7.27.2011
7.25.2011
My aversion to strength training, or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Do Lunges
I have a confession: after four years of strength-training-intensive college swimming, I have only recently learned how to properly do lunges. And squats. Seriously. I have poor balance and I would always fall over. I just couldn't do them. And I had never taken the time to learn how to do them properly, and therefore develop those specific muscles. And maybe I just wasn't built to do lunges anyway. At least, those were my excuses.
In high school, my training (all swimming) was very yardage-heavy. It was not unusual to do 8,000 yards a practice, or 11,000 yards a day (an hour and a half in the morning and two hours at night). We would occasionally get into a medicine-ball routine, or have a season that included a lot of crunches, but there was no definitive dry-land program that was implemented. So naturally, it was a big shock to me (and my muscles) to begin very intense strength training in college. Prior to this, I had managed to get pretty strong through just swimming - I knew that heavy yardage worked for me, and was prepared to do more of the same in college. However, that was not the case. College swimming relied on a thrice-weekly routine that involved calisthenics, medicine balls, and weight lifting sets to the point of failure. This was wholly unfamiliar to me, and I constantly felt like I had something to prove. I was supposed to be a fast recruit, and was already not living up to my potential for a number of reasons: college is a tremendously difficult transition in itself, and I don't think I allowed myself enough leeway to adjust; I was also having a difficult time staying healthy and was plagued with sinus infections from the start, and was still burnt out from certain high school struggles...and of course, that same boyfriend still plagued me. But I continued to be hard on myself, and didn't allow myself any leeway to adjust - I had to show everyone I was the best, even though I didn't really feel like it, and eventually, didn't really care.
For all of the time I had spent in the water, I was not very good at lifting weights. This embarrassed me. I wanted to show everyone how great I was. I wanted people to see that in me, because I didn't feel all that great myself. So I pushed myself, but not effectively. I pushed myself, and then would pinch a shoulder, or get sick and lose strength. I found more and more excuses to avoid weightlifting, because it made me feel even worse than I already felt, both in and out of the pool. And so I fell more and more behind the rest of the team as the season progressed. If I had been insecure about my strength levels before (well let's face it, I had been insecure about a lot more than that), at this point I felt defeated. And then I just felt nothing. I didn't care about swimming, about practice, about the team, about the rest of the season, about how I did. I found every possible excuse for my shortcomings, and for the first time in my life, had accepted failure as not just a possibility, but as the only available outcome. I no longer viewed myself as someone who could push herself to accomplish a goal, but someone who had given up and accepted that going through the motions was an acceptable alternative.
Fast-forward one year to another season, at a different college, on the other side of the country, with a different coach. But the same fears and insecurities still haunted me. My drive was inextricably broken but I could not find the strength to fix it. Much like my arms during practice, the wheels in my head spun out of control, but got me nowhere. But back to strength training. I had built a tremendous amount of muscle my freshman year due to the strength training routine my previous coach had implemented. I don't know how much it benefited me at the end of the season - by then, my attitude had so deteriorated that no amount of training would have been sufficient. (It should also be said that I also spent a significant amount of the season being sick with various sinus infections and persistent bronchitis. How much can be attributed to this, and how much of my weakened immune system was tied in to my mental state, I don't know.) But the fact remains that I had now put on quite a bit of muscle, and then proceeded to take five months off from athletic endeavors in general. My newer, more muscular stature became additional fuel for my burgeoning insecurities, and I convinced my new coach that I needed more time in the pool. I knew that I had had previous success from minimal weight training and heavy yardage, so that was what we did. But still, things were off - I would struggle with fatigue, and lose my motivation quickly. It was not the training that was off, it was me.
As college swimming came to a close, I felt an inextricable sense of relief and disappointment. No part of my college career had gone the way I felt it should have, or how I had hoped, and much if it felt like an empty attempt to recapture what I had once had in high school. I failed to see the experience as unique in its own set of challenges and opportunities because I was stuck in this mindset that I had failed myself once, and therefore would continue to do so no matter what I did. There are ways to see every opportunity as a setback, just as there are ways to see every setback as an opportunity, and I had entrenched myself in the former. So what does this have to do with strength training? To me, my aversion to strength training served as a metaphor for my resistance to free myself from the traps I had constructed for myself. Instead of looking for new implementations to become stronger, I reached for old excuses to let myself fulfill my predictions of inadequacy. These are not happy sentiments to type, but looking back, I recognize these experiences as opportunities from which there are tremendous lessons to learn. A negative attitude is a huge obstacle to overcome, but once you have, you realize how much littler things are in comparison.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do." For me, that was learning how to do lunges. I had borne witness to huge setbacks, both within and outside my control, for too many years. But those setbacks had given me an irreplaceable gift - I knew the discomfort, the uneasiness, the disappointment those setbacks brought. And I knew the courage to get through them. I had done that, and lived to see another day. Finding the courage to wrestle with your fears is the only way to learn that they will not break you.
