ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN MYSELF III: THE MINUTE OF MOURNING

 As part of this ongoing series, allow me to explain an idea that is not originally mine alongside with a name given to it that is not my own, because geniuses create and winners steal. 

I can feel your nerd rage from here

 

People tend to marvel at the training sessions I put myself through.  Often I am called a masochist, to which I have to immediately jump and defend myself to explain that I do NOT like training this way.  I’ve already written about that a ton, but to sum up: I hate training but I love the RESULTS of training so much I’m willing to train to get them.  Which, in turn, creates the question of HOW do I put myself through this sort of training if I hate it so much?

 

I am a big fan of David Goggins.  I first learned of him from the book “Living with a SEAL”, and then went on to read his own work of “Can’t Hurt Me” and then consume a few podcasts he’s been featured on.  Dave and I are kindred spirits in the fact that we BOTH hate training.  Dave is unapologetic at how much he hates it.  And much like Dave, we were both overweight before dedicating ourselves to fitness, demonstrating a propensity to seek comfort in food and leisure vs activity.  I constantly say I am a hedonist, and that’s exactly what I mean: I LIKE yummy food and being lazy: it just doesn’t get me to my goals.  Dave is the same way.

But, of course, Dave being Dave, he even did "being fat" better than I did

 

So in that regard, when Dave talks, I listen, because I can learn from someone like me (which is the same reason I’m a big Jon Andersen fan, but you all know that).  In one podcast, Dave was talking about how, sometimes, he’ll spend 45 minutes just staring down at his shoes trying to psyche himself up for one of his psychotic running workouts. As an ultra-marathoner, Dave will have workouts with running mileage approaching triple digits: which ultimately means just dealing with something sucking for a LONG time.  It’s always that first step that is the hardest, because that’s what locks you in.  When I was doing the 10k swing challenge in 7 days, it was like that on a microscale for me when I did those 600-800 unbroken swing workouts: getting through swing 12 was about the hardest.  Just like on 20 rep squats, getting through rep 6 is going to suck, because you just want to abandon it BEFORE the pain starts.

 

Hearing Dave talk about that, I realize I had fallen into the SAME trap before.  Before those epic Deep Water workouts, where I was going to have to get 10x10 done with 2 minutes of rest, or 100 reps in 8 sets, I’d spend a LONG time agonizing OVER the agony I was about the experience.  And this sucks in a few ways.  One: your workout just got LONGER.  You have to add this time onto it.  Secondly, if you had warmed up, odds are you cooled down during this time, so you either need to warm up AGAIN OR risk tweaking something in the workout.  And finally, it’s rare that these sessions work to get you motivated.  They are more just an opportunity to get MORE into your own head and create doubt, which is the LAST time you need before tackling something like this.

This would be better

 

But, I AM Human: all too human.  I recognize that these moments WILL happen.  So what did I do?  Once again: I stole.  This time, I stole from where I already had success: training. And what I stole from there was TIMED rest periods.  Because, ultimately, when you compare the two, it’s pretty much the same thing: time to get squared away and ready for the work ahead.  And, in turn, if you look at the follies of many trainees, they are the same ones: spending TOO long resting due to a lack of discipline. 

 

There are SO many stories, jokes and memes about dudes taking 15+ minute rests between sets to make sure they’re “fully recovered”.  Really, unless you’re Paul Anderson, smashing sets of 700 in the squat, you don’t need that much time.  You need probably, at most, 1/3 of it.  BUT, those extra 10 minutes are VERY comforting.  It’s time spent NOT dealing with how much the training sucks.  And if you only budget yourself 60 minutes to train, it makes it so that you deal with VERY little suckage.  But those who are seeking radical physical transformation understand the need for discipline, to “go when you’re NOT ready”, and they’ll typically set a timer to keep them honest on rest periods.  It obviates the need to employ any manner of Kentucky windage: instead, we rest until the timer says it’s time to stop resting, and then we lift.  And, like we’ve seen in Deep Water, we can make ourselves BETTER by reducing these rest times: eliminating comfort for the sake of becoming something better.

If this is what Nietzsche had in mind, I'm all in

 

It's no different when it comes to the psyche up BEFORE training.  Do we need a bit of “psychological rest” before we are fully recovered and ready to tackle the hard training?  Sure, I’ll buy off on that.  Do we need 45 minutes of it?  No.  All we’re doing is stalling, and in doing so, delaying the inevitable, and in doing so, delaying our opportunity to become something greater.  Enter “The Minute of Mourning”. 

 

I, legitimately, set a one minute time on my phone for me to feel sorry for myself for the training that is about to happen.  I use that time to tell myself how much I DON’T want to do this, how much it’s going to suck, how much I hate that I have to do this to reach my goals, and unleash whatever other negativity I have in my headspace at that time.  And once that minute is up: it’s time to train.  I gave myself adequate time to mourn what’s about to happen: more time isn’t going to help, but it IS going to stall, and that’s just going to make me worse.  Consequently, since implementing this controlled mourning period, I have MORE time to train…lucky me.

Consider implementing your own minute of mourning, if you find yourself staring at your shoes for 45 minutes.  Allow yourself to feel these feelings, revel in your own humanity, and then move on and transform.