This is a series on pushing yourself while exercising. It can be applied to any exercise, but in this series I’ll talk about running and walking/running up steps. Those are the two exercises that I do daily – one or the other.

This series will cover:

1. Getting Out the Door to Exercise.
2. Visual Imagery.
3. Shaming Yourself.
4. Positive Self Talk.
5. Delay of Gratification.
6. Coaching Yourself.
7. Competition.

This blog post is the sixth in the series about pushing yourself to get the most out of your physical exercise and is entitled, “Coaching Yourself“.

I played soccer from the time I was six until I graduated high school. When I entered 8th grade I met my soccer coach, Mr. Spolar. He was a physical education teacher at another nearby school and he’d been coaching soccer at my high school for six years already. Coach Spolar had an excellent history of creating great soccer teams. Our school, though small was renown for playing Quad A soccer though we were only a Double A school. Coach Spolar never smiled. Coach Spolar was my worst nightmare for four years.

We had a path that was 9/10th of a mile around our high school field. About four complete soccer fields could fit into this area. Coach would make us run around this loop not just on good days, but even if we were sick or had some injury that prohibited us from practicing but that jogging wouldn’t hurt. If someone had a stomach ache or headache coach would make them run around the field. If someone had a broken arm coach would make them run around the field.

He never looked up to see how many times they circled, he never gave it a second thought. After he told you to start running you ran until the end of practice. Sometimes that was two hours later. Sometimes three. One player ran around the loop 18 times over a three hour practice. One dared not stop or the assistant coach would tell him and coach would blow the whistle and make the entire team run around the loop for the entire practice. Or worse, he’d make us line up for 100 yard sprints or suicides. The worst exercise in his repertoire was “hills” which is the topic of a whole new post if I ever want to relive them. One of coach’s primary beliefs was that the entire team got punished for any infraction of an individual. Of course that individual later got the hell beat out of him so it didn’t pay to be the one causing coach grief.

Coach loved “3 a days” in the Summer. You know how most kids have off for the summer to do as they wish? Coach made us practice 3 times every day during the peak of summer heat. We’d have 2 hours in the morning working on springs, suicides, hills and individual ball control skills. In the afternoon it was team skill building for 2 hours. In the evening we’d play small practice games offense on defense for 3 hours. Seven hours of practice each day rain or shine. We much preferred the rain.

Coach Spolar told us on numerous occasions:

“What you see here. Do here. Hear here.
Stays here when you leave here.”

Coach knew some of his tactics would cause outrage among parents, probably get him fired as a coach and teacher in the school system. So, nobody was ever to find out. None of us dared to tell.

When coach got in your face to gripe you out it was as if the blood in his head was boiling and he was going to explode. He would be one inch from one of your eyeballs and screaming and spitting as he did so. Spittle would cover your cheek, lips and even get into your eye. If you flinched he got more angry. He could fire that temper up in an instant and be jacking somebody up in no time if he saw them either

1.) Being lazy.
2.) Not doing what he told us to do.

One of his favorite tortures, he had many, was making a player hold a half-pushup position until, arms spasming they gave out. We had a couple guys that could hold that position almost indefinitely. He’d rest his foot on their shoulders as he talked to the team. When someone’s arms gave out before he thought they should he’d get in the player’s face and scream at them until they got back up and held it again. The second time he told them if they dropped again they were dropped from the team. Coach was went way beyond the level of being a bastard, but we did win the state championship in my senior year.

It was coach’s anger and seriousness in the back of my subconscious that created this form of pushing myself to exert more when I feel like I’m at the end of my resources. It seems to have just occured naturally during my hard exercise one time. I realized I was yelling at myself in my mind to keep going, to push it harder. It wasn’t my voice though. Coach was STILL IN MY HEAD!

How this usually happens is just that, it happens on it’s own. It’s my self-talk that just pops up when I need it to push me a lot harder. Maybe I’ve already done a hellacious workout and I’m tired and don’t feel like pushing anymore. I start telling myself in a low growl like coach used to do…

“Get your ass up that hill and do it faster than anybody else or you’ll be sitting on the bench for the next 2 games. You understand me?”

“YES SIR.” I yelled. (Oh, I forgot to tell you – we had to address everything as YES SIR or we’d suffer for it.

“What did you say?” He’d ask menacingly.

“YES SIR!” I’d scream at the top of my lungs so anyone up at the school 300 yards away could hear it.

