Starting a new thread to discuss rather than full up another members training log.
Is there an inverse relationship between how much we enjoy our training vs the results that we see. People like @ChongLordUno and @T3hPwnisher have both said how they dont enjoy the actual training in fact both talk about the dark place they visit when they are training and its certainly not a house of fun. But both of these guys are seeing excellent results, truly excellent.
I myself sit somewhere in the middle, I don’t find training fun but if the dark place that chong and pwn hang out in is in the basement then I am doing most of my training in the lounge room. My results have been steady but deff not the same as what these guys are seeing. So is it really that simple. In order to see results we have to train to a point where we dont enjoy the training and to see great results it has to just plain suck.
I do feel it’s worth noting that this isn’t something I have to do every training session; just particularly rough ones. My “park bench training” ala Dan John just isn’t fun. I would rather do something else.
I can’t fathom enjoying training. Competing sure. Training, no.
I look at it a lot like work. If you want to be good at it, it’s going to be hard.
Similarly, many people love working out just like they love their jobs. They’re well compensated, or at least fairly. Might never set the world on fire, but they’re doing well enough. They’ll live long and prosper.
Then there are the guys who are going to push harder, longer, grind until they die and love it the whole time. It’s the paradox of a lifetime when you love what is going to kill you.
I consider certain workouts fun. But, I like the pain in my legs, butt, traps, and back. I like to push to failure, and then do it again. I welcome the pain, in that moment I feel like I’ve given everything and that excites me. I never said that it isn’t painful. I think the issue is that everyone can’t appreciate PAIN = FUN. I never dread a weight workout. I welcome the challenge.
As a crude comparison. some women liked to be choked, some like anal sex. Other women consider both painful, but some women totally get off with it. You can’t say that it isn’t fun for them.
This is the key variable here. Some people are, in fact, masochists. They enjoy pain. They’ll enjoy training. As a non-masochist, I cannot fathom masochism, but that’s kinda the point.
I liked getting my tats. I liked the feel of the needle dragging across my skin. Some days I daydream about the experience. I’ve come close to blacking out in the gym numerous times, and each time I get up and do it again. I’ve had trainers and concerned people ask me if I’m okay, I just smile and say yeah, I’m good.
The key here your use of the words pain and fun. I didn’t refer to pain in my statement above as pain can be perceived very differently by people. Yes you like the challenge and welcome doing something that is hard and I understand that. If you were however to do even more to a point that the session just sucked, would you get better ?
I don’t think I could in fact go any harder. I already push to failure and sometimes beyond. I’ve pushed to injury numerous times. I BB shrugged 405 yesterday and felt like something was going to snap. And I liked the feeling. Pushing to the edge and surviving is a rush! I usually do as much as I can do. My limiting factor isn’t work ethic, it’s my fragile body. Today I did 360lbs on the HS wide press. I felt like something would pop in my pec/shoulder if I increased the weight any more.
On the flip side, like Anna mentioned and has mentioned before, I have witnessed and know people who don’t like to push past their comfort level. That attitude will severely limit what they could have achieved.
I think this probably meets the definition of going to a dark place for you. Everyone will be different. Hopefully you are seeing the results of your efforts and maybe also proving that we need to do it tough to progress.
Basically, I would have said training can’t be easy for best results. It needs to be difficult.
I think everyone should go to a dark place to be the best. From all the years of running and cycling long distances, I’ve learned to disassociate my mind from my body. To totally zone out and disconnect. That has allowed me to push hard in my weight sessions. I’m not in the moment when I’m hurting, I’m just doing and trying to maintain consciousness when it gets to that point.
I look at @ChongLordUno burpee sessions as fun. Hard, yes, painful, yes, but the challenge is fun. The 100 deadlift challenge for time at 225lbs from a few years back was hard as F’, I hurt for the rest of the week, but it was fun and I laid on the ground afterwards in total elation.
This is where we are very different. I would be excited about the challenge and overcoming it, but the event itself would not be fun and Whilst I would feel accomplishment at the end I would not describe this as feeling elated.
