
How to Push Past the Pain, as the Champions Do - edw519
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/health/nutrition/19best.html
======
aspir
I'm a former NCAA wrestler who's finished 2 marathons (with the blazing times
of 5:01:00 and 5:00:30). All I can say is that anytime you push through a
mental barrier, you become that much stronger. Your mental limitations are
like muscular limitations - the more you push to the limit, the more powerful
you become.

I absolutely believe that there's nothing I cannot do, given the time and
energy. I've run 2 marathons at the point of mental fatigue. I've cut as many
as 20 lbs in a week for wrestling. I finished a college degree with honors
while getting at least a dozen confirmed concussions, who knows how many
unconfirmed, and while still competing.

I really feel like I can conquer anything. I actually gave up NCAA to work for
free at as many startups I could during my 4th year to do the jobs that no one
wanted to do. I definitely feel like a made the right decision. I can't be a
pro wrestler these days :)

Edit: Typos -- the head bonks are showing :)

~~~
beagle3
Would you be able to share a little about the 20 lbs in a week?

~~~
aspir
Ditto to everything maxawaytoolong posted

TLDR: Mostly lost water weight. I'd done it enough to really know how my body
worked. I knew the exercise techniques that worked particularly well for me,
and I ate a super-clean diet.

This wasn't a Jared Fogel style "I lost x lbs." He lost fat/tissue. For
wrestlers, it's mostly a water cut. In sports like wrestling, boxing, or
anything with a weight division you may need to lose water weight to get down
to the cap of your division. I was 171 in HS and 197-184 in college. You have
to be below the division cap (any over 171 in this case would get you DQ'ed).

Water weight isn't too hard to lose when you start. In your sleep, we all lose
from 1-3 lbs, then we use the restroom when we wake up (.3-.6 lbs). If you
start with a workout in the morning (1-2 lbs depending on the workout), you
can walk 2-3 more lbs off throughout the day. Of course, normal people eat and
drink in the course of the day to "refill." Over time, you get to the point
where you know how to master this cycle, with extra workouts to boost it, and
control your diet to engage the metabolic systems. It's a delicate balance.

In college, I wasn't a starter who had to weight in weekly, so I wasn't always
close to weight. Even though we'd work out 2-3 hours a day, we have our bodies
to the point where an extra push is required to get down to size. Typically,
someone my size and structure should never have been more than 5-10 lbs
overweight at most. I just came in one Monday weighing a great deal, and I was
also tapped to start for that match to give our starter a rest. Since my
resting/homeostasis weight was 5-10 lbs over, losing the first 10 lb chunk was
easy. The next portion was a little rougher, but I'd been doing this for 7
years (HS + college), so I knew how to do it.

As for the techniques, I would run, jump rope, and wrestle wearing sweats.
Wrestling has a higher caloric exertion rate than boxing, which is already way
higher than running or jumping rope alone. Our college facilites also had a
steam room, so I would clock time there to keep my sweat up after finishing a
workout.

As for diet, I'd start each meal with a couple big glasses of water, so I
wasn't quite as hungry and wouldn't binge. I'd then eat nutrient-dense
vegetables (spinach salad, bell peppers, seeds, berries). Then eat lean
protein (chicken breast, fish, no beef). To end I'd either drink a V8 or a
yogurt shake. After all of that water and nutrient dense food, you feel
stuffed.

 _All this being said, you'd have to be completely moronic to try to rapidly
that much lose water weight without having done so before. Do. Not. Try. This.
At. Home. Trained athletes have died doing this wrong_

~~~
sedachv
What's the wrestling opinion on "hyperhydration" (drinking as much water as
possible up until two days before weigh-in to manipulate vasopressin and
aldosterone levels to essentially mimic diuretics, Tim Ferris wrote about it:
[http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/01/18/how-to-
cut-w...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/01/18/how-to-cut-
weight/))? That's what's popular in drug-tested powerlifting. I hated cutting
weight and the whole "sauna suit" and exercise approach sounds like torture to
me, but I've cut up to 15 pounds using hyperhydration and steam rooms without
having to do all that much (but I still hated it).

