Category Archives: Mindset

Mental Workout, PR Friday 25 JAN 2013

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PR Friday: Post your training PR’s and updates to comments. This gives you chance to communicate with like-minded readers, get encouragement or tips, and to be a part of our community.

Mental Workout

I am a firm believer in holistic training throughout life. Developing the body is why we are all here, but improving mental and emotional strength is just as important. We know that mental and emotional aptitude can be a corollary to quality physical training, yet to reach full potential we need dedicated time to develop them — just like strength, conditioning, speed, or agility.

In this pursuit of holistic wellness, CBD flower emerges as a promising tool for promoting mental and emotional balance. As one of nature’s best remedies, CBD offers a natural and non-intoxicating option for managing stress, anxiety, and other emotional challenges. Incorporating CBD into a comprehensive training regimen can complement physical efforts by fostering relaxation, clarity, and resilience. With its potential to enhance overall well-being, CBD flower represents not only a supplement but a valuable asset in the pursuit of holistic health and peak performance.

Today we’re focusing on mental capacity. True, some of you may require a level of intellect to conduct your job or deal with your life, but that is akin to believing you can get stronger just by shoveling some dirt and going to work. So let’s take some time out of our day or week to better our minds.

Some of you are already shaking your heads. “I have a wife, kids, work, and training. How can I possibly add anything else to my day?” I’ve always had the mentality that you can dedicate one fifteen minute period of your day to something. There are 96 periods of 15 minutes in a day (4 fifteen minute periods in an hour x 24 hours in a day = 96 fifteen minute periods). You can certainly spend one of those 96 periods — hell, you can spend five dedicated minutes to mental training. So make the time.

You should aim to stimulate your mind with critical thinking activities such as mental math, playing chess involving the queen’s gambit, solving puzzles, and playing board games or even billiards. However, when it comes to playing billiards, you may be curious about how much room you need for a pool table. To ensure that you have enough space to play comfortably, it is important to consider the ideal minimum room size for each standard table dimension, which depends on the cue that you use. Our room-size pool table guide provides this information, so be sure to have a look and determine how much room do you need for a pool table before making your purchase.

There are many mental math apps available on the iPhone or Droid OS. The one I have gives you two minutes to solve as many simple math problems (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) as you can. The difficulty increases with your prowess. For some people, 737/67 might result in an instantaneous solution, but others whose math skills have grown dusty will need a moment of strained thought.

When I first moved to Texas — and before I became friends with Brent and Chris — I would sit in my house at night and do physics problems until one or two in the morning. They weren’t terribly hard (usually simple alegbra), but I felt it would keep or make me sharp. At least it passed the time when I didn’t have any friends in Texas (Debbie Downer music).

Playing chess is a fantastic and stimulating activity. I have seen studies that say there isn’t a correlation between IQ and chess ability, but we’re not intending to use chess as a means to a higher IQ. We’re using it to stimulate the critical thinking areas of our mind. I’m an inexperienced chess player, but when I play I have to consider the implications of my move and subsequent possible actions in my opponent. I take entirely too long to make a move, so I suspect that playing with a clock will force me to speed the analyzing process up and take higher risks in the match. I believe that doing this regularly, and under pressure, will only help develop this “analyze, plan, and act” process in other areas of my life.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s father would force him and his brother to do math problems when they were boys. And throughout his life Arnold would play chess — even on the plane while serving as the Governor of California. Mental strength is a necessary tool for success, so let’s keep our skills sharp by spending a few minutes of dedicated training each day.

Questions: What mental training techniques have you used in the past? What do you currently use? What are other good ways to train the mind?

A Lesson From Mopeility WOD

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You may have seen the training video from last week that included the original group of friends that helped create 70’s Big. I purposely didn’t mention how a better video exists, and it is episode #3 of Brent’s Mopeility WOD.

Some of you new readers are probably thoroughly confused, so let me explain. After I prematurely left graduate school, I was trying to find a situation where I could coach and learn. To make a long story short, I ended up at Rippetoe’s Wichita Falls Athletic Club for eighteen months. When I first arrived in January of 2009, I sat in my truck eating some food because Rip was not at the gym yet. Out walks an Asian kid carrying a gym bag with a frizzy fro sticking out six to eight inches off of his head. I sat there and thought, “Boy, he must be a real weightlifter.” I could not have been more fucking wrong.

