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The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness (thehustle.co)
77 points by jl87 on Dec 10, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 72 comments



These techniques are useful when you have a large pool of young extremely healthy men. Then when they blow out knees, shoulders, back, etc you can just select the ones who didn't break. Claiming that this is a useful and effective way to train is a terrible idea.

The only reason this kind of article is useful at all is that virtually everyone who trains a sport fails to train hard enough. In other words, after you remove all the fancy language and rah-rah spirit, you are left with "You should probably try harder". And that's probably good advice.

My two cents.


I regularly participate in events known as GORUCK Challenges. They're 12 hour+ endurance events led by current and former special forces operatives from all branches of the military.

Yes, there are plenty of young extremely healthy men at these events, but they're the minority. The majority of participants are over 30 years old, in good but not great or extreme condition, and tend to be 10-30% female.

These events are hard. Hours of PT, carrying of heavy objects for hours at a time, all while wearing a backpack that weighs at minimum 25#.

Success rate is about 94%. Yes, there is some principle of self-selection at work whereupon if you're dumb enough to sign up for such a thing you're predisposed to survival, but the biggest reason that participants finish is because we are all capable of so much more than we think.

That's the point of the article, IMO. Don't try harder, just don't fucking quit. Hell, try less if that's what it takes to not quit.

Edit: accidentally hit enter too soon. I wanted to say something about "not training hard enough" not being the issue with most athletes I see, rather they're training too hard with poorly designed programming.


I can do 6 chinups right now (I happen to have tested last night of all things). If I tried to do 100 chinups, I would certainly be scheduling a Physical Therapy session tomorrow to deal with the pain in my elbow. Unless I was having surgery for a tear in my shoulder.

There is lots to recommend "don't give up". But it also has to be tempered with "Stop if it hurts". You'll get fit/strong/endurancy-faster if you can keep training tomorrow than if you have to spend three weeks icing your wrists and gobbling down NSAIDs.

EDIT: Leaving this up for posterity because why not. After re-reading your comment, I'm not convinced that we disagree. It's just that the whole thing becomes extremely nuanced once you start talking about things like: "I'm stopping doing e.g. chinups today so that I can do more tomorrow. I'm not giving up on my goal, I'm just altering the timeframe". Here it's not clear how you should interpret the "Don't give up" mantra.


There is quite a difference between "this hurts because it is uncomfortable" and "this hurts because I am damaging my body." Most of the time you can tell the difference.

I've also heard it put this way: "If it hurts, it means you're doing it right. If you're in pain, stop."


People assume they can tell the difference but the kind of chronic inflammation you get from overuse can sneak up on you. I saw a story about a concert pianist many years ago who was having trouble with his wrists. At the time his doctor or maybe it was teacher treated it like a muscular problem and told him to keep training so his wrists would get stronger. Eventually he built up so much scar tissue on his tendons that he was no longer a concert pianist...forever. WRT the article, sure you can run a marathon every day of the week. Impressive. I'd fear what that guy would be like after 40 years


>I'd fear what that guy would be like after 40 years

Curious, what you imply by that. I have read about the skin (mostly the face) of runners not so great, because of exposure to so much weather. Did you imply something along these lines or something else?


joints tendons and so forth. Pounding your knees that much without sufficient recovery could be bad. Not for everyone mind you. I've read that old age involves much more pain for retired pro athletes, for example


Agreed. And when a person is new to training it's wisest to err on the side of caution because it takes time to learn how the body feels when it's uncomfortable vs when it's injured.

I should have been more clear in my response that when I say "don't fucking quit" that "...just because you're uncomfortable" is implied. The 100 chinups from the article is a pretty bad example, candidly, of something to be powering through, especially, if you're not already in decent condition and have that sense of hurt vs injury. The degree of discomfort could become so high that it masks the injury signals from the structure of the shoulder.


He did 100 chin ups one at a time. If you can do six in one go, you can probably do 100 over the course of 5 hours pretty easily and safely.


You said you can do 6 chinups right now, but if you tried to do 100, you'd be in physical therapy the next day. Trying to do 100 implies you're going to do as many as you can. Given that, are you scheduling a physical therapy session, since you did as many as you could last night (6)?


Most people would understand that the poster meant after 6 chinups the poster reaches muscle failure and stops trying to do more. The poster could continue to struggle against the muscle failure until (s)he eventually achieves 100 chinups, but that would result in physical injury to go along with the achievement.


