Fluffy
Oakes is a trained killer. An expert in MMA, he is at the peak of his
physical fitness and assures me he is “a fearless bastard.” Who
better to ask for training advice than this Manchester martial arts
legend? Today, Power is a State of Mind hands over to Fluffy. We're
giving him a month to whip us into shape.
*
There
is physical strength, and there is mental strength. Mental strength
is required if you work in a difficult job, like social work or
nursing. Jobs such as these require emotional stability- working with
people who have injuries, whether physical or mental, will test you.
But it will also build you. To get through a day without letting
sympathy distract you from the task at hand is something that only a
few are suited to, but people can become mentally and emotionally
tough through these testing experiences.
Physical
strength is much easier to develop, achieved usually through the
repetitive action of lifting weights. The more times you lift, the
more weight you can lift. But there will be times when you will get
stuck. No matter how many times you do a certain movement, it seems,
you just can't get over it. You'll reach a plateau, and it will feel
like trying to climb over a wall that's just a tad too high for your
fingers to reach.
So
what do you do if you're stuck on a particular movement? My advice
will buck the trend- leave it.
If
you hit a plateau, don't try the weight again for a few weeks. Bear
with me here. It helps if you bring a pocket notebook to the gym,
along with a pen. Put the name of each movement on its own sheet, at
the top. Put the weight you've lifted on the left, and the date you
lifted it on the right. Each time you make a new personal best, mark
it on underneath in a column. This is your achievement. No matter how
small you think the weight is- no matter how many meathead units are
in the gym alongside you, lifting three times as much- feel good
about it. This is your personal best. If you work out properly and
regularly, and you eat and sleep well, it can only go up from here.
Do
this with as many movements as you like. Watch your records break and
your body improve. If you're reaching plateaus already, it's fair to
say you're a regular gym goer and you know what you can and can't do.
Make a note of the date of the attempt and skip that movement. Here's
why.
Each
time you attempt to beat a personal best and you fail, you start a
mental conversation with your “inner critic.”
Everybody
has their own inner critic. It's a part of your psyche that tells
you- No. You can't do that.
On
that weight movement at that time, your inner parent speaks to you.
“Stop trying to lift that weight,” the parent says. “You are a
scrawny, stupid weakling and the whole gym is watching you struggle.
Give up.”
Your
inner parent is an arse, but you must still listen. If you return to
that weight movement for the next five days, you could fail to
improve every time. Meanwhile, you could have been improving on other
exercises you perform in your gym routine. In a 45-minute gym
session, you aren't going to stick to one machine, unless you want a
bizarrely disproportioned body, or you want to injure yourself. So
skip it, and move on to a machine you feel you can improve on. A new
personal best on one machine could well allow for an improvement on a
machine that uses some of the same muscle set. Or, throughout
training, your cardio may improve through the "shock" your
body gets from the break of routine- not just from the cardio
machines.
Here's
what's important- whenever you exercise, you release endorphins into
your bloodstream. This makes you feel good. Couple this with
the feeling you get when you know you've improved yourself, and
you'll feel extra good.
I
recently ran through around half of the exercises I practice, one
after the other, in a series of 45 minute sessions. It took a full
month. So I'm in no danger of running out of exercises even if I hit
loads of plateaus.
The
only machine you should be going back to, regardless of how many
times you fail to improve on it, is the cross trainer. This machine
is perfect for warming up all the muscles in your body and great for
improving cardio. Do a ten minute blast of this right at the start of
your session. To improve on it, you might find doing it twice per
session for a week or so will yield sudden improvements.
Matt
Tuckey claims he's going to do this for a month. He'd better do,
otherwise I'll beat his bitch ass. And he knows it. I will be more
lenient on you, but you can do just as well as him. Now switch off
your computer... and go to the gym.
4 comments:
Wise advice. Esp re the shutting up your inner critic. I have a whole Times Literary Supplement in there. I have to drown them out with music. Cure this insecurity! (Good post!)
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