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| Originally Posted by Anuj Deadlifts were ok. I don't regret not doing another set. At the time it didn't seem worthwhile to go completely balls to the wall. This was a reasonably ok workout. |
When you did the TEN sets you called it a "decent" workout. Now after this accomplishment it was a "reasonably ok" workout.
This is all mind games. And you know it.
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| Originally Posted by Anuj You're very right, sir. I'm being stupid. I worry too much about jinxing my progress which is why I always downplay these good workouts…So you're right: it is a mental thing, sir. |
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| Originally Posted by Anuj Understood. Words of wisdom. I'm gonna write this down as a quote from you in my journal. From now on whenever I'm being an idiot in the gym and second guessing myself I'm gonna look at this and wisen up. How much energy we waste on this sort of sillyness. I've gotten better with time….I've stopped feeling angry at people simply because I won't allow them to have that control over me. After learning to do that (you taught me which is why I bring this up) I have learnt to control who can arise what emotion from me….Atleast most of the time I am like this. Every now and then I slip up. BUT….this mental shortcoming in the gym is something I'm going to start working on from now. Baby steps and this is the next step. |
1. what you've done in the past
2. what you expected to be able to do
3. what you expect it to "feel" like
4. how you expect to feel about it
etc. and so on.
All that stuff gets combined in a perception that centers on number 3 in the lift. So ask yourself..do you really want to "experience the feeling" of a great workout or do you want to "analyze the feeling of a great workout"?
You know in quantum physics…the uncertainty principle? You look at a particle and you can never get the complete picture of it. This is all about flow and as you know I'm still working on the "getting in the zone" posts but how it works with quantum physics it also works with your mind.
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| Originally Posted by Anuj When I am actually IN the gym, there is only ONE fear: What if I fail? And because this is my biggest fear - that I will fail to do that which is expected of me, because of this fear, I then start thinking about: 1. what I've done in the past 2. what I expected to be able to do 3. what I expect it to "feel" like 4. how I expect to feel about it etc. and so on. This is what runs through my mind, sir…..I can't fail. I just cannot bring myself to failing. Take Week 4 of my Deadlft workout. You had specifically asked me to do 5-7 triples. I did 5 triples. So I got my 15 reps. I had achieved the minimum reps I needed. BUT, I was not satisfied because I had not achieved that which I had set out to. I wanted 7 triples. 21 reps. So I did those last 2 doubles to squeeze in 18 total reps. I thought it was a crappy workout because I didn't do what you expected me to (from my perspective). The positive of this way of thinking is that it builds a desperate desire in me to achieve that which I set out to: which is why I got a total of 18 reps. If I did not have this hunger in me, I would've stopped at 14. So this is my problem: I am scared of failing. But we discussed this: how negative reinforcement to progress is NOT mentally healthy. Which is why what I now need to think or rather: what I have found successful over the last 4 weeks is psyching myself up by telling myself one simple thing: You've done this before and you can do it again. Thats it. I did this when I did those triples even though I had never done this much volume before. But that didn't matter. In my mind I had hypnotized or convinced or made myself believe that I have done this before so I do have the power to do it again. I don't think this is a permanent solution because this (to me) is like a shade less morose than doing it out of fear….but it's a step I feel. This is why I am so hell bent on reading those Zen books you mentioned, E. I want to stop thinking like this - and this only works for lifts in which I experience high levels of anxiety: deadlifts, pistol squats and abs. I think that my current approach of convincing myself of having done the lift before is better in giving me confidence when you compare it to approaching a lift out of fear of either getting weaker or fear of failing. But, I need to think with a different mindset. Approach this differently, I think. |
Well, like I told you The Way of Zen is the best strength training book I ever read. And pretty much anything by Alan Watts will help you in the gym. As long as you use it as a tool and not as a way to 'become like' someone else.
The problem I see with all these 'mental tricks' are that they are just that…tricks. And the nature of tricks is that they only work a few times.
Let me try to come at it from a different direction. Many people say that the difference between winners and losers is that winners have the 'desire' to win and they 'expect' to win. Like most aphorisms of that nature it's complete bullshit:
1. Nobody really knows what makes the winner…not even the winner himself.
2. To say that a winner 'desires' and 'expects' to win implies that they also think about the opposite and that they can conceive of losing. Further implying that there is a situation in which this person could expect to lose.
This is what I meant about 'outcome' oriented versus task oriented' individuals. You are stuck in an outcome oriented mindset. Our hypothetical winner does not analyze outcomes in his mind. He does not 'expect' anything he just DOES the thing. There is no concept of compromise. There is not concept of winning versus losing. There is no concept. There is just the thing. The task.
3. This all implies that the winner approaches the task with his conscious mind running through scenarios. The most sure fire way to screw up a scenario is to run through the scenarios. Because running through the scenarios tends to always involve analyzing WHAT CAN GO WRONG. And you know what that leads to? Doing those very things.
I think for you imagery and positive mental cues are the best way to go for now. For someone that can't do it naturally that is a great way of getting task focused and letting go of the outcome dwelling. This should involve having a mental "picture" of yourself doing it perfectly. And using some very simple words that act as triggers to keep you on task. These words should always be about what you WILL do not what NOT to do.
I know that this all sounds like a bunch of new age amateur psychology but there is only one reason to put labels like that on stuff, isn't there?
Watts can help you learn to let go of the judgment and just let your mind work naturally and be in the experience in a mindful but non judgemental way. If and when you can grasp it which takes a bit, lol. But it's not about mastering something it's about opening up to something. I cannot explain to you how this can help you just have to experience that for yourself. But I will say that it helps you be more in-tune to yourself in an effortless way, which, is really because you AREN'T MAKING an effort to do that. It's not easy to put into words. Heck, that is what most of "way of zen" is…Watts trying to put into words things which are not really about words…which he explains again and again.
And the other more 'self-help' oriented ones are gold-mines.
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