My training thus far, including my little strength circuit, has been immensely rewarding because it has given me a chance for redemption. I have learned some hard-fought lessons, and now I have an opportunity to turn what I have long seen as my past failures into success - not in time, or in distance, although those tangible measurements allow me to recognize my progress, as well as my path ahead. I find myself with occasion each day to face my fears, to test my limits, to accept each challenge with a clear head and a ready smile as the gift of opportunity.
In high school, my training (all swimming) was very yardage-heavy. It was not unusual to do 8,000 yards a practice, or 11,000 yards a day (an hour and a half in the morning and two hours at night). We would occasionally get into a medicine-ball routine, or have a season that included a lot of crunches, but there was no definitive dry-land program that was implemented. So naturally, it was a big shock to me (and my muscles) to begin very intense strength training in college. Prior to this, I had managed to get pretty strong through just swimming - I knew that heavy yardage worked for me, and was prepared to do more of the same in college. However, that was not the case. College swimming relied on a thrice-weekly routine that involved calisthenics, medicine balls, and weight lifting sets to the point of failure. This was wholly unfamiliar to me, and I constantly felt like I had something to prove. I was supposed to be a fast recruit, and was already not living up to my potential for a number of reasons: college is a tremendously difficult transition in itself, and I don't think I allowed myself enough leeway to adjust; I was also having a difficult time staying healthy and was plagued with sinus infections from the start, and was still burnt out from certain high school struggles...and of course, that same boyfriend still plagued me. But I continued to be hard on myself, and didn't allow myself any leeway to adjust - I had to show everyone I was the best, even though I didn't really feel like it, and eventually, didn't really care.
For all of the time I had spent in the water, I was not very good at lifting weights. This embarrassed me. I wanted to show everyone how great I was. I wanted people to see that in me, because I didn't feel all that great myself. So I pushed myself, but not effectively. I pushed myself, and then would pinch a shoulder, or get sick and lose strength. I found more and more excuses to avoid weightlifting, because it made me feel even worse than I already felt, both in and out of the pool. And so I fell more and more behind the rest of the team as the season progressed. If I had been insecure about my strength levels before (well let's face it, I had been insecure about a lot more than that), at this point I felt defeated. And then I just felt nothing. I didn't care about swimming, about practice, about the team, about the rest of the season, about how I did. I found every possible excuse for my shortcomings, and for the first time in my life, had accepted failure as not just a possibility, but as the only available outcome. I no longer viewed myself as someone who could push herself to accomplish a goal, but someone who had given up and accepted that going through the motions was an acceptable alternative.
Fast-forward one year to another season, at a different college, on the other side of the country, with a different coach. But the same fears and insecurities still haunted me. My drive was inextricably broken but I could not find the strength to fix it. Much like my arms during practice, the wheels in my head spun out of control, but got me nowhere. But back to strength training. I had built a tremendous amount of muscle my freshman year due to the strength training routine my previous coach had implemented. I don't know how much it benefited me at the end of the season - by then, my attitude had so deteriorated that no amount of training would have been sufficient. (It should also be said that I also spent a significant amount of the season being sick with various sinus infections and persistent bronchitis. How much can be attributed to this, and how much of my weakened immune system was tied in to my mental state, I don't know.) But the fact remains that I had now put on quite a bit of muscle, and then proceeded to take five months off from athletic endeavors in general. My newer, more muscular stature became additional fuel for my burgeoning insecurities, and I convinced my new coach that I needed more time in the pool. I knew that I had had previous success from minimal weight training and heavy yardage, so that was what we did. But still, things were off - I would struggle with fatigue, and lose my motivation quickly. It was not the training that was off, it was me.
