Train Like An Olympian. Think Like An Olympian.

Over the last week we've witnessed some amazing performances in the Olympics. I was lucky enough to be in the Olympic stadium on day one of the athletics, where I saw Jess Ennis break the British record in the 100m hurdles on her way to heptathlon gold. Elsewhere, Britain continues to dominate in the velodrome, seemingly breaking world records every time we hit the wooden track. In the rowing more gold medals, and athletes pushing themselves so hard they had to be lifted out of the boat at the end by Steve Redgrave. (Yes, I'm British, so I am somewhat bias in all the events I have mentioned, to redress the balance in the weightlifting seeing a guy lift triple his bodyweight overhead and another guy squat jerk 204kg at a bodyweight of 77kg is enough to fire anyone up).

Did I mention I was in the Olympic stadium on day 1 of the athletics when Jess Ennis broke the British 100m hurdle record

But can mere mortals take anything from the way these athletes train and think, and apply it to their own training? I think they can. You may not have the luxury of being a full time athlete, and your goal might be to lose half a stone or run 10k in less than 60 minutes, but you can take certain principles and start using them straight away.

The basics

The first thing to note is that most athletes training consist of basic exercises and drills that anyone can do. Yes, there are a few secrets that they are not going to tell anyone, and in the case of British Cycling they really did have the Secret Squirrel Club working on these type of developments. However, the basics remain fundamental. The Chinese, Turkish, South American and North Korean weighlifters do essentially the same exercises as everyone else. They have to practice the clean and jerk and the snatch, and do some accessory lifts, but to get good at lifting weights you have to lift weights. It's the same with running, to be good at running you have to run, you have to put the time in. Whether you're Kenyan or Mo Farah or looking to run 10k, there are really three basic things you have to do

1. Sometimes run long
2. Run some hills
3. Sometimes run fast, using intervals

This applies to fat loss, too often people search for the magic holy grail, obsessing about the details when they haven't even covered the basics (that green tea supplement ain't doing nothing if you're troffing a big mac and fries everyday). This article here by Nia Shanks covers the basics of fat loss and also contains this great quote from Dan John

"I think many of us think this way: If it’s free or simple or easy to understand, it can’t be as good as something that’s expensive, complicated and difficult to figure out on your own"

Consistency again, No one wants to hear about the hard work

After winning the 10,000m Mo Farah said this in his post race interview

"120 miles, week in, week out, long distance is a lonely event, what you put in is what you get out"

You can see the full interview here.

Mo Farah and his training partner, Galen Rupp, beat the East Africans, but they had to put the work in, they were still running 120 miles a week. It doesn't matter if you have the best coach in the world you still have to put the work in, no one is going to do it for you.

Geraint Thomas (member of Britain's winning Team Pursuit Squad in London 2012, that also happened to break the world record) said a very similar thing. The hours in the velodrome, sometimes from 7am to 10pm at night, the endless repetitions and hard work and grind.

So the question is how much do you want to achieve your goal, what are you willing to sacrifice? You could have a full time job and other family responsibilities, but if you want to lose that weight, if you want to run that distance, what are you going to do differently. How much time can you give to it? And on those dark winter days when no one cares about your goals, what's going to drag you out of bed to go for that walk or prepare those meals for the day? How about never missing a workout for a year or two years.

Decide how much time and effort you are willing to give to your goal, and then stick to it. And have a contingency plan, you know what barriers you have, you know when you might waiver and fail, you know when your busy times at work are. At some point you might get ill, then what? Have a plan.

At some point something or someone will attempt to derail you, be ready for it.

"The Aggregation of  Marginal Gains"

The above quote is by Dave Brailsford, Performance director of British Cycling. To quote from the team sky website

"We've got this saying, 'performance by the aggregation of marginal gains,'" Brailsford continued. "It means taking the 1% from everything you do; finding a 1% margin for improvement in everything you do."

In elite sport, 1% can be the difference between winning gold and being at the back of the field.

The problem with many amateurs is they start looking for the 1% gain when they haven't covered the 99% first. For example, the bicep curl is a 1% exercise. There is no point in doing it if you haven't got the basics covered; squat, deadlift, pressing movement and pulling movements. But a lot of young guys, especially, get it the wrong way around, they do tons of bicep curl variations and ask you how they are going to hit the outer head of their bicep when they can't do a chin up or a deadlift. I'm pleased to say I do see this gradually changing, where I work the squat racks and platforms are always busy with people doing squats and deadlifts and presses, and much of that can be put down to the coaches on the gym floor.

