The Art of Manliness - #202： How Bad Do You Want It？

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so if you're an

00:00:18.460 endurance athlete you've probably experienced the walls that moment in a race where you're

00:00:22.140 pushing yourself really hard and your body just tells you you basta enough you can't go on so you

00:00:27.880 start walking or trotting or you if you're a strength athlete you probably experience as well

00:00:31.940 you're lifting a weight that was super easy a week before but now just feels really really heavy and

00:00:38.740 you can't lift it and you think maybe this is my body saying it my body's fatigued it can't go on

00:00:43.380 it's just trying to protect itself what if the reality is it's all in your mind and that your

00:00:48.580 body could actually go further and push itself harder if you can only get over that voice in

00:00:53.780 your head that's saying you can't go on well my guest today has written a book about this research

00:00:58.380 that's coming out about mind over muscle and how we can actually push ourselves beyond what we think

00:01:03.840 we're capable of by just using a few principles based in neuroscience and psychology his name is

00:01:08.980 matt fitzgerald his book is how bad do you wanted mastering the psychology of mind over muscle and

00:01:13.980 today on the podcast we discuss this research coming out about perceived effort and how when

00:01:19.860 things feel hard it's actually not really hard on our body it's just a perception in our mind that

00:01:24.120 we can actually overcome and this these skills are being used by endurance athletes even strength

00:01:29.840 athletes and today on the podcast we highlight some of these athletes who have mastered the mind

00:01:35.560 over muscle and we talk about the research that backs up some of these principles that matt talks

00:01:39.840 about in his book and even if you're not an endurance athlete if you're a strength athlete like me who

00:01:43.940 primarily lifts weights this stuff will work for you i've used some of these principles with much

00:01:48.460 success in my own training i've actually was able to hit a pr this past weekend um 500 pound on my

00:01:54.920 deadlift using the principles uh from how bad you want it so a great podcast if you're an athlete or

00:02:01.340 an amateur athlete uh so without further ado how bad do you want it with matt fitzgerald and make sure

00:02:06.880 to check out his uh the show notes after you listen to the podcast at aom.is slash fitzgerald

00:02:12.940 matt fitzgerald welcome to the show great to be here uh so you're the author of the book

00:02:21.220 how bad do you want it mastering the psychology of mind over muscle and in it you talk about

00:02:27.860 the recent research that's been coming out about how high performance endurance athletes and even

00:02:33.340 weekend warrior athletes can push themselves beyond what their body tells them they're capable of doing

00:02:41.300 um but before we get into the recent research about that let's can you put this in context i mean what

00:02:47.140 was the history of how scientists or athletes or trainers what did they believe um was the way that

00:02:56.740 human the human body managed fatigue or performance or how hard someone could push themselves um and then

00:03:03.660 how has it changed and what's the research recent research saying about that yeah a great question

00:03:09.460 so you know athletes especially champion athletes have always known that you know the the mind was

00:03:17.000 the primary limiter i mean nobody discounts the body you know you know running a marathon or doing an

00:03:22.540 iron man triathlon is obviously an intensely physical experience but um athletes have sort of always

00:03:28.180 understood that you know it just comes down to being a mental thing first and foremost uh science has

00:03:34.840 taken a while to catch up uh you know the discipline of uh exercise physiology is about a century old

00:03:40.680 and the sort of the original paradigm was a you know a strictly biological one so you know athletes in

00:03:47.480 competition were limited by you know just hard physical limits things like you know lactic acid production

00:03:54.240 or uh muscle glycogen depletion you know the depletion of your primary fuel source things like that like

00:04:00.340 as physical as a car running out of gas you know game over um then a fellow a south african uh uh

00:04:07.620 researcher named tim noakes came along and proposed that um really it's uh you know that's the brain

00:04:14.400 uh that limits performance uh before the body does so um before the body ever reaches a point of

00:04:21.480 kind of catastrophic failure where it just can't do anymore there's a protective mechanism based in the

00:04:27.020 brain that doesn't want you to basically exercise yourself to death death so when when your brain

00:04:32.880 receives feedback from your body sort of you know red flag uh indicators that you're approaching your

00:04:38.060 ultimate limit your brain will actually like unconsciously reduce output to your muscles and

00:04:44.220 force you to slow down whether you want to or not um fast forward another 10 years so this is this

00:04:50.340 sort of in the 90s when tim noakes proposed what's called that it's called a central governor model

00:04:55.260 um then this fellow who actually wrote the foreword to my book uh samuela marcora italian guy came

00:05:01.400 along and and his theory is really that um it's true that uh that we never are able to encounter our

00:05:09.540 ultimate ultimate physical limits um in endurance activities but what really limits us is not this

00:05:16.620 kind of homunculus inside your brain you know pulling pulling the strings like a puppeteer um but rather

00:05:22.620 just pure psychology so you just what you do is you know if you get if you hit the wall in a marathon

00:05:27.160 what's happening is you've reached your tolerance for just the suffering you're experiencing it just

00:05:32.680 it's like it's similar to pain tolerance except it's actually a different perception called perception

00:05:37.220 of efforts you get to this point where it's just you're suffering too much and you voluntarily

00:05:41.640 slow down um and so you know there's you're not quite at your physical limits you are approaching them

00:05:47.780 but you always reach that limit to just what you can consciously take uh discomfort wise first

00:05:53.100 so so the current model is perception of it's i guess the perception of effort

00:05:58.760 is that what you'd call it so i mean he talked about some of the the research marcola has

00:06:04.000 done to sort of to bolster this argument that he has that it's more psychological and there's no

00:06:10.240 no you know central governor our brain it's just that we perceive something that's hard and we just

00:06:15.500 give up because it's hard what's some of the research that he's done to show that yeah so

00:06:19.640 there's there's a variety of ways that uh experimentally you can demonstrate that at the

00:06:24.860 point of absolute exhaustion or failure or giving up um athletes always have reserved physical capacity

00:06:32.040 um one interesting study that that marcora did kind of proved this point was that he he recruited a

00:06:37.820 bunch of um college rugby players who are you know a mentally tough crowd and he had them

00:06:43.740 he had had them do a two-part experiment a three-part experiment but he only told them about the first

00:06:49.080 two parts the first part they got on stationary bikes and pedaled as hard as they could for five

00:06:53.480 seconds then immediately after that they had to pedal at a high but sub-maximal intensity as long as

