If you recall, this did not end well for me either.
Lies I have told myself:
– The sunglasses I bought for $10 in Mexico really are Oakleys.
– If it’s on clearance then I have to buy it because it’s practically giving me money back.
– No one will notice if my son isn’t wearing underwear because I forgot to change the laundry.
– I’m only doing 4 Tabatas today.
While believing the first three certainly haven’t done me any favors (it would have helped if my son had kept his mouth shut), according to research reported in the New York Times, lie #4 may be the key to increasing my exercise performance. Who knew that lying could be as good for you as it is fun? (Okay it’s only fun sometimes like when I told my husband they named the city Elk Mound because a mysterious disease killed all the elk in a week and they had no place to bury all the rotting carcasses so they covered them up with dirt and called it a hill. He totally believed me!)
I really got thinking about this last weekend when I went for a run with one of my new running friends. She is training for a race and wanted to try to increase our mileage that day. I was game for it. (Thankfully I do seem to be acclimating to the altitude and it does seem to be getting somewhat easier to run here.) But then I had the brilliant idea to take our run off-road to a popular hilly trail too. Aside from the fact that neither one of us is great with directions and we were heading off into the wilderness without so much as a packet of Sport Beanz to leave as a Hansel-and-Gretel-trail, neither one of us really thought about the impact of upping our miles and trail running at the same time.
Yet all was sunshine and roses and unidentifiable animal droppings (from an animal that apparently had explosive diarrhea) until about a mile from the end. Suddenly my friend was overtaken by that feeling familiar to most runners. You know: I caaaaaaannnnn’t!!!!! Eventually you reach a point where your body is basically kaput and your mind is in total rebellion. So we started walking to give her a little break but almost immediately she started running again.
“What are you doing?” I asked, trotting beside her. “I thought you were done?”
“I don’t want you to tell me I can’t do this; I want you to push me so I can!” she said through gritted teeth. Reaching that particular milestone (ha! get it??) was more important to her than I thought. But I know that feeling. And sometimes you just need someone to push you through the “I can’t” by blocking out all the mental noise. My method, naturally, is to tell them a really juicy story – usually from my own sordid past. First, it takes their mind off the pain and second, allows for many awkward future dinner party conversations! There’s also the “well at least I’m not you!” benefit. Never say I don’t do anything for you!
[Time out: I would like to be clear that I was not abetting my friend in doing something totally crazy. The mileage increase she wanted was reasonable and she was trained for it. I don’t think that “pushing through the pain” is a good idea at all when it comes to workouts. Pushing through discomfort however, well that’s just another name for exercise.]
But what do you do if you’re alone, my friend wondered. What tricks are there for motivating yourself to keep running when your mind is 99% sure that that is as bad a plan as setting up a frozen banana stand in Death Valley? (There’s always money in the banana stand!)
I ticked through my usual (lame) answers – focusing on my breathing, doing a posture check, counting steps, using landmarks to run to, repeating a cheesy mantra, cranking the tunes – and then I remembered the research. “Well, I lie to myself!” I exclaimed cheerfully.
I first put this trick into action during my Great Tabata Experiment with the Gym Buddies: One morning, having just finished my Tabatas (maximal intensity running sprints), sitting on the end of my treadmill and trying not to see stars, Gym Buddy Krista came up and said, “I don’t want to do Tabatas!”
“Nobody wants to do Tabatas,” I gasped. It’s a fact that we couldn’t start our Tabata workouts until each of us had whined about how much we hate doing them.
“But how do you make yourself do them when they suck so bad?” she asked. (Truth: You’re not doing true Tabata intervals unless you kind of want to die at the end. It has to be your maximal effort. I cringe every time I see a 60-minute “Tabata class”. That’s just interval training. Even the most elite athletes can’t Tabata for more than about 15 minutes.)
“I lie to myself. I tell myself I only have to do 4 rounds (one Tabata is 8 rounds). And after 4 rounds then I tell myself it’s only 6 and after that what’s two more?” It’s true. Sometimes you can see me mouthing the words “just one more then I’m done!” until you are convinced I need remedial counting lessons.
“Well,” Krista declared, “I think your self is way more gullible than my self. I’d never believe me!” It should be noted that I am much more gullible than Krista in all senses so she’s probably right. I have no idea why I believe myself but I do! Every time! Even though I’m a terrible liar!
And yet the following morning when I got to the gym, Krista had already finished her intervals. “Wow, you’re already done? How’d you make yourself do it?” I asked.
“I lied to myself.”
See? It works.
And it doesn’t just work for the Gym Buddies and I. Researchers from Northumbrian University in England set up an experiment to see if they could increase the personal bests of professional cyclists by whispering sweet little lies. First the cyclists were tested over the course of a couple of weeks to see what their athletic limit was. Then they were set up with a monitor with two figures on it. The first, they were told, was them. This was true. The second was them also but going at their personal fastest pace. This was a lie. In actuality the second avatar was riding 2% faster than the athletes had ever ridden.