Don't chase the 1% until you've got the basics squared away.

But then look at EVERYTHING you do. The time in the gym, is it efficient? What you eat, what you do at work, your sleep patterns, the people you spend the most time with. Are all these things conducive to you achieving your goals. If not, how can you change them, will a 1% change be enough to reap rewards.

For more on the British Cycling approach see here, here and here

1% Flip it

However, there is another way of looking at the 1% if you are not on a pro cycling team and don't spend all your time in wind tunnels wearing lycra.

Jamie Staff, former member gold medal winning member of the British Cycling team, knew before the Beijing Olympics that to win he needed to improve his time by 2.78%, so he went about improving everything by 2.78%, improving his squat in the gym by this amount, dropping his bodyfat by this amount and so forth. In a NY Times article he states

 “When you break it down, it’s actually really small gains in all those small things that when added together make a huge difference”

You can apply this to your own goals. Say you want to lose one stone in weight, and for ease of calculation lets say you currently weigh 150Ibs. If you focus on losing just 1% of bodyweight per month (1.5Ibs) you would have lost the stone in 10 months, losing a mere 0.375Ibs per week, which is hardly noticeable, but over 10 months adds up. Of course, if you're in Biggest Loser territory you can lose way more than this just by doing the basics.

Setting PBs in the gym can be the same, squat is 150kg, increase by 1.5kg per month, and you've got an 18kg increase in 12 months. Of course, in reality, progress is rarely linear, and as a beginner you can make big jumps by improving technique alone.

You can also apply this principle to nutrition, change one thing at a time. One less chocolate bar per week, one less glass of wine, one more serving of vegetables per week, over a year these things add up. Exercise volume, its the same, 10 minute walk one week, increase by 1 minute per week over a year and you've got 60 minutes exercise per day.

But don't forget the basics.

And these things take time. You have to be patient. Increasing numbers of young guys are taking performance enhancing drugs, these are recreational lifters, with no desire to compete anywhere, but with anabolics easily available on the internet and an instant gratification culture, they will go for the easy route before looking at the basics, and then all the other 1% they can improve on. A clean rider won the tour de france (Bradley Wiggins), therefore this marginal gains stuff works.

Coach

What do Victoria Pendleton, Mo Farah, Bradley Wiggins, Jess Ennis and Lu Xiaojun all have in common. They all have a coach. And all of them have mentioned their coaches and support team in post event interviews (well, I don't know about Lu Xiaojun, but I'm sure he mentioned it when the Chinese state media interviewed him).

Jess Ennis has a coach - but maybe she wants a new strength & conditioning coach - I am available

And most of them have a whole team behind them, including physiotherapists, sports scientists, biomechanical analysis, chiropractors, psychologists and nutritionists.

The athlete also has to have total faith in their coach, their support team and their program.

But for some reason, the average gym-goer seems to think they can train themselves, write their own program or get their program from a magazine (or in most cases don't really have a plan or program, 'I think I'll do some chest and biceps today', 'I think I'll go for a 20 minute run today'). The only problem is, its very hard to assess your own weaknesses and strengths, what you need to work on, when you should back off and when you should push it and when you need to go back to the drawing board.

Coaches come in all different guises, some were world class athletes in their own right, for example, Mo Farahs coach Alberto Salazar,  Jess Ennis's coach Toni Minichiello seems to have always been a coach and was never an elite athlete  (I could be wrong, as there is surprisingly little information about him that I could find) and  it seems to be law that nearly all Olympic weightlifting coaches are an old fella in a tracksuit who will slap his lifters on the shoulders and if they are a female lifter on the ass as well!

The lesson here, is firstly a coach can really help. Secondly, don't be fooled by the appearance of the coach. Too often, in the gym environment the trainer who looks like a bodybuilder get the guys who want to bulk up (and the women sometimes who want to lose weight). I doubt Lu Xiaojuns coach has ever jerked 204kg and Toni Minichiello has probably never run a 12.54 100m hurdles, but they know how to coach and get the best from their athletes. Look for the coach who has got results and can prove it. Of course, athletes at the top of many sports are genetically gifted (save the genetics vs training argument for another day), so find a coach who has also got results with ordinary folk as well.

Kenyan coaching - a lesson

You might be thinking, this is all very well, but I don't have access to the facilities and support team that these pro athletes do, and you may be thinking that there is a 'special secret' training technique or drug that you don't know about.

