Motivation vs Intention

In the book, Atomic Habits, author James Clear makes a point that motivation isn’t what gets you places. In fact, it’s intention. Motivation to do something doesn't cause action. If it does, it’s finite at best. You can’t stay motivated forever, it will run out.

The example we’re all familiar with is a New Year’s resolution to work out more. Come January 1, they’re super motivated and hit the gym frequently. Once March rolls around they have a hard time sticking with their new habit because they think motivation is going to carry them to the finish line.

What takes desire and turns it into action is your plan for implementation. Deciding where/when/how you will take action towards your goals or new habit is much more impactful that relying on motivation or willpower. I know this sounds simple. Maybe even too simple if you’ve tried and failed to stick with something many times. If that’s what you’re thinking: do you write your intentions down?

Not many people write goals or actionable steps towards goals down. What we’ve learned from all the research in Clear’s book, you have to do this. You need to set some boundaries, set some intentions and call yourself out by declaring it on a sheet of paper. This is your fail-safe for when motivation runs out.

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_

Perfectionism

I write down everything in this notebook. I go through about one a year and try to fill up each blank page as much as possible. I write workouts, to-do lists, random ideas, things I read in books, meeting agendas, programs I need to write, things I need to buy and I journal in it too. It’s messy, but works well for me.

For a while, it didn’t work. I would forget to complete simple tasks because I was frozen by perfectionism. I had the ideal of what my notebook should look like and how it should be used. I didn’t want my journaling next to a to-do list next to a list of bills I need to pay. I wanted everything to have its place. I tried other methods, all stalled by perfectionism too. I had a dedicate training notebook, that I would never log workouts in. I had a journal only notebook, that got lost in the shuffle. I had a notebook specifically for writing down ideas I read about, never got filled.

My one notebook system was a way to simplify. I needed to tell myself, this will be a little messier than you originally intended, but you need a way to keep track of stuff. You’ve all seen this notebook on the desk next to my computer. I carry it everywhere, all my ideas, thoughts and lists live inside. I needed to change my perception of what the notebook was for. I wanted matching pages, clean writing and an easy way to find things when I needed. 

Instead, I have a slightly disorganized, a little all over the place notebook that’s hard to find stuff in. Just the other day, I was telling Taylor a quote I had written down about 6 months ago. On my first attempt, to show him I could find it, I failed. Quickly, I realized that the point of writing it down wasn’t being able to find the quote. It was to remember the quote!

I was so worked up about how to write things down, I forgot the point is to write things down so you remember them. We all do this. We have a perfect mental representation of what the task/goal/thing should look like. Sometimes, when it’s too perfect, it keeps us from trying or sticking with it at all. 

Is your ideal preventing you from doing something? How can you change this mental representation of what you’re trying to accomplish to make it work better for you? Are you freezing due to perfectionism? 

Justin Miner 

@justin_miner_

Trees and Consistency

Every Friday, the Gain coaches and I head to the Hebert’s for what most would call a staff meeting but that’s underselling it. We talk about hard things. What are we bad at? How can we improve? How can be better serve the Gain community? We discuss books and ideas and it pushes us get better.

Young Clayton brought a great concept to us over some omelets last week. Clayton asked us the following. You are allowed to take 5 chops with an axe at a tree in your backyard each day, with the goal of eventually cutting a tree down. Would you swing at the same tree everyday or bounce around from tree to tree?

When we have multiple goals, they can compete with once another. Giving a goal your all means you may be giving half effort on something else. You must be consistent. You need to chop at the same tree everyday. If you bounce from tree to tree, you’ll never cut one down. 

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_

Instant Movement Upgrade

There’s a concept we teach to clients to help them understand skill transfer or how different movements relate to one another. The idea is stacking joints. This is a robust, stable way to move and will give you insights as to other movements relate to one another. 

We know the best way to do a push up is to have your elbow directly over your wrist. Not only at the top plank position, but also on the bottom portion of the movement when your elbow is bent. This joint stacking, allows for maximum production of force. The positions where we can display the most strength are, not surprisingly, the safest positions to execute movements.

