Barbell Shrugged - Drop Everything and Train - 200

Episode Date: February 17, 2016

We’ve had a few catchphrases over the years. In the early days of Barbell Shrugged, I can remember scribbling, “Coffee, Tequila, Barbells” everywhere and on everything. It was silly, but also an effective way to define and state our mission. All we wanted to do was talk about training and have a great time doing it. And it worked! The Window of Gains is a more recent example. It’s was still fun and on mission; but the goal was very different. We wanted to teach something practically and personally – With laughter. That’s the challenge, right? There’s no shortage of theory and opinion in the field of sports nutrition. And yet, the world is overflowing with athletes who aren’t meeting their nutritional and performance goals. We have more available information than ever, so why should anyone be confused about what they need? Why should anyone argue for certainty of knowledge over action? Our approach was to film a light-hearted show on the topic, and maybe slap a cartoon logo on the side of a shaker bottle. “People will see this and giggle,” we thought. “And then maybe they’ll remember that building a strong and adaptive body begins with a shake and a decent meal.” This is the power of a phrase. A short, funny thing. It is a trigger. It is your spark. A real path of action, and results, and truly profound change.  Time to d3&t Yes, we’ve had a few phrases over the years. Some were funny, a few were even useful. But only one phrase has proven durable and real enough to serve as our default battle flag, our rallying cry. It doesn’t look like much at first. It doesn’t even make sense – d3&t, what is that? The name itself is very easy to explain. To d3&t means to, “Drop Everything & Train.” As it suggests, this is a call to action. Actually, our exact call to action. The “3” in the title points to 3 o’clock, our sanctioned training time. But all the real power here is contained in the depth. Real knowledge is about taking action. And this particular action of “dropping everything” works at three distinct, body-strengthening, life-changing levels. Begin and discover for yourself.   Level 1 – Establish the practice There are countless ways your training could go poorly. There are so many variables at play, so many possible goals to chase, and like I said, there’s so much theory to consider. And it’s true, you’re going to get lost and fuck up eventually, probably more than a few times. But this is the only way that you can truly learn. In time, and with enough of the fuck-ups, you’ll start to notice that successful training means nothing more than restarting and recommitting again every day. On balance, you will have good days and very bad days. The weights will feel light, and sometimes immovable. And toughest of all, there will be moments where the entire world feels like a barrier between you and the barbell. That’s when you’ll make the real decisions. Day by day, will you choose to drop everything? Will you do the work?   Level 2 – Focus your intent Touching the barbell is always a plus, but still just a start. There’s still more that needs to drop. You might guess that the plan is very important, and it is. But it can also be a big distraction in any gym or training space. There are many great programs, written by many amazing, highly capable coaches. But as map in your hands, that program isn’t worth much on its own. Vision and earnestness do all the driving. So, drop everything. Every distraction of your life. Every urge that tells you to try something new, or something else, or something fancier and more complex. Drop anything that serves to divide your intent. Go ahead, you know the answer. The time is now. There’s only the barbell, this first lift of your training session. So give the moment all the focus it deserves. Give it everything you have, and pay very close attention to the results. You’ll quickly discover that intent is almost everything.   Level 3 and beyond – Remove the expectations If you want to achieve extraordinary results, focus your attention. Do not try to take on everything all of the times. But with that, it’s important to say that even focus has its limitations. Consider that the world is filled with tremendously strong and fit people who don’t feel that way inside. They might win more races than they lose, or lift immense loads, but they can’t keep from chasing bigger results. I don’t want to discourage you, the opposite is true. You should pursue a meaningful goal, something you. Don’t stop until you realize that goal. But you should also realize that the most powerful kind of action isn’t anchored to the result. You’ve heard of Yoga, right? Sure, there’s the physical, bendy, sweaty, incense-infused kind of Yoga. But then again, there’s a more ancient, fundamental, flowing kind of Yoga. Something for the body and the mind. More of a verb than noun, I guess. It’s called Flow, bliss, or even just happiness. It’s not a thing to get, but the natural byproduct of a still, trained, soothed mind. It starts happening when you get lost in a book, spin thread, write, garden, or shoot baskets alone in the backyard. It is the high that hits the runner mid-marathon, and it’s what you can experience at will in the gym as soon as you stop caring about how strong you look. Drop everything. That means the burdens of your daily grind, your attachments, and your expectations for what you must become and achieve. Let it go for a while. Just load a barbell. Grab a weight. Move and fuck around. Play! Express your skills as efficiently as possible, without any worry or concern for how much you’re lifting or the work you’re not accomplishing. That’s it, the only trick. Once you stop worrying about the result you can finally lift for yourself. This is an opportunity to get lost with the barbell, to have a deeply rewarding time, and to connect with yourself. You will leave those sessions with a steady and clear mind, which ultimately means you will be far more effective out in the world and with the people you love. That’s what d3&t really means to us – It’s freedom through training. Live that, and you’ll do far more than break records in the gym. Now, go train. Chris

