Life lessons from the Gym, pt 2

Going to the gym is a lifestyle for many. Time spent there brings people together. Under the iron we learn intrinsic lessons. These lessons carry on into life outside the gym.

One of these lessons is that we are each stronger than we think we are.

- Are stronger than we think we are

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, the nationwide standard for men aged 20 to 49 should be between 13 and 28 pushups, and for women in the same age range, it should be between 11 and 20 (https://kiss951.com/2021/09/03/most-americans-cant-do-more-than-10-pushups/). 

This is more than just moving your body or moving weights with your body. Handling weights at regular intervals teaches you how to dig deep for another rep. You heart friends telling their training partner to get another couple of reps in each set. You may have been the one under the bar looking for what was needed to get that final rep. The bar moves ever so slowly. Muscles ache and quiver. The person under the weight is breathing faster and heavier to provide needed oxygen to those muscles.

This lesson carries over outside of the gym. The consistent facing of a physical challenge teaches you that, somewhere deep inside, is that something you need to go another step or repetition further. Outside the gym that lesson helps you to realize how capable you really are. It shows you that your fortitude runs deeper than you had ever imagined. This is key to completing tasks which seem insurmountable. This is key in facing life’s challenges. This is key when confronting our own demons.

We handle stress and pain better than we previously thought

Lifting weights, jogging, whatever our physical training teaches us, through experience, that we can handle pain. We face physical pain after many workouts. This is the result of lactic acid building up in the fatigued muscles. The muscles themselves have undergone trauma. Yet, the day after, life goes on. We have to participate in life regardless of the residual pain. The body reacts by rebuilding and becoming stronger. We take that basic lesson and apply it to other areas of our life to see that adversity makes us stronger.

There is another pain threshold we face and learn from. Success comes with hard work. By digging deeper into our fortitude and finding strength for a few more reps, or running a few steps faster, we learn to persevere. 

- Stronger sense of self

These previous two lessons help us see ourselves in a different light. We have gained insight into being more capable than we had thought. This now found understanding begins to fill a wellspring of confidence. Physically, our posture changes. We stand up straighter and taller. We step out with inner strength as if nothing in our path will dissuade or impede us.

We have learned that we adapt to stresses in our lives, that these stresses make us better. We put our body and mind through the crucible of fitness training. As a result our confidence grows. We know better what we can handle. We know better that challenges will always be present. We know that we can overcome. As Leonardo da Vinci had put into his codex, every obstacle is destroyed through rigor.

These lessons from the gym translate into other aspects of our lives. They transform us deeply. Keep training and keep growing.

21/90 Habits in Training and in Life

By now you have easily caught on that the 2017 January Tabata Challenge is going to be posted and talked about daily. In these daily posts, which are journal entries more than articles, I am hoping to accomplish three primary goals.

First, to pass on important information. For me, if I understand the why of something, then it is easier for me to get behind it. If that “why” can help motivate some of you, then fantastic, it is vital.

Second, learning is awesome! It is. Learning is a lifelong process and is a sign of growth. Both of which go hand in hand with exercising and the fitness lifestyle.

Third, and most importantly, is the creation of a habit and lifestyle. This is where the 21/90 Rule comes into play. A long, long time ago, in a training center far, far away a coach with a mounting tension headache that was nearing migraine proportions was trying to impress upon a group of young would-be athletes that to change a habit take 21 days.

No matter what that habit is, it takes 21 days to change it. Your running form. Your lifting technique. Not smoking. Changing your eating habits. Everything, habits take 21 days to form. Some smart guy, or gal, expanded on that with the very real fact that it takes 90 days to make that habit a lifestyle.

With that in mind, I am reposting a piece I wrote last February on making habits stick.

Whether you are an entrepreneur, a manager, worker, student or other making new habits is a difficult and trying task. It is something that successful people seem to have made look easy. It isn’t, though, is it? How do professional athletes and elite forces make new habits? They build muscle memory. Your brain is your best muscle. Or, at least, it should be.

By actively using the steps outlined below you can be pretty certain that you will have new habits in place and benefiting from them. It won’t be overnight, not in the least.  New habits are instilled, on average, over about 21 days. This time frame is based on the observations of a plastic surgeon from the 1950s.

“What can a plastic surgeon from almost 70 years ago know about making habits?” Good question. He noted that his patients took an average of 21 days to get accustomed to the change. Be it their nose, cheekbones, an amputation the time to get used to the change was around 21 days. I am inclined to agree with that timeline.


Making Habits Stick

During the initial habit making you will go through the following phases. There are the Glory Days. There is the Rough Run. Finally, it begins to settle in to a comfortable habit. The Glory Days are the first several days of the new habit. Everything feels new and exciting. The Rough Run comes after the new car smell has faded. Then there is the Comfortable Habit. This is when you are doing just what you set out to do in the first place. It feels good. Good results are coming in.