Over to Kenya, the antithesis of British Cycling, in as much there is really no system or scientific high performance strategy. Of course, being born at altitude and spending your formative years running to school helps, and you can't change that, but this is true of many countries who don't win any long distance event.

If you want to go and train in Kenya, you can, there is no secret training camp. Adharanand Finn's fantastic book Running With The Kenyans outlines his time training there, and Toby Tansers book More Fire has several training programs of the elite Kenyan runners listed. And before going to the USA Mo Farah also trained in Kenya.

The most successful distance running coach in history is Brother Colm O'Connell, an Irish missionary with no background in coaching before moving to Kenya. So don't be fooled by appearances. With nothing more than a stopwatch and a track of rubble, they have dominated until recently all long distance events.

The secret is there are no secrets, do the basics every day, run, get up at 5am and run, run in a group, eat and run and rest, run long hills, do punishing hill sessions and go easy and back off when you need to. If anyone has taken to basics and turned them into an artform, it's the Kenyans.

Personal Training or Coaching

What is the difference between a personal trainer and a coach. This is my take on it. People employ a personal trainer because they need extrinsic motivation, they want someone to make them come to the gym, they want someone to count the reps. Sometimes there is balance of power issue with a personal trainer and client. Its not unusual for clients to tell their trainer that they don't want to do this or that, and they want a new program after two weeks because the current one isn't working. There can be a fair amount of second guessing the trainer, especially if the trainer is newly qualified or is trying to build up a client base, they are financially dependent on the client and sometimes do things to please the client rather than get results.

The coach is different. Yes, there is a dialogue, but the athlete must have complete faith in their coach. The British Cycling team and Rowing team have complete faith that they have the best coaches and system, there is no second guessing.

A few days ago Dave Brailsford was interviewed on BBC Breakfast news, yes he said you need talent and commitment, but without commitment talent was no good and he also stated

'fundamentally it's all about coaching'

Intrinsically motivate yourself

In a study by Connaughton et al (2008) they interviewed elite, world champion  and Olympic athletes to find out what type of mindset they have. They found athletes had three attributes regardless of the stage of their career

1. Having an unshakable self-belief in your ability to achieve your competition goals
2. Having an unshakable self-belief that you possess unique qualities and abilities that make you better than your opponents
3. Having an insatiable desire and internalized motives to succeed

In short, all the motivation quotes and pictures in the world aren't going to help if you can't motivate yourself

And two underlying mechanisms were cited again and again

1. Coaches' leadership
2. Social support

 Find a support team, a coach if you can, who will show you what you need to work on and what you can ignore.

Ultimately, you have to have no doubt at all that you will succeed in your goals.

Time for another Dave Brailsford quote, this time from an interview in The Independent newspaper

"You have to work out, is this athlete intrinsically driven? Is there that burning desire inside them, to continue to compete, to continue to improve, to continue to go through all the pain and the hard work, the nutrition, the lifestyle, the sacrifices you have to make. If you look at all the great champions … it's not to do with anyone outside, it's what's inside them, they're special in that respect. And if you haven't got that, it doesn't matter how much talent you've got, you're never going to get sustained success."

A good coach gives you belief and confidence. But you must have an internal drive, and as we will see at the end of this article, it is possible to cultivate that.

Over training

Many beginners are fearful of over training. Somewhere along the line, someone told them that if they did weights two days in a row or went for a run for two consecutive days they would explode, their muscles wouldn't recover and they would get injured.

Olympic athletes show you how much you can train and how much you need to train. Now, I don't expect you to run 120 miles a week or weightlift for 3 sessions a day, but lets face it, those 5 hours a week you're doing probably aren't going to lead to over training. The average Kenyan school kid is doing more.

But build up gradually, and you'll be surprised how resilient your body is.

At the other end of the extreme are clients who want to smash it every session. They do hours on end. As the old adage goes (I think it was Charles Staley who said it first, but I could be wrong) - stop chasing fatigue, chase performance. If the fatigue doesn't make you faster or stronger or lose weight, then why are you doing it?

The classic example, is when people start using plyometric drills as metabolic conditioning. They start jumping around with awful technique and not really creating any plyometric effect. This is where the coaching part becomes relevant, if they can't do it properly there is no point in doing it. Its also making the client aware that elite athletes rest 2,3,4,5 minutes between plyometric exercises. Its about maximum power and explosiveness, always know why you are doing something.