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we're going to talk about how to drop everything in train. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Hey, I see you sitting there, lonely by your keyboard. If you want to, just whip your fingers out, put them on your keys, type in http://www.barbellshrugged.com. While you're there, swing on over, sign up for the newsletter. We'll send you some cool free stuff, and make sure to check out to check out overtime it's a sweet place with a bunch of sweet stuff and last but not least i know

you're trying to find a bitchin t-shirt to get your mom for a birthday head on over to merch.barbellshrug.com i feel like if you're gonna watch one movie it has be Anchorman. There's a lot of dialogue in that. Yeah. I like Dumb and Dumber and Tommy Boy. Tommy Boy. How do you want to intro? All right, so this episode we're going to chat a little bit about DEET. What it means to DEET.

What DEET stands for. Where it came from. What it means to us. Why we chose that acronym. I feel like a lot of people don't even know what it means to us, why we chose that acronym. I feel like a lot of people don't even know what it means. Like people, especially old dudes. Old dudes are like, what the hell does D3 ampersand T mean? If they say ampersand, I'll at least explain it to them.

Not everyone knows what the hell an ampersand is. I don't even know what that means. That's an ampersand. Yeah, that's an ampersand. Put it together. That's an ampersand. Yeah, that's an ampersand. Put it together. That is boop. Yeah. And they always get mad about it, too.

And I'm like, I'm sorry. We can explain it to you. But, I mean, yeah, it just means drop everything and train. And that's what it means. And then they're like, oh, okay, cool. Yeah. I don't know what that means, but just stop talking to me. Let me move on.

I wish I never asked. All right. So, yeah, Chris Moore just put out an article the other day on the Daily about, you know, some, I'd say, I'd call them pillars or three main topics where this, you know, this abbreviation, acronym came from, what it means to us, how it's kind of our company mantra, the motto, why we all believe in it, how we try to apply it to our, not only just training, but how it can be applied to your life in general. You know, starting off with the first main point being, you know, action, right? Like, like, get into the gym, just drop everything,

right? Make it a point to actually start being consistent and going to the gym and how that first step is kind of the most important piece to, you know, following the rest of it. So just actually setting things in place so you can go do and actually take some action. Yeah, it's about like, you know, making sure that you prioritize what's important. And, you know, for me, it's like, you know, you know, I work a lot and I don't know if everybody knows that, but I work a fuck ton. And, but, you know, um, I make it a point, like, if like, I'm going to get, I'm going to set this time aside to, you know, do what makes me, you know, happy and gives me, you know, the energy to like keep doing what I'm doing. So like, you have to, you have to set that priority and respect, respect the fact that like, this is something that, that makes you happy and you

like doing, and you're going to forsake, like everybody's got deadlines, everybody's got shit to do, like, but you are going to set aside that time to do what you have to do and what you enjoy doing like you know and train and putting it in your schedule on the front end right as opposed to just going through life and doing your work and doing your thing and say i'm gonna get to the gym whenever i get to the gym now we gotta put in our schedule on the front end and say this is when we're training this is when we're gonna go so whatever we're doing at work we're gonna stop at this point in time and we do this when we're training. This is when we're going to go. So whatever we're doing at work, we're going to stop at this point in time. And we do this when we're working together, we put in our schedule in front of the day, say, Hey, at this time of day, we're going to stop