Let’s take another similar movement, the bench press, and apply this logic. While bench pressing, I start with the bar directly over my wrists, and therefore my elbows and shoulders. When I lower the bar in a slight arc, I want to see a vertical forearm on the bottom. That means, my elbow is directly underneath the wrist. Once again, this position gives us the best lever to produce the most force and safely to raise the bar back over our shoulders.

Another movement we can dissect is the inverted row. On the bottom position, we’re in an upside-down plank. My hips open, legs straight, arms straight and shoulders engaged - just like the push up. When I pull, I bend my elbow and retract my shoulder blades, similar to the lowering of a push up. At the top of the row, I should see stacked joints. Forearm perpendicular to your body with wrist directly over the elbow. 

If we don’t see this vertical forearm position or stacked joint position not only are we leaking performance, we’re increasing the likelihood of injury by compensating our movements.

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_

Perspective Building

Have you ever read a book, maybe in high school, and then read it 10 years later and got different insights from it? This is a change in perspective. We’re all trying to be the best humans we can be, it would be valuable for us to develop new perspective to look at the problems and challenges we face.

While in a battle against our goals, it’s common for us to compare to others. The problem with this is we usually downplay others failures and only see their success. Suzy lost 10 pounds so easily, why can I do that? It’s easy to see their success and not their failures or struggles, only our own. Having a better perspective would allow you to understand that, even though Suzy made it look easy, she struggled and failed too.

Building different perspectives is about being able to take your problem/challenge/goal and flip it around in your hands. Look at it from the front, from the back, spin it around, throw it in the air and check it from all angles. It will allow you to realize what the holes in your game are - what is competing against your success. We all have blind spots, and sometimes, these blind spots are limiting us from reaching our goals. 

Dig deep, look for your holes, check your blind spots and attack it from all angles. It’s easy to focus on other’s success and skim over their failures. Failing is part of the game, it happens to all of us. Those that are able to learn from it will be better off.

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_

Make Haste Slowly

Festina lente

I cook in some capacity every day. I like making good food and fueling my body. I like learning about different techniques and experimenting in the kitchen. I’m not a world class cook and haven’t really cooked for anyone. I enjoy it nonetheless.

There’s problem with my cooking. It’s pure chaos. I rush, make a mess and end up with food all over the place. For some reason, I feel like I’m competing on Chopped and there’s a time limit counting down until I need to plate the dish for the judges. 

I’m learning to recognize when I’m feeling this way to trying to slow down. I do the same thing with dishes, putting clothes away, mopping the gym and a handful of other tasks. The other day, a client came in and showed me her new tattoo, and explained that it means, “make haste, slowly."

The saying really sunk in with me. This old oxymoron means to move quickly yet deliberately. Hurry but take your time. Be fast, but don’t rush. It’s about doing things properly. I’m trying to work on this now, find more places in my life that I can make haste, slowly. Are there areas in your life you could apply this saying for?

Justin Miner 

justin_miner_

I Wish I Could...

Just the other day, while chatting with some clients warming up, I popped down into the bottom of a squat and continued talking. I must have looked irritatingly comfortable because one of the women said, “I wish I could relax in that position too.” I was feeling sassy, so I replied by saying, “I had wished I could too, but nothing happened, so I decided to practice really hard.”

I can even tell you the first time I tried to pop down in a squat like that. I was in my bedroom in my parent’s house in 2012. How hard could it be? I thought after watching a YouTube video that challenged the viewers to hang out in the bottom position for 10 minutes. I fell over backwards after 6 seconds. More determined for try number two, I lasted about 45 seconds until I succumbed to the insane burning in my shins. My hips had this pinching sensation so I called it quits. I made it 51 seconds out of 10 minutes.

It wasn’t for another year that I got serious about improving my squat. And it wasn’t for another several that I was able to hangout in the bottom like I am today. It took a lot of work. A lot of burning shins. It took time hanging out in the bottom of the squat!