Even Kenyans take it easy...sometimes

In the excellent documentary 'Born to Run - The Secret of Kenyan Athletics', the presenter Eamonn Coghlan travels to Kenya to see how they train. In one scene, David Rudisha (edit: now Olympic champion, 800m world record holder, first man to run under 1.41) goes back to train with Colm O'Connell at his old school. Not only, does one of the greatest middles distance athletes of all time train with school kids, he does exactly what his coach says. The session is surprisingly easy, they practice running with tempo and rhythm and being completely relaxed, they do a long easy warm up and then do a few laps around the school yard and that's it. The presenter Eamonn can't believe how easy the session is. As Colm points out, not all sessions have to be hard, yes, they will have some very hard sessions, but other session have different goals which in the long term make the athlete better. In another scene the athletes do yoga and stretching. I highly recommend watching this documentary if you can.

The take home message is, training can undulate, when you train hard, train very hard, but when you need to recover, then do so.

Even Chinese lifters warm up with the bar

While watching the weightlifting at the ExCel live and also on TV, I noticed that before the clean and jerk even the top lifters warm up with the bar. That's right Lu Xiajun and Lin Qingfeng, gold medal winning lifters still warm up with the bar. Then I saw one of them put just 40kg on the bar to continue the warm up. The reason they are so technically good is they practice the moves over and over again. If the top lifters in the world still do a warm up with the bar and practice the movement then you probably need to as well.

Lu Xiaojun squat jerks 204kg at 77kg bodyweight. Unless you were born on Krypton and now live on a planet with a yellow sun then I wouldn't attempt this. Oh, and he still does bar work to warm up.

Under training

The opposite of training all the time and never undulating or varying your approach is not training enough. Some people seem to think that the once a week gym session is going to help them lose that weight or transform their bodyweight. Please don't ask me why you haven't lost weight when you do Pilates once a week, go on the treadmill for 10 mins and don't modify your eating habits.

Put some effort in. If you can't commit time to your goal then you will fail. A few sets of bicep curls with a 5 minute chat in between aren't going to cut it. In Olympic weightlifting, if you follow yourself you only get 2 minutes rest between maximal efforts. Get the job done. Focus.


Fail

While I was watching the heptathlon high jump in the Olympic stadium (did I mention I was in the Olympic stadium?!) it struck me that all the athletes keep jumping until they fail, they end on failure. You have to be willing to push out of your comfort zone, find failure and then learn from it, what could you have done differently. Learn to fail and use it to drive you on.


It was the same watching the weightlifting, lifters fail all the time, they go out, fail a lift and then compose themselves and go again. It was surprising to me how many lifters failed an attempt and then came out and got it the second time, or even put the weight up and then got the new weight. Even those who had already won the event, would often come out for their third attempt and try for a PB or world record when they had no need to. Push yourself, compete against yourself.

Train with people who are stronger than you or faster than you can help, as can having a coach, pushing you past levels that you previously thought were your limits.

As Dave Brailsford said 'you will lose more than you win', but you have to keep trying.

Lin Qingfeng. The look of a man who will win at all costs. He doesn't use the door, he just walks through the wall, unstoppable.

Excuses

Okay, maybe you're still thinking, that's all very well, but I have a full time job, I can't afford a coach and I'm not moving to Kenya. Well here's a non Olympic example for you. Scott Jurek, American ultrarunner, won the Western States 100 mile run, Badwater 135 mile run, Hardrock 100, Spartathlon 152 mile run. He had no coach, for most of his early career he was working in a running shop or as a Physical Therapist, and was in a sport with no prize money and in the early years of his career no sponsorship. He would train by running to and from work, and at weekends, with no money and in debt before he became the face of ultrarunning. I highly recommend you read his book Eat & Run.


If you want it enough, you'll do it.

As If

I recently finished reading a book called Rip It Up by Professor of Psychology Richard Wiseman. I highly recommend it.

It is based on a principle first explained by philosopher William James over a hundred years ago

'If you want a quality, act as if you already have it'

 Common sense tells you that your emotions cause behaviour, for example, you are happy so you smile, or you are an extrovert therefore you have outgoing behaviour. In fact, research has show over and over again that the reverse is true. Behaviour causes emotion, if you smile you will feel happier, if you adopt a 'power posture' you feel more confident, and if you tense your fist hard for a minute your testosterone levels will go up. This is the opposite of positive thinking in many ways.

