PUSH THYSELF.
When it comes to exercise (and indeed life in general), I believe people can push themselves far harder than they think they can.
I believe people – myself included – set their personal expectations too low, rarely try as hard as they think they are trying, and give up too easily.
I believe people rarely ever push themselves to their limits and, as a result, have no real concept of how hard they are ever actually trying, to the detriment of their performance.
I see it every day; people spend hours training half-heartedly and, as a result, progress slowly if at all. They then look at the people making progress and ask (often out loud):
“What’s he taking/drinking/eating/reading/doing/training differently to me to look/lift/fight/perform like that?”
The answer is usually the same: nothing. He is simply training harder, because he has worked hard to discovered his limits, knows how to push himself to those limits and forces himself to do so – every single time he trains.
The undertone of this article at this point looks very much as if I’m referring to myself, in some barrage of arrogance. I am not – I wish I could be! (I just happen to have more pictures of me in suffering than of anybody else.)
I am referring to every successful athlete or sportsperson I am lucky enough to have trained with; from the fighters and body builders, to the entertainment wrestlers and variety of sportspeople who were kind enough to show me a thing or two for Ed vs Sport.
Training alongside these people has revealed to me the value behind a very simple and obvious truth; those who are the best are (almost always) those who are training the hardest.
The reason I present this blatant fact as a revelation is this: their ability to train this way is not a gift that has been given to them, a special power they have developed or a lucky fluke – it is a choice they make every time they train.
It not an easy choice, but it is a choice.
So here is my suggestion: whatever you are training for, sort your mind out first and let your body follow.
Above all else, cultivate a mindset and pattern of behaviour that allows you to push yourself as hard as possible – and do it as soon as you can. The harder you can push yourself from the outset, the more you’ll get out of all your training, the quicker you’ll progress and the more you’ll achieve both in training and in competition (or however you perform).
In video game terms, it’s choosing the “get bonus XP with every kill” upgrade as early in the game as possible.
To do this, however, you will need to learn your limits – your real limits. You will need to work harder than you have ever worked, and then harder still. If you don’t know how far you can push yourself, you’ll never know how hard you are actually trying and you’ll never be training as effectively as you could be.
If you want to make as much progress as possible and, more importantly, if you want to be the best that you can be, you must first learn how hard you can actually push yourself – you’ll be amazed.