Mentally Tough

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Justin

“Any sort of injury is just you being mentally weak. That includes getting shot.”

A friend who works in a higher tier special operations unit recently said the above quote to me. It was in reference to my recent hamstring injury, but there’s more weight in these words.

Injuries can be great or small, yet it’s up to the person to decide how they’ll let their injuries affect them. There will be injuries that prevent specific activities — doing an exercise or a type of job — but the rehabilitation rate is relative to perception.

Consider two dichotomous mindsets. Two people have muscle strains that require massage to break up the scar tissue. The area is tender and painful. When the massage begins for the first person, whether administered by a friend or self, they tense up and contort their face in pain. The second person welcomes the pain calmly, knows they will endure it, but does so stoically. Their massage, rehab, and recovery will be more efficient not only because of their acceptance, but their bold mindset going into it. They don’t cringe at discomfort; they let it wash over passively.

Pain is a part of life, and mindset determines perception. The mentally weak fear pain because, well, it hurts. It’s discomforting and upsetting. The mentally strong expect pain and are ready for it. They are willing to endure and ignore it. It takes a tough sonofabitch to look at their injury and say, “Let’s roll.” Whether it’s a girl powerlifting with one leg, a girl (who I know from high school) who has lost her limbs from a flesh-eating disease, or a soldier who returns to combat after losing a leg, it takes guts.

Aimee Copeland does push-ups after losing limbs to a flesh eating disease

Pain and discomfort are relative to our situation, and we all aren’t faced with severed limbs or getting shot. But modifying our idea of pain can change our training, rehab, and life.

Again, consider two mindsets. The first approaches a difficult set of squats (e.g. 3RM, 5RM, 10RM, or 20RM) with dread and fear. They go through the motions of the set with failure as an option or possibility. The second approaches that same squat set aggressively, wanting to attack it. They are rabid; a caged, frothing animal ready to unleash hell on the bar. Which mindset do you think will be more successful?

Mental toughness in training will affect tenacity, bar speed, and completion of lifts. This doesn’t mean you should make stupid decisions on the account of “being tough”. Don’t make reckless decision, but use reckless intensity.

Mindset in rehab will be the difference between properly working structures and lack of progress. This is why Kelly Starrett tells you not to contort your face and go “into the pain cave” — it tenses your structures up and doesn’t work them properly.

Whether it’s training or rehab, embrace your pain. There is, of course, a difference between discomforting pain and injury pain. Each is a tool; the former is one that you will ignore while the latter informs you that your body is failing, even if your mind is not. People who are truly successful understand and use these pains every day. The next time you feel sorry for yourself, wincing in pain, just know that there’s a guy out there with a bullet hole in his body calmly rehabbing with reckless intensity.

The Key to Longevity

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Justin

Beard of the Day

Uncle John says, 'And who's your lover?'

Gerard sent me today’s beard and it was too amusing to ignore.

I’ve enclosed a photo of my wife’s Uncle John, a big, tough,pipe smoking, whiskey drinking Irish farmer. An eccentric, his opening line to strangers is always “And who’s your lover”?

The Key To Longevity

I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with a lot of different people; young, old, big, little, fat, skinny, healthy, and various health problems or anatomical issues. I’m always impressed by folks who most young people consider “old”. This is anything above the age of 45, and especially over the age of 55 and 60. I honestly don’t consider my friends in this age range as “old” — mostly because when I’m that age I will refuse to consider myself old. Ever since I was younger I wanted to show that good eating and exercise/training habits would be the formula for longevity.

Because of this I’m infatuated with people who are outliers compared to old people. The norm of older adults consists of being out of shape, unhealthy, and taking plenty of medication. They can’t really enjoy the same activities they did when they were younger because “life got in the way”. I’m not chastising them; full-time jobs, families, and the government telling you how to eat and exercise is hard to overcome. Yet in spite of all of that, there are people who are in great shape, don’t ache constantly (or cite such aching for their immobility), and are active, healthy “old people”.