If act like you are an elite athlete, train like an athlete, look at every aspect of your life like an elite athlete, then you will take on some of their attributes (now this doesn't mean your are going to run a 9.63sec 100m but it does mean you will attack your own personal goals in a more professional manner and are more likely to achieve them).

Elite athletes have a coach, get one if you can, or even just get someone to write your training program for you. As one of the athletes in the study by Connaughton said

"When we got into the elite standard of training we were very structured in our training. My coach and I would plan out the training month by month."

In summary to train like an Olympian and think like one

1. Work on the basics, practice, put the time in
2. Once you've got the basics, think about everything else you can improve, the 1%
3. Get a coach or a support network
4. Internalise your motivation. When its dark and cold and you need to get up and train, only you can motivate yourself
5. Act as if you are already elite in the way you approach your training and goals.

Final thoughts - slaying the dragon

One of my favourite athletes (and commentators) of all time is actually a sprinter - Michael Johnson. If you don't know who Michael Johnson is, you probably live in a cave somewhere, but in short Olympic 200m and 400m champion in Atlanta and the most insightful commentator on athletics with a no nonsense approach; not sugar coating and not dumbing down for the audience. His approach to training and attitude always really appealed to me, the results spoke for themselves.

In his book Slaying The Dragon (now out of print, but you can pick up a second copy for a couple of quid) he covers many of the techniques that helped him become a champion, one of these areas is crafting self discipline. If you have set yourself the target of doing 50 press ups or 10 intervals, then do 50 not 49, do all 10 intervals not 9; apply this principle to all aspects of your life and not just your training. Also, importantly remember that the journey can be hard, yes you should enjoy your life, but cutting calories is hard, pushing away that cake is hard when everyone around you is eating it,turning off the TV and putting in another training session when you feel fatigued is hard. As Johnson says

"Ask yourself: 'Why am I doing this?'....when it comes to practicing self discipline, don't fool yourself; go ahead and admit that fat free cheese doesn't taste as good. It only works if the end is something you really want. Remember, this is a decision you consciously made. Remind yourself why."

(Of course he wrote this before everyone went high fat and low carb and then intermittent fasting crazy, because what is the point of low fat cheese - hello taste?!).  Remind yourself on a daily basis why you are doing what you are doing.

Michael Johnson - 'Do the 50th push up' and check out that satorius muscle on his leg!

"after you have stared long enough into the dragon's eyes, there is nothing left to do but slay the dragon. For each of us, that dragon is the thing closest to the center of our lives. It is our core, our ambition, and our joy." - Michael Johnson

Afterward

In an interview on BBC Breakfast Dave Brailsford mentioned 2 other things, get a decent pillow so you sleep properly and use handwash so you have less chance of picking up infection and then not being able to train. If Brailsford says it, I'd probably do it!

British Cycling - they use round wheels, decent pillows amd hand wash

Further Reading

Connaughton D et al (2008) The development and maintenance of mental toughness: Perception of elite performers. Journal of sports sciences. 26:1, 83-95
Finn A (2012) Running With The Kenyans
Jurek S (2012) Eat & Run
Johnson M (1996) Slaying the Dragon (out of print)
Tanser T (2008) More Fire. How To Run The Kenyan Way
Wiseman R (2012) Rip It Up

Links

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/dave-brailsford-cycling-coach-reveals-secrets-to-gbs-success-8005870.html
http://www.teamsky.com/article/0,27290,17547_5792058,00.html
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/marginal-gains-bear-fruit-for-great-britain-in-olympics
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/sports/olympics/2012-olympics-how-britain-conquered-the-cycling-world.html?_r=2&smid=tw-share


Further watching

Kenyan running doc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BknGrh7mJ6Y

for those who can't access BBC website, here is Lu Xiaojun lifting 204kg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQRk8kK-GxM

Julia Rohde - just because

Are SMART Goals Dumb?

Ok, first things first, the title of this is a deliberate juxtaposition of the words smart and dumb, what a cheap trick. Now back to SMART goals.

The chances are if you have ever had to set a goal, been in a gym, attended a fitness course or a business course, someone somewhere has mentioned SMART goals at some point. It has almost become a mantra in any discussion of goal setting, the phrase 'goal setting' and 'SMART' have become inextricably linked.

But what if SMART goals don't work, what if people use them all the time but still fail? Why do they fail? And then why do people who have consistently failed to achieve a goal then have spectacular success, like in the case of the TV programme The Biggest Loser? And what do elite athletes do differently to achieve their goals?