00:06:59.500 they could so the instructions were after this five second sprint you have to you know maintain the

00:07:05.240 certain power output on your bike until you just can't anymore um and then as soon as they failed

00:07:11.940 that when they got to the point where they just broke down and stopped he forced them to do another

00:07:15.920 five second sprint and what he found was that on average the power output in that first five second

00:07:22.440 sprint was about a thousand watts uh and then in the second part where they were just at a high but

00:07:28.780 sub-maximal intensity as long as they could go their average power output was i don't know like 200

00:07:33.720 300 watts somewhere in there and the point is like if they had truly gone to the point where they

00:07:40.200 absolutely had nothing left to give and they were at their physical limit then they couldn't possibly

00:07:45.680 in a second five second sprint immediately following that point of failure they couldn't possibly generate

00:07:50.980 any more wattage than they had put out during that you know second part of the experiment it would be

00:07:55.660 like a car running with no gas just physically impossible and yet in that in that second five

00:08:01.220 second sprint which you know supposedly occurred by the point where they were absolutely exhausted

00:08:05.960 they put out about 750 watts so it was less than they were able to put out when they had completely

00:08:11.300 fresh legs but still about three times more than they had put out in the second part of the experiment

00:08:16.900 that ended supposedly ended in absolute failure so you know the explanation for this is that

00:08:22.520 these guys hadn't actually gone to the point of absolute physical failure in the second part they had

00:08:28.460 simply just gotten to a level of suffering that they couldn't stand anymore and when they were

00:08:34.300 presented you know to their surprise with another five second sprint it's just pure psychology they

00:08:39.720 said oh well five seconds that's no big deal you know i can go ahead i can i can handle anything for

00:08:44.800 five seconds so they they went ahead and dug into that reserve capacity that they had hidden from

00:08:49.880 themselves in that second part of the experiment interesting and i guess you talk in the book too just

00:08:54.880 anecdotally of uh people who run marathons or run some type of race they'll hit that wall right and

00:09:02.720 they'll give up and they'll stop and start walking um but then they still feel fresh even though like

00:09:08.700 it felt like they're about to die um as soon as they stopped they still feel like they had some

00:09:12.900 something in them they could have kept going uh longer or harder if they wanted to yeah uh this is um

00:09:19.020 you know i make that point to try and distinguish perception of effort from fatigue so everything i think

00:09:24.860 everyone kind of knows what a perception is it's it's sort of you know a specific modality through which

00:09:30.160 your body interacts with the world so thirst is a perception feeling hot or cold is a perception

00:09:36.480 pain is a perception but they're all distinct right you can't confuse thirst with pain um and so the

00:09:43.220 idea is that effort is also a distinct perception it's a thing and you know if you talk to the average

00:09:49.300 endurance athlete um and you ask them you know when you hit the wall in a marathon you know what are you

00:09:54.920 feeling most of them would say well it's fatigue you know i i you know i slowed down because i felt

00:10:00.180 fatigue um but that's actually not the case you are feeling fatigued but the thing that makes you slow

00:10:05.360 down is the effort perception and and the way to sort of make intuitive sense of that is to imagine

00:10:11.720 you know say you are running you know in the last miles of a marathon and you feel both very fatigued

00:10:17.060 any very high level of uh of perceived effort as soon as you stop you do feel a lot better i mean

00:10:23.640 you know i i just ran my first ultra marathon a 50 miler last weekend and when i got to the finish

00:10:28.900 line i was completely wrecked but stopping felt great well why did stopping feel great you know

00:10:35.560 obviously stopping at the end of an ultra marathon or a marathon doesn't have any effect on your fatigue

00:10:40.700 level you're still just as fatigued as you were when you were still running but your effort level

00:10:45.640 goes down right you know you just stop and so that's that's really a way of showing that it's really

00:10:50.400 the effort that is making you feel so so miserable the fatigue is there but it's not the primary

00:10:55.620 limiter in those circumstances right you your body your i guess physiologically you're able to keep

00:11:00.180 going uh but mentally your body's saying no this is hard so back off yes exactly so i mean what are

00:11:08.460 the factors that increase the perception of effort when you're running or doing other type of physical

00:11:16.040 activity because like that's the thing it's like you know i don't do endurance events but i lift

00:11:21.540 and like there's some days where it's just like everything just seems really light and easy and

00:11:26.040 then the the next day like i'll do something the same weight and it just feels like hard i'm just like

00:11:31.120 i can't do this so what are some of the factors that these researchers have found that affect our

00:11:36.960 perception of effort well the the biggest one is actually physical fatigue itself um because it you know

00:11:44.200 the analogy i like to use is is a jockey on a horse uh so the jockey is your brain and the horse is your

00:11:51.120 body so you know that the horse won't move unless the jockey cracks the whip and that's your brain

00:11:55.860 telling your body to move um now if you have a strong fresh horse the jockey doesn't have to crack the

00:12:02.640 whip very hard to make that horse move but if you have a weak horse or a horse that's getting tired

00:12:08.620 because it's you know it's been running for a long time the jockey your brain has to work harder

00:12:13.540 and harder to make that horse keep moving at the same speed so it really is the jockey

00:12:19.800 to torture this metaphor uh it's the jockey your brain that wears out uh but it's not as if physical

00:12:27.180 fatigue doesn't matter because your brain your brain is just the one that's willing your body to move

00:12:32.280 and as your body gets physically fatigued your body becomes more and more resistant to your brain's

00:12:38.580 will to move and and that's why you know mile 20 of a marathon feels so much worse than mile one

00:12:44.480 even though you're you're still running at the same pace your brain has to work harder and harder and

00:12:48.800 harder uh to keep a tired body moving um and it feels that resistance and that is what causes perceived

00:12:55.180 effort to to climb right but then on the inverse you talk about how um you know there's a difference

00:13:01.980 between physical you know body fatigue and brain fatigue and sometimes the jockeys tire like the

00:13:07.800 body you know the horse might be raring to go but the the jockey the brain is fatigued so how does like

00:13:15.220 brain fatigue influence perception of effort i mean how how does your brain become fatigued and

00:13:20.280 how does it do that in a way where it affects your performance right yeah so uh to be clear um because

00:13:25.720 there are two schools of thought on this so you know the question is okay where does perception of