There’s also a misconception that I went from not running at all to running ultramarathons. Well, there were a lot of steps along the way. There was a lot of pain, a lot of calve cramps, back spasms and limping up stairs. In fact, the reason I started running was not to run really far distances. I wanted to learn how to run properly. I became obsessed with proper technique. I had wished that running wouldn’t be painful for me. I had aspirations of opening a gym. How am I going to be a gym owner and not be able to run a couple miles without it hurting so bad?

Once again, wishing it to happen didn’t help me, so I decided to practice. Hannah and I started running a little over a mile once a week. We would run from my apartment in Hampton down to the Secret Spot to get breakfast burritos and then walk home. Heroic start, right? 

I’ll give you one more example we hear around the gym all the time, ”I wish I could do push ups like that.” By now, you know what I’m going to say. You need to practice, it’s going to take a long time and wishing isn’t going to help.

When we see people doing something that’s unfathomable to our current selves, we write it off as if they were born to do it, or that they're freaks. Remember, they put in the work too. Watch your self talk. If you just go around wishing improvement would happen, you’re going to have a hard time putting in the work. If you truly want to improve something, you need a plan and you need to stick with it. If you pull it off, people will wish they could do it too.

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_

Longer Than You Want

Over the past year, I’ve done a lot of hill repeats up Stratham Hill. I run up, walk up, hike up, crawl up, chase Clem up it, slide down in when its ice covered and stomp through puddles when it’s wet. Last summer, 7 or 8 repeats was the sweet spot for me. That was the right dosage that I was tired enough but still able to drive home. After a while, I started running faster up the hill. Resting less coming down the hill and so on.

All while this progress was happening, I was missing the picture. I was upset that I couldn’t get myself to do more. Come late summer, I was able to get 10 repeats, but mostly hiking up and a brisk jog down. Still frustrated. I would internally yell, I should be able to do more!

Fast forward to the other day, I casually did 11 repeats on an afternoon I would typically expect to get 7. It wasn’t super taxing, my times were solid and I was able to drive home. This was a slap in the face, I needed more time. I wanted to do more volume, but just wasn’t quite ready. Before I added more reps, I needed to get better/faster at doing fewer first.

This is a mistake we make when learning new things or taking on a new challenge. We want more, more, more without adapting first. I already caught myself thinking, well why can’t I go up and down 20 times? We’ll get there, it’s just going to take longer than we want it to. 

Potential vs Reality

Let’s say you’re a basketball fan. You’re at the game, snacking on popcorn and slurping down overpriced Bud Lights. You get to watch your favorite player have the game of his life. He scores 58 points and makes a mockery of the other team's defense.

After the game, you’re thrilled. He’s the greatest ever! You proclaim to the world as you’re walking out of the arena. Meanwhile, he’s in the locker room, thinking about why he didn’t have 62 points instead. He’s pissed off he missed two free throws and can’t believe the turnover he gave up in the fourth quarter.

Take a look at the picture below. The top line, represents your peak potential. The bottom line, reality, or where you’re at now. The space between the lines is dissatisfaction. The player continues to get better and improves because he’s dissatisfied with his performance. He’s always trying to reach that peak potential, and as long as he’s dissatisfied, he’ll keep working towards that elusive line. He’s able to use the dissatisfaction as feedback on his performance and motivation to get better.

How do we close this gap, beside be dissatisfied with our results? We control everything we can. The basketball player, controls what he eats, how he sleeps, what he wears to the game, music selection before the game. He even ties his shoe left first. Why leave it up to chance?

How does this play into your journey to a healthy lifestyle? Realize that you can control a lot of things that influence your results. Chasing the peak potential is a way for us to stay motivated in our pursuit. 