Visualize what this new habit will look like. See it so vividly in your mind that you can feel and taste it. Bring in all of your senses when visualizing the success of the new habit. Elite forces like Navy SEALS and Army Special Forces do this with their training and making new habits. Top rated athletes practice this. They play each step of the game in their mind before getting onto the field. Martial artists do this to help solidify their techniques. Research shows that by visualizing your actions and the success of them actually makes the neural connections necessary for the new act. It also does trigger some physical adaptation for it, as well.

How does one get through the Rough Run? Linking personal positive rewards as a way to mark hitting the milestone.

Link Positives to making new healthy habits. Treat yourself to something that involves as many senses as you can to reward yourself. Something I like, and miss from my days in Europe, is sitting back with a cappuccino. I use them now as a reward for achieving a set goal and for making new habits. Cappuccino smells wonderful. It tastes grand. It even has its own feel in your mouth. The sound of the milk being frothed is the audible cue that things are great.  Even seeing the foam reminds me of those late afternoon coffees sitting near the curb or a heater in a café. This is the sort of thing that brings all of you together to celebrate your achievement.

Sometimes life will knock you out of the new track before it becomes a healthy rut. At these times you have to head back into your healthy habit as fast as you can. As fast as you can without stressing out, that is. Close your eyes and breathe deeply for about 12 breaths. That will take approximately 2 to 3 minutes if you are breathing fully and deeply. These breaths will not only help slow you down, but they will flood your system with more oxygen. The higher O2 content will feed your brain. There you have it, you are reset and ready to reengage.

Visualize the new habit as a regular attribute or action. Breathe deeply. Refocus on the goal. Then, with your mind calmed, cleared, and full of O2 step back into your habit. After the 21 days are done you will find that coming back into the track is easier and that getting knocked out of it is less perturbing.

2017 January Tabata Challenge Day 3

Wendy Repovich of Eastern Washington University writes in the abstract of her report on short term, short duration, HIIT and Tabata-style exercises that the Tabata protocol of 20 seconds of give-it-all-you-have followed by 10 seconds of I-gotta-be-crazy for eight rounds is an effective training model.

Her study looked at this method for a short duration of testing. That is, the test period lasted for three weeks. Exercise days were Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This study was aimed at specifically intra-abdominal fat, IAF. IAF is the fat deep inside the body cavity. This is the stuff that is packed around our internal organs. Yes, we need some, but not anywhere near the extent that far too many people have. This is the stuff that gives us that big ol’ “beer belly” look. Who wants that? Really? No way.

We already know that increasing VO2 max, improving body composition and strength, as well as numerous other benefits come from this style of training. A great extra which Dr. Repovich found was that cognitive function improves, too.

Yes, getting moving, getting the heart beating, having some time outside in the fresh air all help. Were you aware that exercising also helps your brain create new brain cells? It sure does. There is an exhibit at the Maryland Science Center, a fantastic place to go if you’re in that area, which demonstrates this very nicely. I saw it several years ago and was told that the exhibit was one of the Center’s permanent displays. At any rate, strenuous activity actually makes you smarter. It builds your brain while building your body.

Some of the points Dr. Repovich et al left unanswered include doing Tabata protocol workouts on consecutive days and for more than three weeks. Folks, if you are doing this with me, you are part of science! Well, maybe not, but you are darned sure getting a great workout.

As for the 2017 January Tabata Challenge, the repetitions are increasing in both numbers and my capacity to perform is getting better. This is only, only, day three.

Post your comments. I want to see your results and how you feel with these changes to your life and person.

Links:

http://dc.ewu.edu/srcw_2014/10/?utm_source=dc.ewu.edu%2Fsrcw_2014%2F10&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages

http://dc.ewu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=srcw_2014

Positive Thinking For Health

      How much of what we say to ourselves is negative? How does that impact us? Our family? Our children?

      We all have our down times. Those moments, or days, when everything is dark. No matter what happens we see things negatively. Depression. Some of us look at the world through the eyes of doubt as a regular thing, the pessimist. “Well, Marc, one person's pessimist is another person's realist,” you might be tempted to say. But, I ask you, what impact does this life view have on your health? How does it impact your body? Can changing how you look at the world change your health?

      There are several studies that tell us positivity, optimism, can improve the quality and longevity of our lives. Let's look at that a little.

Live longer

      Rather than just falling apart, positive outlooks enable people to overcome and persevere in the darkest of situations; optimists look at what they can do and do that. This is a lesson taught at military survival schools. Look for what you can do and focus on that. This is resilience. It also manifests in our immunity system.