what we're doing and we're going to go train. Yeah. I love how, yeah, that that's, it's part, it's ingrained in our, in our culture is just that, you know, it doesn't matter what we've got going on. We're going to, because, you know, we're passionate about fitness. We're going in training, we're going to, you know, say, all right, that's enough for the day. And we're going to, because, you know, we're passionate about fitness, we're going, in training, we're going to, you know, say, all right, that's enough for the day, and we're going to do, you know, what we're about, you know. Yeah, there's a very specific time in the day that, you know, no matter what it is that I'm doing, you know, I'm going to shut the computer, and the pre-workout goes in the shaker, like, right then, and that's like a ritual. The autopilot. Yeah, closing the computer, putting in the pre-workout. If, if that, that is going to happen. You know, I get a lot of

questions, uh, that from, from clients that I say, look, what is the best time of day to train? And I mean, it's a good question because there are like optimal times, like when your body's like most fired up and ready to go. But like, to me, when I'm writing a program for them, or when I look at their schedule in general, I honestly look at the big picture and think what is optimal for their whole day like maybe their performance isn't going to be the best at 7 a.m in the morning or at 6 30 a.m but they're going to get it done right away and they're not going to be mentally dragged from the work you know schedule that they have or like you know like those are things to consider too so when you're looking it's not always about the best time for performance training exactly the best time to train for their performance outside of the gym.

Yeah. When can they get in and be the most focused and actually when can they get there and be consistent with going at that time? If you put it at 10 in the middle of a work day or 3, you know, especially after work. Are you going to be there? Are you actually going to do that all the time? Right.

The morning, more likely, you know especially after work are you actually going to do that all the time right the morning more likely you know so that's one thing I consider when I am actually writing for people is that you know it's not always about like you said the the most the most like optimal time for the record-breaking performance it's it's about the big picture the long term yeah yeah like what what time of the day or when are you going to be the most engaged in what you're doing? And I think that I think that applies like just to anything, really. And one of the things I think, you know, drop everything and train like, yeah, it says train in there. But it really for me, I think it applies to a lot of things like it even applies to like, you know, my personal life and, you know, relationships and, you know, just work.

You know, there is a time and there is a place for everything. So like, if you're going to do something like do it 100% focus on it, drop everything else, like focus on it and, and really put yourself and be present and engaged in what you're doing and then move, you know, go to the next thing. But if you sit in the minute, you start getting distracted and trying to like, you know, still, you know go to the next thing but if you the minute you start getting distracted and trying to like you know still you know trying to train and you're checking your email and then you're you know worried about other shit that's going on in in your life then you you totally break yourself out of your concentration and what you came to do right yeah the more they're multitasking the less you're actually doing anything yeah a lot of people think multitasking is the way to go but

it's not it's inefficient it's completely and i i struggle with this like learning you know when i when i came on to work for you know barbell shrug like you know i was like trying to multitask all the time and and all this stuff and it it quickly just buries you and it's just not the way to go about it you lose so much productivity um trying to multitask and that's the same thing that goes with training like you're trying to multitask in the gym you're not going to have a good workout there's no way you're not going to have a productive session it's going to take way too long it's going to take way too long people are like oh man i can't do this workout because it's like it took me like three hours i'm like why is it taking you three hours maybe

because you're you're off in somewhere to la-la land, you know, checking your phone or whatever like that, you know. Yeah, that brings up Chris's next point in the article is focus, right? Yeah. Intent of your training session. Once we get there. Yeah. Be there.

Yeah, exactly. I thought you meant to the next point. I was like, I am that. Yeah. Come on. Get to it. Yeah. So learning to be present, right?

Like the biggest thing I've noticed too is like the phone is such a distraction. I mean it's great because you film lifts. We're all guilty of it. We're all fucking guilty. I'm super guilty of it. I love filming videos. Scrolling through Instagram. And trying to make a funny video.

Looking at hot chicks and stuff like that. Like you're all guilty. We're all guilty. Yeah. There's times when I realize like, I mean, it's – like, you don't have to do any of that shit. Like, that's not important. Put the phone away.

Put everything away. Write the workout on the board. Look at it. You know, that's one of the biggest habits that I try to do anywhere I'm at is I write on the board because, for one, like, if you're someone who's task priority driven, like, you want to go in and check things off, write on the board, and you can scratch it off when you're done with that piece. Yeah. Yeah. Cause the minute you check your phone,

like, you know, you keep your workout on your phone. Oh, then you got, you got like a couple of texts. Oh, what's somebody post on Facebook? Let me go check this out. Oh, let me look at this meme. Oh, like it's, it's, it becomes like this bottomless pit of distraction that you're just, you're falling to. It's a bad habit. Have you ever looked at your phone and then checked the email and noticed that there wasn't a new email, closed it, and then immediately opened it right back up?

