T OUGHNESS #3: P HYSICAL T OUGHNESS

As Humanity Has Developed Through History...

 “Physical strength is the most important thing in life. This is true whether we want it to be or not. As humanity has developed throughout history, physical strength has become less critical to our daily existence, but no less important to our lives. Our strength, more than any other thing we possess, still determines the quality and the quantity of our time here in these bodies. Whereas previously our physical strength determined how much food we ate and how warm and dry we stayed, it now merely determines how well we function in these new surroundings we have crafted for ourselves as our culture has accumulated. But we are still animals - our physical existence is, in the final analysis, the only one that actually matters. A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up.
 
[...]
 
“Like it or not, we remain the possessors of potentially strong muscle, bone, sinew, and nerve, and these hard-won commodities demand our attention. They were too long in the making to just be ignored, and we do so at our peril. They are the very components of our existence, the quality of which now depends on our conscious, directed effort at giving them the stimulus they need to stay in the condition that is normal to them. Exercise is that stimulus.
 
“Over and above any considerations of performance for sports, exercise is the stimulus that returns our bodies to the conditions for which they were designed. Humans are not physically normal in the absence of hard physical effort. Exercise is not a thing we do to fix a problem - it is a thing we must do anyway, a thing without which there will always be problems. Exercise is the thing we must do to replicate the conditions under which our physiology was — and still is - adapted, the conditions under which we are physically normal. In other words, exercise is substitute cave-man activity, the thing we need to make our bodies, and in fact our minds, normal in the 21st century. And merely normal, for most worthwhile humans, is not good enough.”
 
– Mark Rippetoe,  Starting Strength
 
***
 
DOES TOUGHNESS MATTER?
 
We’re in the midst of examining  Toughness .

What is toughness, anyways?
 
Toughness is elusive to define, but like Judge Stewart said, “I know it when I see it.”
 
The Spartans – tough.
 
The Samurai – tough.
 
The French under Napoleon’s command? Tough as hell.
 
The French during World War I? Even tougher.
 
The Brits and Russians that were the last bulwarks against Nazi conquest? Tough.
 
The French during WWII? … not so much, most of them!
 
Those farm boys who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day? Tough. The Marines who took Iwo Jima? Maximally tough. The Japanese on the other side? Also maximally tough. The Russians who held Stalingrad against all odds? Tougher than maximally tough; ridiculously suicidally insanely tough.
 
Well, it’s easy to dwell on winners – and those who lose in a noble blaze of glory. But what’s the other side?
 
Duke Stolypin? Very tough; he was the last hope of the Russian Empire. The Romanovs after Stolypin’s assassination? Not very tough – with ultimately disastrous consequences.
 
This “toughness” stuff is all well and good when we’re sitting on our fancy computers and musing over history… you could, maybe, sort of argue it doesn’t matter any more… and that’s true, and has been true, and is always true – during times of no adversity.
 
But when toughness matters, it matters a lot.
 
Hey, quick, pop quiz – what’s the most stable and prosperous Muslim country in the Middle East since World War I?
 
Turkey, right?
 
Why is Turkey great?
 
My answer: because the Turks got a mentally and physically tough leader – the great Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – who led the Turkish people to stand up to their myriad of enemies and occupiers in the aftermath of World War I and rejected the disastrous Treaty of Sevres.
 
(Never heard of Sevres? It tried to treat the Ottoman Empire even worse than what the Treaty of Versailles did to Imperial Germany. Why haven’t you heard of it? Because Kemal led the Turkish War of Independence against insurmountable odds, and surmounted them, forcing the Allies to tear up the treaty and led Turkey be independent instead of ruled by a puppet government. Toughness!)
 
Look, I think this Toughness  stuff matters. It’s not even all that  hard to see.
 
Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement government? Not tough! Churchill’s "We shall never surrender" government? Tough!
 
What’s the greatest civilization of all time? For my money, it’s the Chinese. What’s the most important thing that happened after World War II in terms of world affairs? For my money, it’s the Mao’s forces overrunning Chiang’s.
 
Why did the Communists beat the Nationalists?
 
There’s ten million reasons – perhaps paramount among them is that the Communists were simply tougher  than the Nationalists. Mentally and physically tougher, spiritually tougher, and more dedicated to their mission. Corruption doesn’t always originate from weakness, but weakness always produces corruption.
 