00:13:32.320 effort come from um one possibility is that it comes from feedback signals from your body so you know

00:13:40.260 obviously your brain is always sort of listening to your body um and you know that's why you you know

00:13:45.540 where to put your foot down when you're running um you know you've got proprioception and all these

00:13:50.100 other perceptions uh information that your brain is receiving from your body so maybe perception of effort

00:13:54.800 comes from your brain just feeling what your body's going through the other possibility is that

00:14:00.100 uh perception of effort comes from brain activity itself it comes from your your brain's efforts to make

00:14:06.580 your body move and what the research is showing is that it's actually the latter so you know it's it's

00:14:11.940 the jockey not the horse um so uh so either so fatigue that originates either in the body or the brain

00:14:21.280 could cause perception of effort to increase i already gave the example of you know fatigue in the body

00:14:26.720 causing perception of effort to increase because your brain has to work harder to make an unwilling body

00:14:31.280 move but it can also there is also as you just suggested uh a brain fatigue scenario um so uh one of the

00:14:39.460 the studies that that samuela marcora did to to demonstrate this was that he had he had a bunch of

00:14:45.280 volunteers go through a mental exercise that was designed to tire out their brains before they

00:14:51.680 exercised so they were just sitting at desks um engaging in you know sort of a challenging mental task

00:14:57.600 that obviously it did not tax their bodies in any way it just made their brains tired and specifically

00:15:02.960 certain parts of the brain that are known to be involved with perception of effort and then so after this

00:15:09.240 sort of brain fatiguing exercise when the volunteers did uh a challenging uh endurance exercise test they

00:15:16.160 performed much more poorly than they did when they did the same test without prior brain fatiguing so

00:15:22.400 you know there's an example that you sort of need a fresh brain and a fresh body if you want to be able

00:15:27.380 to perform your best physically right and so is this why caffeine helps you know or partly helps you

00:15:35.020 have a better workout or a better training session or a better run yes because it stimulates the brain

00:15:40.140 yeah so for a long time you know when that original sort of you know strictly biological model of

00:15:45.340 endurance performance was dominant uh people looked for all kinds of you know reasons why caffeine was

00:15:51.340 known to enhance performance but the question was why and you know it was proposed that it allowed the

00:15:56.580 body to utilize fat more effectively or whatever but none of that is true uh all caffeine really does

00:16:02.740 is i mean yeah i should say caffeine does have physiological effects but the reason it enhances

00:16:08.160 endurance performance is the same reason it makes you alert and it lifts your mood when you have a cup

00:16:13.580 of coffee in the morning before starting work um it the caffeine acts on certain parts of the brain

00:16:19.400 that are involved in generating perception of effort so that when you go out and run a 10 minute mile

00:16:25.220 it feels easier than it does uh if you haven't had caffeine first and and so it allows you it's just one of

00:16:31.540 those things by by altering the the relationship between actual effort and perceived effort it allows

00:16:38.620 you to dig a little bit more into that hidden reserve uh um than when you're not chemically enhanced

00:16:44.480 right and it's interesting too to see some of the stuff that's coming out now now that uh trainers and

00:16:49.780 athletes understand this uh jockey horse analogy and that the jockey has a lot more control i've been

00:16:57.040 seen i saw this like headset that you put on your head and like it sends like electricity through your brain

00:17:03.160 to stimulate the brain before a workout to help you have a better workout yeah i think it's called

00:17:09.760 transdermal something i don't know what it's called yeah transcranial electromagnetic stimulation

00:17:14.800 uh yeah it sounds i i'm not sure about that specific product but uh you know that that has been

00:17:21.460 studied and it is it is in fact performance enhancing if you do it right you're tapping your

00:17:27.040 brain in the right spots yeah so yeah i forgot the name of the device but like you put it on

00:17:31.580 your head it's like a pair of headphones and it just zaps your brain for like 30 minutes and it's

00:17:38.160 supposed to help you perform i guess the u.s um uh the ski jump team they've been using it or studying it

00:17:44.780 and it's helping out they're showing that it is helping just weird we're doing weird 21st you know

00:17:50.780 23rd century brave new world stuff now science fiction right so i mean okay so here's a question

00:17:56.940 i have um you know with the the central governor model you know to me that when i first heard about

00:18:02.460 it makes intuitive sense from say an evolutionary's point that yeah it would make sense that our brain

00:18:07.920 has this central governor that says you know hold off you know pull back you're you're about to push

00:18:13.520 yourself too hard if you push yourself even more you might kill yourself i'm curious have these

00:18:19.140 researchers who have been studying the perception of effort model have they figured out why i mean

00:18:24.100 is there an adaptive advantage to it is it is it very similar to you know the role a central governor

00:18:29.380 would have in protecting our body from killing ourselves or is there really no reason why we have

00:18:35.520 this perception of effort thing yeah i mean you you can you can only really speculate um sure you know

00:18:41.920 biologists will dismiss them as just so stories you know right right say well this makes sense but

00:18:47.940 that doesn't mean it's true but um you know with full awareness of that potential pitfall samuela

00:18:53.620 marcora has proposed that there is an adaptive advantage and and that is that um well let's back

00:19:00.060 up the question is why is exercise hard why does it feel uh uncomfortable to exercise and so you know

00:19:08.140 the the the answer to that that marcora proposes is that uh it prevents you from wasting energy you know

00:19:14.740 energy is a precious resource resource uh never more so than in extremely primitive times um

00:19:22.120 when you know presumably you know the earliest humans were you know chasing prey and fleeing predators

00:19:29.540 and all that so if exercise had no cost in discomfort whatsoever you could potentially have people uh just

00:19:37.980 exerting themselves uh exerting themselves unnecessarily um and then not having any energy

00:19:43.500 left for when they really needed it um so that that's just it and you know it's clearly why most people

00:19:49.860 just don't exercise at all today i mean everyone knows that you should exercise that it's good for

00:19:56.460 you to exercise and yet most people don't do it uh because you know our circumstances have changed we're not

00:20:02.780 you know chasing predators or fleeing prey anymore um you know we're working at offices and sitting in

00:20:08.720 commuter traffic um so now that's become a barrier the fact that that exercise is physically

00:20:14.300 uncomfortable uh is preventing a lot of us from doing it at all even though intellectually we know

00:20:20.280 all the advantages so um in the book you talk about there's a difference between uh physical and