I like talking to these friends or acquaintances to see how they did it. I like to ask them how old they are, compliment them on their success, and most importantly, ask them what the constant has been in their lives. The answer is always slightly different, but it can be derived to the same idea; they have always been active. None of them have ever said, “I eat a specific diet,” or “I’m just lucky”. They always have been consistent with activity and exercise.

One of my friends in Texas is 65 years old and has a hobby of climbing mountains. He has always been a fan of hiking, running, and exercising. He lifts in Rippetoe’s WFAC, so he squats and deadlifts on a semi-regular basis (easily handling 225 for reps in both lifts), and has chiseled calves that most of you would buy if you could. I recently met another man, 59 years old, who has sculpted pecs and biceps that would put us all to shame and he has enjoyed running throughout his life. Another friend is around 63 and has always enjoyed cycling. Dr. Kilgore is in his early 50s and has always enjoyed lifting and has pretty good blood lipid levels (and has had a total of six months of endurance/conditioning training accumulated in his entire life). This small sample size of close friends lean towards endurance exercise, yet they all engage in weight training regularly.

As a person ages, their training will probably reflect that of a generalist approach. They should lift enough to maintain their strength (or improve it if it’s lacking) and do some kind of “cardio” related activity to maintain a baseline of cardiovascular and respiratory function. Focusing on one or the other may neglect some important health benefits, yet severely lacking in strength will cause problems into very old age. Common examples are getting off the toilet, carrying groceries, and maneuvering stairs and steps without struggle or injury. Full body loading will allow the muscles to continue applying force to move the body or external objects and keep structures like bones and tendons from injuring easily (which will avoid things like stepping off the curb and breaking a hip). Yet all of this is for naught if the older person tries to implement it when they are already old; taking the preventative measure will have that trim and healthy when they achieve oldness. The preventative measure is not taking a break from exercise and activity. The only way to ensure that your body avoids adapting to a lack of activity (insert image of the unable sedentary person here) is to consistently exercise, train, and move.

If you plan on being around when you’re older, this should put things in a different perspective. Failing that PR squat isn’t as traumatic because it’s a process. Thirty years from now, your failed PR will just be a training day. Training assumes that progress is the goal (otherwise it’s just working out), and the overall goal is to still be able to train when you’re 50, 60, or 70 years old. It’s hard to look at the big picture when you’re young, but the best thing you can do is commit to a life of exercise and activity, no matter what’s going on in your life. There are 24 hours in a day, and 96 segments of 15 minutes in that span. If you can’t take two of those 96 segments to train several days a week, then you won’t have to worry about being around when you’re old.

And since the CrossFit people are already considering it, nutrition doesn’t mean dick if you aren’t exercising. If the body isn’t experiencing an event that will make it perform better, then fuel or hormonal manipulation through diet is worthless (unless you’re doing a hardcore calorie deficit, but that’s just weird, and you’ll end up 90’s small and breaking a hip when you leave Wal-Mart’s senior citizen sale). Force your body to be more efficient through consistent exercise; it’s what fit older people have done.

Dig Your Way Through

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Justin

Beard of the Day

Thanks to Stuart C. for the vid, who says it should be the 70’s Big theme

What have you…

I was listening to Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio today, and he was addressing two things; that he was allegedly a contrarian, and that Mike Vick is an NFL MVP candidate. Cowherd is in his mid 40s and explained that our society is more “knee-jerk” for a variety of reasons (knee-jerk meaning we respond intensely to things immediately and change our minds collectively). We are a nation of young people; young adults have grown up in the technology era playing videogames, experiencing the boom of the internet, and now we’re in the “social media” age. Information can virally spread within minutes across the globe with Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Our attention spans are much shorter and our actions are hasty. I know that I run out of things to look at on the internet quickly because I navigate it so fast. I type and click like the wind (it’s necessary for StarCraft).