~~~
aspir
It's the accepted practice now in the collegiate and post-collegiate levels.
In high school, people still stick to the old school death by dehydration
method, but more experienced people know about the hyperhydration methods.

Actually, some of the best athletes move up weight classes now. Cael Sanderson
(only 4x undefeated NCAA champ) comes to mind. It's being determined that
moving up and eating well increases your strength and speed, and makes you
more successful than cutting too hard (to a point). Everyone these days is
incredibly lean and well trained- the difference factor is in stamina now, and
it is night and day between someone who cut too much weight and someone
slightly smaller, but better nourished, than his opponent.

~~~
sedachv
That's pretty much the opinion I found when I trained with the more elite
powerlifters. The top guys only cut when they want to take a national or world
record in a lower weight class, and even then they try to lose as much weight
as possible by dieting months in advance.

------
mannicken
I have been using drugs when I was young as well as being a distance runner
and, well, runner's high is very similar to artificial intoxication. In fact,
nothing I've ever tried has given me the same level of intoxication and
euphoria as a run over 70 minutes long. There are studies that show
similarities between a runner's high and opioid intoxication but I never tried
opioids so I can't tell anything about it from experience.

The problem was that I quickly became addicted to running, I would feel
extreme depression if I didn't run in the morning and I would often go for a
second run as I was craving the pleasure. During my two years of distance
running I fantasized about becoming a social outcast who does nothing but
runs. Which is what I was, actually. I didn't have many activities aside from
running.. I was eventually kicked out of the job I had because I had to go for
a team workout in the middle of the day, which screwed up my job performance.
Friday nights, Saturday nights, and Sunday nights were spent pounding the
pavement.

And I wasn't skinny either, 40-50mpw with workouts sky-rocketed my appetite so
I would go on a "Runner's diet": eating everything that was edible. I have
lost a lot of weight since I stopped running :)

This might be a controversial view but I do think that running can lead to
addiction and even though it's more socially acceptable (not to mention
cheaper) than, say, heroin, like any addiction it has its downsides.

~~~
adam_albrecht
"Runner's High" is something I often hear about, but still have trouble
fathoming. Whenever I'm running, all I can think about is how boring it is and
how I want to stop. (and it's not because I can't do it - I'm in pretty good
shape and could probably run 3-5 miles today without having done it in a
while).

Any tips on learning to enjoy running?

~~~
olaf
(short: run faster); My experience is: most important: trust your inner voice,
don't demand too much of yourself (be gentle and forgiving to yourself); BUT
ALSO "no pain, no gain", run every(!) day at least one hour, run faster until
you feel slightly(!) uncomfortable, push yourself a bit, and then try to hold
your speed longer and longer (3, 5, 10, 15, ... minutes __this is essential
for experiencing runner's high __), look only a few meters ahead, concentrate
purely on running [e.g. how your feet touch the ground, breathing], don't
think actively about life problems, be here and now ( __also essential for
runner's high __). Don't expect too much, there will probably be days where
you perform not super good, that's ok. Allow yourself some slower sections or
short pauses (the pressure to urinate is welcome) in between, but after these,
don't forget to raise your speed again, until you're running (not jogging). Do
some stretching after running (for faster regeneration). Do it daily like
teeth brushing (no discussion), not more than 1 day pause in 7 days (light
rain is no excuse); trust, that "bad mood-" or "having eaten too much-"
feelings disappear after 15, 20 minutes of running. This is how I learned and
learn daily to enjoy running more and more (runner since at least 10 years).

~~~
rue
Stretching after exercise can be harmful to recovery, actually. A massage is
OK, but stretching should not be done until at least several hours later and
preferably the next day.

~~~
olaf
Is this your own experience? I have never had any problems because of
stretching after running, it feels very good, it takes the tension out of my
muscles, loosens them. I've met another runner, and we did that after running
automatically. Rhythm: 20 secs, short pause and 20 secs again.