Have you ever tried doing a chinup? There is NO WAY you're going to do 100 continuous chinups. I'd like someone to explain how you're going to hurt yourself by trying to do that. Forcing it just results in you hanging there in futility.


I believe that you're both right.

When I was actively weightlifting, I learned to keep pushing myself. I'd keep a journal and force myself to work harder every time. It's all too easy to just say "I'm tired, I did a lot last week, my goals are being met." It's harder to say all these things but still add even just 2 lbs to the bar or squeeze out one more rep than last time.

Over time, you get used to constantly trying harder and the mental effort decreases while the physical effort increases.

On the other hand, you need to know when to quit. You need to understand when your body is saying "if you do this, I won't just be sore; I'll be seriously hurt." Learning to differentiate being exhausted, having sore muscles and breathing so hard your lungs are on fire from that stab of pain from a nerve that says "STOP NOW" is crucial.

I was lucky: the few times I ignored that voice telling me to stop I was able to walk away with no more than a few bruises or a pulled muscle.


> Hell, try less if that's what it takes to not quit [...] most athletes I see [...] they're training too hard

Yeah, this was a huge lesson for me. I was used to being good at the things I spent time on. So when I'd try doing sporty things, I'd overestimate my current level and underestimate how much work it takes to improve. Training would be awful and discouraging and I'd quit.

Less ambitious training was the key for me to learn to not give up. At this point I've done a couple of triathlons and I don't know how many distance runs. I never would have gotten there without a big dose of humility and being realistic.


I hope to be able to do a "Light" sometime in the next 24 months, myself. The Tough and Heavy are just too much.

Gonna start out with a Kill That 5K.


I'd really encourage you to do the Challenge. You will have the opportunity to learn some things about yourself, good and bad, that you will not get during the Light. That knowledge is worth the added difficulty. Your team will get you through. There will be men and women with multiple events under their belts who will be there to pick you up mentally and physically when and if you start to founder.


I've got to work my way up to the 5K and then to the Light; a Challenge/Tough (or Heavy) isn't on the radar right now due to some physical handicaps and limitations (google "subglottic stenosis").


Well that's a whole different deal there. :)

When you do the Light, the Cadre ask "does anyone have any medical conditions we should know about". Speak up, or at least talk to the Cadre before the event so he's briefed on the likelihood of incidence as well as treatment. Also, some of the Cadre were/are 18Ds, e.g. medics, and depending upon the severity of your condition you may wish to seek out an event run by one of them.

I don't know what you're doing for training, maybe you have that well in hand, but I highly recommend looking into the programming done by Rob Shaul at http://strongswiftdurable.com. They respond quickly to emails and are great about recommending plans based on your goals and current capabilities.


Yeah, I have no intention of doing the Light until I know my condition won't be a problem or I won't be a hindrance to the rest of my team.

Thanks for the link! I'll check it out.


backpack weighs twenty-five what?


Pounds.

It's probably a somewhat obsolete usage of #, especially in a twitter world, but it isn't really obscure (the key is often called the "pound sign" when it isn't called a hash).


Pounds.


Absolutely on the first point. I believe the #1 thing the Navy wants from SEALs is people who just won't quit. The Nave doesn't train them not to quit, it just creates tests that search for this quality.

I'm unconvinced that the SEAL in question suddenly realized one day there was a "secret" to not quitting; it's just how he's hardwired.


The other problem is overtraining:

http://www.outsideonline.com/1986361/running-empty

Sometimes you get to the point where the harder you attempt to push through fatigue, the more likely you are to do long-term harm. Unfortunately it's difficult figuring out when you've reached that point.


"Who is this guy? I’ve never seen anything like it. And during the race, I kept an eye on him and around mile 70 — he weighed probably 260 pounds, which is quite large for an ultra runner — he had broken all the small bones in both of his feet and had kidney damage and he finished the race."

Running 100s at 260 pounds - and continuing through kidney damage and broken foot bones isn't tough - it's just stupid.


I think the 260 pounds, kidney damage, and broken bones things might be the writer greatly over-dramatizing this part of the story, too.

Why do I think this?

David Goggins ran a 50 mile ultra a little over a month after the San Diego 100: http://ultrasignup.com/results_participant.aspx?fname=David&... (Scroll down to 2006).

David is undoubtedly a very tough (and gifted) endurance athlete. No doubt about that - just look at his results.

But I also think overblowing these stories is dangerous. No one should ever think that they should battle serious kidney damage (and risk death) in order to finish a completely optional foot race.


"No one should ever think that they should battle serious kidney damage (and risk death) in order to finish a completely optional foot race."