I've spoken to hundreds and now I think about it maybe even thousands of people about their goals. I ask people on a daily basis what their goals are and what they want to achieve. Some people have a clear idea, some people have a more nebulous idea. In discussion I help them to formulate and shape a goal, and in many cases we the write the goal down, make it time limited, discuss possible barriers and come up with a statement like 'It is now the (insert date) and I now weigh 5kg less, I am able to fit into my dress/jeans/ suit etc and I feel confident and energised', and then there will be the specific plan 'to achieve my goals I will train x per week, and follow this nutrition plan & eat this etc etc'. And then they sign and date their goals, and take a copy to put on the fridge, and in most cases they then fail.

They come back, we re-evaluate, look for solutions, and then I never seem them again. Its a familiar story in gyms all over the world.

If I'm being generous to myself, maybe 10% achieve their goal, but in reality it's probably closer to 1%.

And they are not alone, I can't tell you how many goals I wrote down and then failed to achieve my goals, and I used the SMART structure and followed what the gurus said, and made them public and all of that and still didn't get anywhere. And then other times, I didn't even write the goals down, didn't follow any type of goal setting plan and achieved them. I achieved them because I internalised them, and the completion of them meant so much to me at that particular time that I just did it. Some of the goals were fitness ones, some weren't.

Before we get on to the specifics of how to break out from the mundane SMART formula, lets review SMART goals for anyone who has been living under a rock.

Specific

This is self explanatory, the goal has to be specific for you to know how you are going to get to it. It has to be quantifiable. Or does it? Recently, I decided to do the 21 day squat challenge as outlined by Nick Horton here, for no other reason than to do it.

The idea of squatting every day for 21 days is specific, but note, I never actually wrote down the exact routine I was going to do everyday. In fact, I didn't write it down at all. In my mind I had my own personal idea what would constitute me completing the challenge, a threshold that had to be crossed for it to be meaningful. For example, cranking out a few bodyweight squats was not going to be acceptable, but also I knew I wasn't going to squat my 1 rep max every day. There was an inherent flexibility in my plan, but I had a concrete idea of what I considered a challenge, and what I thought was not a challenge. I posted on twitter everyday what squats I had done, so I had made it public, but I knew I was going to finish the challenge regardless. How did I know? Well I just knew, because I actually wanted to do it, even when I was fatigued and my hip flexors & lower back hurt.

This is also what I'm going to call a process goal. The goal was a means to itself, I had no aim to increase my 1 rep max squat to a certain number, so it was both specific and flexible. Many of the goals that beginners set in the gym or on a fitness regime are often process ones, the goals might be to go the gym twice a week or 'workout' three times a week. These are specific, but in most cases they don't get to the crux of why most people are training - normally to lose weight, and get buff. They may achieve their process goal, but their secret hidden goal remains elusive.

Measurable

This is straight forward, you either lost 5kg or you didn't. You either hit that sales target or you didn't. However, the numbers people choose often have underlying influences. For example, in business, managers are notorious for setting target that may be too high to avoid bonuses and people on the ground floor get wise. They look at what is actually achievable and minus off 10% to guarantee hitting what they are measured on.

In weight loss, the most common phrase I hear is 'I want to lose a stone'. Note, this number has no basis in reality, a woman could weigh 18 stone and she will tell me that, or she could weight 9 stone and she will tell me that. The goal post always move. In the UK, the 'losing a stone' statement is like a magic phrase people utter, sometimes its half a stone, but mostly the former. I imagine in countries where they don't use this form of measurement, the number chosen is equally as random, in the USA could it be 'lose 10 pounds' or in Europe 'lose 5kg', and the person who weighs 70kg wants to be 65kg, and the person who weighs 60kg wants to be 55kg. Chasing numbers, measurable for sure, but are they actually what you want or culturally ingrained?

Attainable/ Achievable

This is a tricky one. Setting an attainable goal is easy, for example, back to 'training in the gym twice a week', this is attainable for nearly everyone, and if it isn't I don't know what to say, except you're lying. It is achievable. but is it meaningful? Setting goals you can easily knock down is easy, but that twice a week in the gym isn't even meeting the basic government guidelines on what you should be doing activity- wise, the chances of any type of fitness improvement are low, and with no other changes, weight loss isn't going to happen. So unless this goal is a stepping stone to bigger goals, it can be worthless.

