Surmounting your limits

jobo

Grandmaster
Joined
Apr 3, 2017
Messages
9,762
Reaction score
1,514
Location
Manchester UK
yea that's what I'm talking about as well. 100% effort. If you aren't putting in 100% effort then are you really running at 100%? In terms of running I've seen people put in 100% effort and when they got to the finished line and collapsed or threw up because they pushed their body too far. For me personally, I've never ran at 100% and I have never give 100% effort. I look at what it actually takes to give 100% effort and what it does to the body. Our bodies have limits and if we push our bodies too hard (the effort that you speak of) then there's no guarantee your body will fail similar to how runners who give 100% can no longer stand up after crossing the finish line. To give 100% is no small matter and those who I've seen do it often do. People may give 100% of what they set aside to perform the activity. For example, if someone trains at 80% then they have give all of that 80% and nothing less, the other 20% may be reserved for being able walk and stand up after training. Giving only 80% of effort for training is still good because the intensity that we go at is what matters.

80% training effort for me may be 100% training effort to someone who isn't in good shape. As my body gets stronger I can increase the intensity of my effort without increasing the percentage of my effort. Hopfeully that clears it up a little about my perspective.
how do you know what is 80% of max effort if you have never given 100%? It could be only 60% your doing

you don't have to run so far you collapse, you do have to run so fast you can't run any faster
 
Last edited:

JowGaWolf

Sr. Grandmaster
MT Mentor
Joined
Aug 3, 2015
Messages
14,082
Reaction score
6,000
When you have to put grease between your legs, you have over done it.
That's a lot of friction if you need that lol good one. The closest I've gotten to that was when I was in high school running training for Cross Country Races (3.5 miles) For training we would run 5 to 10 miles, one day it was really hot and my sweat started to dry which meant that salt was the only thing left behind. The salt that was left behind literally started cutting me between my legs like tiny saws.
 

JowGaWolf

Sr. Grandmaster
MT Mentor
Joined
Aug 3, 2015
Messages
14,082
Reaction score
6,000
how do you know what is 80% of max effort if you have never given 100%? It could be only 60% your doing

you don't have to run so far you collapse, you do have to run so fast you can't run any faster
I knew because anything close to 100% makes me feel like crap. It doesn't make me feel like I had a good workout. It doesn't make me feel tough. It makes me feel like my body is trying to literally stop functioning so I won't continue. The only difference between me and some other runners, I never ran my body to the point where my body failed and I ended up on the ground because my body has ceased to function. Maybe if I explain it as weight lifting bench press. How do you know if you give 100% effort? It's when you can only lift the weight once but not high enough to put the weight back on the rack. You feel your muscles fail and that weight slowly starts to go down even though you are pushing as hard as you can. If you get close to experiencing anything like these people then you know you are close to 100%

This is what 100% effort in running looks like. Stuff stops working.


This is what 100% effort looks like for weight lift. He gave all of his effort and all of his strength then his muscles failed.
 
OP
Jenna

Jenna

Senior Master
MT Mentor
Joined
Apr 30, 2006
Messages
3,470
Reaction score
713
Location
Cluj
Well, If I had to depends on the situation. Adrenaline con boost what a person can do depending on if they decide to fight or flight. Some times its voluntary, some times its not. It depends on the situation. But that is life and death type stuff.

I like to think that a smaller version of this is used when assessing a limit. You can either stop, or you can push for one more. There are pros and cons for both cases, but really it depends on what you want to achieve and how determined you are to reach it. The mind, in many cases, will give up before the body dose. This is where a partner, coach, ect can come in handy. They can give you that push that you need to increase your 100%.
So, yes a large amount of it is mental. How determined you are, what you think is 100%, how you persive a situation, and how you view adversity, can effect what 100% can be.