The vicious cycle of the Chinese Nationalist forces was one of weakness and corruption – Nationalist troops would get armed with better weapons, and defect to the Communists with those weapons. (Better technology seems to not be an acceptable answer to endemic weakness.)
 
The cycle is really the devastating part – the general weakness of Nationalist leaders led to high corruption, pettiness, and a lack of focus on the mission. And weakness is like a disease once it starts spreading – lack of focus on the mission means worse training, less victories, less morale… less toughness… more weakness… more corruption and senior people only looking for themselves… the sincere Nationalist Chinese defect or disengage… more weakness… more losing… more corruption…
 
Does this stuff matter any more? We’ve got fancy computers and Walmart and Starbucks. This stuff doesn’t matter any more, right? What could go wrong? After all, the Roman Empire never fell once it reached paramountancy, and the Sun still never sets on the Victorian British Empire, right?
 
Right?
 
Oh, wait. Hmm.
 
***
 
TOUGHNESS #3: PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS
 
This the third chapter in our series on Toughness .
 
In the first chapter, we talked about Mission Orientation  – because toughness needs direction to become flourishing. The under-fed junkyard pitbull might be a tough animal, but most of us would prefer to be tough like Churchill or Ataturk rather than tough like a crazed dog. Mission Orientation produces that direction, lets us channel our toughness into worthy endeavors.
 
Last chapter, we talked about Mental Toughness  – our working definition of mental toughness, once again, is a simple one: mental toughness is doing what one ought to do, regardless if you feel like doing it or not.
 
Now, we turn to Physical Toughness  – but c’mon, really, does it matter? Really? The 1900’s are long over by this point. I’m sitting here in the Starbucks in a shopping mall in the suburbs of Tokyo writing this on my fancy Macintosh computer, while using the free WiFi internet to listen to music for free on Youtube.
 
There’s no samurai around. There’s no imperial soldiers around. On a quick look, it seems there’s no communist insurgents around. There’s people milling around between shopping at Uniqlo and Muji, sipping milky sugar drinks and eating pastries. No one’s particularly happy nor particularly sad. Who needs to be physically  tough? Why bother?
 
And then we come back to Coach Ripptoe’s quote –
 
“A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up.”
 
Hmm.
 
***
 
WHY PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS?
 
Let’s refer to three quotes from Coach Rippetoe on this matter.
 
The first two reasons for Physical Toughness  are obvious enough –
 
1. “A weak man is not as happy as that same would be if he were strong.”
 
That’s a straightforward enough claim. All of modern science, basically, agrees. Fitness, health, etc etc, happiness. We know this already.
 
2. “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.”
 
Also straightforward – build a base of good physical strength and you’re less likely to have a whole host of diseases and acute injuries. You can also, like, lift heavy stuff up if you’re stronger. That’s useful, obviously. Not as useful as it would have been on a farm during the 1800’s, but still useful to greater or lesser extent, no?
 
But perhaps you’re un-persuaded still. The third reason, well, that’s the interesting one to me –
 
3. “This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up. ”
 
That’s interesting. Happiness, longevity, and usefulness – these are plain enough. There’s hundreds of millions of weak flabby out-of-shape people in the Western world who these obvious reasons have obviously failed to persuade.
 
But this third reason, it’s a little more mysterious. “It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up.”
 
What, pray tell, does happen as someone gets physically stronger and tougher?
 
***
 
PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS AS IT RELATES TO MENTAL TOUGHNESS
 
Our definition of Mental Toughness, again –
 
Mental toughness is doing what one ought to do, regardless if you feel like doing it or not.
 
Clearly, that must be one of the most good things for anyone in humanity. It works regardless of what your particular ethics are, it works regardless of what you feel is important.
 
If you think communication and empathy is the most important thing in the world, mental toughness lets you communicate and be empathetic even in the most challenging and fraught situations.
 
If you think standing up to injustice is the most important thing in the world, mental toughness is what allows you to do that even when you know you’d suffer personally if you do so.
 
In less lofty matters, more mental toughness helps you abstain from giving in to dumb short-term cravings, mental toughness stops you from buying high and selling low in a panic on the stock market, mental toughness is where you finish that last 10% of work and get it out the door even if you’re a little tired, thus relieving your stress and discharging your duties, in whatever sphere of life those duties happen to be.
 
