And within the fitness world, there is a strange myth that begins at the moment you touch the barbell. No, discipline begins hours earlier for even the smartest program and the best coaches by the meal you eat/don’t choose, by the sleep you get/deny, by the bag you pack the night before. The gym/track/field simply exposes your workweeks of preparation. Show up unprepared and even the finest planned program will devolve into waste motion; show up prepared and mediocrity becomes very difficult to attain.
This is the silent truth that most novice subjects overlook: training is not the event, it’s the reward. The things leading up to training will determine if this reward is a tar baby or ‘the real thing’.
Fuel Before Force
Nothing kills a workout more than an empty tank. Working out with an empty stomach may sound admirable a salute to willpower but physiologically it’s more like a backhanded slap in the face. Your body can’t call up strength it hasn’t been supplied the ingredients to make.
A low molecule weight, high carbohydrate meal 60 to 90 minutes before an athletic event can top off glycogen stores without bogging you down under the weight cage(a banana, some porridge, toast and honey). Protein also has a place here, but more of a side-show to the main event, (a kind of pre-meal-set-up). Also equally important to our carbohydrate rival is water. Nothing kills performance like a really thirsty tight muscle (hydrate to the extent where there is no more). Even a couple of per cent loss of body water results in a decrease in performance. A half liter of water in the hour before exercise is not shockingly excessive, it’s basal competency.
The Mind Arrives First
Mental’s get ignored by the spotlight, but are the unseen stagehand. Five minutes of mental warm-up- think about what the session will be like, state one definite purpose (“today I overreach on the incline”) rather than one indefinite purpose (“today I try to get in shape”)- it will do more to bring greater consistency in training than any of the supplements that are being sold. Vague purpose produces vague effort. Specific purpose produces specific results.
Here is where most people silently give up. They arrive with their bodies but not their minds, our phones chiming, minds still attached to the confines of the office. Exercise then becomes the distraction to our mind’s to-do list. Preparation is arriving whole your cell and your focus locked into a single-task.
Warm the Machine Before You Race It
Static stretching is one good habit to get out of, as it has been largely disproven. Studies over the years have repeatedly shown that a lengthy hold before lifting heavy can impede muscular power, and that one’s best bet is a series of dynamic warm-ups long-legged swings, icy-cold arm circles, kettle bell swings, and a 3-5 minute burst of heart-rate elevating, joint-loosening cardio.
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Imagine if you could compare this to the comparison of firing a cold engine right at full speed and letting it warm up first. Both reach the same point eventually, but only one does the right way. Good warm-ups are not only a warm-up to workout it’s the first, most necessary rep of the session.
Pack Like You Mean It
It may seem trivial enough to be unworthy of this article on discipline, but in fact it’s largely logistics where good day to day intentions go to die. a wrong pair of shoes, flat battery, lost water bottle, all of these very minor irritations can build up to the point where a session is missed. Taking the time to pack your gear the night before – kit shoes towel, iPod etc. relieves you of the tasks in the morning, and get you where you need to be (“go on then, I may as well!”)
This is not just good advice; it is good engineering. Willpower is finite and each unnecessary choice spends a little of it. The disciplined athlete isn’t necessarily more motivated than everyone else they have just engineered out as many moments as possible where they can talk themselves out of making that choice.
Know the Session Before You’re In It
Going to a gym without a plan is like showing up for a debate without a case sure, you can make up some time, but you won’t get any wins. Using a simple note draft or mental plan of the session you want to execute what muscles, how many sets, increasing the weight can save your training from turning into a random mess and safeguard the single biggest destroyer of gym motivation: being between someones and your rest time.
The Discipline Before the Discipline
All of this boils down to one idea, one concept that ties together every other: the workout is the least important thing in getting into shape. The big, ugly hard work comes outside of this window before and after it within the meal, the water, the mental purge, the warm joints, the packet of protein, the plan. They are not add-ons to training; they are the training.
Culture craves images of the grind the weight-heavy bar, the sweat, the grunt of exertion. But the grind is nothing if not boring. The athletes who get better consistently from year to year, are not the ones who crash and burn most dramatically in any given single moment. They’re the ones who practice the mundane with unwavering fidelity.
Preparation isn’t the antonym of intensity. It’s what allows you to sustain it. Prepare yourself properly and the gym ceases to be a test of stamina vs. your lack of discipline and can finally be what it ought to be. An environment where we succeed.
