Hey there!
Hope you are having a good weekend. I had a good day yesterday - after more than a year, I trained with my Saturday group. I am looking forward to next Saturday already.
Our first week of Q2 is also up and running. With the heat, our programming this quarter has a much bigger bias towards strength work. We stick mostly to the Pavel/Dan John school of working at the 80% mark though, and only occasionally go really heavy.
On to the posts for today.
sometimes, we don’t feel like going to the gym. It happens. When you lose motivation, it generally is a sign of stress. Things elsewhere are adding up. If you are someone who loves going to the gym and are suddenly finding it hard to wake up and move your ass out of bed, it is almost always your body telling you to chill out.
3 quotes. In particular, one from Adam Grant seems rather popular with a lot of you.
on my impatience and the time, I signed up for a triathlon and tried to train for it in under 3 months.
on not feeling like going to the gym
ups and downs
We all have ups and downs. In the early stages, say you are fuelled by clarity or good anger or whatever - you just blitz through every obstacle. You prioritise going to the gym or eating better or not drinking or all of the above.
Inevitably, the fire burns lesser. There's only so long that we can live in this imbalance. Work catches up. Or you miss catching up with your friends. Or the cravings are out in full swing.
First up, it happens. Relax. It happens to everyone.
balance in imbalance
The long-term solution is to figure out how often to live in this imbalance. That's something only you can figure out, based on your context. You will make some substantial changes, some big habit tweaks and all that. But even then, you will need to figure out some sort of balance in the imbalance. A few months of the year, your focus will be lifting weights. A few months of the year, you will clean up your nutrition big-time. And most of the year, you learn to coast (in a good way).
When you lose motivation, it generally is a sign of stress. Things elsewhere are adding up. If you are someone who loves going to the gym and are suddenly finding it hard to wake up and move your ass out of bed, it is almost always your body telling you to chill out. You haven't lost your mojo, relax. There's only so much stress your body can take. To put it in jargon, your body is shifting into parasympathetic mode a bit extra to tell you to calm down and chill out more. Take a hint!
This is a good time to go on walks with your spouse, take a vacation, schedule more time with your buddies. Or if the vacation bit is not possible (work is crazy and oh, there's a pandemic around), then all the more reason to calm down on stressing yourself at the gym. Lifting weights is stress. Sure, it is fun and all that. But eventually, stress is stress to the body.
So, find out other ways to de-stress yourself. Instead of criticising yourself about being a lazy bum and not waking up or going to the gym, find something else to do. It doesn't have to be a physical activity - may be more time to dabble in your long-neglected hobby. Sing more. Dust off that guitar and do whatever one does with a guitar. Do your thing.
take 2 weeks off
I've found that as little as 2 weeks off from training rejuvenates me. I cannot wait to get going again.
Remember, not feeling like going to the gym simply means your body is smarter than your mind. Listen to it. You are someone who loves going to the gym - you don't just fall out of love with it. Give it a break.
It will come back.
I'll see you at the gym in 2 weeks.
3 quotes for this week
Remember my friend to enjoy your planning as well as your accomplishment, for life is too short for negative energy.
– Bruce Lee
Sometimes Bruce Lee says obtuse and hard to understand stuff. Sometimes, he's crystal clear.
It's a sign of wisdom to avoid believing every thought that enters your mind. It's a mark of emotional intelligence to avoid internalizing every feeling that enters your heart.
– Adam Grant
Not every thought that pops into your head needs to be taken seriously. The stupid ones, the random ones, the ones that make no sense, the ones that make you question yourself and the ones where you wonder Do I really think that way - mull it over and if it doesn't feel YOU, discard it.
A paradox is not a conflict within reality. It is a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality should be like.
– Richard Feynman
I love Feynman quotes and this comes from a regular reader. Thank you!
on my impatience and the triathlon
results, right now
Most of you want results immediately. Well, if not today, by next week. You want to undo all the damages of sitting too much, moving too little, eating too poorly for a decade RIGHT NOW. Why? Because you've decided to make a change and you've been off sugar for all of 3 whole days and exercised for 2 of them. Why aren't angels singing and showering flowers around you and applauding your herculean efforts? And why aren't those pants/dresses magically loose already?!?! This is so unfair.