Cowherd blamed this societal development for the knee-jerk reaction of campaigns flaring up for Vick as the Most Valuable Player in the NFL when he is 19th in the league in passing touchdowns, has only played in 6 of 9 games (and only played in half of one of those games), and his best stats come against mid-level or struggling teams (Redskins are strugglin’ like Brent trying to flex his biceps). The Vick argument aside, Cowherd has a point. There are knee-jerk reactions to everything. If you’ve looked in a “Muscle and Fitness” (or Fiction, as Kilgore likes to say) magazine, it is FILLED with one-time studies and over-generalizations. A study will show that something may be vaguely correlated, and those experts will immediately implement it into their advice (and may even draw up a 15 page article complete with 87 pictures of shaved dudes working out and flexing all the muscles that aren’t involved in the movement). M&F isn’t the only magazine that does this; any major magazine that has any kind of health section will list one research study (without even discussing whether it was a good study to begin with) and generalizing the results. And the general public reads this shit and Eats. It. Up. (to clarify: they don’t actually eat shit).

This is part of the reason why the fitness industry seems like it isn’t salvageable. So much crap has been fed to the layman for 30+ years, it’s hard to say that everyone should know better. The only constant among any of this is that progressive overload training with weights yields strength and muscle while intensity is a must for quality conditioning. Those ideals existed long before the aerobics hysteria and they continue their action today behind the scenes. Relevant research that supports the fundamental ideals is kinda shady since the industry as a whole is what drives research (and funding). It will be even harder to dig the layman out of the shit pile that they find themselves wallowing in. But I will continue wielding the shovel, gently displacing piles of poo until so that I can lead them from their cave of shadows (I wish I didn’t have to link my references although I didn’t link the “Of Mice and Men” reference yesterday).

Two things have to be in effect for the truth to sprout. First, the community that “gets it” — and understands how proper fitness works — shouldn’t look down on the unknowing. Plato couldn’t just bust in the cave and say, “Yo my peoples, yous have been checkin’ out da shadows your whole life, and yous is a bit thick,” (apparently Plato talks like Ali G). Instead we will respectfully lead them in the right direction by teaching them how it can benefit them. We aren’t going to scare them into believing (cough — religion, cough, cough) or coerce them into doing it (cough — tyranny, cough, cough). Secondly, we have to be more scientific about mainstream reporting on research studies that allegedly change medicine, exercise, or health. Find the original studies, determine whether or not it was a good study, and see if it can be generalizable to an entire population. Most often it can’t be — imagine trying to say that something applies to everyone in a world where a gothic teen is the same species as an NFL offensive lineman. Keep a clear head in spite of new fangled research, diets, and training methods. Maintain a commitment to the things that work over and over again, yet keep your mind open in light of development. Ask questions and learn all you can. It won’t make you popular (every time I ask questions at a workshop or seminar, people get angry and have even written nasty things on the internet about it), but it will help you learn.

Helping you learn is all I care about.

70’s Big Attitude

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Justin

70’s Big has always been about getting stronger, but in order to persistently get strong you need a kick-ass attitude. This whole “ass kickery” has developed into a demeanor that defines 70’s Big. Intense, hard work warrants a congratulatory, “that’s 70’s Big”. This is why we have the “70’s Big Face”; executing such a glare lets everyone know that you aren’t fucking around.

Ed from the picture contest is PISSED

Intensity is another defining feature of 70’s Big; we all remember Chris and the third attempt deadlift (children will hear this story for generations). That’s why I like the 105kg Olympic weightlifter Dmitry Klokov so much; the guy wants to lift the bar overhead and then break it over his knee.