In the book, Atomic Habits, James Clear calls this the Goldilocks Rule. The best way to stay motivated is to work on challenges that are the appropriate level of difficulty. If something is too hard, like you playing one on one against your favorite basketball player, you aren’t going to be properly pushed. Playing against someone your equal, you need to focus, you need every edge you can get - you’ll be more engaged. You’ll also get feedback, immediately, as to how you’re performing. Just like the pro in his big game. You’ll be more likely to move that line when pushed appropriately.

Take a look at your goals. Are they optimally challenging? Or are they too easy or too lofty? Are you getting any feedback at all? If this sounds like a lot, it is. The good news though, you’ll never reach the peak. You can always improve, always control things better and always find a way to push your edge.

Where can you find dissatisfaction to use as feedback to help yourself improve?

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_

This is Hard

It’s tough to make yourself go to the gym few times a week. You have to do it when you have no energy, no motivation, when it's really cold or extremely hot. You need to wake up early or come in after a long day at work.

It’s easy to get down on yourself when you aren’t making it as much as you’d like or progress is crawling. Today, I want to remind you that this is a worthwhile cause.

Pat yourself on the back, and remember that this is s good use of your time and frustration. In fact, it being frustrating is probably a good thing. It leaves us always wanting to be able to do more or do better or get there faster.

This isn’t a hall pass to skip workouts. This is a reminder that it’s hard. Hard things are worth doing. Keep it up.

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_

Vanity

I posted on Instagram the other day about how I think gyms are weird. It resonated with a lot of people. My call out of the fitness industry was questioning, how something that is so important, becoming fit and healthy, has become mostly about vanity in the mainstream.

People are actually scared to go to gym because of feeling judged. Planet Fitness thinks they're doing something about this with their anti-meathead ads, but they’re not in business to change lives or change the fitness industry.

I want to elevate the conversation. I want people to realize this is more important than looking good for a special occasion. Your life is on the line and you are in control. We need to find greater meaning in what we’re doing. The obvious choice here for fitness - it gives you freedom.

Becoming more fit allows you to do what you want. It removes restrictions from your life. We need to realize this. Gyms aren’t about how you look, they’re about how you feel. Don’t you want to feel better?

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_

Simplicity

One of the things I appreciate most about running is the simplicity of it. You can do it anywhere, minimal equipment involved, bang for your buck workout, gets you outside.

It’s simple. We can complicate it with heart rate training, negative splits, weekly mileage and biomechanics of proper foot strike. At the heart of it, it’s about moving your body.

I have a Strength and Health Magazine from 1935 with an advertisement on the back explaining the effectiveness of “barbell training.” Simple and effect. Been around for a long time. It’s passed the test so to say.

We can complicate training with cool physiological terms we learn in school or with confusing directions for the most precise periodization scheme. At the heart of it, strength training is about your vs the bar. Lift with it, consistently and you’ll get stronger.

Sure, we can use 7 different types of machines to hit all the angles and muscle fibers you desire. Deadlifting once a week will get you to the same place. It takes the fluff out of it - no crazy routines, no expensive equipment. Just pick this bar up, lift it over your head, squat with it and you’re on your way to better health. Just like, lace up these shoes and go for a run. 

Barbells, running (and of course yoga) have stood the test of time. Will flashy workout routines with strobe lights, loud music and boot camp style instructors last as long?

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_

Confirmation Bias

Last week, I challenged us all to ask better questions. I wrote that many of us ask questions, not to find answers, but instead, to justify what we all ready believe.

Confirmation bias is when we seek information that confirms our beliefs, ignoring information that contradicts it. In order for us to develop, we must be aware of our tendency to look at what we already believe to be true.

So what can we do instead? We can seek disconfirming information. By looking at disconfirming information we challenge our beliefs. We either learn something new, or have a better way to see if what we believe is best.

Recently, at a seminar, the speaker proposed a question to us to help seek disconfirming information:

How might I be wrong about this?

Using this as a screen can help you find the wholes in your game. There’s always something we can do better. For us at Gain, this is how we we continually improve our training programs. When we think we have it all figured out is when we’ll run into trouble.