When the cyclists raced what they thought was their best time, they actually beat the avatar increasing their power and finish times by 2%. Two percent doesn’t sound like much but according to the researchers in the world of competitive cycling it’s the difference between being back-of-the-pack and getting a medal. Says Dr. Thompson, the results are “not just day-to-day variability, but a true change in performance.”
The Times article points out that this lends credence to the theory that our minds are more powerful than our muscles when it comes to setting physical limits. As Roger Bannister, first man to run a 4-minute mile, said, “It is the brain, not the heart or lungs that is the critical organ. It’s the brain.”
The trick isn’t perfect however, nor is it limitless. Once the cyclists were clued in to the game, all increases in performance disappeared and some cyclists even got worse. The researchers also discovered that while they could trick the athletes into a 2% increase, 5% was too much and they just quit. They also warned that this could erode the fragile balance of trust between athlete and trainer.
While these researchers were the first to study this effect, I am sure that coaches and athletes have been using deception ever since Noah told the animals all they had to do to win a spot on the ark was to run faster than the unicorns. S0 this study made me wonder what other ways athletes use to trick themselves. Is the “lucky socks” trick just another form of self-deception? What about those mysterious power band bracelets so many pro ballers have been sporting? What about repeating a certain mantra? Or having a particular pre-race ritual (two Immodium and a gas station bathroom totally counts)?
“It comes back to the belief system within the athlete,” says Dr. Thompson. “Within limits, if an athlete thinks a certain pace is possible, he or she can draw on an energy reserve that the brain usually holds in abeyance.”
What lies do you tell yourself? Have you ever used one to motivate yourself to do better? Do you have any mental tricks to keep yourself going when you are sure that you just can’t?
people aways tell me YOU COULD TOO RUN A MARATHON.
I could not.
I possess not the ability to trick my legs with my brain.
I have not that mental fortitude.
I do the Liar Math, too. If I’m doing a set of 15 reps, I count it in groups of five. “Just three fives!” I tell myself and it doesn’t feel so horrible.
If I’m doing a timed exercise and I hear the “5 more seconds” prompt (I exercise to dvds) I try to kick butt in those last five seconds. “It’s only 5 seconds!” If that doesn’t work I’ll use “Just do one more!” Most times I can squeeze out one more move in the last few seconds.
I’m not a huge fan of running, so I have to harness my inner competitor for motivation there. I find a pacer, some stranger out getting their run on and I try to pass them. If that’s not possible, I try to work extra hard in case they are watching me (don’t want to be a wimp in front of a complete stranger, heaven forbid!).
I tend to breakdown the numbers into smaller increments. A lot of workouts I do follow the 50,40,30,20,10 sequence. When fresh I will break things in half but at the end I tend to keep saying just 2 more until finished.
As far as the mind being stronger than the body, in weightlifting there’s the concept of accidental PRs. Like you miscount when loading up the bar and end up lifting 20lbs more than you thought you were, or you don’t look back to see what you used the last time you did an exercise and bust out 8 reps with the 35lb dbs, only to realize later that, no, last time you only did 8 reps with the 30s. I’ve had friends say they wish they could have someone load up the bar without telling them how much was on it, because they’d probably be able to lift more than they think they can.
I lie to myself! That’s all there is to it. Miles 20-22 are the hardest in a marathon, and I crank up some of my favorite tunes and just bulldoze through it…then I distract my brain by figuring out things like “Oh, its just a 5k left” …yeah….and it works for me. The brain is so busy being distracted figuring out the little bit left, that it doesn’t have time to hear the legs or lungs complain. The only time this didn’t work was when I only had about 1.9 miles left and I dropped from heat exhaustion…nothing worked! A little alarm somewhere deep inside said “sit down right now!” Yeah, had to be driven to the end and iced down and get electrolytes replaced; and suffer the inner humiliation of my one and only DNF. Since that little fiasco I learned to run with electrolyte tablets in my batman utility belt, along with my gels and such.
I’ve definitely done that ‘just 4 tabatas’ trick. And I ALWAYS end up doing 8. For whatever reason, I have never wised up to myself, either.
Also on the list: “Just 5 push-ups” (10), “Just 30 minutes” (45) and “Just 5 miles” (7).
My other mental trick is to think of something that enrages me to the point where I forget about the pain and go into total Sith Lord/fueled-by-hatred mode. But I don’t think that’s really healthy so I try not to rely on it.
I love to lie to myself during workouts!
Anything that makes my workout brain do math distracts me and usually helps with the keep-it-going-ness. For example, 100 lengths (my pool is only 15 meters) is a lot to count and sometimes I get bored, but counting down from 50 laps yesterday made it seem different and shorter. Trying to figure out pace I need to hit a certain time at the end of a run or bike can distract me for minutes!
I also negotiate with myself if it’s really rough – “ok, you’re scheduled for 6 repeats but you can quit at 4 if you want”. Then when I hit 4, I say “if you want to quit now, you can, but you have to admit you quit early – try one more” and then “can you not just make it one more? Just one more, and you don’t have to say you quit early”. I don’t like not finishing what’s on the plan unless it really is my body that’s feeling awful and not my brain.
