be hard, but i never implemented what most military folks like to call "The Gut Check." That means in that moment, you're going to be tested. You're going to go through something you don't like, and what carries you to the finish isn't the kind of shape your in (although this no doubt will go a long way) but the kind of guts you have. A measure of heart. Theres something very rare in those times, where you get a glimpse of yourself, Maybe it's fleeting, or momentary, but in that instant you find nirvana. You find the middle ground between heaven in hell. It's the kind of place where you go to live, and to die. Theres no lying there. It's you, and no one else.
Not the same kind of gut check.
We each deal with those situations differently, when were dug deep into a hole.
Some will cower.
Some hear voices.
Some only focus on pain.
Some on time.
Some on breathing.
Some on fatigue.
These are the deepest darkest parts of our mind. All our self-doubt, self- hate, self-critisim, and weakness are sure to come out.
It's also the fastest way to get rid of them. You see, something special happens when your pushed over a perceived edge. The potential you thought you knew gets blown out of the water. You become something more than you were. This is instantaneous. You don't have to drink 30g of protein, or 4:1 ratio drink of carbs to protein to secure its spot. Its with you, and no matter where you go after that work out, it can't be taken.
Theres the saying in sports, that "Sport X is 80% mental, and 20% physical." While i cannot attest to these concrete numbers, i will say mental conditioning is physical conditioning. Of course you can have your meditation, your mantra, your affirmation, or whatever mechanism you are currently using to expand the mental side of your conditioning, but the bare bones of it is mental conditioning is a direct result of physical conditioning.
These last few weeks i've had brought the hammer down on me. Disregarding the pros and cons of doing so, to which there are many, my potential has increased much more than my physical conditioning could adapt to.
You see, i've been doubled over. I've had the doubt, and the fear that comes with the unknown, but with my support system at the gym, i've pushed through.
I've been training by myself, or with my Dad for close to 2 years now. I can push myself pretty damn hard. It's nice to have a training partner to keep you committed to working out. Someone to keep you for the most part accountable. But a workout partner is not a Coach. He's in the zone doing his own work, just as i'm doing mine. Neither of us is pushing eachother. It's a personal motivation.
Yeah this works very well.
But a Coach makes you something more.
Someone to test you, and someone to make you hurt in the best possible way, when you need it the most.
So with my experience training with a coach the last couple weeks is a big change.
My BJJ conditioning, as i said, has jumped leaps and bounds. Not because the physical attributes i've developed, but because the perception of pain and fatigue i've developed.
Pain is a impermanent perception. You can always break that boundary. So the next time you find your self in a situation where your really sucking wind, or getting mounted by a guy double your size, you can just remember that circuit from monday. Yeah that one. The one you would rank as your hardest workout ever, until then inevitable (hopefully) time you break that pain perception again. You can remember that this isn't half as bad as that. That comparing gives you strength. You know you have more left. You've made friends with pain and already, and it's no longer a mystery.
Pain is our greatest teacher. For a while.
You see thats where most people in that mindset fail. They get addicted to that high, of breaking through the perception of pain, and the feeling of triumph afterwards. Contrary to what you think of every morning when your doing your flexing in the mirror to see if that six pack has come in yet, while your body is torn to pieces, it's not sustainable. Nor is it healthy.
The point i'm trying to get across is this...
"Every workout is either a test drive, or a tune up."
Before i elaborate, i'd like to pay homage to Berkey, who passed this on to me when he heard it from Gym Jones founder, Mark Twight.
There are times, and places to run yourself into the ground. Be careful with this as well. Develop a taste between crushing previous barriers, and being stupid.
Which brings me to another staple of training i regularlary used, taught to me by Coach Scott Sonnon. The intuitive training scale. Make sure that intensity there, only if you have the right perceived technique, discomfort, and effort. Lots of times thats hard for you to tell. Thats also where a good coach comes in.
Getting back to the point, as Berkey went on to say, is you need to have these so called tests. Sometimes it's to gauge whether your ready for a specific event. Sometimes it is in fact just a gut check. Since we went over the latter, i'll talk about sport specific tests.
Whats my gauge? How will i know if i get somewhere? How do i know this is working?
Thats something you should look for in a coach. Not a coach who is happy to put you through a workout, because anyone can do that. You want a coach who can make you better, and then prove to you in a clear-cut manner that he did.
His bench marks should give you confidence. They should take you to the depths of hell you might hit in a competition. Thats the true mental game. If a opponent can't take you somewhere you haven't already been, then he loses a big advantage.
If you fail the bench mark, you still win. Now you know what you need to work on.
Do you not see this common trend in life?
The great Coach Scott Sonnon says in his book The 3-D Performance Pyramid that
" Your threshold of pain = your threshold of performance."
He also goes on to say " How much you resist determines how much you are able to accomplish." and "Increasing the threshold of pain and decreasing the threshold of fear-reactivity are the two protocols for creating flow in fighting."
Sonnon brings up up a great point. If your constantly injured because you've done one too many gut checks, your body is going to fighting you all the way through training. In that case, you've reached your threshold of performance.
Sonnon continues " How much you can take (toughly) determines how much you are able to accomplish."
Now this refers to what in martial arts is called "hard work" The grind. The suck. Real application of intensity. Theres a whole different thing called soft work, but that doesn't exactly fit into the topic at hand.
Which brings me back to a point I've experienced, the fact that i have increased my threshold of pain, i have in turn increased my performance.
Like so many things with the genius that is Sonnon, things i thought were cutting edge, and that i have discovered myself, Sonnon not only has done it years before, but put it into a much clearer, concise, and even somewhat scientific formula. I'd highly recommend any of his work.
Life is all about blowing past what you thought you could do. If you can't think of one thing you've done in the past year to get yourself thinking like that, then what kind of life are you living?
One great thing my father has told me he does is set one goal a year that is way to far out of reach. Seemingly impossible. Put the work in and do it, and then crush it. If you live to be 80, and start doing this at 20, my limited math skills tell me that you will have 50, hard, tangible moments in your life where you're better than before. I've met people who have lived there whole life on 1 or 2 things like that. Expand your horizon. Push your boundaries. See yourself live a life that people can only dream of having.
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