“That’s what I thought, now bust your ass up this hill and don’t let one person beat you. YOU GOT THAT?”

“YES SIR!” I yelped out, louder than before.

Reliving those episodes in my mind I’m able to push myself beyond what I ever thought once I start coaching myself just like coach Spolar used to do. I’m amazed that the old feeling comes back – the feeling that there is no chance to get out of what he just said. It must be done because the consequences are much worse than the effort to be expended.

This technique works magic on me. If there’s nobody around, I growl out orders to myself out loud and it works even better. This is the only technique that has the power to literally transform me and make me do something. It never failed. Not once.

I’m sure it can work for you too – even if you didn’t have an insane coach during your younger years. You could make it your dad’s voice. Or create a coach in your mind that is relentless and that will not accept failure to do exactly what he/she tells you. Start talking to yourself in a very forceful and unrelenting way.

“Pick up the pace now, you better be doing 7 minute miles over the next two miles!”
“If you walk, you’re not coming back here to exercise for 3 days. You want to waste three days?”
“Reel that guy in that’s 150 yards away by the time you make another lap. DO IT NOW.”
“Don’t EVER say you can’t do something as simple as this. GET your A&& moving and don’t stop until I say you’re finished!”

Try those or be creative with your own. I get much more creative cursively but better not to have those here in the blog!

Try it!

Best of Life!

Vern

This is a series on pushing yourself while exercising. It can be applied to any exercise, but in this series I’ll talk about running and walking/running up steps. Those are the two exercises that I do daily – one or the other.

This series will cover:

1. Getting Out the Door to Exercise.
2. Visual Imagery.
3. Shaming Yourself.
4. Positive Self Talk
5. Delay of Gratification
6. Coaching Yourself.
7. Competition.

This blog post is the fourth in the series about pushing yourself to get the most out of your physical exercise and is entitled, “Positive Self Talk“.

This technique of pushing myself to go harder when I otherwise might not involves me talking to myself. Sometimes I talk to myself just in my mind. However, if nobody is around it’s much more motivational to talk to myself out loud.

As I said in the last post, Shaming Yourself, I sometimes notice that I’m just cruising through my exercise. I’m good at pushing it at least once per session but when that push is over sometimes I settle down into complacency, just happy that I successfully pushed myself to do something I wasn’t really planning on.

One of the real keys to having fun while exercising is that I never plan on pushing. That’s something you might want to try also. Put no expectations on your exercise session. Your only requirement should be – getting out the door and doing it. What happens when you’re out there is wide open. You might feel great that day, you might feel on the verge of injury and need to take it slowly. You might have a stomach cramp, but you might use that to your advantage by learning to push through it instead of go more slowly. You might use it to your advantage to learn what to do with a cramp during a race.

If the pace and effort of the exercise is left to be wide open you are surprised and happy when you go beyond what you might have normally done. This is a very positive motivator because there was nothing major planned, but you pushed it – even once – and made it a more beneficial session than you thought it would be.

Contrast this to pre-planning what your session will consist of. If you plan out every detail and make it a strictly followed formula the exercise won’t be fun. I’ve done this. I’ve planned out every sprint on the bicycle, 30 sprints followed by 5 miles of slow spinning followed by 1 mile of time trial followed by 2 miles of slow spinning… etc.

It’s boring to adhere to a tightly planned session. It’s so much more fun to keep the entire session wide open and push yourself to do what you can do. I’ve found that it works out much better. I enjoy the exercise way more and I usually push myself as hard or harder than I would have if I’d planned out the session.

Better too if you don’t plan because if you don’t feel 100% and the exercise plan calls for sprints that day you’ll feel bad about not doing them. You’ll feel worse when you try them and injure yourself. If you had an unplanned workout you’d not have considered sprinting when you weren’t 100% and instead you’d have done a slow-medium session and been happy you didn’t injure yourself.

Getting back to Positive Self Talk…

I start talking to myself during a run…

“Feels great. Man what a day to be outside when so many people are sitting at home watching the TV and filling their head with nonsense. How many people are outside right now exercising in this town of 460,000 people? A thousand? How many are running through a park like this one? 100? How many are in this park? Just 4. Man, you are one of four people able to enjoy exercising like this… Cows. Birds. Lots of shade. Nothing like that Coconut Grove 5-miler in Miami that morning after a 20 mile bike ride. Nothing like that. This is easy. It’s like the earth is moving and I’m just moving my legs to catch up to it. Effortless. What an amazing day today… I was able to edit those 120 web pages, optimize my Google Adsense ads, get to the bank, email mom, etc.”