Clearly, we want to be mentally tough. Everyone should obviously want that; it’s a gateway we must pass through to get just about everything else we want.
 
What’s physical toughness, then?
 
I think we ought to take it off a lofty and abstract perch, make it really simple.
 
Physical Toughness is developing the body in order to navigate the external world, so that we can do what we ought to do and want to do, even when hardship is involved.
 
***
 
THE WHY OF PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS
 
Let’s descend into Hell for a minute.
 
I read as many books as I can find written by elite soldiers – Navy SEAL Team members, Delta Force, Marine Recon, etc.
 
Anyone who gets into SEAL Team needs to go through “Basic Underwater Demolition School,” which is known for including a particularly brutal trial to get through – “Hell Week.”
 
Here’s Richard Machowicz talking about the start of his Hell Week experience from “ Unleash the Warrior Within ” –
 
“Inside the tent, there was a persistent hiss of hushed whispers from guys trying to talk to each other; we’d all heard the legends about what happens in Hell Week. Some guys try to act cool, playing cards in the sand. Those are the guys who think they’re going to waltz in and breeze right through this—it often turns out that they’re the first ones to quit. On the other side are the guys who are really nervous—I was one of them. But I tried to keep my body relaxed and tell myself, Whatever it is, you’ve just got to do it. 
 
“Hours stretched out and most of us tried to get a couple minutes of sleep if we could. None of us had packed much in our backpacks—a pair of skivvies, maybe some socks, just some basic things to be able to hopefully change into during the week—but we used them as pillows. Everything quieted down. People started to relax. The sun set as the day faded into early evening. It was like the lull right before the storm. 
 
“Then,  ra-ta-ta-ta! Boom! Boom! All of a sudden machine guns were sounding off over our heads, big flash explosions went off. A violet haze hung in the air from smoke grenades. You couldn’t even see your backpack, you couldn’t see anybody, everybody was bumping into each other. “Get the hell out!” came this thunderous bellow. They ran us out of the tent, screaming: “Go here, go over there, you guys can’t get it right, drop on the ground, get up.” We were trying to do what they were telling us to do, but there was too much at once, it was impossible. They were spraying us with hoses, shooting off guns. “Hit the ocean,” they ordered and we had to jump in the surf. It was a cold night, and we were freezing. After we were completely soaked, they hauled us back out and screamed at us to do push-ups, pull-ups, and sit-ups. Then, we ran back into the tent, and before our eyes they pulled out all the fresh clothes that we had packed for later in the week and had us drag them through the sand, then soak them in the dirt and salt water. After that, we were ordered to bring them all in and fold and organize them again. Then everything got kicked over and knocked all apart.”  
 
Candidates to join SEAL Team are already some of the fittest and strongest people in the world – if you look up the standards to even qualify to test to try to join, they’re otherworldly strong, fast, durable people who even get invited to try.
 
And between 75% and 90% of some of the strongest people on the planet can’t handle this Week and quit. There’s constant sleep deprivation, the most intense physical training, and a variety of misery like needing to immerse in very cold ocean water for long periods of time.
 
Here’s Machowicz describing “surf torture” –
 
“ Surf torture formed the rhythm of our lives.  It marked the next descent into another ring of hell, the only way we knew one drill had ended and another would begin. Everything always came back to sitting in the water, arms linked together like a barrel of monkeys to form a chain of freezing bodies. As the surf came in, it pounded you and made it hard to breathe because of all the salt water, sand, and shells that went up your nose and down your throat. When a strong wave came in, the line got snaky and uneven, but you couldn’t let go. If you broke, the punishment wasn’t worth it. If somebody broke you tried to grab their arm so quickly that, hopefully, the instructors wouldn’t catch it. But, again, they knew the game, you didn’t. They ordered you to stand up, and just when you thought you’re about to go out and get warm again, they turned you around and put you back in.
 
“One session went on for forty-five minutes, maybe an hour.
 