      If you can improve how you view the world and the circumstances you find yourself in, you can improve your body's immunity. These studies show those with positive emotions about how they are doing in important areas of their lives have better resistance to infections. Positivity actually strengthens our immune system while negativity weakens it. This is not a cure-all, but if it can help keep the flu away, it's worth smiling more.

      You can handle stress better and outperform negative attitudes. How is that? By being able to look at the situation and seeing what went right and how to change what went wrong you can readjust what is being done and move forward.

      Mark Divine, a former Navy SEAL writes, in his book The Way of the SEAL, described fast forward failure. Understand that failures happen. All the time. SEALS hit snags in every operation. Business leaders hit shags in every deal. None of those snags matter. What matters is how people deal with them. When the failure hits, these elites look at what went wrong and, rather than finding who to blame, they find the way to go forward and succeed. You will be better able to see the big picture and identify solutions as you move forward.

      As you get better at doing this fast forward failure you will make better decisions under pressure. It takes practice. Positivity takes practice. As you practice you will also find that you have happier long-term relationships.

      Optimism to positive self-esteem to success to optimism is a cycle of thought habit

. It really does not matter which way you take the cycle, just so long as you take it and begin. It is a learned habit. Start with small things and small successes and work your way up, building confidence. Mark Divine, a former Navy SEAL writes, in his book The Way of the SEAL, that every night as SEAL candidates went to bed they were taught to focus on their successes from that day. In so doing, they built a wellspring of confidence to draw upon when things became tougher. …

Use this as a triangle of good mental health

and self talk during a workout, during the day, or whenever you may need a gentle reminder. This is something that is both positive and healthy to model and teach to our children. I am using this triangle and the lessons from
Mark Divine in my house on a daily basis. They help me and my children.

Confidence to Achieve and Succeed

      We need to have confidence in that we are supposed to be happy, that we deserve to enjoy and benefit from what we have worked for. Otherwise, we are living a life of drudgery, slogging from one day to the next. This is the embodiment of low self-esteem.

      Low self-esteem leaves us vulnerable to negative thoughts and ideas such as not being good enough, self-distrust and leads to lower creativity and productivity. Those who live in this state, and I have been one, just go through the motions of life, doing what they have to do to get by. Just get by, nothing more.

High self-confidence brings empowerment, energy, motivation, the world is open and full of challenges and opportunities. Granted, these people are hard to handle until I have had some coffee in the morning, but it is better to be one than not.

Things Suck, Now What

      Life has just kicked you in the jewels. I don't know what this looks like, but you do. Your challenges are yours. But, what can we do to get out of that ditch?

Focus on the Good

      Not easy, believe me, I know how hard this is to do. Still it is extremely important. Remember some of those things that you are really grateful for when you are flying high? Yeah, those. Write some of them down. Look at that list of blessings and people that are all around you when you are in that dark place.

      It is natural to focus on the negative. Ignoring problems does not make them go away; however, dwelling on them does not make solutions appear.

      I am not going to lie to you, this is going to be difficult when you are down. But, it will also be well worth it. Perhaps there is a smell that you find particularly pleasant. Go find that. Scent is the most powerful memory stimulant. Find that scent and connect again to that happy memory and its joy.

      Write a Daily Blessing Journal. Each day you write down a few things that made your day really great, or even just a few moments of it splendid. Something to refer back to when you need it.

      Stop and do something that you really enjoy. Step away from the chaos, go to your favorite coffee shop or cafe, book nook, or whatever and indulge for 15 or 30 minutes. Take a few minutes to reset yourself.

      Focus on someone else. No, I am not saying that you should stalk anyone! But, perhaps, you should focus on someone else and make sure that they are having a pleasant time. By taking the focus off of yourself and putting onto someone outside you change your thoughts. Your actions also bring about the release of feel good hormones in your brain. So, this is a double tap on the feel good actions.

      Expressing gratitude. Just saying thank you and putting a smile on your face, even when you dont feel like it, will tell your brain that you must release something inside to change what you are feeling in your brain. The positive neurotransmitters, called serotonin, will be released in small amounts. Resulting in a slightly better mood.

      Positive affirmations do work. As goofy as it sounds, they work and you should use them. In Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich, these are part of his plan. They have been used for more than 100 years and are still in use today because they work.

Final Thought

      Tigers, the most successful land hunter on the planet in the animal kingdom, has a kill rate of … 80%. Tigers, the deadliest land based killers, miss their meals 20 out of 100 times. 20 out of 100 times these 700+ pound magnificent beasts go hungry. Yet, they still go on. So will you.

Teach this to your children. Model this in your family and life. See how much healthier you will be for it.