Day 71: In Which I Psychoanalyze Myself

This morning, I looked at the exercise sheet and laughed. "Davincis - 5 sets x failure". HA! Thanks, Patrick, for getting right to the point. No more pussy-footing around this whole "failure" scenario! Message received - just DO it already.

This, plus Patrick's most recent blog post, is making me think. I'm starting to understand the whole "art of laziness" thing. Why not work super hard in order to get to failure SOONER? Why take extra rest time just so you can do extra reps/sets? What a waste of time!

This way of approaching the workouts sounds really good in theory - in practice, I'm just beginning to get it. It's so opposite of my usual response, which has two components:

First, like many people, I tend to have a true panic response when faced with physical pain/challenge/difficulty. When stuff starts to hurt, my mind goes "AHHHH! STOP!! MAKE IT STOPPPP!!!" and I panic and bail out. Granted, I've worked with this panic response quite a bit in my yoga practice. The Kripalu tradition has this thing called "Stage 2" where a strong pose like Setu Bhandasana (bridge) or Utkatasana (chair pose) is held for quite a while (a few minutes in some cases) so that the practitioner can literally "ride the wave" of physical, mental, and emotional responses to sensation, noticing what comes up. Undoubtedly, the initial reaction, after the first few breaths, is "AHHHH! STOP!! MAKE IT STOPPPP!!!" Or at least it used to be, for me. Now, I can watch that reaction, see that it's just what my mind likes to say, come back to my breath and focus on the sensation itself, breathe into it and watch it change. Also, trust that I won't die. This type of thing has come in handy with the planks - sustaining a pose feels familiar now, doesn't make me fear death.

The repetitive exercises, on the other hand, all the reps and sets - THIS is something new that I've had to train myself to tolerate. There's so much more to think about in terms of form, effort, props. So when the repetitive motion starts to feel impossible, I wonder if I have the form right, if I'm DOING it wrong/right, if I "should" be stronger by now. Which brings me to the second component of my usual response...

I have a complicated relationship with authority (and who doesn't, right?). Growing up, I was surrounded by authority figures, both at home and at school. Not surprisingly, I developed into quite the rebel. I still have a strong independent streak, as those who live with me or who are close to me will tell you. But I also have an ingrained tendency to rely on outside authority in certain areas where I might be better served by trusting myself. What do the "experts" think I should be doing?? How would YOU do this?? That kind of thing.

How does all of this relate to the PCP? Well, if it's not already obvious, I've been very happy to place my general health in the hands of Patrick and Chen - the experts - over this 90 day period. I love the grams - there's just enough flexibility in what to eat, but no guessing required in how much to eat. And, as much as I find the workouts both exhilarating and torturous, it's the reps/sets that are my real training ground right now. Being told what exercises to do and how many, each day, has been a total blessing - there's no way I would have worked this hard without someone TELLING ME what to do.

But then, suddenly, today presented a new challenge. The experts were no longer telling me how many Davinicis they expected of me. I couldn't even choose the max or the min! Instead, I had to pay attention to my own body, watch my reactions, and make some choices. At what point do I declare "failure"? When the mind wants to quit for self-preservation purposes? Or is it possible that the body can do more than the mind says it should? I know the answer to that last one is YES. So - if I drop the counting, forget how many reps I did the last time we did Davinicis, or in the last set - then what??

What happened today was that I kept the rest times short - down to the second - and started each set with gusto, stopping only when I realized my form was being compromised, and - in the 5th set, I went until I could go no further. No idea how many reps - probably a lot less than previous times. Less because I wasn't slowing things down unconsciously in order to make sure I got to all the reps listed on the sheet. HA! I can't believe I was doing that, but I really was! I must have been wasting time, because if I didn't, I wouldn't be physically able to perform the perfect sets that the experts were expecting. No WONDER I haven't been able to get my workout down to an hour!

So, hey - it's a learning process, eh? It feels good to be at this stage of the game, learning to let my body show me how far it can go, learning to take back some power from the experts. I'm curious to see what happens to my workouts this week, if I can truly begin to embrace failure instead of merely flirting with it.