“Suddenly the instructors said, “Stand up,” and we marched back out of the water. “We’re going to have a race right now. First five people back don’t have to go back in the water. Anybody else, back in the ocean,” the instructors told us. I was cold and I was not going to get back in that damn water. There was just no way. So when they said “Go!” man, I took off like greased lightning toward the rock jetty. Once we reached that we had to turn around and run back to create a two-mile loop. I was just flying, ahead of the pack, but all at once I began to feel a burning, cutting feeling in my feet. It took me a second to realize what was happening—all the broken shells drudged up in the surf had collected in my boots and become tiny razor blades, slicing my heels and toes to ribbons. I just knew that could be a problem later—my feet would swell and be painful. Still, anything was better than feeling my blood turn to ice in that surf.
 
“So I kept running, but I was losing speed. Two guys passed me, then a third, and I said to myself, Oh crap, I’m in real danger of not making it. Somewhere inside me something screamed “No!” and let loose a power that felt like a volcano erupting inside. My arms pumped. My feet moved faster. Before I knew it I was at the line—the fourth guy in, with another right behind me. As soon as the rest got there they had to line back up and sit in the ocean while the five of us were rewarded with a chance to at least huddle and get some warmth going through our bodies for a while.
 
“ The line between winning and losing was clear.  I may have done some damage to my feet, but it was a kind of a morale victory that meant so much to me. It gave me a small victory to hold on to.  It provided the confidence to know that, if I could win once, I could win again. ”
 
If you read memoirs written by veteran SEAL team members, similar things keep cropping up – first, just about everyone who gets through realizes the inherent unfairness of what they’re going through, and doesn’t let that get to them. Second, they stay focused on getting through the current mission at hand – they have no choice but to do that. Focusing on the pain or the bleeding or the freezing cold is not the answer.
 
But finally, the biggest thing that stands out to me is that, after persevering and enduring far past one’s seeming limits, the elite soldier then has deep wells of confidence. Machowicz: “ It provided the confidence to know that, if I could win once, I could win again. ”
 
Perhaps it’s like that quote in Fight Club –
 
“After a night in fight club, everything in the real world gets the volume turned down. Nothing can piss you off. Your word is law, and if other people break that law or question you, even that doesn’t piss you off.”
 
***
 
PHYSICAL AND MENTAL TOUGHNESS
 
Your word is law.  What an expression – imagine that.
 
There’s no strict separation between the body and mind – physical toughness and mental toughness feed back into each other. Your mind lives in your body; you live your life in your body. Knowing that you’ve honed your body’s ability to be strong and endure through challenges gives you a stronger mind. Expanding your limits and hardening yourself makes the rest of life easier – it means less distress, permanently – “the volume gets turned down” – and it means more capacity to stay focused and accomplish your missions in life.
 
Why become physically tougher?
 
Because it makes everything better.
 
***
 
THE HOW OF PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS
 
I’m privileged to know a few people who have performed at truly elite levels in their sport – Josef Wasinski as a powerlifter, Greg Nance in climbing and endurance athletics, Bryan Hernandez and Jason Shen in gymnastics.
 
I’ve gotten to lift with Josef and run with Nance – it’s a transcendental experience watching how these men use their bodies and minds in harmony.
 
Performing at that level is beyond the scope of what we’re going to talk about here – our focus is on the fundamentals.
 
With our remaining time on Physical Toughness , I’d like to lay our four simple rules if you’re getting started to build more of this in your life. I learned all of these the hard way and suffered for it along the way.
 
They are –
 
1. Defense First
2. Accumulation
3. Adherence and Consistency
4. Generalization
 
***
 
RULE #1 FOR PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS:  DEFENSE FIRST
 
The first and most important rule for training physical toughness is  DEFENSE FIRST.
 
This cannot be emphasized highly enough.
 
Whenever you begin a new training regime, it’s absolutely critical to learn correct movement patterns, study the common injuries and pitfalls people face, and take a smart progression that ensures you don’t get injured.
 
We get to read memoirs of elite athletes and elite soldiers who succeed. We typically do not read memoirs from potentially elite athletes or elite soldiers who neglected to take do adequate defense, got injured, and were never able to reach their potential.
 
Some of our readers are younger and have never been injured. To them, talking about stretching, warming up, cooling down, using things like a foam roller to beat the tightness and lactic acid out of your muscles – it can seem like a big waste of time.
 
Going very slow, on low weight, and really learning great form for a squat or bench press – who wants to do that? Put more plates on, bro!
 
Ever torn the cartilage in your knee because you have too many plates and bad form when squatting? I have. It’s… umm… not fun. Nor productive.
 