00:20:26.860 mental fitness and we've been talking about that with the the jockey horse analogy but that you say that

00:20:32.080 sometimes uh an individual with more mental fitness who has like you know who has a stronger jockey

00:20:37.500 can beat the person with more physical fitness now granted we're talking about high performance

00:20:42.960 athletes here i mean if you if you are a couch potato have never run a 5k ever and even if you have the

00:20:48.580 strongest jockey in the world you're probably not going to beat you know someone who's been running

00:20:52.280 marathons their entire life but uh can you provide some real life examples of this of someone who they were

00:20:59.640 you know physiologically they were not as high of an athlete as their competitor but because they had

00:21:07.080 a stronger mental fitness they're able to beat uh that you know stronger uh physically fit athlete

00:21:15.440 yeah so the uh the example i give um in in the book uh is about a kenyan runner named sammy wanjiru

00:21:24.560 uh now sammy was as physically gifted as any runner who's ever lived um but he also had a wild side so

00:21:32.500 uh he won the olympic marathon when he was uh i think 21 years old uh maybe 23 um and then after that he

00:21:41.960 sort of you know he kind of got soft a little bit he just partied all the time and um you know uh drank a

00:21:48.740 lot and and slapped off his training um and then uh so the the 2010 chicago marathon rolls around

00:21:55.800 and um the the lead up to that had just been disastrous his sammy's coach didn't even want

00:22:01.920 him to run his manager wanted him to you know basically go to rehab um so you know his training

00:22:07.720 he had been injured his training had been spotty he was overweight he couldn't keep up with his own

00:22:12.280 training partners who he usually demolished so he was he was physically probably the best runner in the

00:22:18.000 world but he was he he rated and he also got the flu like uh like three weeks before race day so

00:22:24.440 before the race he said i'm at about 75 and that wasn't sandbagging that was the truth um but he

00:22:32.200 ended up winning the race so it's one of the most i know i understand that for a lot of people watching

00:22:36.400 a marathon is like watching grass grow but uh it's it's one of the most thrilling uh marathons i've

00:22:42.840 ever ever ever watched it was just well hey matt i was gonna reiterate to your credit when i was

00:22:47.180 reading you know the story you know how you described this like wow this actually sounds

00:22:50.860 really exciting you did such a great job you know putting in the drama and like letting people

00:22:54.820 understand what was going on so kudos to you for doing that thank you yeah i mean it is it is it

00:22:59.940 it was quite dramatic especially if you knew something of the backstory so anyway you know long

00:23:05.020 story short sammy ended up squeaking out the tiniest victory um and it was just it was just plain

00:23:11.980 obvious to to anyone uh any any sort of i guess knowledgeable runner watching that that sammy

00:23:18.820 was the weaker runner that day and you know if there had been exercise scientists on the scene

00:23:23.600 they could have proven that they could have you know taken biopsies and such to show that that in

00:23:28.740 fact sammy was closer to his ultimate physical limit than uh the guy the guy he beat um so there there's

00:23:36.640 an example right there and and you know athletes know this you know the champion when you're just

00:23:41.540 an average you know athlete like i am and you look at the champions you just assume that it's

00:23:46.680 purely physical all the way to the top you know the reason you know the reason the second place

00:23:52.180 finisher finishes ahead of me is the same reason the first place finisher finishes ahead of the second

00:23:57.080 place finisher that that's sometimes true and often the most physically gifted athlete does win but

00:24:02.400 but not always because uh the mental side is just as important we're talking about small differences

00:24:07.620 at that level but but they can be either physical or or mental that sort of you know are ultimately

00:24:13.840 decisive right i mean it seems too that uh in all domains of athletics with the particularly in the

00:24:20.860 high levels where the training the nutrition is all on point like everyone is pretty much doing the

00:24:26.580 same thing there's there's some parity going on on the physiological level i guess the thing that's

00:24:31.180 going to separate individuals now is the mental aspect yeah and the cool thing is that that's the

00:24:39.020 aspect that um is uh decisive within the context of competition itself right like you know on the

00:24:47.320 starting line the training is done and your genes are your genes so that's all in place um but you

00:24:54.060 know the the mental part plays out in real time you know in in every race anyone who's ever done

00:25:00.220 you know any type even if it's just a 5k or whatever it gets hard and it's almost um it's

00:25:06.080 almost like a life or death kind of feeling it gets it can get so hard um but there's no there's

00:25:11.820 no actual wall there you're just basically deciding at every point of the way am i going to push harder

00:25:18.040 or am i going to you know pack it in um and that's you know it's it's an acquired taste but that's

00:25:24.340 what keeps so many of us coming back for more is that it's a real uh compelling test of your metal

00:25:30.880 yeah masochist especially those endurance ultra marathon guys um so let's talk about this uh

00:25:41.620 so if we can train ourselves to push ourselves beyond what our perception of effort thinks we're

00:25:47.920 capable of doing well i mean okay here's before we back up so there's some athletes who are able to do

00:25:53.740 this who are able to push themselves beyond what they think they're able to do or what their

00:25:58.260 perceived effort is i'm curious is this an inborn skill or is this something that can be developed

00:26:04.320 as well um i would say it's definitely both just like you know just like the physical side um you

00:26:11.580 know you're not going to be an olympic champion unless you win the genetic lottery uh but no matter

00:26:17.940 what kind of genes you're born with that that alone ain't going to do it you know you have to work

00:26:22.440 your tail off and make smart decisions and how you develop as an athlete and it's the same thing

00:26:27.200 is true on on the physical side there you know because it's really um it's really your personality

00:26:33.960 actually that that decides whether you're mentally fit or not and that's why it's not always the same

00:26:39.260 formula for for every athlete uh like you know for some athletes like take that sammy wanjiro example

00:26:45.480 he had a reckless personality but it was his recklessness he actually he actually died at age 24 by the

00:26:51.860 way he fell off a balcony in a drunken stupor uh so the same recklessness that ed led to his early

00:26:57.360 demise was a great advantage on the race course but that doesn't mean that every great endurance

00:27:03.160 athlete has a reckless streak um for some people um like louis zamparini the the guy that the unbroken

00:27:10.260 movie was made about yeah um you know for him it wasn't recklessness it was unbridled optimism

00:27:15.660 so the same characteristic that allowed him to survive you know as a prisoner of war in japan in

