Mental toughness...more than an attitude!
This was a phrase we adopted as our motto senior year of high school for basketball, and it's one that's always stuck with me (as you can see, I still have my nice fancy shirt from that year and wear it often still). So why am I bringing up this phrase, you ask?
Because it's ALL I've been able to think about the past two days. I've been battling exhaustion, incredibly sore muscles, pushing myself to physical extremes that I haven't been at in a long time, and an inward (as well as an outward) battle that has left me on the verge of tears at times.
Now let me prelude this with saying that those of you who know me, know that I'm a little competitive when it comes to almost anything and everything, but ESPECIALLY something athletic. I was actually at a barbecue thrown by my friend and her husband a few weekends ago, and they had some good games of corn hole going. There was one duo that was undefeated, so naturally, I asked if I could have a crack at it. I had only met one of my opponents, my friend's friend, twice before, both at big social outings in which "competitiveness" never really comes up. But halfway through our first game, he leans over to me and says, "I take it you're competitive." It wasn't a question, it was a statement.
Yes. Yes I am. Almost to a fault-and it doesn't take long to figure that out about me. If something new is physically challenging for me, I don't give up-I keep at it until I've either mastered it, or until there's a physical limitation stopping me from doing so. Combine that stubbornness and refusal to give up on things easily with my competitiveness, and I can be a force to be reckoned with (god bless my husband for putting up with me)!
However, It's one thing to SAY that you're mentally tough...it's quite another to BE mentally tough. A lesson I learned at the ripe young age of 14 when I severed my ACL AND tore my meniscus in a basketball tournament at the end of my freshman year of high school. I had been over-the-moon excited to be attending my first UCONN basketball camp that summer, as well as a PC one in which the head coach sent me a letter after I had to withdraw from sign-ups saying he was sorry to hear about my injury, that he'd heard about me and was looking forward to meeting me and seeing me play in person. That was HUGE for me with PC being a D-1 school, and with my dream being to play in the WNBA, I used that letter to motivate myself to work hard.
I had to have reconstructive surgery. Doctors told me it would take me a year to fully recover and be back to full game-playing mode, in which I may never get my full mobility back. I told my parents no way, and was back on the court, playing, in 5 months.
Basketball was my life, and I had big dreams, and wasn't going to let an injury keep me from them. I had the surgery, had major set backs with a lot of build up of scar tissue that prevented me from being able to bend my knee, and had major pain sessions at physical therapy where my therapist would make me sit with my back against a wall, bend my "bad" leg up as far as I could (which wasn't far), and then she'd continue to just push my leg further back until we'd hear some snapping of the tissue breaking. I'd have tears streaming down my face, but told myself it was necessary to get where I wanted. Until childbirth, that was the worst pain I'd ever experienced in my life. And though it was a grueling 5 months of PT multiple days a week and workouts in my spare time at home or on the court, I've always been proud of how hard I worked and that I was able to make it back in time to play half of the basketball season my sophomore year.
You see, I HAD to be mentally tough to get though those five months...to keep going when I was in pain...to not get disheartened when I'd have to take it easy for a few days due to tendonitis or too much swelling of my knee. There's nothing more frustrating that trying to will your body to do something that it literally just can't do.There were plenty of times that I could have just given up, nobody was FORCING me to come back in any specific time frame, and I often had people telling me not to push too hard, that my condition was understandable. But I was determined---and ultimately successful.
SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE PAST FEW DAYS??
Everything. Since that recovery, I've rarely had to be that "mentally tough" when it came to anything physical. I did go on to play a year of college basketball, and although that was hard, it wasn't the same degree of mental toughness. After basketball, I was a bit lost with my workouts and would occasionally just go to the gym, or go for a run, and took up Zumba for a little bit before we moved to CT. I let my love for physical exercise go, and I had the body and negative attitude about myself to show for it.
Until I discovered the 21 Day Fix, and over a few rounds started to get back to myself, was seeing results and feeling confident about myself again. I loved it!. I got to a point though where I wanted to change things up and REALLY challenge myself and do something different, so I began looking for a program to do that with. That's the beauty of Beachbody, is there there are programs for all fitness level types, and if you want one to really challenge yourself with, there's a few options.
Enter. INSANITY.