I can not tell you a definite way to over come limits, due to mentality being diffrent per individual. How I do it is I go by my feelings, and my perceived limits. I inch worm it. Little by little. Getting to where something hard become the norm, then adding a little more. Adversity becomes a challenge. I have moments where I need motivation, which is why I prefer to train with partners. It takes time, it takes patience, but it is better than staying at a fake 100%.

Hope this helps.
Thank you again, yes that help too :) Say you were training with a partner to see who could push the most (what ever that might be from scoring pts to doing reps or what ever) only say it was not friendly rivalry, from where does your motivation to push past come when your partner is not help rather would seek to win over you? xo
 
OP
Jenna

Jenna

Senior Master
MT Mentor
Joined
Apr 30, 2006
Messages
3,470
Reaction score
713
Location
Cluj
if they keep doing the same exercises, then the effectiveness of the exercise to cause body adaptations drops off after about 12/16 weeks

. So if your after a certain goal, say the ability to run one lap of a track very fast, your progress after that point is very very slow, if at all.if what your doing is running one lap of the track as fast as you can

, if your after a less specific fitness goal, say being stronger, you need to change your exercises regime fundamental, every 3months or so, so that they again challenge both the muscle and the nervous system to cause adaptations
When you feel pain in your training do you ever continue and not stop? Say it is a goal you are after and you feel pain.. If so, what is the process of toleration for you? thank you :)
 
OP
Jenna

Jenna

Senior Master
MT Mentor
Joined
Apr 30, 2006
Messages
3,470
Reaction score
713
Location
Cluj
The military special forces deal with the concept of limits constantly. The fact is that you will meet the psychological limits of your will long before the limits of the body.
I am not sure but i think it was Bud Day but there is the story of being a POW and was told to hang from a pull up bar and told when he falls off he will be executed. He hung for 3 days before his captors got frustrated and put him back in his cell.
The human muscle can contract strong enough to pull itself off of the bone. Limitations are mostly mental. The limits of the body is the point of damage and shut down.
That is quite extraordinary ability.. So what you depict as point of damage and shut down then that is the actual 100% physical limit or point that force the organism (body) to self-protect yes? Technique though can moderate this point like applied muscle tension to elevate bp before point of syncope only this only work all other thing being in good working order.. You have experience with this? working at or to extend physiological limit? you know technique for this? thank you x
 

jobo

Grandmaster
Joined
Apr 3, 2017
Messages
9,762
Reaction score
1,514
Location
Manchester UK
I knew because anything close to 100% makes me feel like crap. It doesn't make me feel like I had a good workout. It doesn't make me feel tough. It makes me feel like my body is trying to literally stop functioning so I won't continue. The only difference between me and some other runners, I never ran my body to the point where my body failed and I ended up on the ground because my body has ceased to function. Maybe if I explain it as weight lifting bench press. How do you know if you give 100% effort? It's when you can only lift the weight once but not high enough to put the weight back on the rack. You feel your muscles fail and that weight slowly starts to go down even though you are pushing as hard as you can. If you get close to experiencing anything like these people then you know you are close to 100%

This is what 100% effort in running looks like. Stuff stops working.


This is what 100% effort looks like for weight lift. He gave all of his effort and all of his strength then his muscles failed.
no that's what lifting a,silly big weight ( ego lifting)with out a spotter and decent equipment looks like.
 
Last edited:

jobo

Grandmaster
Joined
Apr 3, 2017
Messages
9,762
Reaction score
1,514
Location
Manchester UK
When you feel pain in your training do you ever continue and not stop? Say it is a goal you are after and you feel pain.. If so, what is the process of toleration for you? thank you :)
pain real stabbing pain is bad, a high degree of discomfort is,good, people seem to confuse the two
 

drop bear

Sr. Grandmaster
Joined
Feb 23, 2014
Messages
23,398
Reaction score
8,137
When you feel pain in your training do you ever continue and not stop? Say it is a goal you are after and you feel pain.. If so, what is the process of toleration for you? thank you :)

If you want to play around with the idea. do hill sprints. They are a psychological as well as physical nightmare.
 