As college swimming came to a close, I felt an inextricable sense of relief and disappointment. No part of my college career had gone the way I felt it should have, or how I had hoped, and much if it felt like an empty attempt to recapture what I had once had in high school. I failed to see the experience as unique in its own set of challenges and opportunities because I was stuck in this mindset that I had failed myself once, and therefore would continue to do so no matter what I did. There are ways to see every opportunity as a setback, just as there are ways to see every setback as an opportunity, and I had entrenched myself in the former. So what does this have to do with strength training? To me, my aversion to strength training served as a metaphor for my resistance to free myself from the traps I had constructed for myself. Instead of looking for new implementations to become stronger, I reached for old excuses to let myself fulfill my predictions of inadequacy. These are not happy sentiments to type, but looking back, I recognize these experiences as opportunities from which there are tremendous lessons to learn. A negative attitude is a huge obstacle to overcome, but once you have, you realize how much littler things are in comparison.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do." For me, that was learning how to do lunges. I had borne witness to huge setbacks, both within and outside my control, for too many years. But those setbacks had given me an irreplaceable gift - I knew the discomfort, the uneasiness, the disappointment those setbacks brought. And I knew the courage to get through them. I had done that, and lived to see another day. Finding the courage to wrestle with your fears is the only way to learn that they will not break you.
My training thus far, including my little strength circuit, has been immensely rewarding because it has given me a chance for redemption. I have learned some hard-fought lessons, and now I have an opportunity to turn what I have long seen as my past failures into success - not in time, or in distance, although those tangible measurements allow me to recognize my progress, as well as my path ahead. I find myself with occasion each day to face my fears, to test my limits, to accept each challenge with a clear head and a ready smile as the gift of opportunity.
7.24.2011
On Goals
Goals are funny things. I am a goal-setter by nature; I like the ability to measure my success in finite amounts. Goals can be wonderful - they can push you to uncharted territory and allow you to accomplish things you once never dreamed possible. But goals can also cripple you when your focus becomes too narrowly defined by the end point that you aren't paying attention to the road that will get you there. One of the hardest things for me to overcome thus far in my marathon training has been to trust that the steps I'm taking will eventually lead me to my goal. It's not easy.
The first thing I had to do was start laying down a foundation for my fitness level, upon which I could build my training to get myself to the start of the marathon. A lot of my posts talk about fear, because a lot of this journey has involved realizing, facing, and overcoming my fears. I have spent a good part of the last few years being nervous, tepid, afraid of taking risks, of pushing myself, of failure, and moreover, of taking myself into uncharted territory. My training has been just as much mental as it is physical. I've had to develop an acute awareness of my thoughts and attitude, and how I allow them to affect my actions.
Even though I had committed to running the NYC Marathon with Team in Training, and had raised a good chunk of money towards my fundraising requirement, I have been plagued with a nagging fear for the past few weeks that I would not actually be able to complete the entire marathon. 26.2 miles had taken up this nebulous, ethereal space in my head where I couldn't conceptually grasp what it would take to finish. I had no idea how I would feel on mile 12, or mile 18, or mile 25, how I could calm my nerves at the start, and the kind of elation I could possibly feel at the finish. I've had a lot of goals in my life, but it's been far too long - almost too long for me to remember - what it feels like to commit 100% of myself to a challenge. My goal had taken hold of me, and was shaking me to the core. Every workout came with a nagging sense of dread, and manifested itself into knots in my stomach. I didn't know what it was that I was doing that would help me move forward; conversely, I didn't know if, or what, I was doing that was inhibiting myself from taking control of my goal. Much of my training felt like an effort in shuffling through a set of motions - left foot forward, then right foot, now walk at the beep, turn around and head back up that hill, I can't wait for this to be over.
And then something clicked for me this week. Somewhere in the depths of my brain, a steely, energized person began to form from within my doubts and fears. Somewhere, that person grabbed a hold of my goal, and said, "this is mine. I can do this." Where I had previously slogged through training, or skipped workouts, I attacked each training opportunity with surprising zeal, embracing the tension in my muscles and grinning through my sweat. I pushed through a circuit workout, got up the next day, and did it again. Then, I faced an interval set on Wednesday that scared me a little bit. And well it should have - it was easily the most challenging running workout of my life. But then I got up on Thursday and did another interval set. And the knots in my stomach began to harden into a settled feeling of resolve. For the first time in years, I felt in control of my goal, and was ready to navigate my way to the marathon.