And you're like, what am I doing? Maybe there's something there now. You know what that is? That's because you've developed a habit of checking that email. And honestly, I'm, I'm guilty as it, as, as charged, you know, but you've got to, you've got to, you know, you've got to make it a conscious decision and be like, all right, I'm, I'm going to focus on what I'm doing right now. Like not going to talk about business, not going to talk about,

you know, anything that's going on. I'm here to do what I came here and do and do work. Yeah. Something like that kind of helps me, that brings me into the gym and focuses. I try to find a quote that, and most quotes that I can relate to life. I can relate to like what I'm doing in the gym. You be going on Pinterest, don't you? Look at that quote. I'm not a Pinterest queen. I haven't got into that, but I try to find like a quote that's kind of inspiring and I'll put it on the board, like under my workout. It just gives me something to think about. Like but I try to find like a quote that's kind of inspiring. And I'll put it on the board like under my workout. It just gives me something to think about like while I'm working, like how can I apply it to the gym and life.

Hashtag Motivation Monday. For real. I'm totally into that. And it kind of helps pull me into my warm-up. I think about that quote. I ponder on it while I'm warming up. And then my workout is on the whiteboard because my workout's on an app. And like you said, I'll go check that app and like check off a task on the app. One my let's say it was push press i go to like check it off next thing i know i'm scrolling

through facebook like yeah and it's just bad for my training so i think one of the best habits i've done is turn off all the notifications and then even a step farther is turn it on do not disturb mode where you don't even get text messages that's a good idea you don't get anything unless you actively go over there and check it you don't just see it out of the corner of your eye lighting up or whatever, and so you have to go check it. I'm surprised you know how to do that. I'm learning. You know how to use technology?

What? I still have the best habit is having a flip phone. Oh, gosh. No way. That's hilarious. But I think, too, something that helps with this is all of us have coaches. And so you don't have to go in there and think about what you're going to do. And so you get distracted and think about what you're going to do.

You have somebody writing it for you. And so you go in and you just follow it. Same thing if you're going to a class. Like, don't worry about what everybody else is doing in the corner. You have your class workout written on the board already for you. So go in and do that and just focus on that priority. Yeah, like having everything for you, you know, ready to go so you can just walk in and do what you have to do so you can leave.

You know, not trying to like, you know, figure out, okay, well what warm-up am I going to do today and all this other stuff. So, what do we have in here? Let the dog get out. Sorry about that. let the dog get out yeah i mean having a coach either in-house or writing it for you that takes all the concern out of it where you don't have to i'm gonna drop that nugget that your coaches should have coaches i see the the most amount of time wasted in training i don't want to say wasted most time spent in training isn't usually during the actual training. It's wasted time in the warm-up and cool-down. It's the time

outside of when the actual workout starts. Once you start the workout, everything's kind of based on time. It's flowing. It's not going to stop. I'm a big fan of making warm-ups and cool-downs the exact same way. Have a 20-minute clock, start it, and that's your warm-up. When that's done, you roll into it.

That has saved people a lot of time. We use that in the shredded program. We have on- that's your warm-up and when that's done you roll into it and that that has saved people a lot of time we use that in the shredded program we have like on the minute warm-ups and these guys it cut their workouts down like about 30 minutes like saves a lot of time yeah just developing just gym habits and people like want to say routine is an ugly word but it's not a it's not an ugly word if it's gonna save you time and help you focus. So, like, developing a gym routine, like, you know, you walk in the gym, this is what you do, and now you're ready to go. Like, you know within, you know, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, like, all right, now I can hit this workout and I'll be out of here. And not deviating from that routine and getting distracted and thrown off,

you know, respecting that routine and respect. Because that way you can respect your time, you know. I think on the flip side of focus, like just actually focusing on one thing about your training. Like not just training and not just not checking email, but like focus intently, like on training. You come in, you snap into the present, like right then. Yeah.