Also, how about a goal that is going to stretch you. When Reinhold Messner decided to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen and then every peak over 8000m, did he sit down and think if this was achievable or attainable or realistic (in fairness, he probably did, see the section on the elite mindset later) .Now I'm not suggesting, we all have to go and make history, but have some cojones, stretch yourself.

Relevant/ Realistic

Just in case you were going to set a goal that wasn't relevant. This mainly applies to business and the workplace, where setting a goal that doesn't gel with your company needs seems odd to managers. Often times, the word 'realistic' and 'achievable' are used in the SMART acronym, which is tautological.

Reinhold: I'm off to climb Everest without oxygen
Boss: How is this relevant to the MacGuffin account
Reinhold: Catch my fist pen pusher, I'm off to find the yeti

Using my 21 day squat goal, was it really relevant to anything, rather than me wanting to see if I could do it, and get a minor insight into Bulgarian training.

For realistic, see above, realistic may not be worthwhile.

Time -bound

Seems obvious. The time frame chosen is the important thing, I commit to losing 2 pounds of weight over the next... 2 years. In discussion unless people have a particular event they are aiming for, for example, weight loss for a wedding, they are loathed to be measured. They want to lose half a stone, but they don't want you to judge them in 8 weeks time if they haven't done it.

Sometimes, other words are used in the SMART acronym, or additional words are added to make it SMARTER, like energised, re-evaluate etc. But, in a nutshell that's your smart goal. And in most cases, people will nod their head, write it all down, and then go away and fail, and the main reason is...

The Comfort Zone

In the words of Dr Sheldon Cooper

"It's called the comfort zone for a reason."

Dr Sheldon Cooper - he's smarter than you

  The comfort zone is so powerful that many people would rather die than leave it. Exercise referral/ GP referral clients are the classic example of this. A GP or doctor has specifically prescribed exercise for them to do, it could be because of hypertension or type 2 diabetes or a whole plethora of conditions. And in some cases they take up exercise, but in many cases they don't. Even in the case of cardiac artery bypass graft surgery, some people do not modify their lifestyle afterwards. A close encounter with death and fear of dying is still not enough to push some people out of their comfort zone, the pain of change is too much. Now, of course, there can be deep psychological reasons for this, or in some cases some people just hate their life or they think its too late. And in many of these cases, psychological counselling would be more beneficial than a prescription for exercise. However, everyone has free will, and in most of these cases in the Western world people made the choices themselves, they chose they path they are on in terms of health. Yes, there are certain things you can't control, the global economy, your company going bankrupt, but going for a 20 minute walk is not one of these.

How to break out of the comfort zone

The chances are you could do it, if you wanted to. John Broz - an American Olympic lifting coach, once said that if someone held a gun to the head of a member of your family, and said you had to squat a certain amount of weight before a certain date, you would probably squat more than once a week. Now, even though this quote was really in relation to squat frequency, the premise hold true (unless you hate all your relatives!). If someone, held a gun to you or a member of your family and said you had to achieve a certain goal, you'd probably give it a good shot (pardon the pun). In the case of many of the exercise referral clients who fail to exercise, they just haven't realised yet that the gun is being held to their head, the idea of death is still not tangible enough for them to act.

And in real life, no one is holding that gun to your head. You have to hold that gun to your own head (metaphorically my friends), because as I've stated before, if you don't lose a stone or run a marathon or write a book, no one else cares. No one is waiting for you to do it.

To quote John Broz

"How you feel is a lie."

 He was talking about physically, but lets look at that in a psychological sense. Your inner voice is very persuasive, you will tell yourself all sorts of things to maintain the status quo, to stay in the comfort zone. And in many cases, other people will try and sabotage your success, they want you to be like them, in the comfort. Don't listen.

Fear

To get out of the comfort zone you either need to have something that pushes you out of the comfort zone, or pulls you out of the comfort zone. An internal force like a brush with death can push you out of it, or in fitness an external event can pull you out.

Entering an event may help to pull you out, but it has to be at the right level. If you've never run before, entering a local 5k might be enough, but in most cases I would suggest it's not. You probably already know you can complete 5k, you could power walk it right now (if you want to run it in14 minutes, that's a different matter). Also, the financial out lay is not high, on the day of the race, its easy to roll over in bed, you've only lost the £10 entry fee and you can tell all your friends you had an injury.

You need to raise the stakes, enter a competition where you have to stand on stage in a bikini might create enough of a fear factor for to push away that pint of pimms and family pack of pringles. Plus the financial outlay of booking hotels, buying bikini, dresses, fake tan means you have invested more in it financially. I have seen this first hand, my girlfriend lost over 20 kg, trained and entered a figure competition, placed 2nd in the fitness testing and 6th overall out of 45 people. Fear of standing on stage in a bikini is a powerful motivator.

