Action

Grinders win, period. I don't care how perfect your program is, how ambitious your goals are, who your parents are, where you grew up, or any other reason why you feel you "deserve" to be successful — if you don't take action, you will not have the type of success you hope for. As a wise man once said, you can dream in one hand and shit in the other, but all you'll be left with is a handful of shit. 

excerpted from 7 NFL Training Principles on T-Nation

Growth

Let me talk about muscles for a moment. How do muscles grow? First, there's the pain. You run. Or push. Or pull. Or swim. Or anything. You tear your muscles. You wound them in a million ways. At this moment you are weak. Run 15 miles. Legs shake, vision blurs, chest heaves. You are weak. You are not strong. Growth requires you to be weak. Growth requires you to hurt.

But then you give your body what your body needs. 

Food. Proteins. From many sources. 

Fats. Good ones. Clean ones.

Rest. Much of it. In many ways.

Then what happens? A soma-spiritual, psycho-biological miracle.

Your muscles adapt.

Change.

Strength. 

Growth.

You have more strength, more capacity. You do what you previously considered impossible. You withstand what formerly brought you to your knees. And soon, you do this easily.

My legs don't wake up until I've run about 5 or 6 miles. There was a time I could not run 3 miles. Running 3 miles used to make me ache and moan for a day or so. Running 3 miles at my absolute hardest now leaves me out of breath for no more than 10 minutes. I won't be satisfied with my day unless I fit in another workout that evening. My work capacity increases. No isolated phenomenon -- it's been repeated trillions times. You can do this yourself. Destroy a part of yourself. Provide yourself with nurture and rest. Watch as you grow and become stronger. Watch as you change.

Is your spirit so different?

You've been hurt. Heartbreak. I have a friend who supports his family. 6 people living on 2 incomes. The other income is a parent who makes less than half his paycheck. He's 2 years into a 30-year mortgage. It's not his home. He's his family's bailout package. He lost his job. You've been hurt. The crutch you've leaned on to find yourself snapped. And of course it snapped. You're a 320 lb. soul leaning on a costume cane.  Expecting that support to last would be to indulge yourself in a stupendous delusion. You've fallen. But you can get up. That's up to you.

You've experienced the pain. Will you give yourself the nutrition and nurture you need to grow, to change? Or will you wallow in your spiritual wrack longer?

Run. Run because it hurts. When my heart last broke, I thanked God for the hill behind my house. 3 blocks long and steep. I ran sprints up and down that hill until I fell to my knees and puked. I ran sprints until my body hurt more than my soul. And then I drank my protein. I slept off the aches. And my body grew strong. I realized that my body was getting stronger and my soul must pull its own weight in return. So I sought discipline, dispassionate intelligence and openness of heart, innocence in my optimism and wisdom in my judgment. I grew. I changed.

I can still grow. I can still change. 

I will always have room to grow. I will always have room to change.

So yeah. I'm talking about muscles. And a little more.

Mental Training

My legs shook. I dropped down onto the cold concrete steps, my labored breathing painful.

"Mind, you've been the one holding me back all this time."

1 hour 15 minutes. That was my best time on this particular run by nearly 20 minutes. I still had much, much more left in the tank.

I said, in sum and substance, the same thing to a new friend I made during the 5k this past Saturday. I explained my rationale to her this way:

"The body is capable of so much more than a normal person's mind is willing to give it credit for. When you're tired, it's not your body that's weak. It's your mind. What word do we use for people with weak minds? Feeble-minded. That completely changes the conversation. People laugh it off and are OK with being called pudgy or lazy or tired. I don't know anyone who's OK with being called feeble-minded."

Feeble-minded.

What other term should we use for the undisciplined, for comfort addiction, for effort-aversion?

Feeble-minded.

It's what I see staring back at me when I read down my training log. What I've done this year does not reflect the passion, the heart and courage that I aim to have. So what do I do? I just get stronger. If weakness is the problem then strength must be the solution. Physical strength, when I'm lacking. Mental strength, when I'm lacking.

I wrote about this several times (to my memory) in Purgatory but this passage bears repeating. Mark Twight wrote it on the Gym Jones website and his words have not only spurred me on in my pursuit of greater physical achievements but also in the nature of what I'm achieving. What was I really after in my training? I had a body that was visually satisfying to me, maybe 85% of the time. Did the other 15% of the time merit so much effort? No. What I really wanted was to change. I was satisfied with my body but I had not yet become satisfied with my soul. Nor do I believe, should I ever. Will I ever lack for a deeper depth to plunge or a greater height to ascend? I hope not. Will I ever have enough courage, imagination, creativity, willpower, determination or resourcefulness? I don't think so.