I agree. But I have to ask you this question (since I see that you are quite accomplished in this area from your webpage). Isn't there a strong mental component to people who do these types of things? (I don't have that currently although I have exercised nearly every day for the past 18 or so years..) My point is if someone goes down a certain path which they believe will make them happy (or fit) aren't they compelled to keep up with what they have started for almost mental health purposes? I am reminded of when I used to run everyday even when it was snowing or raining heavily (I used to tape bags around my feet). I no longer do that and looking back I think it was a bit crazy when I did (although it felt great and as if I had accomplished something by enduring harsh (to me) conditions).


Oh, yes, definitely.

Through habit and positive reinforcement, the psychological drive to run, train and race grows wildly in some people - and it can grow dangerously large.

As a result, people run their way to injury and other serious long-term health repercussions. See the article someone posted above, for notable examples. The mind is so powerful - it can override everything, to the complete detriment of the body.

And even if most of the injuries and health problems aren't life threatening - it's truly sad because by overdoing it, you can still kill your ability to run, the thing you love to do.

I think to be successful in the long-term - meaning, staying mostly injury-free, improving performance over time, and performing at your peak in your races - is to be absolutely exceptional at governing that psychological drive.


I also take issue with the worship of the billionaire. When someone has money they are eccentric and admired as if they have found some secret answer to happiness. When they don't they are simply crazy.

He says "“I asked him to come live with my family and I for a month…". I wonder the impact of having this stranger live with them to learn these arbitrary secrets (and to what end exactly we aren't talking about trying to stop smoking or learn to walk when you are crippled, right?) on his family and how they felt about it.


A friend of mine went through BUDS. He told me once that the key to surviving hell week was simply to mentally accept that you would either keep going and pass, or literally die in the surf. No middle ground. A lot of the candidates get hurt in the training. It's stupid. But it's also a very extreme form of mental discipline and commitment that they probably take with them for the rest of their lives, for better and for worse.


It's also necessary in some circumstances. Kidney damage and broken foot bones probably won't kill you. Getting caught will.


It's an ultramarathon - not a battle.


Yes, but this isn't one of them. Inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality is a symptomatic of mental illness. I have been in a number of life-or-death situations and absolutely there are times you should just pursue your objective even if you get damaged in the process, or you won't survive. But if you are damaging yourself like that absent any actual danger, you have a different kind of problem.


Kidney damage will absolutely kill you if left untreated.


It can still kill you if treated, too. There's a reason you come from the factory with two of those - they're fragile.


Seems like all the more reason to avoid damaging them unnecessarily.


It's entirely too hard to ascertain whether doing 2.5x more of whatever it is you're doing right now is really going to get you where you want to go. Sometimes, probably most of the time, the goal is learning, you want to immerse yourself into the space of possibility and figure out what's important.

For a SEAL, someone regularly called on to do the impossible, the 40% rule makes perfect sense. For most of us, doing 100 pull ups instead of 40 is mostly missing the point. Spending 2 hours in the gym instead of 30 minutes for me is actually counter-productive. It's not how many pull ups you do on a given day, it's how many times in a given year you do pull ups.


> Spending 2 hours in the gym instead of 30 minutes for me is actually counter-productive.

2 hours doing what in the gym? The balance of activities is the critical part, IME.


Maybe not quite the same thing - but I do something similar. When I'm trying a new thing that requires physical endurance I set a pace in which I could "do the thing for many many hours" even though I know it's probably going to be much less than that.

For example - I recently went on a bike ride with friends where we climbed an unknown (to me) hill. I slowed down a bit to a pace I could maintain long term. I was one of the first to the top. :-)


When I have the heart-rate monitor with me, it's really easy to stick to that zone. I shoot for a target heart rate of about 150, and I can go a long time. Last time I tried it was 7 miles, and I stopped because I'd looped around and was close to home. I set it up with RunKeeper so that it gives me a heart-rate report every minute, and I just tweak my effort a little bit to keep in right around the target.


What the fuck did I just read? This is (scientifically) proven because of a non sequitur about placebo effect?

I'd kind of like to have 2 minutes of my life refunded to me. And the pint of blood I just lost from stabbing myself in the eyeballs when I realized that some people actually take this spam-subscription bait seriously.


I'm curious whether this would hold for creative, mentally taxing work like programming. I'd love to get 2.5x the coding time in, and I've found that I can often ignore my limits and keep coding long after my brain tells me that I'm exhausted...but then when I wake up in the morning, I find that I really should've stopped when I got tired, because it will take me 2.5x the time to unravel the mess I made the night before. Ignoring your brain doesn't work so well when you need your brain for what you're doing.


