It’s plainly true: our minds and our mental outlook creates our reality and either helps or hinders all we do. In order to reach athletic or fitness related goals, we must put in great amounts of physical training in order to prepare but it’s our mental state that determines how much time and energy we’re actually going to dedicate to that physical training; thus, the mental is the gateway to the physical. In every physical workout we are also working the mental and the harder the effort, the more difficult the activity, the greater the chance for making real gains in both the mental and physical realms. It’s like my friend Tony Barbero said to me: “The real workout only begins when you’re totally tired and beat.” The simplicity and great wisdom of what he said rocked my world and I’ve ben pushing myself harder than ever, chipping away at those mental and physical barriers like never before.
Tony is on the toughest and most bad ass wild land firefighting crew in the nation (although they don’t like to brag.) Even thinking of the training they do and the pain and suffering they endure is enough to make me curl up in fetal position and cry. One example: He was lifting a heavy limb of Mountain Mahogany that sprung free and smashed him in the face. He thought he knocked his teeth out and was relieved when he felt them intact. What to do next? Just keep working. Then he felt something sticking out of his upper lip–a nice, 2 inch splinter of the hardwood. He managed to pull it out of his face with much blood. What to do next? Just keep working. His fire partner soon alerted him of the fact that he was covered in blood and so Tony looked down and realized that yes indeed, his lip and face were bleeding quite a lot, all down his chest. Tony reluctantly stopped working only after the medics and his captian determined that he should be evacuated for stitches.
Every time we workout (or do anything) the limiting factor is our minds, our over-active brains, and our often wussy, negative and self-defeating internal chatter. When we exert ourselves physically our brains tell us we’re tired and that we should stop as a defense mechanism long before our bodies are actually that fatigued. It makes sense; as animals we have a survival instinct that tells us to conserve as much energy as possible at all times. The point is that we’re never really as tired as we “think” and, almost across the board, we always have more to give. The beauty is that it’s so easy to experiment with these mental boundaries. You can literally do it right this second. Get out of your chair and do dips on the edge of it or on the edge of a low table or something like that…
Go ahead, start doing them: 1, 2, 3, 4… When that moment comes and your internal voice says: “Holy hell this is starting to burn! I swear I only have 2 left in me” …do 3. Then, when you’ve done 3 (already one more than you initially “thought” you could do), do one more…really, seriously, just one more. Literally. I know you can do one more because in actuality you could do ten or twenty or thirty more if it wasn’t for that brain of yours.
Learn to push hard, really hard. Get familiar with the feeling of being totally and utterly present and giving 110%. It doesn’t matter if you can do 5 reps of 50 reps or even if you’re exercising at all (there’s many ways to develop that mental edge: like standing on line at the DMV, going to the dentist, and sitting in traffic, just to name a few), the point is you’re pushing your limits (and those are the only ones that should really matter to you anyway.) As I said, this stuff is surprisingly easy to practice…so if you have a goal and you want to push yourself, I say get after it!
When in doubt, do as I do and think of Tony Barbero. I picture him in the mountains working his freaking heart out, fighting raging fires in the most arduous conditions, getting splinters on his face, putting his life on the line, not complaining, not saying how tired he is, not having a bad attitude, becoming, time and again, dear friends with pain and suffering. So when things get really, REALLY tough you know that Tony won’t quit so–somehow in your own small, personal way–neither should you.
Willie McBride is a native of Chicago, IL but has been living in and exploring the American West since 2000. He attended the Colorado College, majoring in English with a focus on Creative Writing, solidifying his love of writing and his need for mountains. An avid hiker, climber, and trail/ultramarathon runner he now resides in NW Portland, close by the trails of Forest Park. He started a personal/group training and coaching business called Animal Athletics (AnimalAthleticsPDX.com) with fellow ultra runner Yassine Diboun in spring of 2012 and the two provide top-notch services to aspiring outdoor athletes of all abilities.
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