| Mental Toughness By Kevin Parker |
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Back to The Edge |
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Mental Toughness Have you ever had a moment of clarity when you realized something about yourself you would rather not face? A moment of epiphany? I had once recently as I was doing walking lunges with weights at approximately 5pm in 95-degree weather with about 90% humidity. My workout partner passed the halfway mark (about 100 yards) and began to lunge down the sidewalk again. As I was wilting in the heat, my mind raced with all the reasons I should quit at this point! I set the dumbbells down as I tried to get my breath. As I stood there watching my workout partner who’s only been training for only two years getting further & further away contemplating the possible heat stroke I was facing; I realize I’m not very mentally tough at this moment. Now you might think that sounds harsh especially when you consider that it was our third hamstring exercise & fourth of our workout. I had made it further than I had last workout…but I realized at that moment that wasn’t going to cut it! There’ll come a moment (set into motion by a series of choices) in all our workouts that will define us. We will choose our destiny & success or failure by the choices we make at key times; most especially when we’re facing our toughest adversity. What will you choose? Here are some things to consider when faced with adversity. 1). Flex your mental muscle! Success or failure isn’t generally made with just one decision but with a series of good or bad decisions. Generally, it’s these decisions that contribute to your current level of success or failure. Do you consistently pass up dessert on workout days? Do you try to take your workouts one step further each time or are you satisfied just to do your time & go home? I like the analogy of mental muscle; you build up your mental muscle with every good decision you make & establish patterns of success that you build on cumulatively. If you’re constantly pushing the envelope just one tiny bit further everyday, imagine where you’ll be after a few months or even in one year! 2). Manage to your weaknesses & not your strengths! Many of us just want to do the things we’re good at rather than become better at the things we’re not. You remember when your parents made you eat your vegetables because they were good for you? They were managing to your weakness. Too often in the gym, I see lots of young men in training their upperbodies to the neglect of their lower back & legs. So their lowerbody becomes a weakness. But it will be the weaknesses left unmanaged that will be the next injury! You will be better prepared to attack the things you don’t like. A manager I use to work for told me to do what I didn’t like first so I wouldn’t avoid what would inevitably have to be done later anyway! 3). You are defined by how you handle adversity! You’re not always going to have your peak performance each time you train, it’s the law of averages, it’s bound to happen. When you do, you’ll face adversity. Now whether you quit, don’t give it 100% or conversely find some way to wring the best you have to give that particular day will define how you handle adversity outside the gym too. I have been in gyms for 22 years & people are the same outside the gym as they are in. If they are undependable to show up to the gym consistently, then they’re probably not someone you’d want to count on outside the gym either. How will you be defined by the adversity you face inside your workouts? Well, back to my story of the walking lunges; I picked the dumbbells up & finished the sidewalk. Not my best performance by any means but an important one. If I didn’t finish the sidewalk, I take the chance of setting a pattern of failure that won’t carry me to my goals. I might think it’s OK to not walk out the tough things I face outside the gym as well. So start today consciously attacking those things you’ve been avoiding & working to improve your mental toughness. You never know. You might take a few good habits from the gym into your daily life! Your brother in Christ, Kevin Parker http://home.hot.rr.com/kevinparkers http://360.yahoo.com/dfbb_15909 http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/drugfreebodybuilding/ These newsletters are not a substitute for a doctor’s advice, prescription or care. Please have a physical by a qualified physician before embarking on a workout program. |
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