And also, too, focusing on, yeah and just and also too focusing on yeah just even big picture looking bigger picture than that like just focusing on something to get good at you know with your training like not if you you know if you have a goal you you want to say oh i want to i want to squat you know for 400 pounds then work do the do the training that's going to that's going to help you get there yeah don't get a squirrel. Don't get, you see somebody doing a muscle-up, and you're like, oh, I want to do muscle-up too. No, you pick a priority and go after that.

Yeah, that's not being afraid to commit to one thing for a little bit. Commitment is drop everything and train. I mean, apply it to a 500-meter row. You go in, you know you have a 500-meter row for time. Yeah, if your focus uh for was is to get better at rowing focusing on on the end result on the time you're not going to be a better row doing that you're gonna you're gonna focus on speed you're gonna pull the shit out of it you're gonna exhaust yourself which is fine if that's what you're going for yeah but if your

focus was on becoming a better rower and you're focused on the end result you're not going to focus on your technique right yeah got it one thing that um i want to bring back from the first point you mentioned is um even if it's not a perfect scenario so like if your day goes to shit and you've only got let's say you typically have two hours of training and work takes longer and you've only got 30 minutes um some people oftentimes just think well whatever i'm not even gonna do it anyway but like even if you stick to the plan of going to the gym, if you only have 30 minutes, that's going to make you feel a lot better than if you just bailed out in general. So, I mean.

Just take one day at a time. It's not even about the time you spent or the quality of the training session always. It's the fact that you stuck to the commitment you had. And you didn't let yourself down. You actually went and you stuck to it in the habit. Even if it was only a 20-minute workout and it sucked and you felt like crap. you felt like you don't get to the gym even if you have to just go for a run something or something yeah you keep the habit of every day you're going and doing something to train yeah just sweat once a day and you know just take one day at a time like i think people

like they get they get so bent up and caught up and like i'm gonna do all this stuff and i'm gonna i'm gonna hit this this goal like x months from now and I'll be awesome and never just, just take it one day at a time. Like nobody goes like real, like high level people, like they don't go in and just be, they have goals, but they're not trying to say like, you know, I'm going to accomplish this big ass feat in this indefinite period of time. I'm going to go take it one day at a time and do what I want to do that day. Get the most out of it.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And then finally, the last point would be learning to enjoy that time in the gym and it not be so much of a focus on what the final outcome is or whether or not you hit that number. I mean, I think we've all battled with that. Yeah, for sure.

Excuse me. It took me the longest time to, I used to get anxiety about training sessions and I used to always wonder why, because I would look at the workout and I'll be like, damn, that's really hard. I got a big day ahead of me and it would stress me out all day long and it wouldn't stress me out because of like the pain that's coming or anything like that. It stressed me out because I felt that I had a performance anxiety that like I knew what I was capable of, and if I didn't do that, then I would let myself down in that session. Yeah.

And it took me a long time to get rid of that. And I still battle with it. It's not perfect, but. How do you approach that now looking at like. I try to think of like what's the worst thing that could happen. Like if I have a workout that's max clean and jerk and then grace. And I kind of know what I can do on those. And I'm like, oh, my God, like what if I don't get them?

So I try to think about it. What's the worst thing that happened? I fail. Like I bomb out. I don't hit my max. I hit 30 pounds under my max. And you know what? That's all happened.

It's happened before. There's days where I've gone in and had to max clean and jerk, and I've hit 30 pounds under my best. And I'm like, I mean, whatever. It is what it is like it's not like I didn't try hard I always try hard yeah you know you're not gonna like not try hard in the gym so I guess that would be the biggest thing is like maybe fear that you're not gonna actually try hard but that never happens it shouldn't happen that's funny I was gonna kind

of ask you when it comes to play because I live this but I've never been to the CrossFit Games as a games athlete like do you feel um and I've felt this way plenty of times like you're in the gym and you're doing the work but like you're you're scared or worried or you're just sick to your stomach that you're not living up to other people's expectations of who you are in the gym oh totally like if anyone says they don't feel that I think they're lying I mean I that's one of the biggest things too is like you got to figure out like why you're doing it in the first place and and you know facing the reality sometimes that you're not as good as some people out there is very important it could be hard but a lot of people dodge that for a very long time they don't want to actually face how good they really are and that takes a lot of fun out of the training

because they they do certain things they maybe don't train with people or they kind of ignore reps or standards they do a lot of these people or they kind of ignore reps or standards. They do a lot of these weird things to kind of avoid and face the reality one-on-one that I'm not better than everyone out there. I think that's one of the top things that stops progress. When I had made regionals before, one of the things that slowed down progress was that anxiety of not living up to everybody else's standards. Once I took a step back and said, hey, what's my priority?