On Friday, one of the hottest days in New York on record, I debated how to address my long training run on Saturday morning. Of all the elements of my training, the long runs have induced the most fear for me. I had developed a pattern where I would push myself one week, only to return the next week and back down in fear of what it would take to go further than the previous Saturday. My previous long run had pushed 6 miles. I had wanted to do 7, but it was hot, and I was tired, and I had a sunburn, and in the end, I had allowed my excuses to dictate my training. Now I was still unsure whether to do 7 or 8 miles, unsure of whether I could do either, and had been cautioned not to push myself with the barometer likely to top 100 degrees. And all of a sudden I found myself in Central Park, gathered with my teammates, all of us pouring sweat at 7 am, and heard myself saying to my group that I was going 8 today for anyone who wanted to join me on a second full loop. I was going to run 8 miles, and no heat, no fear was going to stop me.
As I started my second mile, the oppressive heat seemed to dissipate around me. With each step I gained confidence in my choice - I was going 8 miles and I'd be damned if I was going to stop myself. Our group stopped at every water fountain in the park; no matter how strong my resolve was, those miles weren't going to happen unless I stayed properly hydrated in that weather. And as we pushed through mile 5, then mile 6, I felt a strange feeling of comfort as my tired feet moved forward, one, then the other, tapping out a rhythm in time with my breathing. Not physical comfort, but for the first time a concrete realization that I can finish my marathon. That was what it would feel like - a partnership of comfort and discomfort cancelling each other out, so all that was left to do was to keep moving. I know I can keep going. I can do this. I had taken hold of my goal, and allowed myself to push toward it, circumventing my fear - fear of what? I didn't even know any more - and proving to myself the mental and physical strength I had within me. Little by little over the past week, I had broken down a barrier that loomed over me, and used those pieces to take steps toward my goal. My marathon.
The first thing I had to do was start laying down a foundation for my fitness level, upon which I could build my training to get myself to the start of the marathon. A lot of my posts talk about fear, because a lot of this journey has involved realizing, facing, and overcoming my fears. I have spent a good part of the last few years being nervous, tepid, afraid of taking risks, of pushing myself, of failure, and moreover, of taking myself into uncharted territory. My training has been just as much mental as it is physical. I've had to develop an acute awareness of my thoughts and attitude, and how I allow them to affect my actions.
Even though I had committed to running the NYC Marathon with Team in Training, and had raised a good chunk of money towards my fundraising requirement, I have been plagued with a nagging fear for the past few weeks that I would not actually be able to complete the entire marathon. 26.2 miles had taken up this nebulous, ethereal space in my head where I couldn't conceptually grasp what it would take to finish. I had no idea how I would feel on mile 12, or mile 18, or mile 25, how I could calm my nerves at the start, and the kind of elation I could possibly feel at the finish. I've had a lot of goals in my life, but it's been far too long - almost too long for me to remember - what it feels like to commit 100% of myself to a challenge. My goal had taken hold of me, and was shaking me to the core. Every workout came with a nagging sense of dread, and manifested itself into knots in my stomach. I didn't know what it was that I was doing that would help me move forward; conversely, I didn't know if, or what, I was doing that was inhibiting myself from taking control of my goal. Much of my training felt like an effort in shuffling through a set of motions - left foot forward, then right foot, now walk at the beep, turn around and head back up that hill, I can't wait for this to be over.
And then something clicked for me this week. Somewhere in the depths of my brain, a steely, energized person began to form from within my doubts and fears. Somewhere, that person grabbed a hold of my goal, and said, "this is mine. I can do this." Where I had previously slogged through training, or skipped workouts, I attacked each training opportunity with surprising zeal, embracing the tension in my muscles and grinning through my sweat. I pushed through a circuit workout, got up the next day, and did it again. Then, I faced an interval set on Wednesday that scared me a little bit. And well it should have - it was easily the most challenging running workout of my life. But then I got up on Thursday and did another interval set. And the knots in my stomach began to harden into a settled feeling of resolve. For the first time in years, I felt in control of my goal, and was ready to navigate my way to the marathon.
On Friday, one of the hottest days in New York on record, I debated how to address my long training run on Saturday morning. Of all the elements of my training, the long runs have induced the most fear for me. I had developed a pattern where I would push myself one week, only to return the next week and back down in fear of what it would take to go further than the previous Saturday. My previous long run had pushed 6 miles. I had wanted to do 7, but it was hot, and I was tired, and I had a sunburn, and in the end, I had allowed my excuses to dictate my training. Now I was still unsure whether to do 7 or 8 miles, unsure of whether I could do either, and had been cautioned not to push myself with the barometer likely to top 100 degrees. And all of a sudden I found myself in Central Park, gathered with my teammates, all of us pouring sweat at 7 am, and heard myself saying to my group that I was going 8 today for anyone who wanted to join me on a second full loop. I was going to run 8 miles, and no heat, no fear was going to stop me.