I talk to myself about everything positive that I see around me and that I feel in my body. I talk about my breathing, my strength, my happiness, my dedication to exercising… the work I did that day, the good things that happened recently… I talk about short term goals for that night or for the next day. I reason out the best thing to focus on next online… the Aim for Awesome blog needs to have a tighter focus… how could I focus it more? What do people want to read about daily? Can I keep posting such a wide variety of topics or should I narrow it down to exercise, mind, philosophy, meditation? Should I start the relationships series I was thinking about?

Positive self talk helps me take the focus away from the run, usually resulting in a longer run and a very fulfilling run.

I’m always looking forward to my exercise time because I do some positive self talk every time I run. I really enjoy being outdoors and recollecting all the positive things that have happened since I last talked to myself! I also enjoy it a lot because there are no expectations put on the session before it starts – and yet it might turn into the most amazing session!

Best of Life!

Vern

This is a series about pushing yourself (motivating yourself) while exercising. It can be applied to any exercise I guess, but in this series I’ll talk mostly about running and walking/running up steps. Those are two exercises that I do daily – one or the other.

This series will cover:

1. Getting Out the Door to Exercise.
2. Visual Imagery.
3. Shaming Yourself.
4. Positive Self Talk.
5. Delay of Gratification.
6. Coaching Yourself.
7. Competition.

Getting Out the Door to Exercise

The first obstacle to getting started on a regular exercise program is just getting yourself out the door on a regular basis to exercise. There are a couple ways I’ve used in the past to get myself motivated to go exercise.

The first and maybe best step is to make exercise part of your schedule. Make a list everyday in the morning or the night before that details exactly what you want to accomplish as a minimum for the day, but I also include some extras that I’d like to get to if possible. Extras are asterisked.

My list for today is:

1. Check all sites running. Read RSS feeds. Read/respond/archive all email. Check Adsense. Check Google Analytics: all sites.
2. Deposit cash at Ayuddyha bank.
3. Consider Asus eee PC 701 ultra portable notebook. Research, reviews, decide.
4. Start new blog series – exercise – motivational topics. Write 1-3* posts, schedule publishing.
5. Approve blog comments, respond to new comments. Post large comment response to Dave.
6. Change 2nd column to add Lance Armstrong quote post-it.
7. Re-arrange 2nd column. (Aim)
8. Copy DVD. Store hdd content on dvd (2x each).
9. 5 pm, Steps.
10. * Find decent raincoat.

When exercise is part of the schedule it cannot be changed. It’s written in stone. There is nothing you can possibly do to change it and it must be crossed off the list for the day. It’s helpful for me if I make the list I do every morning required activities. There’s nothing on the list that doesn’t have an asterisk near it that isn’t going to get done. They are MUST GET DONES.

Notice that number 9. Steps is the only one that has a time next to it. Everything else is flexible, but when I exercise is not. That’s because it isn’t going to be changed. At 5pm every day I leave to exercise. In the past when my schedule was less set in stone I’ve set an alarm to go off two hours before that reminds me I’m going running at a certain time. That alarm alerts me to get everything done that needs done by the time I go running and it also prepares my mind for the activity.

The second thing that makes exercising easier is that I don’t define much about what it will be. It says “steps” but, in reality it might turn into a run up the hill at a nearby park. There is an amazing hill that goes 4km (2.5 miles) up this mountain and it’s really a great run and gives me an hour+ exercise. It’s shady and just ideal for a hard workout.

If I do the steps, how many I do is dictated by how I feel, nothing else. If I go to the top the first time and I feel great then I’ll consider doing it again. I don’t plan on it until I get to the bottom and see how I feel there. Still great? Can you do another 1,237 steps up and back down? Have time? Do it again. I’ll repeat the process at the top the 2nd time. Do I feel great? Good enough to do it again? I answer, but whether I do it a 3rd time depends entirely on how I feel at the bottom after coming down the 2nd time. Still feel great? Have time? Need to stay awake tonight for anything? (Doing it 3 times wipes me out and I sleep early as a result!) Do it again! Or not. I may do it once or three times – no telling by the schedule and it doesn’t matter since I don’t put any restrictions on what I do. I do a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise, there’s no maximum so if I feel good I just keep going.