What's my focus? What am I training for? That's when I was able to start enjoying it again and starting having fun and starting seeing progress again. I mean, I got to the point where I literally wasn't making any progress because I was so concerned with what else was going on. Same here. The minute you start trying to look at everybody else and compare yourself to everybody else, you just get put into this like negativity zone.

And you really stop focusing and thinking about what is important to me. Why did I start doing this? I mean, that's me. When I first started weightlifting, I was trying to be like, man, well, if this guy, he just started'm we're like the same size and whatever I can lift as much as him and you know then then I got hurt because I was trying to do what they were doing and all this other stuff and I just wasn't ready for that and you know and Mike Bledsoe like he he one time told me is like as an athlete you have to be a little bit selfish I mean you have to be a lot selfish

you have to think about yourself and what's important for you and, you know, not worry about all the other stuff. And, like, what you were saying going back to, like, just, you know, having fun. Like, you know, don't – you know, yeah, everybody has, like, expectations and goals and they want to achieve things. But, man, the minute you just stop having fun, like, then everything just sucks.

Like, you're not going to do as well. Like, like one of the things, you know, Travis, Travis mash, like he's my, he's my weightlifting coach. And, and, you know, I was, I was going American open and I was talking to him and, you know, I was, I was kind of a little slump with training, but you know, he's like, man, brother, don't worry about it. Just go have fun. That's the people who do the best anyways. They don't worry about it. They take everything, just what it comes, what it comes as it comes, and just have fun, you know. Yeah, I had a big problem with that.

Just having fun and not trying to be, like, as good as I was, you know, pre-injury, I've been injured. And so I was at this kind of training high, got injured, and then came back and expect myself to be the same. And so, you know, nothing is more sad than thinking about how awesome your past was. Well, I think a lot of people, too, think – Back in 1984, I threw that football. We're talking about being present and training,

but I think you need to have the mindset of, like, what is the long-term focus? So in your case, you're bringing up – and I'm not putting words in your mouth, but you're bringing up – I'm not putting words in your mouth. You're bringing up the point that you know what your previous performance level was and you want it back right now. But like, are you on the path to get there in a year, to get back to it in a year?

And you got to remember that. You got to think like, I don't care where I'm at right now. I'm on the track to get back to that point a year from now, you know? And then sometimes there's a case where, you know, you brought up the CrossFit Games and I'm not going to be a CrossFit Games athlete forever.

I'm actually at some point going to have to accept the fact that I'm not going to be as good as I was two years ago or a year ago. And it's just something you've got to swallow. And it's not easy, but it will destroy your training if you're constantly, if you have that self-image that that's the only person you were.

That's just a point in training. Training levels and quality and how good you are, how bad you are, just changes all the time. It's just the fact that you're just doing continuously. I think truly recognizing where your priorities are. So, like I said, I have been a regionals athlete in the past, and every now and then I go back to that. You know, man, I'm not as good as I used to be.

I can't do the things I used to be. But in reality, my priorities have changed. I have a family now. I'm more focused on coaching and work now. Like, the reality is I'm not putting in the same work towards that athlete that I was then. I think bottom line is. Are you even capable of doing that? Yeah.

And that's okay, though. I mean, people – It's fine. It's fine. Yeah, like, you know, like, it's all about priorities. Like, drop everything and train. Like, that's okay, though. I mean, people, people, people, yeah, like, you know, like, it's all about priorities. Like, drop everything and train. Like, it's all about priorities.

Like, if something is important to you, you will make it a priority. It doesn't matter what it is. Like, don't make excuses. Like, it's not drop everything and make an excuse. It's drop everything, maybe we should call it deep,

but drop everything and prioritize. Yeah. Focus on what's a priority. There's this big, like, dry, crusty, like, hair-coated pill that you're going to have to swallow. What are you talking about? That sounds awful.

