Thursday, May 5, 2016

to push or not to push, that is the question...

The relentless, masochistic part of myself has always had a louder voice, the one that would rather handle a couple rounds of sludge hammer smashes to the head instead of doing the eyeball rolling, big kid stuff that requires constant attention and responsibility, ie. the other voice. Over the years, I've done an exceptional job rationalizing the ataraxia of a beating versus the latter.

Right...

Bloody, and defeated, I then take a step back and analyze the preemptive situation that led me to the sludge attack. It's never as scary, or hard as I pegged it to be. Latest example: work on website. What actually occurs? I go for a thirteen and a half miles "run"...

Faultless logic.

So what gives? The juxtaposition been the subtleties of a push versus a pull, between the mental and physical drive, where one shuts off and the other switches on, this piques me. What motivations lie behind each modality? At what point does the push know to give into the pull and vice versa? They are inextricably linked, this much can not be proven false.

Moving forward, I've always had a thing for conducting longitudinal studies on myself, things such as "wearing glasses while serving increases overall tip percentage," as people irrationally draw a correlation between spectacles and intelligence (obviously true in my case, but nonsensical in regard to general public association), and "being conscious of what you eat makes you a hippie," obviously. As these longitudinal studies have aged, they've now found themselves in the laboratory de la gym.Why? Because it's seemingly the one place I will show up and PUSH the envelope: leg missing, bleeding out, shirtless- whatever it takes, I'm there ready to bring it. The latest research per the subject matter of pushing versus pulling has proved engrossing data, with variables and constants as outlined:

Constant: Show up to gym, pumped up on coffee stronger than jet fuel, ready to kick my ass (cue healthy competition mode unbeknownst to all other humans), with a touch of irritation (it's always too early to be awake at this point) laced with austerity. This combination invariably the best mental cocktail to get me in the fight zone.

Yesterday, I arrive. Cashed. Feeling in a state somewhere between skin suit zombie and meditative Buddha, unsure what reserves I was going to tap into for this training, wanting nothing more than to be in a horizontal coma. Alas, time to lace up the kicks, and surrender to whatever's going to happen. The competition is looking of par, the few men in the room providing my main source of challenge. It's go time.

Variable: The specific exercises and my ranking in class- which typically teeter totters between second and third. The workouts are structured on a consistant frame work of thirty minutes of cardio (intervals/hills/sprints), and thirty minutes of hydro rowing intervals mixed with weight training.

I dive into the rowing and weights for part one. I need to get warmed up for the forth coming madness.

By the second half of class, I've released all self-induced mental pressure, the PUSH, throwing in the white flag if you will, as the sap to my source of 'fight,' is in high dwindle. I'm runnin on fumes. This is the push I'm speaking of, the one that is mind induced, telling you to show up. Tell you to finish first. Telling you to do better than the day before, and shit, why not do better than everyone else in the room? The mental script was no where to be found, and so, I let my body fall into itself, I let go into the physical state of my being, a state of autopilot where the PULL happens by default.

11.3 miles per hour hit.

Whattttt the fuck?

I giggle to myself not knowing where this came from. Frankly, it seemed too easy. I wasn't ready to knock anyone out, I didn't need to swear at the treadmill for being hard as fuck to scale. Nada. Just a chilled ass lack of attempted attempt. At the consummation of class, I reviewed the board displaying our personal training stats. I've nailed first place.

How the fuck?

With no added pressure, self-coaching, motivation, really nothing more than showing up in my skin suit, I was able to, almost effortlessly, rank number one. My mind was clear, I didn't push myself so hard that I inevitably ended up RESISTING my own coaching, riling myself up so hard that myself defeated my own self.

ALAS! At what point does the ego take over, mucking up our primal push/pull compass, playing devil and angel in our self talk? Ironically, this ensues in resistance, as you can never have one state without its opposite, to what you've set out to accomplish?

And where should the line in the sand be drawn that allows us to bring it just enough to let go and allow the body to show up and do the work it knows how to do?

Pause. I gotta go train. Mental procrastination setting in and physical body winning Time to get more information for this study.

11.7 miles per hour hit.

New personal record. Whoa baby.

Because this push and pull paradigm was brought to the forefront of my mind, I drew acute awareness to the build up- the climactic moment in the training where I knew I was going to empty out my tank for all I had. In the leading moments prior to sprinting my ass off, I paid attention to what my body felt like, was my self talk negative or positive, my motivations. Was I pissed off? Excited?

This is a riveting concept to me, as I feel like all things that we DO can be drawn to this parallel. Where one person pushes, the other may pull. One person's procrastination device, another's bread and butter. It's nuts when you actually think about it.

I'm not certain I've come to a definite conclusion to this study, as I am slowing beginning to see how it fits into almost every facet of life OUTSIDE OF THE GYM, but what I have come to find out thus far, is that it's a slight dance in the game of balance, as with all things. The take away as of this moment is that you need to know WHEN to shut off the mind, and let the body do it's thing. You need to know WHEN you're getting in the way of your self. WHEN you need a little more authentic PUSH and a little less PULL.

In conclusion, the words of Newton, "...an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted on by by an unbalanced force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force..." ring true, inside and outside of the laboratory. So if you're like me and think a beating is a bit easier that PUSHING yourself to stay in your damn chair and finish annoying shit, roll up your sleeves, and get dirty in some experimentation. Let the PULL come afterward as a reward for things ticked off the adulting to-do list off your list- a pull to go for that run, take a nap, eat a burger, buy a boat, whatever tickles your fancy. I guarantee you'll see proof in the truth of this law everywhere you look.