Quite a few years ago now my friend and I had the great idea of taking part in a half marathon that literally runs up a mountain. There is 1200m (4000 ft) of elevation over the 22km run. Now I live in a coastal town that is pretty much as flat as a witches tit. (that’s totally flat if you haven’t guessed). We found a few places we could run hills nearby but come race day I was very undertrained. My friend was an ironman competitor at the time so was much better prepared than me The race starts at the bottom of the mountain down in the valley. The first 5km of the race was a little up and down but not too bad so the pace was fast and flowing. From the 5km mark it changed pretty quickly and there was literally no flat just uphill. By 9km I was starting to hurt, not just physically but mentally too. Just looking ahead at the hill running away into the distance was so demoralizing. By 12km a little over halfway I was pretty much ready to quit. My back hurt, my legs hurt, my lungs hurt and all I could think about was there was 10km left to go. But I had made a commitment to do the run, we had travelled and booked accommodation for the weekend, my wife and three young kids were waiting at the top in 5 degree temperatures so there was no way I could stop. I just broke the run down into very small sections, made myself run to the next hairpin turn and kept repeating. Long story short I made it to the end, my friend pushed me verbally every step of the way and I jus kept going. There is a picture of me crossing the line with my friend and in the shot there is certainly no elation, no sense of achievement, no fun. Just a grimace of pure pain and a face that says why did I just do that and I am never doing that again. The last 10km of that run were in a dark place and they definitely sucked. But after that run (after the days of cramps and sore back) I was a better runner. My work capacity increased significantly and my ability to work hard when it got difficult improved.
This is the most dominant performance I ever put on in any event in a strongman competition.
I was competing in the middle of the pack, had no idea what a good number of reps was, and ended up beating the next closest dude by 12 reps. I destroyed this event, people uploaded my performance on their instagrams as a general “Who the f**k is this mutant?” sorta thing, and for that one particular competition after that one particular moment, I became a celebrity.
That was NOT fun. That was the exact opposite of fun. When it was over, I had my wife rip off my knee sleeves because it felt like compartment syndrome was setting in as my quads were strainnig with all the blood that had flooded into them and I had to almost throw my kid off me when they tried to tackle hug me because my lungs felt like they were collapsing and I was worried I was going to vomit on them. I spent several minutes rolling on black asphalt trying to get my body to stop aching and my heart and lungs back into working order.
I am proud as hell of that performance, I still look back on it and feel like “the man”, but in no way was it fun.
We have to define fun and suck. My training yesterday really sucked. 2 hours almost. Pause squats were sucky. The strength-endurance medley sucked so bad it was one if the hardest things I did. The rower sprints sucked hard.
But in the end I had fun.
I like moving big weights, I like cool weird exercises, I like pain and being able to go beyond what most people can. So yeah it was still fun even though I was like white fir 30 mins
@aldebaran the original question makes no reference to fun. Only whether we need to train to a point where we don’t enjoy the training for it to be effective.
Working on weaknesses always sucks to begin with IME, but then, if you keep sucking long enough, the metaphorical lemon of your masochistic displeasure can become a beautiful, smooth easy peach of awesomeness! But then, over time, you’ll probably get bored of your sweet little peach and feel the need to find youself another lemon!!
If a random person on the street came up to me and asked me to definine the word training in the simplest way possible, I would tell them “Training is where I go and show my body what it is currently NOT capable of performing. I keep training, eating and resting to make up for those shortcomings, and then show my body the next thing it is NOT capable of performing. Repeat, ad nauseum.”
This is my mindset, all the time. By that definition, I have to always be close to the edge of what I am currently capable of during training. Sometimes that sucks a little, and sometime that sucks a lot.
The rewards in terms of immediate satisfaction or other longer term health and asthetic benefits can sometimes hide the suck - even make one think they are having “fun” - but yeah. I would say it has to suck on some level. I can still love it and think it sucks.