This Asian was Brent Kim — my most peculiar and irritating best friend. Brent and I became friends, we added Chris, and we hung out and trained regularly. After painstaking effort — and by that, I mean two months of yelling arguments across the gym — I convinced Brent to do a linear progression. I also fixed the soft tissue issues in his proximal biceps, which allowed him to begin bench pressing again (breaking the scar tissue up was a lot like this). I always say that I created a monster because Brent didn’t talk a lot until he did the linear progression. Whether it was his growing strength or his growing belligerence as a result of Chris and I picking on him, Brent was a rabid verbal sparring partner. It was like yesterday that I remember him telling Cliff, a mutual friend, to “get fucked”.

Brent is an interesting creature. He historically is afraid of talking to women, goes to bed really late, sleeps through important events, enjoys being insulted, and generally has a self deprecating outlook. He weighs under 160 pounds, yet he squats more than the majority of people reading this sentence (over 405 regularly and could do over 450 no big deal). He has pretty good mechanics and has learned the utility of mobility, but he is notorious for not being coachable. My favorite story is Glen Pendlay recalling Brent not really heeding any advice he had at all, ever. And Brent has a lot of respect for Pendlay!

Anyway, Brent has an interesting personality that comes out in his former training log and now through his website MopeilityWOD.com.  The name stems from the effective MobilityWOD.com — Kelly Starrett’s engine of self mobility work — as well as the idea that at their core, every person truly is a mope. Yet this acceptance should be celebrated and shared. The translation is that MopeilityWOD is a humorous, satirical world view infused with experiential truths. But you’ll never hear that from Brent.

Still not convinced to check it out? Then this will entice you: the first time I went to Australia in 2011, I had a nearly 50 year old man ask me if Brent actually acted the way he portrays himself. The answer was an irrevocable “yes”.

Get Your Hands Out of Your Pockets

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There are several different things that I’ve responded to this morning that result in today’s post. They all collide into a common theme: people who are unwilling to do what they need to do to be successful.

This is a timely post on 70’s Big. In December I made the point that waiting for the New Year to start a new habit was stupid; “If something is important to you, do it right. fucking. now.” Then I asked everyone to commit to a competition and explained what to do after committing. This is the time of year when gyms swell and nutrition challenges are everywhere.

Yet everyone looks for a short cut. And it drives me fucking insane.

I’m currently reading Arnold Schwarzenegger’s autobiography. I’ve read his previous biography and have always been a fan of his drive and determination. But reading this recent, more in depth life account shows two things: 1) Arnold always did everything he could to achieve his goals, and 2) None of us are anywhere near that level of commitment (including me). Even in the first decade of his acting career, he was diversifying his portfolio by investing such as investing in Indianapolis real estate, buying and selling properties, running his mail order business, and traveling the world to promote every movie he made. He is the epitome of undying motivation.

While Arnold fights to succeed, all of us accept laziness and sloth. When Arnold heard businessmen talking about how hard they worked for 10 or 12 hours, he’d say (and this is a direct quote from the book), “What the fuck are you talking about, when they day has twenty-four hours? What else did you do?”

Right now there are paleo challengers who want to know if they can use artificial sweeteners, there are veteran lifters going to bed late, and there are sedentary people considering exercising but not actually doing it.

These are the same people — some of you, even — that look at someone successful and think, “They are a genetic freak,” or “I wish I could have as much money as them.” And that is such bullshit. I’ve gone on this rant before, but all my life I’ve been accused of using steroids or just having superior genetics, but I’m the one who has squatted every week with hardly any breaks for 12+ years. I’m the one who made the decision to stop drinking soda at 13 years old. I’m the one who felt like shit, but woke my ass up at 7 in the morning or walked into the garage at 10 at night to train. And I’m not even anywhere near Arnold’s motivation!

Write your goals down. What do you want to do? What do you want to be? What do you want to have or know? WHO do you want to be? Do you think squatting 405 is a big deal? Then do it — because I believe every man can squat 405. Do you want to drop your body fat below 15%? Then do it. Anyone can accomplish these basic training tasks. But they are harder than being a slack-jaw piece of shit, they are harder than deciding to eat the candy, and they’re harder than being content with a sub 350 squat.