Were the dozen or two workouts I got to “look cool” doing with two extra big plates on the bar in the squat worth months of rehab and being unable to walk for a while?
 
Nope!
 
I broke one of my teeth with a going-too-fast-and-reckless sparring partner doing Krav Maga. I knew he was out of control, but didn’t want to say anything for fear of looking not macho.
 
A lot of aggravation and some expensive dental work later, was it worth it that I got to “look macho” and not to tell the knucklehead to slow down?
 
Nope!
 
Some injuries are unavoidable, and the occasional injury is part of the price of being an active and thriving physical animal. I never regret a fluke injury, and I’ve had my share of those too.
 
But in the long term, you’re overwhelmingly best served by doing things correctly.
 
Cultivate an intense and almost fanatically paranoid emphasis on getting down form, preparation, and recovery.
 
You’re in the highest level of danger when you’re around “macho” people, especially young people, who care more about the optics and appearances of any particular workout than with staying in the game.
 
Look – life is really long. There’s nothing  in terms of short-term gains that can be made up for by taking even a 1% higher chance of a significant injury. Whenever you tweak something badly or “things feel wrong” – at all – go conservative. Aggressively play defense, heal up, and recover. This must  be the foundation of any physical training at least until strong intermediate levels, at which point you can reassess what risks you want to take with a coach.
 
***
 
RULE #2 FOR PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS: ACCUMULATION
 
Coach Dan John holds a variety of achievements in discus throwing, olympic weightlifting, highland games, and the weight pentathlon — this is a true expert on all-around high levels of fitness.
 
In his excellent book “ Never Let Go ,” he describes an “AIT Formula” — Accumulate, Intensify, Transform.
 
John –
 
“If I could highlight the single greatest error most lifting enthusiasts make, it would be this: They have no variety. I’m not talking about using the decline rather than the incline for your pec development. I’m talking about doing nothing save going to the gym, walking on the treadmill, hopping off and doing a set of benches, playing with a machine or two, and hitting the steam room.
 
"This is far from an overstatement. The first part of the AIT formula is and doing just a few exercises a year is the antithesis of what I’m hoping you’ll adopt.
 
“Accumulation is actively seeking and learning new sports, lifts, moves, ideas, and games. One literally accumulates a number of new training moves and attempts a low level of mastery in each.”
 
Too many people obsess over what the “perfect” thing to do is and don’t get started. If you don’t already have a sport or a profession that calls for certain types of physical training, then exploring and accumulating a low level of mastery in many different ones is key for being a thriving human.
 
If you’re not sure what to do, pick anything. Do it until you’ve gotten the basics down and know broadly if it’s suitable for you or not.
 
I’m going to guess our average reader age is about 35 years old. If so, that would mean you’ve likely got more than five decades left on this planet . People are, in general, too short-term oriented. If you spent the entire next decade  learning different types of lifting, running, swimming, endurance sports, team sports, martial arts, yoga, and whatever else, it’d be time well-spent.
 
Accumulate different patterns of movement. When you do, constantly study the form and look to perfect it, and look to prevent and aggressively recover from potential injuries.
 
***
 
RULE #3 FOR PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS: CONSISTENCY
 
I’ve sometimes got a crazy travel schedule, and I’ve heard from a number of our readers who do too.
 
For years, my travel schedule would throw off whatever training plan I’d be on. If I was on the road for something like the GiveGetWin Tour (typically over a dozen cities in around a month), my training would be liable to breaking.

It wouldn’t always – but it’d break often enough, and I’d have to go through the hassle of restarting.
 
Around a year ago, in early 2015, I tried something different: I set my minimum goal for weightlifting to be “once per calendar week” – a very flexible amount of time. If I knew I had a particularly brutal stretch, I might lift weights at the start of one week (say, Monday) and not again until two Fridays later – but this was enough to sustain a consistent level of strength that didn’t go backwards.
 
More importantly, it was very possible to adhere to. I’ve missed zero weeks in that time – a year of lifting weights at least once per calendar week.
 
If I’ve got a great setup and a gym, I might go 3x/week or every other day. But if I don’t, I go at least once. It’s compatible with just about any kind of diet or other form of training, too.
 