>>I'm curious whether this would hold for creative, mentally taxing work like programming.

It works when it should. As a teenager from a poor family in India, I would generally go on 5 hour sleep- My waking live was spent going to college, studying for long hours in the library and doing late night studies at home.

I used to sleep between 3 AM and 9 AM in the morning.

I didn't even like I was doing anything great at all. It felt more like 'opportunity'. Because frankly my other friends from a similar background where having it way worse, most had quit studies and were doing small time jobs to support their families.

I had these kind of episodes in my life quite a few times. Generally something good comes out of it. And it has always felt like 'opportunity'. Stressful, tiring, taxing and demanding of course, but I feel blessed to be even given the opportunity to undergo the struggle.


recently i hired a barbell / weight coach to train me (he really pushes me hard, harder than i ever thought i was capable of going), i find that i usually start wanting to mentally 'give up' at around the halfway mark during a training session. 40-60%.

but since i'm generally healthy, the trick is to decide to go until i absolutely can not move anymore, whether it's 2 minutes or another hour. once you've made that decision in your head (your mental "escape route" having been established), the rest is easy. when you have a professional watching your form and supervising you, this is perfectly safe. if i can still move the weight, i keep going. if i can't move the weight, then it's a good time to stop.

for me personally, it's much harder to wake up 3x a week at 0530 and go to the gym than to finish a physical task when you feel like giving up. that's where the 40% rule doesn't really help me much. once i'm there it's not that hard to finish.

btw, for those of you thinking of hiring a trainer, don't just walk into a gym and ask for one on staff, find a reputable barbell coach in your area and work with them on a long term training plan that suits your budget and goals, then pay it all up front because otherwise you're not going to get your ass out of bed at 6am.


A technique I used was called "20-rep squats." It's been written about in a few places. Simply put, you choose a weight that you can do 20 squats with using good form. Next time you add weight to the bar and do 20 again, lather, rinse, repeat every week or whatever your interval is.

It works well for working out alone because the goal is simple: do 20 reps with more weight than last time, even if it's just 1 lb more. You simply don't allow yourself to stop before failure. It's "20 or die." It was the most productive form of weightlifting I've ever done in terms of increasing strength and body mass.

Make sure you have a good, stable squat rack :-)


20-rep movements are great for hypertrophy/building size, but are not going to do nearly as much for strength and the 3-8 rep range.

And squatting once a week will do even less than that.


Many of the elite powerlifters of today squat, deadlift and bench multiple times a week, so we know that doing all multiple times in a week can be great training. But I think your conclusion is not warranted. A few decades ago, the elite powerlifters were squatting and deadlifting once a week. And they were also crazy strong.


squatting once/week is viable if you're extremely experienced and are not on steroids. The more experience you get, the more rest you need between lifts.

One of the major reasons why steroids works is because it cuts down on the required rest time by a large margin.


my coach makes me do 20-rep squats and also 10x10 with less weight once every 6 weeks or so. that's the closest i've ever come to really giving up in the middle of a set.


10x10 is brutal. We usually do a strict 2:00 rest between sets, but one time tried dropping that to 90 seconds and it was at least twice as bad.


In the early 2000's a short TV series followed a class of SEALs as they go through basic training. It's a pretty interesting documentary on how they manage to select only those who have the necessary skills for the job. The first episode can be found here [1], the other 5 are also all on Youtube.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQFRePXMI9M


One reason Navy Seals need to be good at this is that they are swimming 50m underwater in one breath. When swimming while holding your breath, your brain is telling you, stop, you're low on air, indeed, you can ignore than and swim the rest.


The urge to breathe doesn't come because one is low on air, but due to CO2 buildup in the blood. Humans have no physiological detectors for blood oxygen levels, they can only detect CO2.

Normally CO2 buildup response is calibrated to be "early" in terms of oxygen, but the calibration can change (e.g. through hyperventilation) which can lead to blackouts and drowning since blood oxygen levels can drop below ones needed to keep brain "on" before CO2 buildup response even registers.

Ignoring the urge to breathe is definitely not a smart thing to do unsupervised unless one wants an early, watery grave.

Your response is misleading in that it implies "mental toughness" (utter bollocks) or a skill that some people have more than others. If Navy Seals (or anyone else) do this for real, you can bet your ass they do it under strict supervision, when training/competing (e.g. BUDS).