00:27:22.020 world war ii was what made him a champion endurance athlete so so you know obviously personality is

00:27:28.220 largely something that you're born with but the good news is um uh you can also develop these these

00:27:35.260 coping skills or you know or these mental fitness traits one of them is known as inhibitory control

00:27:41.040 and inhibitory control comes into play anytime uh you want two things simultaneously that are

00:27:48.400 contradictory you can't have them both the example i always like to give is you want to lose 10 pounds

00:27:53.100 but you want that piece of german chocolate cake sitting in front of you you can't have both so you're

00:27:57.480 sort of divided and your brain has to decide which one you want to choose and stay focused on and it's

00:28:03.060 easy to understand how inhibitory control matters on a race course because you get to a point in a race

00:28:08.120 where you you want to finish and achieve your goal but at the same time you want to stop suffering so

00:28:13.160 you're getting pulled in two directions and you have to decide all right which which thing do i

00:28:17.020 actually want most and it takes a skill called inhibitory control to do that there are tests of this

00:28:23.260 inhibitory control you just sit down in front of a computer and you're sort of required to make these

00:28:28.000 kinds of choices and and some people are better at it than others are but it is trainable you can get

00:28:33.260 better at it and in fact um one of the ways to get better at it is to get in shape because uh when

00:28:39.500 you when you train physically train you're confronted with that desire to quit and then you're suffering

00:28:44.320 all the time so day after day you make the decision to get going um that alone will actually enhance your

00:28:50.780 inhibitory control so yeah uh it increases your willpower to make the right choice so before we get

00:28:56.360 some of these other coping skills um is this and with all of them do you have to train them within

00:29:03.220 the context of the sport or exercise that you're doing or can you do things that train that coping

00:29:10.220 skill outside of the the event and that'll carry over to uh endurance your your race for example does

00:29:18.140 that question make sense yes so you know yeah i mean anything anything that happens in your life

00:29:25.100 uh that affects your your psychology could end up you know affecting you as an athlete so um for

00:29:32.440 example it could be um just like a struggle you go through in your personal life that sort of tests

00:29:37.980 you um and and strengthens you and so it could have that struggle personal struggle might have nothing to

00:29:44.160 do with athletics but you know you only have one brain so the brain the same psychology that you apply

00:29:49.780 in your personal life you're going to apply in the race course too so you know something you go

00:29:54.420 through like that could end up making you a better athlete but you can also uh you know proactively

00:30:00.380 sort of choose ways to enhance your mental fitness you know off the race course or off the training

00:30:06.680 grounds um one of them you know again to to cite a study that samuela marcora did is uh positive self

00:30:13.700 talk um so the idea is that it's like you know the little engine that could i think i can i think i can

00:30:19.220 you know anytime you start to struggle uh with fatigue and a you know perception of effort you're

00:30:25.120 going to think negative thoughts it's impossible to stop them from coming but it's been shown that

00:30:30.080 if you sort of train yourself to arrest those thoughts early and replace them with positive

00:30:36.420 alternatives it's actually performance enhancing and marcora did a study that that proved that it's

00:30:42.120 actually a fascinating study because he took a bunch of non-athletes and he had them do you know the

00:30:47.600 usual endurance test you know sort of before and after uh after the before test half of the subjects

00:30:54.660 were trained in positive self-talk and the other half were not and then when the test was repeated

00:31:00.420 those who got the positive self-talk training performed way better like 20 better in the same test and

00:31:07.820 obviously there was no improvement in the control group what's amazing about that is that there was

00:31:12.440 no physical exercise involved at all i mean it was it was a physical endurance test that they improved

00:31:18.080 on simply through a purely psychological intervention uh which is cool so i mean what does the self-talk

00:31:25.480 look like do you just tell yourself i think i can't or do you say you got this and what is it that

00:31:28.680 you're supposed to say to yourself yeah i don't know the details of exactly what um marcora did but

00:31:34.620 but any experienced athlete you know as i am sort of learns what it means uh for you but generally the

00:31:41.040 way it works is uh you you get to you know a point where you're struggling and then you have a negative

00:31:47.700 thought and then you instead of just allowing that to happen you step back from yourself and realize

00:31:54.160 you're having a negative thought and you you just consciously stop it and replace it with something

00:31:59.040 else now what i found is that that something else uh is is different for different athletes you know the

00:32:05.540 thing that works for one might not work for the other so you can sort of you know try to give

00:32:10.460 people a one size fits all a thing to to go into and that could help somewhat but ultimately what

00:32:16.060 i've found is that in those moments moments of crisis your brain gets really creative uh because

00:32:21.940 you're looking for lifelines you know sort of psychological lifelines um and it's interesting

00:32:27.240 to see what you come up with and i tell athletes uh when you find something you know that works for

00:32:32.560 you remember it because then you can sort of come up with your own formula and go in better armed

00:32:37.760 uh the next time around so i think what i thought was interesting with all these coping skills you

00:32:43.400 discussed in the book we'll talk about more in a bit but uh visualization was one that you said that

00:32:49.440 really doesn't work and can even backfire and that's been like an article of faith in sports

00:32:54.980 psychology right that you're supposed to like the athlete's supposed to take time you know if you're

00:32:59.100 a quarterback you're supposed to sit lay down and like imagine the game and imagine yourself going

00:33:04.000 through a tough situation and then seeing how you would respond and very detailed um detailed

00:33:10.940 descriptions why is it that visualization can sometimes backfire in helping you manage perceived

00:33:17.300 effort right so to be clear when done right visualization or mental rehearsal as it's sometimes

00:33:24.140 called does work or can work but it's often done wrong um and that's when it that's when it can

00:33:31.320 backfire um what what you don't want to do with visualization is um uh be unrealistic um and and

00:33:40.640 imagine sort of a pie in the sky perfect uh race scenario because guess what that race ain't gonna be

00:33:47.280 perfect um and i talk about an example of an athlete in in the book um you know a world champion

00:33:53.360 triathlete uh named siri linley who made exactly that mistake she was training for uh to qualify for the

00:33:59.520 first uh olympic triathlon um and she was considered you know she was a she was one of the best triathletes

00:34:06.820 in the world she was the best american so she was considered a shoe-in and what she did is every night

00:34:11.480 starting one year before the olympic trials she would visualize the perfect race and over and over

00:34:18.320 again it was it was the same you know she got off to a great start and she was following the world