I was trying to make it the worst thing ever. Sounds like you're weird. Sounds like what we were talking about, Alanis Morissette, that album would be. Jagged little pill, yeah. There's this jagged pill you're going to have to swallow in order to allow yourself to have fun with your training and play. And that's, you know, who am I?

What am I going to do? True acceptance. One thing my wife and I do, and we catch each other doing it all the time, is when we talk about our training, listen to how you verbalize it. So when you say things like, I've got to do this today or like oh shit like i've got to go do that it's like you don't have to go do anything yeah and you catch yourself and i'm not

saying like avoid weakness training like i'm not saying avoid things that are hard right but change the mindset and how you approach them like why are you doing them in the first place you shouldn't you should be doing those things because you're on a track to get better at something. It's a goal. You shouldn't just be doing painful workouts because they suck and, like, you need to inflict pain on yourself. That's stupid.

Or you feel like you're not going to be accomplished if you don't do it. Right. It's that fear aspect. You're afraid of the outcome. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, we try and catch ourselves when we say that. Like, when we were getting ready to go to training, we're like, oh, got to go do this.

Like, ugh. It's like, no, like, I know it's not exciting sometimes and you know you've got something nasty coming up, but change the mindset and it'll carry you into that workout with a much more positive attitude. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. Absolutely. Yeah, so, I mean, what else do you guys do to keep the training sessions fun? Personally, like, even warm-ups in general, when you have someone come in

and, like, you can tell they're just, like, miserable trying to do the warm-up, I'll play some ball sports or something. Like, get a game out, do something different. If you go to the gym and you are absolutely, like, not wanting to do your mobility and get on the rower and warm up like go for a run go do something different just keep it fun in general yeah well for me my training gets you know if you have switched to just weightlifting so that sometimes it gets mundane and and you're like you're not going to be the best you every day you're not going to perform your best every day

so learning to train with feel and and not sweat the small things so like some days you're not going to be able to hit 85%, like, repeatedly for, like, three or four reps. So you just need to, like, do what feels like 85%, take your pulls, and roll out happy. If you see the guy kicking a chalk bucket across the gym because he didn't hit 87.5% for two, you know, like, he's got some issues, man.

He's just not swallowing, like, what is right now. Yeah, just accept for what it is right now. And each training day is – that's one thing I had to figure out, too, is, like, yeah, I had goals I want to come in. But you know what? Some days are hard. And I'm like, okay, well, I did my best. And, you know, tomorrow's another day.

Yeah, you forget that you started this because it was fun. So keep it fun. And, you know, just having people, having good people to, like, you know, train with and all that kind of stuff and having that environment, you know, where people are like you and they're just – they're not like Debbie Downer, Negative Nancy, like kicking the chalk bucket across the room. You know, they're like – you got to train with people who are also just wanting to have fun with you.

And I think that that's super important. I like to go in and make a joke with that person. Yeah. Usually either makes them more mad or they get a reality check and it's not that big of a deal. That's ballsy. It's hard to approach the guy who just punched the chalkboard. He's like, yeah, that important, huh? I really try to push for most clients to get in and get the work done quick.

Like get in, as soon as you get to the gym, put the shit down, put your bags down, get on a rower, make it a habit to row for five minutes. Do something like where it's habitual, where you get in and work right away, get all the work done. And then you have time to socialize, like hang out, do whatever, because, hey, you know, the endorphins are kicked in. And that's when you want to talk to people the most. Right. Your pre-workout is like, oh, shit. But if you do that, you have the pre-workout kicked in and then you go to the gym right away. You'll sit there and talk for 35 minutes and then you're probably going to get the phone out.

It's like get in and get the work done right away. Drop everything and train. Drop everything and train. Quickly. Anything else you guys want to add to any of these points? I don't know. I think we covered it all. Covered those pretty well.

Yeah, yeah. Drop everything and train. Three Instagrams. Yep. You can follow me, Mike McGoldrick, at MickGShrugged. Michael McElroy doesn't have it. I'm just kidding. At IronSharpCoach.

Surprise. Alex Q. Macklin, just my name. Mine's just at Kurt Mulliken. Man, so simple. And Barbell Shrugged at Barbell Shrugged Podcast, not just at Barbell Shrugged. Thank you for listening.