~~~
rue
The theory is that stretching after exercise worsens the muscular microdamage
beyond what can be repaired during the normal recovery cycle.

~~~
olaf
Whose theory is that? My source of information (book "Ernaehrung und Training"
by Dr. W. Feil and Dr. T. Wessinghage [european champion over 5000m in 1982])
clearly states, that "stretching [immediately after sport] is the gate of
regeneration".

------
dgallagher
Just want to point out that there's a difference between "pain" and
"discomfort".

Pain is your body saying "I'm injured. If you don't stop now, expect things to
become worse, potentially causing permanent damage." No athlete I'm aware of
pushes through pain unless they expect to retire immediately after, or go into
surgery. Runners who do this tend to get knocked out of the sport. Good
runners recognize pain for what it is and stop immediately.

Discomfort is different. This is what the article is talking about. Running
through cramps. Throwing up but still not stopping. Feeling tired but still
pushing ahead. Leg muscles sore but still holding pace.

Of course you need to be careful about discomfort too. It could be a sign that
you're severely dehydrated, or have too few electrolytes in your body. This is
mostly an issue for distances greater than a marathon, however.

~~~
dkarl
You have to learn how to tell the difference. It isn't at all obvious to an
inexperienced person, which means that "discomfort" as you put it (we just
called it "bad pain" and "good pain") can cause a lot of anxiety for someone
who isn't used to it. Even professional athletes sometimes make mistakes and
injure themselves in training, so the distinction isn't always clear even to
them.

~~~
dgallagher
You're very correct. The differentiation likely takes years of training to
fully develop. A general rule of thumb to keep injury risk low is to never
push yourself more than 10% of what you normally do (lots exercise books say
this). If you can hold that level for several weeks without problem, it's
likely safe to "notch up" another 5% or 10%. Lots of other variables at play
too, of course (rest, stretching, warmup, etc...).

~~~
brianpan
Yeah, discomfort v. pain makes it seem like less v. more but that's not the
distinction at all.

I'm not a runner at all, but I know that stabbing feeling in my side and my
lungs frantically gasping for air isn't going to kill me or make me lose a
limb...but that annoying clicking in my knee might mean trouble down the line.

------
davemabe
I was a competitive runner for many years and trained with some of the best.
The difference between great runners and cyclists and everybody else is that
they learn to tolerate pain - a lot of it - on a regular basis. They crave
pain and can push their pain threshold far beyond what normal people would be
able to tolerate.

If you've ever seen a great runner working out - it's almost painful to even
watch - but always very impressive.

~~~
edw519
_They crave pain and can push their pain threshold..._

These two things seems contradictory. If they crave pain, why would they need
to push their pain threshold?

(Disclosure: I'm a wimpy athlete. I always thought pain was the body's signal
that something was wrong, so I backed off. Your remark confuses me even more.
Just trying to understand.)

~~~
matwood
Pain is an interesting thing. When you first feel pain, it's scary and,
usually rightly so, is the body telling the mind to stop something. The
problem is that in order to get better in most athletic endeavors, athletes
must push their bodies into an area that often causes some sort of pain[1].

A couple things eventually happen. First is the athlete starts to associate
pain with progress. This is actually a bad thing since pain should always
remain as valid feedback and signal a person to think about the actions they
are taking. Second and more import is that the athlete accepts the pain and
deals with it. Like most things in life, it sucks a lot more until you know
what to expect. For example, getting punched in the face causes pain, but more
than that it causes surprise. Remove that surprise and even if the pain is the
same, the athlete will now react in a more sensible way from the punch.

For reference, I don't do any long distance (5k is what I maintain) running
but have always played various sports, trained in MA, and primarily powerlift
now (at least until the ski slopes open!).

[1] After experiencing all sorts of pain over the years there are definitely
good pains and bad pains. IMHO, it takes time and experience to recognize what
pains are what :)

~~~
cullenking
I am an "endurance athlete" that regularly rides my bike 60+ miles. It's not a
serious physical pain, like when you twist an ankle - I know when I am doing
my body harm. It's pushing past a major amount of discomfort in order to
achieve a goal. Granted, doing so without proper nutrition and hydration can
cause injury, however your body is better off when you push through your
concept of "too much".

Seriously, my body used to tell me "oh god stop stop stop this is too much"
after 30 miles of flat riding. Now it take 60 miles of hilly riding to
experience that, and it's not nearly as strong.

I guess to sum it up, it isn't normal pain, it's more of a mental wall that
you push past.