JowGaWolf

Sr. Grandmaster
MT Mentor
Joined
Aug 3, 2015
Messages
14,082
Reaction score
6,000
no that's what lifting a,silly big weight ( ego lifting)with out a spotter and decent equipment looks like.
Yeah it's that too. lol. Not sure why so many do stuff like that.
 

jobo

Grandmaster
Joined
Apr 3, 2017
Messages
9,762
Reaction score
1,514
Location
Manchester UK
Yeah it's that too. lol. Not sure why so many do stuff like that.
its sort of self selecting only a complete bonzos on an ego trip would take the trouble to film themselves doing something as mundane as lifting weights, that they then over load themselves and,drop the weight is what happen when bonzos ego lift
 

oftheherd1

Senior Master
Joined
May 12, 2011
Messages
4,685
Reaction score
817
In my experience there are several factors. If your mind tells you that you have reached your limit, your body will no doubt agree; you will stop. If you mind tells you that you can continue to push farther, your mind will no doubt tell your body to continue, and it will continue until your body quits. Regardless, you only know your limit when you reach it, whether it is the mind limit or the body limit.

Either mind or body can have its will in continuation. When I was in the US Army Airborne, of all the things we did, you were a wimp if you couldn't do a certain amount of pushups, pullb ups, sit ps, or whatever. You would be ruthlessly trained until you could. But one thing you could not fail at was running. The only acceptable way out of a run was to collapse at some point during the run. And if you collapsed, it better not be fake.

I once made a run of only about two miles, while still drunk (by no means bragging, just the lifestyle I was into then). I kept giving myself little goals which would be the point of when I would allow myself to quit. Except that I never allowed myself to quit, but just gave myself another goal. At the time and looking back, I have no idea how I did that. I can tell you it wasn't the booze. If anything, that held me back. But mostly it was just the idea that I wasn't going to quit. In the Airborne, being a quitter was the worst thing you could be accused of.

Was that body or mind? I don't know. I suspect hefty helpings of both. I certainly didn't want to run that far in that condition. But I even more didn't want to be called a quitter.

One airborne company I was in there was a guy who quit being airborne. Just one day he decided to quit (I don't know why) and signed the necessary paperwork. He wasn't the most liked guy, but he was one of us. And he had friends and they all hung together. After that day, he didn't have any friends, and spent the next few days while in the company, doing nothing but KP (Kitchen Police).

Was that mind or body? Our PT wasn't impossible. Jumping out of airplanes was reasonably safe. Could he have stayed on airborne status? I suspect so, but I think his mind told him he had had enough.

I think both the mind and body can be trained to go beyond certain perceived limits. It may reach a point where progress slows down, especially the body, as there is at some point a limit in the long term. I also believe in Chi, and its effect in the short term.

@jobo I read the post about three days hanging by your hands and thought it a hard feat. But the human mind and body can do strange things. If true, it would just tell me the POW had a strong fear of dying that way. I have heard of pilots on long missions, who never took their hands off the aircraft's controls. When the engines were shut down, they were not able to remove their hand(s) from the controls, and had to use their other hand, or if both hands were in that condition, get another crew member to peel their hands off the controls. As I said, the human mind and body can do strange things.

Sorry for the long post. But I don't think others who have posted have given the mind and body a fair shake. ;)
 

Gerry Seymour

MT Moderator
Staff member
Supporting Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2012
Messages
30,037
Reaction score
10,601
Location
Hendersonville, NC
i like smoking and whisky and eating kebabs and sitting on the,couch eating sweets and losing in bed till dinner time, But i don't as i have,discipline,

just doing what you like isn't the way to success, unless you are very strange
Agreed, though tailoring to use exercises you like more (of similar effectiveness) is likely to reduce the need to use willpower (a finite reserve between sleeps, research suggests)
 