00:34:23.020 champion in the swim and uh you know and so on and so on uh and then when the trials came around

00:34:29.080 right away something went off script uh she ended up kind of just getting uh dunked underwater and

00:34:36.020 swum over the top of during the swim which was not part of her rehearsal and she panicked and she

00:34:41.060 ended up not even finishing the race not for any physical reason but just because she lost her cool

00:34:45.480 because her her visualization had set her up for failure um so you know that's that's what you

00:34:52.580 want to avoid when you the proper way to use visualization is to make it as realistic as

00:34:57.780 possible you want it to be positive you want to picture yourself performing well but you want to

00:35:02.260 you want to you want to imagine the struggle uh that you're going to go through you want you want

00:35:06.940 to imagine it being hard uh on the way toward a successful outcome right so this this ties in with

00:35:13.860 your uh the one of the first coping skills you talk about in the book is idea of bracing you know

00:35:18.960 just accepting the fact that it's going to be hard and that can do a lot to uh help you push beyond

00:35:25.620 your perceived effort exactly so um i should explain that um perceived effort sort of has two layers

00:35:33.940 so at any given point when you're doing a race the first layer is just how you feel and you can't do

00:35:41.620 anything about that you know if you get you know 20 miles into a marathon to go back to the same

00:35:46.420 example um you know how you feel is how you feel you know you've just gotten to that point and it is

00:35:52.100 what it is but there's also a second layer which is how you feel about how you feel so and that you can

00:35:59.140 do something about you can sort of you know with any given level of suffering or effort you're

00:36:03.680 experiencing you can sort of have a bad attitude about it or a good attitude about it so it's a matter of

00:36:08.820 how you interpret it and what research shows is that if you uh sort of maintain a good attitude

00:36:15.740 or a positive interpretation of how you're feeling no matter how bad you actually feel

00:36:20.760 you you will be able to squeeze a little bit uh better performance out of yourself and one of the

00:36:26.120 things that affects how you feel about how you feel is at prior expectations so if you get you know

00:36:33.420 halfway through a race and you're suffering more than you expected to you're more likely to have a

00:36:39.060 bad attitude about how you feel and perform worse and that's where bracing comes in bracing sounds like

00:36:45.380 pessimism basically before the idea is before a race you should be telling yourself this is going to

00:36:50.460 be hard this could be the hardest thing i've ever done but it's not really pessimism because you're not

00:36:55.600 saying i won't perform well i won't achieve my goal you're just setting yourself up to be ready

00:37:01.220 for any amount of struggle you might experience so if you if you uh equip yourself in that way

00:37:07.460 before you go into the race then sort of you'll never be surprised by by how bad you feel and you'll

00:37:13.960 always have as as positive an attitude as you possibly could about how you feel and you won't be

00:37:19.600 hamstrung uh psychologically in your performance right this is why you talk about the book prefontaine

00:37:25.240 the great distance runner like before runs his teammates would always talk about how you just

00:37:30.580 kind of be kind of a grouch like i don't want to do this i hate running in the cold um but then

00:37:35.500 he'd go on to perform you know wonderfully yes yeah yeah that's exactly what what he was doing there

00:37:42.180 it's just he was sort of uh you know he he was just he did it instinctively you know it was just

00:37:48.240 something he did perhaps not even knowing why um but obviously it worked was you know he was known

00:37:53.940 as one of the grittiest um you know toughest uh runners of his his generation and that was part of

00:37:59.700 his formula is just to just to say you know this is going to suck i don't even want to be here

00:38:04.460 um i think it might have served two purposes for him one would be bracing the other would just be

00:38:08.560 to take a little bit of the pressure off of himself um just sort of relax you know it's like

00:38:14.700 sort of almost like letting himself off the hook a bit just so he could get to the point so he wouldn't

00:38:20.180 freak out before the gun went off when the gun went off he was fine he just had to get to that point

00:38:24.660 uh and he he used uh he just used his own recipe to get there right so it helps prevent choking which

00:38:31.140 you talk about in detail in the book um yep and i mean going back to siri lindley uh that's sort of

00:38:37.460 the cope that's the coping skill that she used this letting go of you know she was gung-ho about you

00:38:42.740 know winning the olympic triathlon um but then for some reason you've got this coach that told her no

00:38:48.760 you just got to let go of that goal and it ended up counterintuitively helping her reach that goal

00:38:53.800 exactly um you know it's funny someone uh someone who just just read this book uh sent me a tweet

00:39:03.340 uh with a bruce springsteen quote in it that that this reader was reminded of by that that exact

00:39:09.580 episode there and basically what bruce springsteen said is uh he said when i go on stage i feel like i

00:39:16.900 can't perform the way i want to unless i feel like it's the most important thing in the world

00:39:23.200 and yet he said i also can't perform the way i want to unless my attitude is you know what it's

00:39:30.460 just rock and roll so he said yes there's sort of a balance there where he's sort of mentally in two

00:39:36.220 very different places at once like this is super important i need to take this seriously but at the

00:39:41.540 same time hey you know what it's not the end of the world if i hit a you know a string breaks or

00:39:47.300 whatever so that's that's that's exactly it that's that's the attitude you have to have as an athlete

00:39:53.280 where you want your goal very badly but at the same time you sort of you're loose uh you know if

00:40:00.360 and what what can happen is sometimes and it especially happens to athletes like siri who have

00:40:05.540 confidence issues or insecurity issues is that they will their goal will become something that they

00:40:12.780 can't live without achieving so the idea is oh if if i don't achieve my goal in this race i'll hate

00:40:19.100 myself i won't think i'm a good person i'll think i'm a bad athlete uh but but champions actually they

00:40:25.300 don't have that attitude they they're actually more likely to make excuses uh so their attitude is

00:40:30.840 i already know i'm great and i want to achieve this goal but you know what if i don't it's because my

00:40:37.520 shoes suck or because the weather was bad um that's actually it sounds like sort of immature but it's

00:40:43.040 actually a healthier attitude it's more likely to help you perform where you know you you have goals

00:40:49.120 and you want them very badly but you sort of have a loose grasp on them your goals aren't determining

00:40:54.020 how you feel about yourself um and that's that's exactly what prevents you from choking you're you go

00:40:59.680 into competition less self-conscious and you're allowed to just immerse yourself in what you're doing

