THE TAO OF HARD TRAINING

I’ve shared this line a few times before, but the opening line of the Tao Te Ching is “The Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao”, and this paradoxical opening is meant to convey the idea that even what is written within the Tao Te Ching is not an adequate explanation for “the Tao” or Taoism as a whole.  It’s this notion that the Tao CAN be understood, but that this understanding of the Tao is not something that can be put down in words and understood academically.  One can’t teach someone to understand it, nor can one read an explanation and suddenly “get it”: it’s something that can only be understood individual by individual on a personal level. In much the same way, I find that the notion of “hard training” seems to hold this same distinction: those that understand it completely understand it, and when speaking to those that understand it, the idea transcends language, but when one asks for an explanation, it’s impossible to put into words.  “Hard training” is simply something one must understand on one’s own accord.

Example: Both programs require hard training, but the one on the left is one set of 20, and the one on the right is 10x10

I bring this up because, on many occasions, I’ve been asked by a trainee to explain hard training, and I’m baffled both by the question and by my inability to explain it. This is primarily because most modern trainees seem to want all explanations to be quantifiable and numeric.  “Does hard training mean 4-5 sets of 10-15 reps with 30 seconds of rest between sets done 6 days a week?”  I mean, yeah, it CAN mean that, but you can also do all of that stuff and still not come close to hard training.  Hard training could also be 1 set for the day, done 3 days a week.  Or it could be 10x3 with 15 minutes between sets.  Or it could be circuit workouts or crossfit WODS, o 10x10s, or a whole bunch of different things.  What makes the training “hard training” isn’t the program design itself, but the amount of effort put into the training.

“But I’m always panting at the end of my sets and feel like I’m going to throw up ALL the time and I came down with rhabdomyolysis in my first week of training and I STILL can’t get big or strong.”  Well hey: maybe you’re just in too BAD of shape to actually train hard.  Because I hear those complaints a lot by young trainees lacking results, and they always assure me they are training as absolutely hard as humanly possible and eating perfectly, but you gotta go “no true-Scotsman” on this one: hard training and good eating get results, so if you’re not getting results, you’re not training hard and eating well.  All your complaining is telling me is that, whenever you actually try to even come CLOSE to training hard, your poor conditioning and general physical ability limit you from ever actually reaching meaningful levels of intensity (meaning intensity of effort in this case, and not the nerdy definition of percentage of 1 rep max).  Hard training may, simply, be too hard for you.

Perhaps as a result of a childhood spent like this

In turn, young athletes turn to the well of volume to compensate for an inability to work hard.  Volume APPERARS to be what this “hard training” is all about, because it takes a lot of effort and you feel exhausted when you’re done, but what if this is simply an illusion.  What if these trainees deceive themselves into believing that they’ve finally figured out what “hard training” is, when, in fact, by definition they CAN’T be training hard BECAUSE the volume is so high.  I’ve written before about how I can’t fathom the currently en vogue push/pull/legs split that has trainees lifting weights 6 days a week, because everything I grew up with and experienced emphasized the value of RECOVERYING from training insofar as growth was concerned, and, in turn, training tended to be so hard that one could not reasonably expect to lift weights 6 days in the span of 1 week.  If one wanted to train the whole body twice a week, it was done with an upper/lower split, and if they wanted to do it 3 times a week, it was done with a full body program.  If they wanted to have muscle group focused days, the muscles got focused on ONCE a week, because an entire day spent training a muscle was going to be a HARD day of training.  One from this mindset would make the argument that a trainee training 6 days a week is training lightly, and that hard training done less often would be far more productive.

So again, what the hell IS hard training?  It’s training where you put ALL of yourself into each rep, into an entire set, into the whole workout.  No: stop thinking I’m saying slam pre-workout and crank heavy metal and mainline nose tork: you’re STILL not getting it.  All that crap is EMULATING hard training: not BEING hard training.  Here you are speaking of the Tao.  Those things are there for those that can ALREADY pour all of themselves into the training, but if you CAN’T already do that, those things aren’t going to make you do it: they’re just going to trick you into thinking you can.  One that can train hard can do so ABSENT of any psyching up: they’re simply able to dig deeper and bring forth more of themselves into their work.  They feel the same fatigue and exhaustion of the above mentioned early trainees, but also know that they possess a second gear, and a third, and a forth.  They know that, while holding your breath between reps to stay braced, the first thing that happens is that your lungs feel tight, then your cheeks burn, then your face hurts, then the corners of your vision go black, then you start to feel the pressure building behind your eyes, and then, SOMEHOW, you swallow a mouthful of air back into your gut and are able to get out 2 more reps before you breathe fire.  They know the distinct feeling of breaking blood vessels in their face.  They’ve heard their music start skipping despite the fact that they’re listening to digital audio.  They’ve sat down after a set and then realized they don’t even remember doing the set in the first place.  They know that, in between “almost blacking out” and “blacking out” there’s about 6 more reps.  And when they talk with each other and go “How’s training been” and say “I’ve been training hard recently”, they exchange a knowing look, as they both know EXACTLY what that means without having to explain it. 

Hint: it's not this

If you don’t know what hard training is, keep pushing until you do.