Justin Miner 

@justin_miner_

Asking Better Questions

We often look for simple solutions of complex problems. Yesterday’s post hit on that a bit. While I’m on my mission to understand my brain more, one of the things that keeps coming up is asking better questions.

Often, we ask questions not to seek answers, but to justify what we already believe. 

“Gluten is bad for you, right?” Or “It’s okay that I only get 6.5 hours of sleep, right?”

My challenge to you (and myself), is to ask better questions. Instead of asking questions that justify our beliefs, let’s ask questions to find information that contradicts what we already believe.

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_

Change Challenges

We all know change is hard because we, all the time, try to change things only to fail after a while. Maybe we even change for a year but eventually get back to our old ways.

Our challenge to change, according to Ronald Heifetz, fall into two categories. Technical change problems and adaptive change problems.

Technical challenge:

There is known information out there for this. Someone has a protocol or a checklist or the solution can be found on Google. How to perform appendix surgery or land a plane are technical challenges. Regardless of how difficult they are, there are know solutions. 

Adaptive challenges:

Require adjusting your mindset or perspective. They require you to see things differently and understand the challenge at a more complex level.

How many people say they need to lose 20 pounds but never do? There is no shortage of technical information available to them. They have access to Keto diets, paleo diets, vegan diets, intermittent fasting, gluten free, low carb, you name it. All the information is available. But they can’t change or change for a while and revert back.

This is an example of trying to solve an adaptive problem, I need to become healthier/lose weight, with a technical solution, a diet.

Some may have success with the technical solution too. So don’t think it can’t work that way. My challenge to you, is to see where in your life you are trying to use technical answers to adaptive challenges. Maybe think of a time that you did successfully change something, how did you solve it? Was the solution technical or adaptive?

For more, check out Immunity to Change by Kegan and Lahey and Leadership without Easy Answers by Hiefetz.

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_ 

Being Sick

Getting sick isn’t fun. It makes us miss work, social time and training sessions. We all hate feeling useless and that our bodies aren’t cooperating with us. I really hate it, I’m a baby when I’m sick because all I want to do is feel normal.

It makes us appreciate when we’re firing on all cylinders. This winter, I got sick for the first time in a while. I’ve dodged everything the past couple years and been able to keep healthy while everyone else has coughs and runny noses.

Both times happened when I was in a good training groove too. I’m a firm believer that when you are sick, you need to shut it down. Pushing through a workout usually makes it worse.

We need to find an advantage of getting laid up. I’ve got one for you: it’s time for your body to recover. Not just from the cold, but taking several days off from lifting and getting sweaty has it advantages too. I know it’s frustrating and you feel like you’re losing progress, but trust me, in the long run, it’s good for you.

A few days after each of my colds, I hit deadlift PR’s. That time off allowed my body to recharge and recover. I know while reading this it probably feels obvious. But we’ve all been there, feeling useless and lazy because we’re sick and can’t do anything.

If you’ve been fighting some stuff off this year, remember, it’s only temporary. Our bodies are amazingly resilient, you’ll come back stronger than before.

Justin Miner

@justin_miner_

Consistency

It’s hard to stick with something, even when we want to really bad. The problem, is that besides wanting to stick with the new thing, we don’t do anything else to set us up for success.

We say things like, I’m going to start going to the gym more, I’ll eat healthier this week or I’m going to write more blogs. Instead of having steps to accomplish this, we hope it just happens for us.

It’s not going to happen for us. We need to make it happen. If you want to go to the gym more, figure out a way to make yourself go. Maybe it’s writing on your calendar, telling all your friends or your coaches that you’re committed to it.

Here’s the part I struggle with: if you mess up, if you fail, it’s not a big deal.

It should make you mad, maybe a little down on yourself, but that doesn’t mean you need to stop all together. We let that fear of failure get in our way too often, I know I do for sure.

Let’s commit to sticking through things even if we fail. It’s the only way we’ll develop consistency.