Gerry Seymour

MT Moderator
Staff member
Supporting Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2012
Messages
30,037
Reaction score
10,601
Location
Hendersonville, NC
depends how many times you lift it?
Yes, for the most part. If I routinely never lift more than 80%, ,that only occasionally, and never more than once at a time, it's unlikely my max stays where it was (and probably no way it goes up). But if I routinely lift 80% - let's say on average once a day - I'm not sure if that allows the muscles to degrade significantly or not. Most people rarely lift anything near their max - rarely lifting more than say 30 lbs. But they can still lift 50 lbs. if they have to, and probably a lot more. Some of that probably has to do with a "natural" floor. So, if someone has been training a lot, they will degrade fast when they stop, going back toward that natural floor. Meanwhile, someone who has trained occasionally and inconsistently will degrade little and slowly when they stop training. There does seem to be a reset of that natural floor over the long term, which confounds the whole thing. People who exercise over long periods of time (years) don't tend to lose all of that benefit, even if they drop to average activity levels for a few years.
 

Gerry Seymour

MT Moderator
Staff member
Supporting Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2012
Messages
30,037
Reaction score
10,601
Location
Hendersonville, NC
That's a lot of friction if you need that lol good one. The closest I've gotten to that was when I was in high school running training for Cross Country Races (3.5 miles) For training we would run 5 to 10 miles, one day it was really hot and my sweat started to dry which meant that salt was the only thing left behind. The salt that was left behind literally started cutting me between my legs like tiny saws.
TMI, bro.
 

jobo

Grandmaster
Joined
Apr 3, 2017
Messages
9,762
Reaction score
1,514
Location
Manchester UK
Yes, for the most part. If I routinely never lift more than 80%, ,that only occasionally, and never more than once at a time, it's unlikely my max stays where it was (and probably no way it goes up). But if I routinely lift 80% - let's say on average once a day - I'm not sure if that allows the muscles to degrade significantly or not. Most people rarely lift anything near their max - rarely lifting more than say 30 lbs. But they can still lift 50 lbs. if they have to, and probably a lot more. Some of that probably has to do with a "natural" floor. So, if someone has been training a lot, they will degrade fast when they stop, going back toward that natural floor. Meanwhile, someone who has trained occasionally and inconsistently will degrade little and slowly when they stop training. There does seem to be a reset of that natural floor over the long term, which confounds the whole thing. People who exercise over long periods of time (years) don't tend to lose all of that benefit, even if they drop to average activity levels for a few years.
Il try and describe what i mean about 80% and how many reps
, i do an exercise, push ups with my feet high up on a dipping bar, let's say that is,80% of body weight, . I do seven upper half reps, which means no brief moment of rest at the bottom, as the muscle iis under max tension, then seven lower half reps, which mean no relaxing at all as my nose hits the ground first, then 7 full reps, (i general get to six before failure and falling on my nose, then straight after, i do a minute of triceps extensions against the,dip bar.

then into a normal push up position( say 65% of BW) and repeat the 3x7 reps. Then another min of tricept extensions abit closer now.

then the push ups,3x7 this time off my knees, 25%BW, then another min of triceps, then fall over.
that 80% of Bw, but 100% effort
 
Last edited:

Martial_Kumite

Green Belt
Joined
Mar 11, 2017
Messages
134
Reaction score
47
Thank you again, yes that help too :) Say you were training with a partner to see who could push the most (what ever that might be from scoring pts to doing reps or what ever) only say it was not friendly rivalry, from where does your motivation to push past come when your partner is not help rather would seek to win over you? xo


Sorryfor the late replie. If I get into a rivilry with somone who simply seeks to hold some sort of accomplish ment over me, personaly I get angry, which most people will say is not good to do. But, I have managed to use that negitive energy for a positive results. I become more determined to push my limit and expand my 100%, even if it is just a little.

So, even if a partner is being negitive, they can still be helping motivate you to push past thier expectations, and expand 100%. It is a lot harder to do though.

Hoped this helps.
 

Latest Discussions

Top