...without predators or self-imposed challenges of similar magnitude it is easy to become soft, to regard health and fitness as unnecessary anachronisms. The modern world values intellectual horsepower and the "spirit" in complete disassociation from the physical body. Athletes are "entertainers" rather than examples of mankind's potential...

...Mishima believed in the correspondence between the flesh and spirit, "... feeble emotions, it seemed to me, corresponded to flaccid muscles, sentimentality to a sagging stomach, and over-impressionability to an oversensitive, white skin. Bulging muscles, a taut stomach, and a tough skin, I reasoned, would correspond respectively to an intrepid fighting spirit, the power of dispassionate intellectual judgment, and a robust disposition." ...

What I want is my own transformation. Our bodies follow our souls. This is what I call "soul-lag." Think of the obese, unathletic victim of the modern world for a moment. His sagging flesh, his decrepit body simply followed where the mind led. "It's too hard to get out of bed to run in the morning." "I've had a hard day. I'm going to eat cheesecake for dinner." "I deserve to watch T.V. because I'm tired and exercise is hard." What word did we previously use for mental impotence again?

Your body follows your mind. Change your mind and your body will follow. I'll finish by pasting this e-mail that I received in one of the newsletters I read. It expresses what I want to say very well.

I saw a movie on Showtime a few months ago called "Reversal of Fortune".
The documentary film makers followed a homeless man around for a week or so. At the end of the week - they gave him $100,000.
For a homeless man - living under a bridge - this is clearly a life changing sum. They even paid for a financial counselor.
Within six months he had less than $5000 left. Within nine months he was back on the streets - homeless.
Owing more money than before.
The morale of the story I suppose is that the homeless man's attitude to money didn't change. You need to invest that money - or at least continue to make money - or look to budget.
The difference between this man living on the streets and not living on the streets was his attitude, choices and behaviors - not just the $100K.
Fitness and your health can be a lot like this also.
Imagine if you woke up tomorrow - with your ideal body... looking and feeling exactly how you want...
What would you do differently to maintain it?
Maybe what you would do differently might involve changing your exercise habits, or your eating habits.
Then why not start doing that now? Make the changes in behavior first...

Laurels

I just realized that I am among the 1% most fit persons on Earth. Surprised? So was I. So am I.

Given my combination of physical abilities, the current status of my energy systems (the level of both the anaerobic and aerobic systems) as well as my ability to produce force and the period of time for which I can sustain that production is in nothing short of rare in the human population.

Let me put this in context. I've currently maxed out at 25 pullups, a deadlift over 400 lbs., a squat over 350, and a bench press over 300. This is middle-of-the-road average for a lot of powerlifting forums I've frequented. I'm still getting stronger as we speak. For America, the average is 0 pullups, what's a deadlift?, I can't squat to depth., and a bench press of around 100 lbs. if I'm feeling generous.

I've done a half-Ironman and placed in the 47th percentile for my age group -- below, but nearly average. By all means unremarkable. 47%? I believe I still have tremendous room for growth. I will grow. I will get much better. But the fact remains, I've done it.

To say that I am below the top 1% of all humans currently alive is the same as saying there are 68 million people who have simultaneously more strength and stamina than myself. A country of 68 million persons, would be the 19th most populous country in the world ranking ahead of the U.K., France, Thailand, South Korea, South Africa, Italy and 200 others. 68 million is roughly twice the population of Canada.

I do not believe there are 68 million human beings alive who are at the same time stronger and more resilient than myself.

By my definition of fitness, a measurement of physical capacity that tests both strength and ability to maintain strength over time, I am in the top 1%. Actually, I am probably in the top 0.1%. I think there might possibly be 6.8 million more human beings who are more fit than myself.

Why am I saying these things?

I'm saying them because I have heroes, or perhaps role models might be a more appropriate term and my accomplishments would be as remarkable as an insect's before their own. I want to know what it would take to get where they are because I want to go there.

I'm still not satisfied. There's a dizzying height above me.

Remember, I'm only 47% for my age group in long-course triathlons. What does it feel like to be 50, 60, 70 or 99% I can do 25 pull-ups. What kind of strength lies in the body of those who can do 60?

The great fall because of complacency.