One of the hardest things to teach individuals is the difference between hurting and suffering. Hurting means that you have moved beyond the pain (sprinting one hundred percent on the Airdyne until you’re staggering around and choking on a blend of upchuck and oxygen). Suffering is an experience of physical and mental discomfort that comes with all degrees of intensity (a 50 mile bike race where you can take modest pain over a long period of time. The top and most successful athletes learn how to live with hurt.
When training athletes in the gym, I teach athletes how to push beyond hurting in the pursuit of their goals. Most athletes that come through the door are stuck in a routine. They are comfortable with what they are used to. Some athletes use excuses for not reaching their goals (not enough time or sleep, need more practice in those situations, maxed out, bad nutrition, anxiety, and stress). In the gym I try to expose their weaknesses and get them to fail, which in turn will help them grow. In other words, to get people to succeed I need to break them down before I can build them up.
When doing any sport for years and years, you will become efficient at it. Your body will develop muscle memory so you might still be performing well even in poor fitness or with extreme imbalances. You will train your strengths and do what you are good at. Without even knowing it, you will set limitations that will prevent you from taking the next step physically and mentally. I see this often with endurance athletes. For example, a cyclist may avoid fighting for that last lap because they tell themselves they are not a sprinter or fall back on a climb because they tell themselves they are not a climber (the opposite of Jens Voigt’s famous quote “Shut up legs!”). Another example is a triathlete may resort to walking during a race because their heart rate monitor tells them they are running too hard or they slow down their bike pace because it’s too windy and they tell themselves it will take too much. These types of athletes will certainly fail doing any sort of workout that is not specific to their sport because their training is too physically and mentally focused. By teaching them how to fail and hurt in the gym, they can deal with the unexpected physically and mentally on race day.
It is not easy to find a way to give one hundred percent – especially if you are in the habit of not. One suggestion would be to find the rare person who is willing to hurt and get out of their routine and work out with them. It is always easier to lay it on the line after watching someone give 100 percent. Surround yourself in an environment where people are willing to step out of the box and work on a weakness. By failing together you will all succeed.
Next time when the mind says quit, tell it to piss off. Next time the body does not want to give anymore, take more. Next time you are not doing as well as you hoped, push on and work harder. You must be willing to contest your training habits in order to take your game to the next level.