Klokov is PISSED

Intensity is effective, but it’s useless without old school toughness. Recently Jeremy, Chris’ brother-in-law, played in a high school alumni football game. Jeremy grew up in Bowie, Texas shooting stuff, drinking beer, and bulldogging cattle. Unfortunately it had been over ten years since Jeremy could legally hit someone and take them to the ground, and that’s why he was excited to put the pads on one last time. Jeremy was an imposing force at middle linebacker against rival Henrietta …right up until a brawl cleared both benches at the end of the game (Texans take their football real fucking seriously). Even though Jeremy’s days as a weight lifter are behind him, he still exudes the 70’s Big attitude.

Jeremy at the game, and then on an average Saturday

Everyone who reads this site may not win medals or achieve fame, but maintaining a strong attitude and vigorously intense determination are qualities that will permeate into this thing called life. Go forward and attack each day, and you too will be 70’s Big.

AC attacks the day, because he is PISSED

Learn From Your Mistakes

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Justin

AC closes his eyes and misses a third attempt squat forward.

Something is bound to go wrong. You’re going to miss a rep because you let the bar drift forward as you pulled it off the floor. You might (for whatever reason) close your eyes (followed by a forward somersault) and miss a heavy squat. At some point you won’t finish your pull and miss a clean or snatch. And you will sure as hell miss a heavy press forward. Whatever it might be, something is going to go wrong; you aren’t perfect all the time.

Some people can’t come to terms with this reality. They’ll get frustrated when learning a new movement and try to quit. Some pout and moan when they miss a lift and others don’t understand why they sucked on a given day. Others will look in the mirror and say, “My traps aren’t big enough.”

Irregardlessly, you’ll face these events and it’s up to you to decide whether or not you’re going to act like a sally when they do. When things go wrong, you (and your coach, if applicable) need to figure out what went wrong so that it doesn’t happen again. If you can manage to learn from your mistakes, then you’ll inevitably improve.

The bar isn't supposed to hit your chin

Mistakes can be mechanical in nature. Letting your knees drift in as you hit the bottom of your squat will cause them to also shift forward at the bottom which also brings your pelvis forward. Heavy deadlifts have a tendency to drift forward if you don’t pull it back, and this makes them exponentially harder. Hitting low on a snatch will help you miss it forward. Catching a clean in the same way will make the front squat much harder. Basically if you do something that moves the bar forward or backward of the middle of your foot, the lift is going to be extremely difficult, and there are lots of reasons that can make this happen on every barbell lift.

Problems can also occur from a macro standpoint: programming and recovery. Recovery limitations are either your fault or out of your control. It’s your fault if you didn’t eat enough protein and calories, but having a three day shoot out as a SWAT team member with little sleep is a function of your job. In either case, care must be taken when training to account for these things.

Brent percieves his lack of trap development as failure

Programming problems can arise when someone is not ready for their program, advancing beyond their program, has long-term recovery issues, experiences nagging or acute injuries, or has too much volume/intensity causing too much stress in the current program. This is where you have to be particularly observant to look for patterns in your training and this is the chief reason why keeping a training log is important and necessary. As you advance and get stronger the closer you will have to pay attention to this. If you’re deadlifting too frequently, you’ll get run down and it will affect your squats and pulls. If you’re doing too much volume early in the week, then your intensity day will not thrive because you won’t fully recover. If you’re hamstrings aren’t used to handling heavy loads when they are tired, then deadlifting in a long meet is going to be arduous. When you cause local stress on structures (particularly muscles, tendons, and ligaments) and you have chronically high systemic stress, the structures won’t heal efficiently and are more prone to injury (which is why people get hurt from frequent CrossFit training). It’s all cumulative.

Younger lifters will some times feel helpless because of failure. Older lifters understand failure and most will learn from it. I know some people that have gotten strong because of their persistence over years and years of training, and it wouldn’t be possible without learning from their failure.

Looking for patterns is a concept that Pete Blaber repeats in his interesting book, The Mission, The Men, and Me. If you’re observant over time you’ll be able to absorb enough data to recognize patterns that can help you figure out what went wrong. When you figure out what went wrong, you’ll be able to fix it and improve. It’s okay to fuck up. Just don’t keep doing it.