This program was one of those I'd always seen advertised on the tv's at the gym, and would think to myself, "Those people ARE insane to do that!" It looked like a very high intensity cardio program that I physically didn't think I could do, especially with my knee. However, I gave it a try, thinking that I could test it out, and if it was too much for my knee, then I'd just try something else. The first week was a little crazy, and took a little getting used to, but I discovered it wasn't anything that I couldn't do physically, and that a lot of the "I can't do that" was in my head, I could, I just had to push myself mentally to get through it and not give up. Our minds are always so much more willing to give up than our bodies are, and this was a definitely a case of mind over matter. I showed up every day, did my workout, and by the end of month one, was even thinking that I didn't feel like my arms or abs were getting as much of a workout as I'd like, and really want to tone up for an upcoming wedding next month, so was considering doing month two with double session workouts (if time allowed me) of both Insanity and 21 Day Fix Extreme Upper Fix.
Then...month two began of Insanity.
And oh.my.word.-I asked myself, "Is this the same program?" Here I am on day 3, and sore, doesn't even begin to describe how my body feels right now. The first day of the new month was a lot longer workout session because in addition to the now hour-long workout (they were at max 40 minutes in month one), I also had to do the half hour fitness test, and all together ended up taking over TWO.HOURS. to get it all done because that hour workout? THE HARDEST thing I'd ever done in my life to that point. At least with physical therapy back in the day, it wasn't that my exercises themselves were hard to do, they were hard because of my physical state and not having full function of my leg. My "mental" battle had to do with my injury-not that fact that exercises were hard. Well, I now have full function of my leg, and this workout was mentally draining me. I had been nervous about month two, and refused to go in and look at the workouts ahead of time because I didn't want to psyche myself out, but had hoped it would be one of those things that I built it up in my head more than it actually is.
I literally was on the verge of tears during the workout. Something I NEVER do, unless I'm in extreme physical pain. But I wasn't in pain-I was on the verge of tears out of frustration because my mind was BEGGING for me to give up. Screaming at me that the workout was ::enter every excuse in the book::, and my body was exhausted. But my stubbornness-my competitiveness-refused to allow me to give up. I literally resorted to pausing the program every time I couldn't go on (which was often), would catch my breath, and then resume the workout so that I was making sure that I was doing each any every exercise that everyone else on the program was, and getting the workout to the fullest extent. Because to me, that's how you're going to see progress and get results, by DOING each and every exercise. I'm not helping myself if I just take a minute long break (something that's quite easy to do) and skip doing the exercises all together.
Yesterday's workout, was incredibly intense too. I've never been one to have a lot of upper body strength (I was the kid that always excelled at the physical fitness tests in school, EXCEPT for the pull-up component, which always had a big fat ZERO next to it for the amount of pull-ups I was able to do). So when the workout consisted of doing at least 200 push ups of all different varieties? Again, ten minutes in I was yelling WHAT?!! at the tv, and my mind was screaming that at me when I did as I was told. It was when post-workout, it physically hurt to lift my arms to drive, or to pick my youngest up, or to haul two giant bags of dirt in and out of the car and to my garden, that I was telling myself, "This is why you did it." Yes, my muscles are screaming at me, and no, that's never a pleasant feeling, but that means the workout was effective, and I do like feeling the reminder of a successful workout (call me weird).
The second month of this program is much more physically intense, god yes. However, an EQUALLY AS BIG COMPONENT is mental attitude. You can't have one, and have success, without the other. This applies to life as well. Life is hard. Adulting is hard. Parenting is hard. It can be demanding. At times it can be frustrating, and you may feel unsuccessful and just want to give up and go back to the good old days of being a kid when you didn't have a care in the world. Our mental perception of things play such a huge factor in how we go about handling them. Those are the times when we need to dig deeper, remind ourselves that there's a reason why we're doing what we're doing, and keep going. Honestly? I felt pretty dang good about myself after both my workouts the past two days, knowing how tough they were and how close I was to giving up, but glad I stuck with them and was able to finish. If you think about it, I'm sure there's a time when you, too, were dealing with something challenging, and rather than giving in or giving up, stuck with it and found success. If you can't think of a time like that, it's time to give it a try!
This upcoming month is going to be my hardest in a very long time, but I'm going into it with the mindset that I'm up for the challenge, because that IS what I wanted, and I'm more determined than ever to not give up on myself. I'm only making myself that much stronger internally, as well as externally, are both are healthy to do and work on! ;)