Well, I was no different. While I didn’t want results of this kind, I wanted results. I wanted to do more things. Let me tell you about the time I trained for a triathlon and why I did rather poorly because I was impatient and trying to be efficient.
This was the time when I felt like a kid in a candy store. Suddenly, an entire universe was accessible to me. Only running felt too boring and I didn't know much about strength training. So, I thought I'd do more triathlons as they seemed fun. A friend of mine, an avid runner who would go on to run a marathon in 3.5 hours at 40 years old a few years later, suggested the gorgeous Pacific Grove triathlon. My wife and I loved our time at Carmel and this sounded perfect.
but ...
My swimming skills were non-existent. My cycling prowess was non-existent. My running skills were intact - well, meaning I could run a 10k under 60 minutes any day. While that might seem a slow time to most runners, to me it was insane that I could run continuously for an hour and actually be confident about saying something like that out loud.
I didn't know enough to realise these were skills I could systematically work on. Instead, I wanted to keep CrossFitting and keep playing Ultimate. And train for the triathlon in as efficient a fashion as possible. So, I looked at CrossFit Endurance (please note that this is not a gripe about the method but that I lacked the foundation for it. Sensible high-intensity training protocols do exist but they are not the ones you see most people doing today)
hindsight
In hindsight, I should've worked on my aerobic endurance and built it back up. All the CrossFit work I was doing, while it developed other things, it did not work well for me to develop my aerobic capacity.
I did get one thing right throughout my early years though - process over outcomes, journey before destination. My ignorance and lack of knowledge and complete joy at having discovered my way out of my hole were enough for me to keep going. Unbeknownst to me, I was getting a significant mental approach right.
But my impatience - signing up for an Olympic distance triathlon ( 1.5 km swim, 40 km bike, 10 km run) - and giving myself a 3-month window to be ready for it was silly. It was just that I was extremely excited and simply wanted to complete it. I was going for the sheer experience of being able to do it.
the joy and the experience
It was a success. It was my first time swimming 1.5 km ever. Add the fact that I swam in open water (very calm open water though) - I was exhilarated. The bike ride was comfortable as I just kept to my pace and watched about a hundred people overtake me. I managed to overtake about a hundred during the 10k which is the last leg of the race.
But if I look at it with a critical eye, my impatience stands out. My search for efficiency was not smart. Efficiency in this case would've meant working on one skill at a time - improve my swimming skills and work on my aerobic base. And then look at improving my cycling skills and work on my aerobic base.
If I had to do it now, I would do it for over a year. Spend 3 months getting my strength levels to a baseline. Then, spend 2-3 months on my swimming skills. Post that, spend 2-3 months on cycling. All the while, tracking my strength (to be maintained above a specific level) and aerobic capacity. And then spend the last 4-6 months putting it all together.
But to a kid in a candy store, it is hard to explain all of this. Hindsight is wonderful and all that. Looking back at this experience, I wouldn't change any of it. There are some wonderful lessons here that I think I am still unpacking.
how does this apply to you?
All of us have to travel our own path.
The textbook answer (of spending a year) might've put me off and gotten me bored because I was not smart enough to understand it. What worked for me then was to feed my excitement, and maybe that's okay.
As long as it is not hurting you or is harmful over the long term, there's nothing wrong.
My friend, who did the triathlon with me, continued to focus on running. And ended up running a marathon in 3 and a half hours. A great achievement at any age but doing it at 40 years old is phenomenal. He continues to run meditatively and constantly works on improving his running skill.
You will be impatient. You will get things wrong. It's okay.
Some of you will be smarter than me. Signing up with a coach who's made these mistakes might benefit you but only if you are smart enough to avoid the mistakes they've made. At the same time, we learn from our failures and our mistakes. So, unless you learn from what you are doing, chances are that you will mess something up later.
Process over outcomes. Journey over destination. Enjoy it.
Rejoice in being an amateur. You have a job, friends, family and all that. This is a hobby, however serious. Being a pro is unforgiving.
Being professional in your approach is vital though. But since the results truly don't matter, don't be too harsh on yourself.
Thanks for spending a few minutes of your Sunday with me. See you next week!