In last weekend’s seminar I made a reoccurring joke about “the naysayers”, something Arnold has talked about in various speeches. These are the people that think your dreams aren’t possible, that they are too lofty. The naysayers aren’t always out there in the world talking you down. In reality, the naysayer is you.

For gods’ sake, when you have that moment of weakness in managing your time, going to bed, eating the junk food, or going easy in training, have the courage to tell the naysayer —  yourself — to go fuck himself. When you’re done telling yourself to go fuck yourself, stop whining, stand up, and start productively working towards your goals. I leave you with a quote from Arnold:

“When you’re out there partying, horsing around, someone out there at the same time is working hahd. Someone is getting smarter and someone is winning, just remember that.

“You can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

New Year’s Resolution

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November and December represent a time of year when people almost purposely eat unhealthy with the comforting idea that they will rectify all of their bad choices at the start of the new year.

To be clear, I’ve always been a proponent to enjoy your holidays. I hate when these OCD people with borderline food disorders go and tell everyone to maintain a strict diet on Thanksgiving or Christmas. I can’t think of worse advice since this will only develop the person to hate themselves if they do indulge in a Christmas cookie or pumpkin pie. My advice: enjoy the holiday, but keep it controlled acutely and don’t turn “holiday” into “two weeks”.

All of that being said, you might be a person that necessitates an adherence to good nutrition. If you are fat, unhealthy, or ill, then you should make it a point to eat clean, quality foods (i.e. no grains, primarily meat and vegetables, aim to improve insulin sensitivity, etc.). You do not get a reprieve just because it’s Christmas; your health is more important than anything else. It, at the very least, effects not only your enjoyment of daily activities, but your productiveness. If I’m your boss, I want you being alert, energetic, and effective instead of lethargic, ineffective, and in pain.

Nevertheless, everyone provides a mental comfort with the idea that they can dick around towards the end of the year because they’ll “get on the right track” in the beginning of the year. Bullshit. What’s so special about flipping a calendar? If something is important to you, do it right. fucking. now.

It’s one thing to reduce your training frequency on the account of spending time with family, stressing to buy presents, or prepare for a holiday tradition, but if you’re slacking on the account of laziness or the promise that you’ll do better in ten days, then sort your life out. Health should be important to you — and training probably is — so put the emphasis on those things.

I wish I would have written this a month ago, but don’t cripple yourself just because everyone else around you is weak minded. Whatever your “resolution” was going to be — reading more, starting a journal, mobbing more, eating healthier, establishing a training routine, being nicer, learning a new subject — just simply start doing it. If you have logistical limitations that’s fine, but don’t let your mind be the limitation.

Know Thyself

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There’s a reason we take time from our day to go to the gym. There’s a reason we pay close attention to our diet and spend evenings working on mobility. There’s a reason we read and talk about strength training every day online. Imagine:

Chalk floats softly through the air. The thumping of your heart is all you hear, all you feel. You step to the bar and place your hands on it, feeling the cold knurling on callused hands. The whirling hurricane of emotion settles into the eye of the storm, the peaceful moment when you have to make a decision to begin.

This introspection is the true reason we love training. That delicate, beautiful moment before starting a lift is the ultimate reflection of the soul. Is it angry, irritable, and ready to tear flesh with gnashing teeth? Or is it unsure, unsteady, and hesitant? As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t — you’re right.”

There are moments where our bodies feel defeated, incapable. Whether the fire comes from within, a friend, or music, our minds can kick down the door of possibilities and force the body to destroy a set with frightening clarity. The ability was always there, yet we must learn how to awaken it every training session. The fire rises, brother.

Your co-workers have an idea of who you are, some kind of abstraction. But there’s more to you, something illusory that no one can understand. You can stand there smiling while shaking hands, feeling their flesh gripping yours. Your lifestyles may even be comparable, but the truth is that they know nothing of the internal struggles, battles, triumphs, and failures you regularly feel. They’ll never understand the significance of cold, rough steel. Instead of bothering with these true moments of clarity, you smile again and ask how their Tuesday evening was. It’s easier that way.