132 hours of near continual physical labor... running, swimming, paddling, push ups, sit ups, carrying boats on their heads, slogging through mud. Mud covers their uniforms, hands, and faces. The sand chafes their raw skin and the salt water makes wounds burn. They are wet, cold, and sleep deprived. It is hard to imagine anything more physically grueling, yet a Basic Underwater Demolitions and SEAL (BUD/S) instructor contends, “The belief that BUD/S is about physical strength is a common misconception. Actually, it’s 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical. (Students) just decide that they are too cold, too sandy, too sore or too wet to go on. It’s their minds that give up on them, not their bodies.” It’s up to each individual student to either turn the challenge into increased resolve, or decide on his own to quit.
So far none of our Metabolic Warriors have approached us and asked us to train them to become a Navy SEAL, but many of the same factors that determine whether or not an individual completes SEAL training also apply to us when we either succeed or fail in reaching our fitness goals.
One of our participants summed it up pretty easily when he said, "More than half the battle is won when I just get myself here for the training." That is a conscious mental choice to override your body's desire to stay in bed or have another cup of coffee and read the paper, or whatever excuse your mind and body can come up with to skip your workout. MAKE the time for your fitness training. MAKE it a priority. From the beginning it is a mental choice... you either choose to do it, or you don't.
We believe in you. Believe in yourself. Many of the limitations that we believe we have are just that; beliefs. Take, for instance, the sub 4 minute mile barrier. From 1943 to 1954 several runners came within 2 seconds of the sub 4 minute mile but it remained elusive. Then, on May 6, 1954 Roger Bannister became the first man to run a mile under 4 minutes. Interestingly, in the 2 years following that 16 more runners had accomplished that feat and the world record had dropped to 3:57.2, nearly 3 seconds under the "barrier".
Did all of these runners suddenly adopt a different training program to break through a physical plateau? No. They had a mental barrier in their head. They did not believe they could run sub 4. Our bodies can achieve so much more than we think possible simply by training our brains and believing.
Does that mean you throw caution to the wind and ignore warning signs in your body? Of course not. We have repeated over and over the difference between "good pain" and "bad pain". We both have some limitations in our own bodies that we know we cannot safely push through and we will never ask you to do so. BUT, we will always urge you to push a little harder when it is safe to do so. Whatever your own personal challenge is when it comes to fitness, use your mental strength to take that challenge and turn it into the increased resolve you need to conquer it.
"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
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