Toughness Training for Life

Making waves. (aka shattering linearity.)

As I mentioned in the intro, this is a key component of Loehr’s model of toughness.

Here’s how he puts it in The New Toughness Training for Sports: “It’s important to understand that only rarely does the volume of stress defeat us; far more often the agent of defeat is insufficient capacity for recovery after the stress. Great stress simply requires great recovery. Your goal in toughness, therefore, is to be able to spike powerful waves of stress followed by equally powerful troughs of recovery. So here is an essential Toughness Training Principle:

WORK HARD.
RECOVER EQUALLY HARD.

From a training perspective then, training recovery should receive as much attention as training stress. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case.”

Work hard. Recover equally hard. Got it.

Loehr tells us that both overtraining and undertraining lead to sub-optimal performance.

We’re going to feel burned out, tired, cranky and unmotivated if we’re constantly overtraining. But, if we’re constantly undertraining, we’re also going to feel little energy, motivation and mojo.

The trick to growth?

We need to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones—overloading our current capacity enough to challenge us to grow but not so much that we break. That’s called ADAPTIVE stress.

That’s where the magic is. As Loehr tells us, “We get tougher by progressively challenging ourselves beyond our normal limits.”

Here’s a handy-dandy little chart to capture the essence of what we’re looking for:

So, quick re-cap:

—> Undertraining = too little stress.
—> Overtraining = too much stress.
—> Maintenance training = stress that keeps us where we’re at.
—> Toughness training = adaptive stress that challenges us to grow.

Figuring out how much stress athletes can handle is one of the biggest challenges facing a coach.

It’s the same with us. We need to embrace a growth mindset and be willing to experiment as we find our optimal adaptive threshold—embracing the inevitable overtraining and recalibrations that goes with that!

P.S. Loehr tells us there are three domains we need to master if we want to get tough: the physical, mental and emotional aspects of our lives.

He advises: “In sport the greatest risk is physical overtraining and emotional overtraining; in nonsport life, it’s physical undertraining and emotional overtraining.”

That’s a Big Idea.

For most of us, we’re emotionally overtrained and physically undertrained. What’s exciting is that by dialing up our PHYSICAL training, we can simultaneously optimize our emotional training. More on that in a moment…

Did you know that 85 percent of a tennis match is between-point time?

Yep. Between each point, tennis players are allowed 25 seconds. In a 2 hour match, the entire playing time might be as little as 20 minutes.

No one really gave this much thought but Loehr discovered that it was during this time—the RECOVERY phase—that the best competitors separated themselves from the not-so-great.

Here’s how Loehr puts it: “All the data indicated that tough competitors, unlike nontough ones, maximized their opportunities for recovery between points. They had acquired a highly refined and precise system of trained recovery.

In contrast, poor competitors were less disciplined, less exact, less ritualistic, and more varied in their actions between points. They were also much more likely to express negative emotion each time they made a mistake. When angry, frustrated, disappointed, irritated, or discouraged, they were far more likely to show it.”

Powerful stuff.

What’s that mean for us?

It means that if we want to perform at OUR best, we need to get really good at not only the “playing time” but the time between the points. We need to prioritize our recovery. As Loehr puts it, we need to “train recovery.”

He tells us: “Trained recovery is the foundation of toughness both in life and in sport. If you want to get tougher, the requirements are few and simple: Learn how to make powerful waves of recovery as well as powerful waves of stress.”

Here’s to making waves as we create oscillations between work/stress and rest/recovery!

We all know about our 24-hour circadian rhythms.

But what about ULTRADIAN rhythms?

Science says: Our energy levels naturally pulse every 90 to 120 minutes. If we ignore these rhythms (+ our 24-hour circadians!) and constantly override them, we’re unnecessarily exposing ourselves to what researchers call “endurance stress” and we’re likely experience the consequences in the form of chronic fatigue, depression and reduced performance. Eek.

The solution?

Pretty simple: Make waves (!!) by training recovery via 15- to 20-minute breaks every 90 to 120 minutes!!

Work for 90-12o minutes then go for a walk, do a little work out, take a nap, meditate.

Whatever you do, oscillate! Train recovery.

Here’s to optimizing our ultradian rhythms!

This is Big.

Loehr walks us through the parallels between his toughness training program and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the base of both? Our physiological needs.

We simply CANNOT (!!) reach our potential if our basic physiological needs are not adequately met. Period.

Unfortunately, when we feel stress, these needs are often the last things we address. Rather than slow down to eat better, exercise, get enough rest and unplug, we tend to ignore those things and push even harder. Not a good idea. At all.

How about you?

What’s your weakest physiological link? Is it sleep? Nutrition? Exercise? Relaxation?

What’s one little thing you can do today (and tomorrow and…) that will help you optimize that? (Get on that! :)

I love this: “Negative emotions are like a phone ringing in your body.”

—> Soft rings = minor needs = feeling a little irritated, hungry, tired, etc.

—> Loud rings = urgent needs = intense fear, anger, depression, exhaustion, etc.

Remember: Feeling totally positive all.the.time. isn’t normal or healthy. We ALL oscillate and feel varying levels of awesome and not so awesome—particularly when we’re at our edge and experiencing stress.

It’s really important to tune into our feelings so we can adjust our behavior to meet any potential unmet needs. We simply can’t do that if we’re pretending everything’s great or we think something is wrong with us if we ever feel down.

Here’s a super quick look at the basic process:

• Step 1. Notice when the phone is ringing (aka when you start feeling negative). Answer the phone checking in, asking “What am I feeling?” Are you tired, cranky, lonely, scared?
• Step 2. Identify the unfulfilled need. Do you need more sleep? Need to eat? Need to exercise?
• Step 3. Thank yourself for the call and commit to fulfilling the need snappy-like.
• Step 4. Get back into a positive state. You received the message from your body, you’re committed to meeting the need and now you’re ready to get back into the moment.

Is the phone ringing in your life?

What’s it trying to tell you and what can you do to meet that need?

Reminds me of how David Reynolds puts it in Constructive Living (see Notes): “Our behavior is controllable in a way that our feelings are not. There is a very special satisfaction for the Artist of Living who works within life’s limits to produce a fine self- portrait. The more control we develop over our actions, the more chance we have of producing a self we can be proud of.”

Remember: Although our emotions are not perfectly within our direct control, they are strongly influenced by our thoughts and behaviors—and we have a LOT of control over them!

In their great book, The Tools (see Notes), Phil Stutz and Barry Michels tell us that we all have a naïve wish to arrive at a place where life no longer stresses us out—a heavenly state where we no longer have to deal with any more challenges in our lives.

They call this a desire to be “exonerated” from all future suffering. As nice as that state may be, it’s just not how things work. Life will continue to challenge us. We will continue to experience pain and hardship. Those are just facts of life.

The Tools guys tell us we need to “reverse our desire.” Rather than trying to avoid pain, we want to train ourselves to get excited about it—knowing that our infinite potential exists on the other side of our fear/comfort zones.

They encourage us to say “Bring it on!!” to ourselves when we experience challenges as we move right into our pain and fears. Sounds a lot like what Loehr advocates, eh?