The Counter-Intuitive Lesson to Be Fitter, Faster and More Productive...

No Pain, No Gain? Lessons From the Gym…

A lot of this year has had me focus on fitness and rehabilitation—finding a new way of looking after and using my body so it continues to support me (and I mean that support part literally!)

All those old injuries and new back problems have had me feeling less than ‘my old self’.

I tried, for a while to do what I’d always done, but that didn’t work and, finally, I surrendered to finding something new and different. You’ll know, from reading my emails that I joined a gym at the turn of the year. I had no real intention on what I wanted to do and, in fact, when I got there, I felt a bit like a startled rabbit—all those weights and I had no idea what to do.

I got a bit of instruction from my oldest son and I joined in a few classes—again, no intention other than to hope to pick up some direction and also, of course, some strength. I knew my body needed to be and to feel stronger.

I learnt a lot of things but there’s one that I think is most counter-intuitive, and yet most familiar to me, and that applies to all of us whatever we’re doing—mental or physical exertion—wanting to be stronger, faster, or more productive; it’s a life lesson you could say.

No Pain, Lots of Gain! Lessons From Low Heart Rate Running…

When I ran a lot and my aches and pains started to ache and pain me, I tried a few different things and fell into a new way of running called ‘low heart-rate training’. It was based on endurance training for cyclists, but it works for any endurance sport. the idea is that we run at a lower heart rate than we think is ‘normal’ and our body learns to create energy differently—using the fat-burning system rather than the sugar-burning system. Our cells change at a mitochondrial level and the big plus for endurance athletes is that the ‘wall’ disappears. I won’t go into detail but happy to point anyone interested to more resource son this (I can geek out a bit when it comes to this kind of thing ;-)).

Suffice it to say that running at a level slow enough to count as ‘low-heart rate’ can feel very strange when you first do it, and it can mean slowing to a walk to keep your heart rate down.

Until your body adapts and you can run further (and faster) for longer—while still feeling fresh at the end of what would otherwise have been a tiring long run.

The No-Pain Route to Greater Strength…

Over my year in the gym (and following a few people on Instagram), I realised that there was kinda an equivalent in the gym—but one that doesn’t seem to be talked about. And one that seems even more counter to the ‘push push push!’ mentality promoted or encouraged in so many gyms. You only need look around and see some of the slogans to repeat, or to seat, or to do one more rep.

Well, as i get older I give a bit more respect to my body.

I found that there’s also a pace and a way of training for strength that feels ‘easy’, that makes me refreshed not exhausted at the end of a session, a pace at which my body can adjust the fastest without injury or depletion. I can get stronger and fitter while feeling like I’m doing not that much (which is kinda weird for those of us who have spent a lot of life thinking that more is better.)

It’s a paradox—I can do less and gain more.

Adaptation…

And, of course, it isn’t a paradox at all. There’s good science behind the endurance training (I read it!) and I’m sure there’s the same good science behind the parallel approach in strength training (I just didn’t familiarise myself with it, and I may not, it feels good and that’s enough for me.)

I think there’s some body adaptation, and with the strength training, there’s also a mental adaptation I’m sure. Something to do with consolidation and getting used to the ‘feel’ of a new weight or a new technique—applies just the same to a new route to work, a new job, a new dish in the recipe rotation, whatever.

Our thinking calms and the new thing becomes commonplace. Easy.

Taking it Into Life and Work…

It seems to me we don’t do enough of this ‘low-heart-rate training’ in the real world. It looks as if push push push is the way to get more done, whereas that would wear out a real heart.

We don’t always see that a slower pace of work, or consolidating an ‘easy’ weight can build strength imperceptibly, can make us stronger, fitter, faster, which, of course, means in athletics we would win more races, and at work, would get more done—without the physical and mental strain.

We’ve been condition to think that hard work has to feel hard.

Not true.

Going Pro…

Of course in the running example there is speed built in, and in the strength training we have to go heavy from time to time, we have to be race-ready, we have to be able to pull it out of the bag when we need to—in sport, at work, or at home. But not as often or for as long as the amateur might imagine.

And I think most of us are amateurs. I see it at the gym and I’ve seen it at work—I’ve seen it in myself over the years!

We think that harder must be better—well, because it’s hard.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!

Yeah, what if it was slowly killing you, you just didn’t realise it?

This ‘work till you drop’ mentality that’s so prevalent—I want to say ‘in the west’ but I don’t know whether it’s limited to the kinds of cultures that I live in or whether it’s part of human nature—the idea that ‘crushing it’ is better than ‘low-exertion training’, that we have to ‘have it all’, ‘do it all’, what does that even mean anyway? That we do as much as is possible without enjoying any of it and burning ourselves out at the end of the day…

Thanks but no thanks.

Knowing How and When to Moderate…

It doesn’t work for me in the gym, and it doesn’t work for me out of the gym.

I know it to be true that I am stronger, fitter, faster, and I have a way better time when I know how to moderate and I know how and when to push.

I’m not ‘easing off’, I’m training to be better, stronger, with more endurance and more elastic energy—I’m describing something literal, in my muscles, but the metaphor extends perfectly to what I do outside the gym, how I spend my time, how much I ‘push’ versus how much I actually focus on getting stronger. It isn’t a simply that,

Less is more.

It’s that there’s a way of moderating so that less trains us for more.

I know it can sound counter-intuitive but I wonder what it would be like to try it on in areas where we notice we’re still pushing ourselves?

Maybe that’s an interesting question to contemplate as we enter a new year…

With love,

Cathy