00:41:05.080 um and just you know in ball sports it's always referred to as looseness you know i mean it's

00:41:10.760 like you know the team which team is looser going into the super bowl or whatever the championship game

00:41:15.820 is and and um that's exactly the same phenomenon it's not that they don't care uh but they just

00:41:21.260 care in a way that's more likely to actually have a have a positive outcome so i'm curious about

00:41:26.480 the research about uh working out or training or competing with the group that allows us to push

00:41:34.120 ourselves beyond what we're thought we're capable of because i think a lot of people think of

00:41:38.100 particularly endurance sports running as individual um sports right it's just about the single so low

00:41:45.420 lone athlete but you argue that there's an actual social component going on there that

00:41:50.920 these individual athletes use or harness to push themselves beyond perceived effort yep so you know

00:41:58.180 human beings are social animals so we we behave differently in groups than we do alone uh and

00:42:05.220 that includes when we are testing uh our endurance performance capacity um so just to make this

00:42:13.080 concrete uh there's an example that i describe a study that i describe in the book involving rowers

00:42:20.020 where a group of rowers were asked to do um an indoor rowing workout on two separate occasions and

00:42:27.740 there were eight of these guys there were oxford universities you know sort of elite level rowers

00:42:32.160 and they did they did the performance test on uh indoor rowing machines alone and then all together in a

00:42:39.440 group of eight it was exactly the same workout uh they just did it you know alone and together and

00:42:45.140 then after both of those tests they were subjected to a test of pain tolerance and it was found that

00:42:51.560 their pain tolerance was significantly higher after they'd done the workout as a group uh and the

00:42:57.860 authors of the study speculated that that was because when the the rowers did the workout as a group

00:43:03.380 their brains released more endorphins which are kind of the the runner's high um uh neurotransmitters

00:43:11.180 which just they sort of they just elevate your mood and so and they also will elevate your pain

00:43:16.700 tolerance now perception of effort is a different perception than pain but they're pretty much

00:43:22.620 parallel so anything that's likely to increase your pain tolerance is also likely to increase your

00:43:27.860 tolerance for perceived effort so this phenomenon is referred to as behavioral synchrony so you know

00:43:34.060 if you're chopping wood you can chop more wood if there are you know eight guys around you doing

00:43:38.620 the same thing if you're you know running a marathon or you know more importantly if you're

00:43:42.600 training day in and day out with a group of athletes you're more likely to just be able to push harder

00:43:48.540 dig deeper and make more progress than if you're always out there alone right so i mean that's kind

00:43:53.500 of maybe that's one of the uh geniuses of crossfit right where it's very social you have a box you have

00:43:59.700 these people there that are pushing you or you're maybe competing against them uh in a positive way to

00:44:05.720 push yourself beyond what you thought you're capable of yeah so um you know just to add on to that so

00:44:11.720 there are actually two things going on there so there's behavioral synchrony and there's competition

00:44:17.180 and so you can benefit from both and sometimes it can be hard to to separate them but but you you

00:44:22.820 actually can't do that so you can benefit in both ways so part of it is competitive but part of it

00:44:28.940 is also cooperative um so yeah you know just you know we're and that's why that's one of the reasons

00:44:35.160 that um you um not not just exercising with other people's performance enhancing but simply

00:44:41.540 being observed by other people while you're exercising uh is performance enhancing so if

00:44:47.400 you just if you know people are watching and seeing how well you're doing you will also be

00:44:51.840 able to perform better even though you're not in competition with the people who are simply observing

00:44:56.300 you interesting um i'm curious uh matt that you know your book is focused on endurance athletes

00:45:03.020 but can some of these coping skills work with strength athletes whether they're weightlifters or

00:45:07.680 shot putters or you know that sort of athlete uh yeah i would say that um you know the the coping

00:45:16.360 skills uh the framework that i describe in the book is relevant to any athlete or exerciser

00:45:22.780 who experiences fatigue uh and i think that's everyone you know even if you do you know a set of uh you

00:45:30.300 barbell squats uh there's a reason the 10th one is harder than the first um you know you know so

00:45:37.240 you're dealing with fatigue even though it's at it's a very high intensity and short duration activity

00:45:42.100 um if you if you are sort of pushing up against uh fatigue and its effects on your perception of

00:45:49.340 effort then these coping skills can help you uh perform better one specific one just to give you

00:45:55.340 you know a very concrete example is and one we haven't really discussed yet is this this idea

00:46:00.820 of internal versus external attentional focus so you know they're basically two directions you can

00:46:06.840 focus your attention uh during exercise you can focus it focus it inward like you know thinking about

00:46:13.300 how your body is moving or thinking about uh how hard you're working or you can focus it externally

00:46:18.320 on sort of on the task at hand you know it's like you know where is my competition or you know

00:46:23.640 am i maintaining my pace and there's research showing that an external focus of attention

00:46:29.180 uh just sort of you know keeping your keeping your attention on the task versus uh sort of hyper

00:46:35.880 focus internally is performance enhancing in everything from weightlifting to skill sports to

00:46:43.960 endurance sports so it's exactly the same skill uh but it's beneficial and you name it any sport any

00:46:50.200 type of exercise you can name it's beneficial yeah the whole external internal uh focus i use that uh

00:46:57.460 now that you mentioned it in like high school football when we did you know gassers and wind

00:47:01.220 sprints i remember there was a time where i just like i can't do this i would just pretend like i wasn't

00:47:05.040 inside my body like it was weird but it worked i was able to push myself i just didn't i didn't i just

00:47:11.320 i don't know i kind of like looked at myself from the outside and that for some reason worked for me

00:47:16.320 yeah that's uh that's called dissociation okay dissociated not knowing that i dissociated

00:47:22.540 yeah yeah that's that's another one yep yeah and just you know from a strength perspective you know

00:47:28.940 i was you were talking earlier before we started the interview you know while i was reading this book

00:47:32.420 i started using some of the coping skills with my own strength training um and it helped out a lot

00:47:38.300 and the ones that worked for me were bracing just accepting that this is gonna suck it's gonna it's

00:47:43.960 gonna hurt yeah um and then the other thing that just helped me is just it's reminding myself that

00:47:50.060 um my body is capable of pushing this weight up even though i might not think it is like there's

00:47:56.660 enough in me physiologically that i can do it and for some reason that helped as well yeah yeah i'm not