~~~
Retric
I have done a fair amount of MA training and I think the best way to think
about pain is recovery time. If I do this it will take my body less than two
days to recover and it hurts but, that's reasonable if I want to progress. The
next level of pain takes longer than that to recover from and should be
avoided at all [1] costs. Fast recovery pain still has its downsides if you
needed to escape from a burning building or run from a tiger right after a
serious workout you would be slower and have a higher risk of injury etc. But,
the modern world is fairly safe so it’s reasonably safe to ignore that kind of
pain.

Unfortunately recovering from injury takes longer as we age so reasonable
habits for a 19 year old can get a 35 year old into serious trouble. Also, you
tend to get a mix of short and long term dammage so repeating low level pain
can still be a sign your doing significant long term dammage.

[1] People are often willing to do longer term damage in major contests and
fights. How reasonable this is depends on your personal goals.

~~~
matwood
You make a great point about recovery time. Many people incorrectly assume
that if you finish your workout hurting then it was a good workout. The
problem is that as you get better it becomes much harder to hurt and it
becomes a recovery management challenge. What people seem to have anecdotally
found is that more workouts which can be recovered from in a day or two are
much better than the giant ones that leave you hobbling for a week. I think
this becomes even more important where there are skills involved beyond only
strength (like MA).

------
eiji
The nyt should add some disclaimer to that kind of article, knowing people
with little experience in elite sports would read it and maybe try to learn
from it!

I did two sports on national elite level and whenever you train or race beyond
the "threshold" you put yourself into great danger, and only because you spend
years near that threshold you are able to handle it. An elite runner or
cyclist or whatever can tell the difference between pain that will go away
when you slow down, and pain that will get worse or could put you into a
wheelchair. When elite sportsmen(-women) loose control because of any
thirdparty event, even when in unbearable pain, they have a high chance to
regain control because they don't think about how they do it, it just happens.
It's not a coincidence, that those people walk away from a crash, where hobby
sportsmen loose there life. (Remember Lance going through the grass at the TdF
~6 years ago?)

~~~
davidw
Lance cutting the switchback was likely not in 'unbearable pain', because it
was towards the bottom of the descent. The only guy in unbearable pain in that
situation was Joseba Beloki - because he crashed and broke his leg and some
other bones. They rode down that same road this year, by the way... it was
kind of cool - someone had cut a path through the grass.

> An elite runner or cyclist or whatever can tell the difference between pain
> that will go away when you slow down, and pain that will get worse or could
> put you into a wheelchair.

I don't think you need to be all that 'elite' to figure that out. You don't
need too much training to start feeling what sort of pain is from effort and
exertion, and what might be tendons or joints or something like that that
should not be pushed beyond a certain point.

------
rue
"It never gets easier, you just go faster." -Greg LeMond

------
noginn
I'm no elite athlete/champion, but this makes complete sense to me now. The
last couple of weekends I have been taking part in hill climb events. Knowing
every inch of the course definitely helped me pace myself and achieve a far
better time than I expected.

Like the interviewee in the article, I definitely didn't look pretty in the
photos: <http://flic.kr/p/8KQANq>

~~~
cullenking
You look like every other cyclist I've ever watched climbing a hill :)
shameless plug while on this topic, you should check out my cycling site,
<http://ridewithgps.com> \- really cool if you have a garmin edge 500, 305
etc.

~~~
blhack
That's funny, the picture that you are using for a GPS receiver is a Magellan
Explorist 210, it's the GPS that I've been using for biking for the last few
years.

But I don't think that it's compatible with your service.

~~~
cullenking
Haha nice pointing that out - our old designer put that together, and I don't
think he was fully aware of compatibility issues :) Thanks for pointing it
out. However, you can still use the magellen, you just can't directly sync
with the site using Garmin Communicator. Uploading a GPX or KML you pull off
the unit manually will still work.

~~~
blhack
Awesome, thanks :)

------
kirse
_Another performance trick during competitions is association, the act of
concentrating intensely on the very act of running or cycling, or whatever
your sport is_

Oh cool! I've always told friends that if you can listen to music or talk,
you're not running fast enough. It's for this reason that I can't ever go out
for just a "jog" unless I really need to recover... when you get in that zone
you're like an antsy racehorse wanting to shoot out of the gate. The desire is
just to go as fast as possible.