As I started my second mile, the oppressive heat seemed to dissipate around me. With each step I gained confidence in my choice - I was going 8 miles and I'd be damned if I was going to stop myself. Our group stopped at every water fountain in the park; no matter how strong my resolve was, those miles weren't going to happen unless I stayed properly hydrated in that weather. And as we pushed through mile 5, then mile 6, I felt a strange feeling of comfort as my tired feet moved forward, one, then the other, tapping out a rhythm in time with my breathing. Not physical comfort, but for the first time a concrete realization that I can finish my marathon. That was what it would feel like - a partnership of comfort and discomfort cancelling each other out, so all that was left to do was to keep moving. I know I can keep going. I can do this. I had taken hold of my goal, and allowed myself to push toward it, circumventing my fear - fear of what? I didn't even know any more - and proving to myself the mental and physical strength I had within me. Little by little over the past week, I had broken down a barrier that loomed over me, and used those pieces to take steps toward my goal. My marathon.
7.20.2011
Holy breakthrough, Batman!
I'm sure that plenty of you have heard about the heat wave that is currently baking making its way across the country, so being that I am both fair-skinned and heat-averse, I've opted to take my workouts indoors for the week. Monday is usually my "ease into the workout-week with some strength training" day, so I did my usual running circuit:
2x15 squats
15 lunges (this is impressive since two months ago I couldn't even do one)
15 side lunges
1 minute wall sit
1 minute front plank
10 pushups
50 toe taps (to strengthen my ankles and prevent shin splints)
50 calf raises
50 bicycle crunches
It felt surprisingly good! Usually I'm not sore until the next day, though, so I fully expected to wake up Tuesday morning to a pair of very stiff legs. Not so much! I had a project to finish for class that night, however, so I opted to stay indoors and do another round of the circuit instead of my run and call Tuesday my rest day instead of Friday. This is fairly uncharacteristic of me - usually I'll find any excuse to skip a workout (and stretch it into three... or four.... months....) but I surprised myself with my new-found motivation.
Today I got to the gym, and after patting myself on the back for having an air-conditioned place to go when it's 90+ degrees out, I hopped on the treadmill to do my first interval workout.
The workout itself was great:
10 minute fast walk warm-up
4x2 minutes max effort, with 1 minute fast recovery walk in between each,
2x3 minutes also max effort with 1 minute fast recovery walk in between,
5 minute walk cool-down
But first, a confession: I've had a few interval workouts on my schedule already, but I've been too intimidated to do them. I didn't know what my mental block was... until about 30 seconds into my first hard interval. I realized that I felt exactly the same as I did after the race on Saturday - more or less in pain. Not musculoskeletal pain, just exertion beyond my comfort level. And then it hit me: that was the key. That was what I had been avoiding, and had been so afraid of for so long. So I pushed through my first interval (probably too hard, because I had nothing left for the last 10 minutes of the workout), and then stepped it up again for the second. That struggle - that discomfort - is exactly what is going to get me to the finish line in November. It's not going to go away, but it will make me stronger. That is as much a part of the physical challenge, the mental preparation to be uncomfortable, and accept it, even embrace it, and train your mind in every practice to feel the way you're going to feel when you race. I felt ecstatic. After the first set, I was so tempted to take an extra minute walk break before I pushed through the last two hard runs, but then I remembered to embrace the pain, not put it off for another minute. And I did. Although my speed slowed down a bit by the last two runs, my effort level stayed pretty consistent. The endurance will come, the more I push myself.
Slowly, but surely, I'm embracing the real challenge of the marathon - not necessarily developing the physical strength to run (or even run/walk) for 26 miles - the human body is capable of incredible things. The challenge is developing the mental tenacity to embrace pain, and overcome discomfort for the pursuit of a goal. As Aristotle once said, and a wise college teammate then screened onto our yearly t-shirts, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit."
7.19.2011
My mantra for the day.
My body is the trophy of my perseverance.
Polished by my sweat,
sculpted by my hard work,
and given to me for my achievements
to remind me every day
to treat it with care and respect
and to use it to better myself
because I have been given the most valuable award there is-
my health.
Polished by my sweat,
sculpted by my hard work,
and given to me for my achievements
to remind me every day
to treat it with care and respect
and to use it to better myself
because I have been given the most valuable award there is-
my health.
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