I’m not the strongest dude around, but I’m strong enough and get the life-enhancing benefits of weightlifting.
 
Our community tends to be very achiever-y, busy people. Those types of people tend to get hardcore into things, and perhaps, overdo them. Then fall off.
 
No good!
 
“Perfect or bust” is a dumb game to play.
 
As a very useful tip, I check in on my physical training during every weekly and monthly review. It takes about 30 seconds. I ask if I need to tweak my diet or training this week, next week, or any time coming up.
 
Again, this feeds consistency.
 
A base of physical fitness and physical toughness is much built by being regularly active, not by being occasionally hyper-active while being burned-out, injured, or having fallen off the rest of the time.

***
 
RULE #4 FOR PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS: GENERALIZATION
 
And this is where the gains come from – periodically reflect on and apply your physical training to the real world being better.
 
I like to commute by doing hikes or long walks; sometimes I’ll land at the airport and hike into whatever city. It often saves $20 to $50 in cab or train fare as a bonus, and it’s a great way to get really exhausted and thus sleep deeply and beat jet lag.
 
I had a six hour walk across Tokyo recently from downtown to the suburbs north of the city where I’m staying. It was one of my friend’s last night in town, so I’d hung with him until late, then worked at a fast food place on some work I had to do, and it was very late.
 
Everything was closed and dark as I was walking back… and then it started to snow.
 
Not a lot.
 
Just a bit.
 
I rapidly started to feel a little miserable, though – it was warm earlier, and I had on relatively light clothing and a hat.
 
The mind will play tricks on you – “oh, maybe I should get a cab” – or just starting to feel a little miserable and ruminating on it.
 
But then I started to think: hold on a second, there’s people like Navy SEAL candidates that go an entire week on 2 hours of sleep while constantly doing intense physical fitness, carrying heavy logs and boats over their head, and getting through “surf torture” as part of it. They can get through it. I’m just walking  through a very nice and safe city and it’s a little cold.
 
And then, it wasn’t such a big deal. Made the rest of the walk. No problem.
 
You get all those fitness endorphins when you do stuff like that, but also, you come to respect yourself and get more confident.
 
You start to think, “Well, this isn’t particularly a big deal.”
 
Does it translate over to intense situations? Crisis mode at work, an intense negotiation, a critical period that you need to perform even though fatigued?
 
Absolutely.
 
You can sharpen this instinct by actually reflecting and journaling on your physical training and the lessons you feel. I ask myself little questions at the end of every day when I review it, and likewise at the end of the week.
 
Don’t neglect those little opportunities to document and solidify your win, reinforcing your own self-conception as a tougher person.
 
Add to that by actively looking for stories by elite coaches like Dan John and Mark Ripptoe, and elite soldiers like Richard Machowicz and  Veteran SEAL Commander Rorke Denver .
 
You read about what those guys survive and thrive through, and you start to realize that your limits are far more than you thought.
 
The more you stop, reflect, and reassess yourself as you build greater physical capacity, the more situations you’ll realize you can apply it.
 
It sounds a little abstract – it is abstract – but it’s something you’ll see people performing at very high levels doing regularly. Train, get tougher, achieve things, reflect on what you achieved, and use that to get tougher still.
 
***
 
RECAP
 
Biggest thing we talked about is why  become physically tough. For some of us, it’s already a known and accepted fact. If you haven’t taken physical toughness seriously enough, I hope this is both persuasive and something of a wakeup call.
 
From there, four steps –
 
1. Defense First : Life is a long game and it’s more important to not get injured and out of the game than it is to be “10% more hardcore” in a stupid way.
 
2. Accumulation : Regularly start seeking out new movements, sports, and patterns of action. It’ll serve you life-long.
 
3. Consistency : Review your physical state and make adjustments on a weekly and monthly basis, as needed. Set your minimum targets sustainably and be consistent with them.
 
4. Generalization : In situations where you feel physically miserable, reflect on times you’ve been tough and persevered and use it as fuel. Reflect after achievements to consolidate lessons. Actively seek out and read narratives and memoirs from people who perform at a high physical level, and then reflect on those for lessons too.
 
***
 
PS: I couldn’t work this quote into this chapter but had to share it anyways –
 
“They had to rename ‘surf torture’ to… ‘surf immersion’. Renaming it didn’t make it any easier.” – Rorke Denver