The third thing that makes exercising easier for me is that I am in the moment as I do it. I fully experience the exercise and I realize that it’s the most fun I could possibly be having at the time. I’d rather be exercising and fine-tuning my body for better health than anything else I can think of. I am aware of this the entire time I exercise. I really enjoy it. If I feel good and I’m really pushing – it hurts a lot more, but I’m getting a lot more done so the ego satisfaction makes it worth it. If I’m going slow – it’s easy and fun to be outdoors doing something instead of in the house not doing anything for my body.

Either way – it’s fun. Make it fun for you by not pushing when you don’t feel like pushing. Just make sure you GO and do something, even if it’s walking around a park. If you go to walk around a park then maybe after one time you feel great. Can you do two times? After two ask again – three? And so on. Next time maybe you’ll run 100 yards. Then walk for 600. Then run again for 50 yards. No matter WHAT you accomplish as you get started the main thing is you are accomplishing much more than sitting down at home.

Other things that may motivate you to get out the door and exercise…

Some people are motivated by the chance to meet someone of the opposite sex. This possibility does exist, maybe it’s easier at a park or along a river or boardwalk. Choose a place filled with people if that’s what drives you.

Others are motivated to start exercising among a group of people that are not competitive with them. Meaning, if you are 30 years old and overweight you don’t want to go to the local 400m track and run circles with the high school and college kids training at the track. Better to head for a park or go where the seniors exercise. When you first start out you’ll feel much better as you’ll feel like a champ, not a loser! Make yourself the winner as often as possible.

I have a friend that loves to run in her new shoes. I don’t’ know what it is, but she buys new shoes often and really enjoys the whole routine of getting in her little short-shorts, tight running top and bright neon Nikes. For her running is partly about being seen. She runs at “Bayshore Blvd.” in Tampa. If you know it – there’s a sidewalk that borders 5+ miles of ocean and many beautiful old homes in South Tampa. I think she feels like a movie star to run there… If it works, do it!

Plan to run with other people at the same level as you are. This makes it tough to get out of because the other people will be going – and it’s harder to miss it because you’ll have social pressure to make it everyday. Some people run well with others – I never have. I really enjoy running by myself but if I was starting out I think I’d find it fun to run with other slow people for a while.

Eat what you like! Part of the fun of exercising a lot – like cycling for 4-7 hours or running for 2 hours is that you have the luxury of eating whatever you like. After a hundred mile bike ride I loved that I could eat a whole quart of coffee flavored Haagen Dazs ice-cream. Then I could have pizza for dinner. Spaghetti for snack! If you run for an hour at a moderate pace you may burn anywhere from 450-800 calories. That’s a lot of food. You can choose: 1. Eat just a little more and eat smart. This will cause you to lose weight gradually. Or, 2. Eat what you want to cover the amount of calories you just burned. Remember, Greg Lemond, Tour de France Winner, loved his ice-cream!

The rest of this series is dedicated to motivating you to continue exercise or to push yourself while exercising. The mind needs to be overcome and sometimes tricked into pushing the body to do more. This series will deal with “Pushing”.

Best of Life!

Vern

The problem with competitive sports…

As you get into your thirties and forties you might reach a point like I did where you realize that competition is stressing you out more than it’s enriching your life. What I mean is…

When I was in my twenties I did a lot of running races, bicycle racing and some biathlons and triathlons. I did pretty well considering I was studying full time at the university and doing practicums and working part to full time during those years. I would typically come in the top group of amateur finishers. On occasion I’d get 1st or 2nd in my age-group which was nice. I considered trying to make the transition into full-time triathlete but I really didn’t have the resources in place to do it. I really wanted to finish my degrees as I thought they were the most important thing to accomplish in my life. If you ask me now, were they? I’d have to say, no – there were many other things I could have done instead. Such is hindsight.

During my twenties I played competitive racquetball, tennis, basketball, volleyball, ran, swam, and biked. I enjoyed some success and competition was always fun to me. I’d not win everything – my younger brother would delight in telling you that. He’d destroy me in tennis and to help me get through a match he’d let me get a few points here and there. How sick is that for a brother to do?

I’ve always felt the need to punish myself during exercise. While running or biking for instance, if I had the smallest, flitting thought that it might be difficult to run up the hill in front of me instead of go the other way around it – I’d make myself run up it, and fast too. I always force myself to do what the mind doesn’t want to do. I enjoy that for some twisted reason – forcing the body to do what the mind doesn’t want to do.