I love that part of the run though, where it's your mind against your body.
You keep repeating to yourself that you can make it... each step closer to the
goal. Your body wants to quit, but each step boosts your confidence. It gives
you that runner's high.

For me, running is always about that focused relaxation. As the pain
increases, you must focus yourself to continue to exert as much energy as
possible in a relaxed and fluid manner.

------
celias
Here's a nice Radiolab piece on pushing past limits
<http://www.radiolab.org/2010/apr/05/>

------
midnightmonster
Maybe someday I'll be at the point where my fitness goals require regularly
pushing through the pain, but right now I want to push through the resistance
with mental work. As evidenced by the fact that I do eventually do most
everything I'm supposed to be working on, I don't think any of my work is too
hard absolutely--it only feels too hard or too long or too boring for how I'm
feeling at the moment.

I'm a programmer doing almost all client work. Eventual goal is to build a
different kind of business around building my own stuff.

One probable analog is knowing the course. That should mean it's easier to
work well on tasks that I can see the end of, but it should also mean that
it's easier to do something very much like something I've done before. The
first may be helpful, the second is obvious and not helpful.

I have no direct competitors to keep in view or focus on beating. Maybe I can
hack my brain to think about the work competitively somehow.

If there's an analog to focusing on the running, I'm not sure how it would
work.

------
nopal
I think there is a comparison to be made about pushing past the monotonous
work required to launch a product.

~~~
dtf
I'd say its worse. At least when running you have endorphins and hormones to
help you out over the course of your few hours of "pain". Launching a product
involves months or more of numbing drudgery, self-doubt and incertitude about
whether a finish-line even exists, with coffee the pitiful substitute pick-me-
up. Try that, runners!

------
chriskelley
There is a book formerly called _Toughness_Training_for_Athletes_ that talks
all about the practical application of mental toughness. Loehr talks about the
importance of finding, maintaining, and controlling your "Ideal Performance
State", or IPS, and how being able to harness and control your IPS on command
is crucial to being a successful athlete.

I've been fortunate to be able to start for two national championship winning
rugby teams, and I give a small fraction of credit for my personal athletic
success to some of the lessons in the book.

It's now called Toughness Training for Sports: [http://www.amazon.com/New-
Toughness-Training-Sports-Psycholo...](http://www.amazon.com/New-Toughness-
Training-Sports-Psychologists/dp/0452269989)

------
hanibash
I took a 140 mile bike trip and noticed that if I started thinking about
anything other than biking, I started going slower. But if I was focused and
one-pointed in mind, and allowed myself to feel the pain fully, I was able to
push myself harder.

------
waivej
This summer a 2x Olympian (mountain biker) recommended "Thinking Body, Dancing
Mind". It takes a Taoist/meditation approach to athletics and business.

She mentioned that it changed her life (turning her into an Olympic athlete)
and that it was very popular at the Olympic training camp.

------
stevenj
On a somewhat related note, if you haven't read it yet, "Born To Run" is a
great read.

[http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-Superathletes-
Greatest...](http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-Superathletes-
Greatest/dp/0307266303)

------
stealthdude

      Mental tenacity — and the ability to manage and even 
      thrive on and push through pain — is a key segregator 
      between the mortals and immortals
        - Mary Wittenberg
    

I think the quote works much better like that.

------
earl
All serious athletes are used to withstanding high amounts of pain. When I was
a serious runner, I think that was the thing the most people didn't understand
-- as you get better at running, the pain doesn't stop. You just get better at
pushing through it.

In any case, if you find this sort of thing inspiring, check out a documentary
called Running on the Sun (trailer:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-e4bOLAuXg> ). It's about the badwater ultra
-- a 135 mile road race through death valley to Mount Whitney, including 13000
ft of vertical ascent. Featuring air temps up to 130F and ground temps around
200F -- people have sneakers melt. Race by application only; you have to have
completed a bunch of ultras so hopefully you won't die trying. The men's
record is something like 22.5 hours and the women's is I think slightly over
25 hours.

