Your body will argue that there is no justifiable reason to continue. Your only recourse is to call on your spirit, which fortunately functions independently of logic.
Tim Noakes
Working out is good for the body and good for the mind. It initiates the release of feel good hormones in the body, leaving people that exercise in a good mood, more relaxed, and cognitively more present. Exercising feels good… mostly once you're done with it. If we’re honest, working out (either in the gym, at home, outside, whether your running or training with weights) can be quite challenging and feeling like giving up at some point is a recurring thought in everybody’s mind. Exercising impact the mind afterwards (it is cheaper than therapy and can help you sort some stuff out)… but how can the mind impact the training?
If you’ve been in contact with a trainer or read some inspirational quotes, the idea that your mind will have an important role during your training should be a familiar concept. When we’re told to push our limits, I think about 70% of it is believing you can take that extra step and 30% actually taking it. But how does the mind can push the body to do more?
MIND OVER MATTER
A high release of adrenaline (the fear/stress hormone) into the body can help you do things you never thought you could do: run faster than ever before, allow you to lift heavy weight… Adrenaline will prepare your body for a fight-or-flight response by increasing the heart rate and respiratory rate (breathing speed). Even though a small quantity of adrenaline is released in the body during exercising, it does not account for being able to push our limits. Adrenaline is a “miracle-worker” in desperate situations that should not include working out.
You probably notice that the quotes usually talk about “the mind”, not “the brain”...
The brain, as a physiological agent able to release wonderful hormones in our system that will help us carrying exercising, is not enough to push us further or to work us out harder. The mind is. The mind is defined as the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; it is the faculty of consciousness and thought. It is our own will and how we decide to perceive the exercise that will determine whether we are able to work harder or not. And this fascinates researchers, pushing them to conduct studies in order to understand how to best use our mind to our own advantage during workouts.
The first trick of the mind that can be used during workout is distraction, i.e. thinking about something else than the workout. Taking your mind off the present (potentially unpleasant) situation has been shown to work during low to moderate workouts; you can focus on the music, think about how to organise your day, or even start reminiscing about happy times. This last technique has proven efficient during stressful situations, such as right after an argument or before an interview. Remembering better times when you were on holidays, enjoying yourself, seems to help calm down and refocus the mind on the present. By eliminating the feeling of stress, we are able to deal with the source. What about challenging, intense, hard workouts?
Well, distractions don’t seem to work so well then. From personal experience (I do not qualify as a professional hard-core runner or absolute weight-lifting best but I think we can all find examples of challenging workout at a personal level), there is only so much you can think off before being snapped back into the present when your muscles are on fire or your lungs are burning out. A new study started to shed light on a very promising technique: we can make the effort more bearable using “cognitive reappraisal” … which seems to be a very fancy name for what other people might call “mindfulness”. The goal is not to try to ignore the sensations and feelings in our body by putting them under the carpet, but try to look at them without any judgment, in a dispassionate way. Acknowledge how you feel and accept it. By doing that, you take the focus away from the unpleasantness, not by ignoring it but by accepting it is part of the process. Like we say, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs; well, you can’t get fitter without pushing yourself. The challenge is part of the journey, the unpleasantness is part of the process. The importance you give to the unpleasant feeling will make the difference between you being able to go further and stopping.
To sum up, distraction has been shown to help people through moderate workouts or going through a usually not-so-enjoyable activity (running for example). When the fitness level improves and the workout gets more challenging and more intense, mindfulness seems to give a better boost to our motivation, reducing the negative side of the activity. “Mind over matter” is an actual thing: how you see the exercise will play a role in your performance. And if that doesn’t do it for you, there is comfort in knowing that your brain will trick you into remembering that the whole thing wasn’t actually so bad, and yay sure you could go through it again!
NO PAIN, NO GAIN?
One more thing before we call it a day – there is a difference between unpleasant sensations and actual pain (highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury). If a couple of muscles burning and experience some tiredness during and/or after a workout is alright, at no point is actual pain ok when exercising. Ask anyone in the fitness industry: there is a difference between pushing yourself and working hard and pure bestial unconsciousness. Working out is more than throwing weights around and running really fast or for a really long time. It is a way of life, no matter your fitness level or your goals: if you exercise, you need to think about what you’re doing. Are you taking sufficient time off? Are you stretching? Are you eating properly? Are you drinking enough water?
Burning muscles is a sign that you are breaking muscle fibres. It is necessary to build muscle mass because it triggers both cell regeneration and cell growth (i.e., creating new muscle fibres), but it will only be beneficial if you give your body time to do it. Alternating between different type of trainings can help accelerate the recuperation time. Pushing yourself can be the goal, but form should always come before power. Add reps before you add weight. It is quite easy to injure yourself when working out; a good form can help reduce the risk of injuries.
So, “no pain no gain” refers to a certain level of unpleasantness during your workout. Actual pain will lead you nowhere. Pain is a signal send by your brain, interpreted by your mind, to tell you something isn’t right. If your mind can allow you to push your physical matter (i.e., your body) further, remember it is your body that carries your mind around. Mind and body share an osmotic bound: they need each other for our greater good.
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