During competition it’s easy to push yourself because there are others you can measure yourself against and set goals during the race to beat them. Competition drives us to excel from outside ourselves.

When I got into my thirties I ran less. Biked less. I competed much less. When I did compete I’d notice that occasionally there was a teenager blowing by me on the run. Perhaps a woman that passed me during the first couple miles of a run. Sometimes it was an older guy. Sure, these people were in amazing shape and had worked their ass off to get there. But in my mind I had no right competing at all if I was going to be bested by teens, ladies and old men. It just wasn’t my idea of competition. Instead of feeling good about a race I started to think – what’s the point? I could run 6 miles anywhere I chose – why do it here in front of all these people that could see a 14 year old run faster over 6 miles than me?

So began a foray into the non-competitive sports. I took up mountain biking instead of road racing. I ran through the woods instead of at the track or at races or with groups of people. I began hiking up some of the more difficult ridge hikes on Oahu. I didn’t crave competition as much – except in beach volleyball where I persisted for a number of years before finally dropping out of the competitive two on two tournaments and settling for pick-up games of 6 players at the beach with anyone that wanted to play. Volleyball became a way to pass the time, recreation instead of a serious competition. Running, cycling, swimming, all sports became the same thing – recreation.

The thing about competition is, there’s always a loser. Frequently there are two losers. For me, it wasn’t just about being able to beat someone in a game or a race, it was as much about being able to pull out the absolute peak performance from me while doing it. If I raced badly and still won – what was I going to celebrate? Beating a bunch of people that couldn’t beat me on a bad day? If I played racquetball 70% great and 30% slop and beat my opponent (friend), then I may feel good, I may not. In my mind the 30% slop would haunt me because I’d know I needed to eliminate that part of my game in order to be a perfect player.

Competition while you’re very young – under 30 seems like a good thing. At least the losing doesn’t bother you much when it happens.

After virtually stopping competitive activities there was always this nagging need inside to punish my body with strenuous effort. Since I wasn’t competing with anyone else I competed with myself. I made myself the ultimate opponent.

Competition in later years is best done with yourself. Against the clock and against your mind. Why? You’re always a winner.

The exercise I do now is mostly walking and running up some steps. I don’t do it against a group of people, but recently the few guys I know that go up often started comparing times. I got sucked in. The top guy, Sven, a 32 year old from Switzerland was getting to the top in 12:15. I seemed to be stuck at 12:30. Another friend, Jim (49 yrs?) from England was at 14:30 and Joe from England, 31 years old was at 13:30. It took me a few tries, but finally I beat Sven at the time of 12:01. It damn near killed me too!

Out of the blue I get an email from my French friend, Charles. He claims he has a friend from France here in Thailand on vacation in his early 30’s that’s doing it in 10:45. I was amazed. I’d been up and down that mountain 280 times as of yesterday, and I can’t see how I could possibly take another second off my time. I demanded to see photos of the guy. Charles sent back photos of the new champion – a 30 year old that weighed about 50Kg (122lbs) in a racing singlet. I felt better about losing the championship status to someone that was 40+ pounds lighter than me, but still it hurt. Competition hurts.

For a few minutes after hearing about the new record I thought the time was impossible. Then I accepted it. Then I resigned to beat that time. Then I came back to reality. How was I going to shave 75 seconds off my time? Lose 40 pounds? Nah. I decided to counter this recent threat by creating new categories for the competition.

Categories:

• Best time from each country.
• Best time for age groups
• Best time wearing a backpack with 10 lbs (I usually have my computer, camera and other equipment with me)
• Best time up AND down
• Best time up and down and up and down (twice).
• Best time up and down thrice.
• Best time up during a rainstorm.
• Best time up before 11 am (hottest time, most sun directly on steps).
• Best time by weight class. Super flyweight 120lbs and less. Thin folks 121-160lbs. Normal folks 161-181. Large folks 182-202. Clydesdales, 203+.

See – now I’m a winner any of nine ways.

Competition as a loser generally sucks, even for a winner it’s often not all that great an experience. As much as you want to say, “It wasn’t the game, it was the playing that I enjoyed….” It’s much more fun over time NOT to compete and just push yourself to be all you can be. At least for me it’s becoming that way as I head toward mid-forties. More about how I push myself while exercising coming soon.

Best of Life!

Vern