Some ultra-runs are very expensive, the multi day desert ones can cost $3000. The financial outlay, might be enough to make you go out on the weekend for your back to back runs. If you are a millionaire, it might not be.

The first ultra-run I entered, my training was driven by fear, not by financial cost. Firstly, I didn't want to let the team down, I didn't want to fail and not complete it. I didn't need to write the goal down, or put it on my fridge or write it in SMART format. I had internalised it, I got up everyday and thought about it.

Flip the switch

To use The Biggest Loser TV show as an example: The contestants on this show are normally the epitome of the person who sets goals and fails, and then suddenly they have spectacular success. This could be due to several things, firstly, something is suddenly switched in their brain, 'I need to do this or I will die', faced with their own mortality they are pushed out of their comfort zone. Then, the actual environment they are in is controlled, set exercise times, controlled food and support; they are physically removed from their comfort zone and it is hard for them to go back. Then, of course, they are on national TV, so any failure will be amplified and lastly, there is an external motivator of some prize money pulling them. Also, there is a support network around them, however sadistic it may seem, they are supported every step of the way.

Some goals are driven by replacement. There are plenty of example of ultrarunners who are ex-alcoholics or ex-addicts. Some say they replaced one addiction with another. Same with figure athletes, at a recent competition, I lost count of the number of women who had an eating disorder when they were younger and replaced it with the obsession of healthy eating. The switch flipped from an unhealthy lifestyle to an obessesion with an uber healthy one. And you know what, who cares. If someone has changed their life and moved in a more positive direction, then this is only a good thing. Anyone who steps outside the 'norms' of our mediocre media society is seen as strange. Not being like everyone else can only be a good thing (within the limits of the law of course!)

Sometimes you just have to do it. When I started writing this blog, I just did it one day. And though I need to write more, and the process of writing can sometimes be hard, I do it because I want to, because I enjoy it.

Learn from the elites

In a study by Connaughton et al (2008) the researchers interviewed elite athletes, some of which had competed at the Olympic level. Some common themes and attributes emerged. They were:-

1. Having an unshakable self-belief in your ability to achieve your competition goals
2. Having an unshakable self-belief that you possess unique qualities and abilities that make you better than your opponents
3. Having an insatiable desire and internalised motives to succeed

                                                                (Connaughton et al, 2008:86)

This is the mindset you have to develop. Also notice, that initially motives are internalised, way before sponsorship deals and salaries. Of course, they may have a 'talent' to begin with, but numerous people have had the talent but failed because of mindset.

The elites cited the underlying mechanism to initially be parents (and note, the ones with pushy parents weren't the ones who succeeded) and then coaches and social support. As the old adage says, you become like the people you surround yourself with. Negative people will affect your mindset. Also, note that negativity is not the same as as constructive criticism and coaching. If you don't have this support network, then you have to motivate yourself internally.

The study also shows that elites feel pain when they push themselves to win, the same as everyone else, and they have failure and setbacks like everyone else. The important thing is the mindset, to paraphrase one of the elite athletes interviewed, you can be last in the field, but you still have to believe that you can win. And if you don't win, you look at what you could've done better, and what you need to improve on, while still holding the belief that you are unbeatable.

Just do it - the cliche

Sometimes, the only way to get out of your comfort zone, is to burn all the bridges. To make returning back impossible. To forge ahead becomes the only possibility open to you. Narrow your options down, until the path is clear. And if you don't know how to do this, get help doing it, but realise you are a grown adult, responsible for your actions. Only you can take the leap.

Burn your bridges if you have to, but only you can build your path

Ultimately, it doesn't matter if you didn't use the SMART format to write your goal, it doesn't matter if you didn't write it down or if you didn't tell anyone. You carry the goal within you, only you know whether you succeeded or if it was worthwhile.

So book that photo shoot in 2 months time, enter that ultra marathon or throw your TV away. Take that first step, do whatever it takes. No one will do it for you.


“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski

Motivational picture: Andreia Brazier. Picture chosen by my girlfriend, this is what the figure athletes aspire to these days.

References

Connaughton, Wadey, Hanton & Jones (2008) The development and maintenance of mental toughness: Perception of elite performers. Journal of Sports Sciences. 26(1): 83-95