00:48:03.520 surprised to hear that and it's really a lot of fun you know you're just sort of um you know you know

00:48:09.440 obviously you know lifting weights is very physical but it can also be you know intellectually

00:48:14.200 stimulating as well so if you start to you know just actively pursue the development of your mental

00:48:20.920 fitness you know whether it's as an endurance athlete or a weightlifter or whatever um it just

00:48:25.960 it just adds another layer to the experience um and you know for me you know i'm i've been a runner my

00:48:33.160 whole life and a triathlete and but you know i'm in my mid 40s now so i'm not getting faster

00:48:38.440 but i'm still like just super engaged in you know continuing as an athlete because the journey never

00:48:44.920 ends you can still get better and better and better at the psychological side even you know as your body

00:48:50.400 gets older so i mean what do you do so we talked about these different coping skills and it seems like

00:48:56.680 there's some of it you have to you do it as you you're going going along in your training and you

00:49:02.120 develop these coping skills but is there i mean is there one coping skill that a lot of athletes

00:49:06.180 just turn to when they're in that moment the heat of the moment in the race and their body just their

00:49:11.520 body says to them or it thinks it's saying to them like you can't go any further ease up um you'll get

00:49:18.100 it next time i mean how do you dig deep in that moment when you hit the wall i mean do you just

00:49:22.700 yeah have to ask yourself that question that's the title of your book how bad do you want it

00:49:26.560 yeah great great question and and it's interesting you know one of you know my book has been very well

00:49:32.840 received uh but one of the criticisms i've gotten from some people is that uh there are some readers

00:49:38.820 who wanted more hand holding right they wanted like you know just do these five things yeah everyone

00:49:44.720 wants that right yeah you'll be a mental giant and you know i understand that but actually part of what

00:49:50.420 i love about uh you know the sports i do is that that's impossible that um you know what i can provide

00:49:57.640 is just a different way to approach the sport a different way to understand what you're doing

00:50:01.800 which i think is actually extremely helpful uh but what i can't do is say you know just do this

00:50:10.260 and i like that i like that after a certain point you're on your own and you just are and and and

00:50:17.080 especially you know when you get to that crisis moment um you know in a race or whatever where uh

00:50:23.620 you know you you want to pack it in uh you're suffering a lot there's just no telling what is

00:50:30.540 going to to allow you to to keep going um you know it's not as if you know for it's not as if it's

00:50:37.420 completely different for every athlete obviously there are sort of patterns uh but just to give the

00:50:42.840 example of that 50 mile ultra marathon i i did um uh last weekend you know i i certainly you know

00:50:50.020 i suffered mightily um and i remember getting to one point in the race where i remembered uh what

00:50:57.580 what a friend had said before the race i actually had an injury going into the race i wasn't sure i

00:51:02.400 would even be able to to do it um and his advice was be grateful um you know just for you know for

00:51:09.460 just being able to at least start and try and i just remembered that it just came to me it's not

00:51:14.000 as if i had a plan it's like oh yeah when i get to 37 miles i'm gonna remind myself to be grateful

00:51:17.960 it's just my you know you know most of our most of our mind is is you know underwater it's the part

00:51:25.000 of the iceberg that's below the surface and just and that's where you know creativity comes from it's

00:51:29.740 where so many of the answers come from but it's like stuff is being handed to you from behind a

00:51:34.060 curtain you can't control that but you can't you can trust it you know and when you get to one of

00:51:38.820 those moments and it just comes to you it's right you know you just you you can't you can't sort of

00:51:44.420 set it up ahead of time like oh i'm gonna script out my entire 50 miles it's like no you have to

00:51:50.000 be reactive just as you do like you know in a basketball game uh but it really helped me to

00:51:54.560 just remind myself you know what i'm really suffering here but i am you know i am going to

00:52:00.340 finish this thing and i am super grateful just to you know to have this opportunity to be able to do

00:52:05.020 this and it made a difference um but you know i'm sure for the other 700 athletes out there racing

00:52:09.720 with me uh it wasn't necessarily that that allowed them to to get over the hump as it were right so

00:52:16.520 you're on your own you got to figure it out yourself what works for you yeah and just uh you know to add

00:52:21.200 one other thing um to get back to your original question the how bad you want it question um

00:52:25.860 that's the motivation piece um and and that is very helpful as well when you when you start to

00:52:33.860 struggle um to reconnect with why this is important to you can be extremely helpful again it's going to

00:52:42.160 be important to different people for different reasons so there's no one size fits all there either

00:52:47.500 um but but on a general level it's the same for everyone the the more you're able to sort of just

00:52:54.540 you know reconnect and remind yourself you know why you want it badly you know why you want to

00:53:00.780 achieve your goal or make it to the finish line uh whether it's you know to set example for your

00:53:05.060 children or if it's you know sort of just um you know uh maybe you were a child who was completely

00:53:11.120 unathletic and you know this is sort of like a second chance for you to to just you know connect

00:53:16.820 with your physical side whatever it is um that those things those are powerful motivators because

00:53:21.240 you it's it takes a lot of hard work to do the training to to get to these events so obviously

00:53:25.960 there's something driving you and to not lose uh that in in the heat of the moment uh can be one

00:53:33.060 another one of those factors that that helps you survive well matt this has been a fascinating

00:53:38.640 conversation and we've we just skimmed over a lot of what's in the book there's a lot more that

00:53:43.780 our readers can dig into but uh where can people learn more about your book uh yeah so the best

00:53:48.740 place to start would be my website probably which is matt fitzgerald.org okay well matt fitzgerald

00:53:55.580 thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure you bet i really enjoyed it my guest

00:54:00.320 today was matt fitzgerald he's the author of the book how bad do you want it it's available on amazon.com

00:54:04.840 and bookstores everywhere you can also find out more information about matt's work at matt fitzgerald.org

00:54:10.380 and be sure to check out the show notes for this podcast at aom.is

00:54:13.980 slash fitzgerald where you'll find links to resources we mentioned in the podcast where you can

00:54:18.340 explore this topic uh in more detail well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness

00:54:33.700 podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at

00:54:37.400 artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy this podcast and have gotten something out of it i'd really

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00:54:44.920 as always i appreciate your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to

00:54:49.300 stay manly

00:54:50.220 you

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#202： How Bad Do You Want It？

Episode Stats

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript