“At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves”  from “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahnuik

For a generation for whom luxuries have become necessities and everything exists in abundance, we’ve lost sight of the value of really living. Can you ditch it all and get back to basics? No cell phone, tablet computer or hot new gadget will make your life “More Efficient”. Which is another way of saying…

“It’s only after you’ve lost everything,” Tyler says, “that you’re free to do anything.”

Take a step back and look at what is really important at the end of the day. Family and friends and the memorable experience you can make in their lives.

Mental fortitude is one of the most important traits to be valued by the competitor. Whether your sport is soccer, triathlons, business, medicine, or elsewhere, possessing a high degree of mental toughness will take you to the top.
 
A great place to start cultivating this mentality is in your daily workouts at the gym. Set and achieve small goals for yourself when it comes to your lifts and Sweat scores, looking to constantly make incremental improvements. Your emotions are a powerful tool that you need to learn how to utilize to your benefit. When it is time to turn things up a notch in intensity, know how to get yourself to that level.
 
For simplicity’s sake, you can choose to either be a wolf or a sheep as an athlete. The wolf is hungry, focused, determined, and has that killer instinct. The sheep is timid, indifferent, and basically just along for the ride. To be a wolf (you want to be a wolf, trust me) you must visualize your success then achieve it. Don’t allow yourself to miss lifts in the gym, always compete and give your best effort even when you are feeling tired, stressed, etc., and don’t allow negative thoughts or self-doubt creep into your mind.
 
Lastly, recognize that the wolf comes in many different shapes, sizes, ages, personality types, and is just as common amongst females as males. Some people are much more extroverted, while others have a fire in their belly that motivates them and they do not require posturing or bravado to demonstrate it. A wolf in sheep’s clothing if you will. Harness the energy of the gym and train yourself to bring out that stone cold, top of the food-chain, ass-kicking savage that lies dormant inside you! 

It’s a fine line between hard-ass and dumb-ass.
 
Working out with a group you walk this line on a regular basis. At Flow, we try to almost always err on the side of hard-ass and not dumb-ass. This typically comes down to being smart about exercise volume and intensity.
 
I would also say, from personal experience, guys have more of a proclivity to want to err on the side of dumb-ass. This obviously doesn’t only apply to working out, but that’s where we’ll keep our focus. For example, things like Hero WOD’s are designed not to build your fitness, but rather to test it, along with your mental fortitude and resolve. Can you will yourself to get through this particularly grueling workout?
 
For those of you that were here, remember back to  when we did “Murph”. I love the significance of that particular workout, and the tradition we’ve developed with performing it every year. I also know that I was sore for literally an entire week after doing it. Being sore for a week might sound hard-ass when telling your friends or co-workers, but in my book that’s a surefire indicator of being a dumb-ass.
 
Experience tells me that’s inevitable to a certain extent, but we want to reduce the frequency of our stupidity in the gym over the long haul. Instead, let’s focus on simply training hard and training smart so that we are able to train with consistency and make improvements sustainably.

 

I occasionally hear some people talk about “leg day” during a warm-up and I always chuckle a little when I hear it. First of all, I have to admit that I’m guilty of using that term as well.  Before I started training this way, I used to have a “leg day”.  It was always my third training day of the week, which was preceded by chest and tri’s Monday and back and bi’s Tuesday. Ever try to get a bench station at a globo gym on Monday? Good luck my friends!

So what is “leg day”?  I have to go back a ways, so bear with me. Somewhere in the late 1970/80s  when guys like Arnold Schwarzenneger and Lou Ferrigno became household names, there was a serious paradigm shift in what people regarded as healthy, good looking, and athletic. Bodybuilding became the new fitness model for Americans. Bro, if you don’t look like Conan, you aren’t training hard!  I’m not poking fun at bodybuilders, the disciple those folks have is incredible, but that’s not what most of us are training for. The problem began when everyone started training like a bodybuilder and they didn’t know it. “Leg Day” became the feared training day. Everyone looked for an excuse to avoid it because standing up out of bed the next day required a small miracle. It’s the day with hamstring curls, leg extensions, the awkward adduction machine (that you wouldn’t let your friends see you use), the leg press, calf raises, and quarter depth squats if you were a real studmuffin.   

Why do I chuckle when I hear “leg day”? I laugh because it reminds me how different most peoples idea of training legs is. At Flow every day is “leg day”.  Why? The primary function of leg day is mostly negated when training like a bodybuilder. We squat, deadlift, clean, snatch, and swing kettlebells because it improves hip-drive.  Hip-drive is fundamental to athletic success and carries over to nearly every movement we do.  Kipping pull-ups, farmer carries, wall balls, push press, jerks, and even box jumps are made easier by having strong hips.

We program at Flow to get you in shape to make life easier outside the gym.  Having strong legs is the best way to do that.  That’s why everyday is “leg day”.

So, your goal should be to brace your spine when it is under as little external demand as possible (typically while standing), then add load (hip hinge, slightly bend your knees, grab the bar and stand up). Have a look and see if the video helps you understand how to better brace your spine before a clean or during any other movement.

To toughen you have to go beyond your normal limits, beyond your realm of comfort. When you simply do what is comfortable in your training or life you’re either getting weaker or maintaining your current toughness level. You clearly have to challenge yourself beyond your normal limits to grow. There’s always discomfort because it’s further than you’ve gone before. The point is simply this:

NO DISCOMFORT – NO TOUGHENING
NO PUSHING – NO TOUGHENING
NO PERSONAL CONFRONTATION – NO TOUGHENING”

….from “The New Toughness Training for Sports,” by James E. Lowher, Ed. D.

My thinking on training and life has been focused recently not on the physical, but on the mental and psychological.

One aspect has driven my curiosity: What mental effect does hard gym training have on physical performance?

I’ve identified three effects so far.

First, increased confidence, which leads to increased capacity and improved performance.

There is something about getting stronger that makes you feel better about yourself and your abilities.

If you think you can do more, you can.

Difficult, intense training in the gym requires a demanding level of commitment, discipline, and suffering by athletes.

Instead of simply “working out,” my athletes are “training.” Few sacrifice like this just to have fun on the weekends.

These athletes want to improve in their sport, and the attitude and work ethic demanded in the gym transfer to life.

Third, a stronger will, and hard-earned mental toughness.

Mental toughness cannot be achieved through mind games, meditation or “thinking positive.” It has to be earned through hard work and focused preparation.

The athlete who has trained hard for their event, has paid their dues, they know it. They have earned the right to be there through buckets of sweat and hours of being uncomfortable. Commitment and discipline have forged an iron will.

“Does a strong will come from years of multi-hour training runs or do those runs result from a dominating will?,” writes Mark Twight of Gym Jones. “There is no right answer because will and action feed one another.”

It is really funny what you can get used to. Remember, when Conan was placed on the grind stone and forced to walk around. It seemed insurmountable and unthinkable that one person could push that massive wheel. Little by little, after all the weaklings died off, Conan was left pushing it by himself.

Yes, that really happened.

What about Milo, who carried the calf every day? As the calf grew, his strength grew – little by little. But we’re not talking about training today, we’re talking about life.

The things that you said you would never do, you are doing now. The small decisions you have made everyday in your life have led you here.  

You said you would never end up at (insert the job you’re working, the shape you’re in or the whatever you’ve feared). 

The Turning Point

When did it all become so common to take the easy way out?

I was telling someone the other day how I lost at a particular “challenge” in the weightroom.

They said, “Why are you torturing yourself?”

Just a harmless comment, right?

But after I thought about it, I was enraged and sad at the same time.

Sad that they didn’t understand how fleeting life is and that they would never know what it feels like to win a challenge or to hit a goal. That sadness turned into rage when I thought about how society accepts this mindset. We have, over the course of time, accepted defeat so many times that, little by little, it is just an afterthought.

Competitive drive has been replaced with complacency. Relentlessness has been replaced with lack of focus and the honorable mention ribbon.

What happened to not settling for 2nd place? What happened to - if I lose, I will work harder?

Why am I torturing myself?

Probably because I hate losing and want to keep challenging myself and getting better everyday.

We are all dying, very slowly everyday – that is a cold hard fact. But are you really living?

When is the last time you felt alive?

When is the last time your heart was beating out of your chest?

When was the last time you took a pair of kettlebells and walked with them until your arms fell off?

When was the last time you did burpees until you passed out?

When was the last time you did pull-ups until you were just hanging from the bar?

When was the last time you did something someone told you that you could never do.

Just do something!

Live, because you haven’t “been awake” in a while.

Live with a sense of urgency.

Live like your kids are taking notes on how they should live.

Live like there is no tomorrow.

Live.

When Tony Robbins first became famous he was conducting evening and weekend seminars that included what people called a fire walk (a walk across a bed of hot coals). The fire walk was really about something different and much greater than just being able to walk across a bed of hot coals.

The fire walk is a metaphor for possibility. Most people entered with a very strong belief “walking on fire is impossible.” Going from a belief of “this is impossible, I can’t do it” to an experience of “I did it!” breaks down barriers and walls and opens a door way to the path of “What else is possible?” It is a sudden and immediate change for self concept world view. The person who was afraid to ask for a raise, a leap off the high dive, ask for a date, or speak in public is now empowered. After walking on fire you’ve walked over your limitations to a place of new found courage and possibility.

As a coach and an athlete, we have the opportunity to do our own daily fire walk and take other people with us. How do we get there? We can go there during a single workout. Intensity is the fastest path. We go there by deciding to dig deep within. It is a choice to keep going, giving total effort and finding that we have more. We can also go there over time individually and as a group. This occurs in increments as daily workouts, nutrition, and recovery practices transform our abilities, our bodies, and our world. It is the development of new skills, abilities, and a daily practice of exceeding limitations.

Training has the potential to be much more than just a physical transformation. Training can be a metaphor for finding our own greatness. Intense training gives a person the experience and verification to transform oneself and one’s life. Working out isn’t just about building muscles or burning calories. Working out at Flow is about building character, habits, and traits that take us someplace new. When you do a workout go deep within and find your place of greatness and consider what else can you do? Can you do more? Can you make a greater effort? When you find your best self and set Personal Records, ask yourself where else in life can you PR? Where else in your life can you obtain a new skill? Where else in your life can you better your performance?