Interesting (possibly) related tidbit. My GPS watch was really off during a race and I didn’t know it (guessing about 3mph on the bike). It was windy, so that accounted for some “slowdown” but I was really upset about how badly I was sucking it up and just tried to ride harder. At the end, I noticed that I was a few miles short (and this was a bike course I’ve ridden many times, I knew it wasn’t actually short) and I ended up with my second best bike split ever. I almost didn’t want to fix my watch. 🙂
I always break up my sets in half, i.e., 10 reps of curls I count to 5 and then 5 again. Somehow it feels easier, but counting to 10 once I’m at 7 seems like death. It works 99% of the time and I can finish a whole set with heavier weight than I would’ve imagined.
I test conduct my own experiment on friends every time I find myself in Big Sur. The hike to Sykes Hot Springs is 10 miles but I tell gullible friends it is only 2 . At about mile 5 when they start to revolt you tell them ‘that rock’ marks the last uphill slope before the springs. At mile 7 when the cognitive dissonance has developed into insanity I tell them the truth. Then let them chase me for the last few miles in a blind rage. After reaching Sykes they usually settle down. That’s when you tell them about the 4 mile hike to Tassajara.
That’s evil.
I LIKE it!
I may have learned the technique from my nephew who pointed in the general direction of Disneyland and exclaimed, “But it’s right over there!” while on a road trip through Virginia. Children can play both sides of the mind bending game!
🙂
I test conduct my own experiment on friends every time I find myself in Big Sur. The hike to Sykes Hot Springs is 10 miles but I tell gullible friends it is only 2 . At about mile 5 when they start to revolt you tell them ‘that rock’ marks the last uphill slope before the springs. At mile 7 when the cognitive dissonance has developed into insanity I tell them the truth. Then let them chase me for the last few miles in a blind rage. After reaching Sykes they usually settle down. That’s when you tell them about the 4 mile hike to Tassajara.
Charlotte! Please delete my double post! My over active clicky finger got the better of me. I kept clicking ‘Submit’ while nervously looking for the ‘Dominate’ button.
I lie as well, even if I just started I tell myself that I’m almost done, just one at a time and I will be done. Smaller numbers do seem to help a lot.
I certainly use mental tricks as you call them to keep me keeping on when I don’t feel like it, but honestly, Charlotte, I don’t think I ever lie to myself.
Sadly, the only lies my brain believes are ones like “The cookie is in pieces, so it has no calories.”
OK, even I don’t REALLY believe that one!
But my body is very smart and has always been, I believe, older and wiser than my brain. So when my brain tells it “Sure, we can run around the track 4 times, no problemo!”, my body is all “What did I tell you about lying? Give me the car keys, you’re grounded, missy!.” And then my brain says “That’s SO unfair! I hate you!” and stomps up the stairs to her room, slamming the door shut behind her and refusing to come downstairs for dinner.
Eventually she learns her lesson: The the body will ALWAYS know when she is lying.
“Pushing through discomfort however, well that’s just another name for exercise” bwhahaha! Yes. 😉
I’ve tried lying to myself, but usually I find that I’ll just end up doing a shorter workout (“I only have to do two more minutes!” “Oh, two minutes have gone by? Cool, I’m done”). What works for me when running is counting. Which sounds weird, I know. But I’ll count in rhythm to my breathing. You get so caught up with figuring out if you’re at 523 or 632 that you keep going without paying as much attention to the run (er… math MIGHT not be my strong point. Ahem).
There’s a move in my trampoline routine that I dislike so much that anticipating it can mess up all the moves before it if I’m not careful. Solution? Pretend I’m only practicing the first half and will stop before the problematic part. Then it goes well enough that when the time comes, I can usually finish it.
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It;s an every day occurrence! 🙂 I think just all my years at this & my motivation early on has kept me at it & working hard…
When I want to quit a running workout, I remind myself that a lot of running is a mental challenge. Thus every time I push through discomfort/boredom/whatever when I’m running, I have more experience to draw upon the next time things get tough during a race or workout. I find this very helpful when I’m dead tired and faced with a hill.
I can also be distracted pretty easily with math games, such as figuring out what pace I need to average in order to finish a treadmill workout at a certain time and distance.
For the most part, I don’t do well with this – the part of me that is a giant 5-year-old tends to holler, “You SAID I didn’t HAVE to!” and I go stomping off in (what was meant to be) the middle of what I’m doing. So it only works for me if it’s NOT a lie; if I really have the guilt-free option to stop in the middle. If I HAVE that option, I’m more likely to finish, but if I’m lying to myself and really *intend* to finish, no matter what I’m telling myself . . . let the stomping commence!
Good post. It’s interesting what the mind can tell itself while running, isn’t it?
It’s always nice to browse this website!
This actually presented the problem, thanks!
When I originally left a comment I clicked the Notify Me Of New Comments checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get 5 emails with an identical comment. Is there any method you may fix this? Thanks!