There have been Navy SEALS who have died because of this: http://www.13newsnow.com/story/news/military/2015/04/24/inci...


An interesting fact is that your brain has no idea how much oxygen you have left.

What it can sense however, is a build up of CO2.


When swimming underwater, brain should not be telling or ignoring anything, it should be totally empty. Idle brain consumes about 25% oxygen, even more when it is being used.


I would love to see a source for this that thinking about something uses more oxygen.


It isn't just science, it's engineering. The fact that using a piece of your brain consumes more oxygen than bits that are quiescent is the fundamental principle that fMRI is based on: http://science.howstuffworks.com/fmri1.htm

I don't know exactly how much, but it's an amount usable for high-tech imaging.


a meditative state is definitely helpful in reducing the body's consumption of oxygen.

I got my open water scuba certification many years ago from a former Navy SEAL.

At the time, I was 4' 8" and weighed 85 pounds.

The Navy SEAL was about 5' 10", 200 pounds.

Every single dive we went on he used less than half the air that I used, and I used less air than the rest of the dive group (because I didn't need as much given my stature).

He explained that he used a meditative style breathing pattern and simply remained very calm underwater.

/anecdata


Your incorrect assumption is that you're supporting the same hardware with different software.

Drastic changes occur with aerobic training and hypoxic stress in the red blood cell count & blood volume, blood pressure, heart stroke volume & lower resting heartrate. He has more muscles, more energy stored in glycogen in those muscles, and swims faster. The person you learned from was likely not physiologically capable of long dives when he first started, no matter his mentality. And nobody is capable of using a "meditative breathing pattern" while they're exerting themselves at the limit of their aerobic capabilities; He was farther from them than you were. There are likely other long-term adaptations we don't know about, specific to diving.


He was quite a bit more physically fit and obviously he was an adult (and a former Navy SEAL) and I was a teenager, so yes he had quite the physiological edge on me.

However, part of what he taught us was that when diving, with our without SCUBA gear, one shouldn't anywhere near approach the limit of one's aerobic capabilities, for precisely the reason of conserving one's air supply (and, honestly to focus on the experience of the dive and the amazing ecosystem around you).

I got much better at reducing my use of air by the time I got my open water cert, but I still never got anywhere near to how little he used.


How do you think that happened? He learned to push himself beyond his comfort zone.

The earlier poster wasn't that he was inferior, but that he saw how training and pushing yourself beyond comfort can change you.


I had the same experience. My first 5 or so dives, I was burning through air like crazy. I also had some pretty serious underwater-anxiety that I was dealing with. I spent some time just hanging out underwater without scuba gear, basically doing ~30 second underwater meditation to help the anxiety go away and to practice controlling my breathing, and my air consumption went way down, plus diving is way more fun when you're super relaxed and just moving around using the most minimal motions to propel yourself.


+ 1 for relaxed scuba diving. If you're swimming hard, you're doing it wrong.


Just the act of thinking won't consume more oxygen, but thoughts can lead to physiological changes, like panic, that do consume more oxygen.


> I would love to see a source for this that thinking about something uses more oxygen.

10 years ago I could swam 50 meters. At that time I was doing tai-chi, meditation etc...

'Proper study' is here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11352604


Tucked in at the end of the article is this gem:

Before he founded Marquis Jets, the world’s biggest private jet company, Itzler was known as Jesse Jaymes, a white rapper with the hit single “Shake it Like a White Girl.”


I'm glad they put that in there, until I read that I figured he was your typical run of the mill billionaire instead of someone with actual originality and artistic talent.


Enough with the clickbait. I had to scan the article 3 times before finally finding what the 40% rule is. And when I did find it, it's just like, your opinion, man. Seriously, citation needed (and some Navy SEAL's deeply moving personal anectote is not a citation).


This seems completely backwards to me. IMO, the way to go is focus on allowing yourself to do things, not forcing things through. Active willpower and use of "mental toughness" helps much less than you think it does. Trying as hard as you can at, say, riding a bike quickly isn't that much more effective, and burns up much more long-term resources.

Like, how I'd reframe the advice is to pull the "replace trying with awareness" trick from The Inner Game of Tennis. Take stock of what it feels like to do the "last" pull-up that you can, and then feel what it's like to do another afterwards.


I'm reminded of this comic http://i.imgur.com/PuUBaVU.jpg There's a color version of it from "PVT Murphy's comics"


A more down-to-earth and realistic approach might be "You are your own gym".

As for 40%, keep in mind different people are different: some people have been beaten into this since they were kids so when they say they are finished they are way past 40%




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