I asked my members:
“What is the biggest lesson / effect / thing that you have taken from WG and applied in your real life?”
Here’s the list of answers so far (I’ve removed names):
No bullshit attitude.
Relax.
Awareness
Breathing
Mental fortitude
T-shirt
Thwarting death: calmly not being involved in a head on collision.
What’s a lesson?
That if your shoulder (or wrist) is in pain problem, probably, sits in your foot or somewhere else…but not in the shoulder..
Attitude can be the most important part of your training
Attitude is top of the list … it’s a long list
Patience, patience, patience. Resilience
That you can touch your toes even though you have not done for your whole life!! 😊
That just cause Ur injured doesn’t mean u can’t train
Jump over the rope 🤣
“Big exhales!” ; slagging means you’re finally part of a funny group 😉
Be fit to be useful…. I remember that all the time.
There’s a blog post in every answer in this list, but lets band the answers into loose categories and do a paragraph on each.
No Bullshit Attitude, Resilience, Slagging Means You’re Finally Part of a Funny Group, Mental Fortitude, Attitude.
What a category! This screams to me that people get far more from their WG-Fit experience than just physical fitness.
I’ve mentioned before that the gym is the only place that many people can really let their guard down. In fact, letting your guard down is a prerequisite to getting stronger. After all, we all struggle, we all fail, we all push each other and allow ourselves be pushed by each other. To trust someone to spot you is an exercise in vulnerability. To get down beside a person you barely know and do their last set of push ups with them to help them finish, is a lesson in vulnerability.
This is what leads to the confidence to really become better. As you learn to trust those that train beside you, so do they trust you. And it’s an unquestionable trust inside the gym walls, no one will stand idly by and let you get hurt, nor would they ignore a question from you. Unless, and this the only rider, unless you have done that to them.
This allows you to push beyond, to find new limits, develop new skills, become better. Which builds self belief. Which builds self esteem Which builds self worth Which becomes a shield against all the crab bucket morons you have to rub shoulders with in the real world….
Relax, Breathing, Big Exhales, Patience, Awareness
Breathing is a topic I post on a lot. And for good reason. Of all the bodies processes, breathing is top of the tree. It’s a way to perform better, to create stability and strength, to moderate fatigue and boost endurance, to calm down or hype up, to become introspective and develop interoception.
It’s a big deal.
More and more articles are being written explaining research findings on the role of the Vagus nerve and it’s effect on our central nervous systems activity How the Vagus nerve can be stimulated by our out breath, which helps lower the stress response. We use this in several ways.
Vagus Nerve, lit. Wandering Nerve
The “Big Exhale” during high speed work to keep fatigue at bay for as long as possible.
The “Slow Exhale” to relax, bring awareness (of self and the surroundings) and mental clarity (which leads to patience)
The breath holds and power breaths for strength and tension, or the “sneeze” for power.
Not a day goes by in WG-Fit where I don’t talk about breathing. For the cliff notes, read this: http://wg-fit.com/wp/blog/breathing-an-instruction-manual/
You Can Train Even While Injured, You Can Touch Your Toes, A Shoulder Injury May Be A Foot Problem
Injury Management is a term I prefer over “rehab” or “healing” or “fixing” Partly because some injuries can’t be fixed, some folk are born “crooked”, some folk become exceptional at their sport because of “functional compensations”
Not Jamie, but doing what Jamie does best!
For example, when I helped a Mountain Biker out, we did such a comprehensive job on him, he could no longer ride his bike properly and had a bad crash! He’d become the top rider in the country with his injured ankle, his riding style utilised his ankle’s “dysfunction” and now I’d gone and fucked that all up for him!!! So we undid the work, and he was back in winning form, in fact better than ever!
The point of this is we manage the body, we optimise it. It’s not broken, it’s “in for repair” It’s not dysfunctional, it’s just maybe not optimised.
So lets take a long look at it, lets get to know it.
Lets see if your inability to touch your toes is simply an unwillingess to do so by the nervous system, so if we show the nervous system it’s safe, what will happen?
Lets see if that shoulder is hurting because of how your holding it, are you holding it up because your protecting an old hamstring injury and the raised shoulder helps you balance? Or is it because your boss has piled on an unrealistic deadline? We don’t know until we ask…
And as for training while injured. You are NOT your injury. You are you. Yes, you’ve broken your arm or you’ve hurt your back or you’ve torn a ligament. But what about all the bots of you that haven’t been hurt?
You’re legs in a cast? Ok, lets do floor presses and pull ups. You Shoulder is in a sling? Ok, lets lunge up and and down the room.
You are still you, and you know the value of training, you know that the anabolic hormones released in response to training travel in the blood to where they are most needed. So your injury site will take it’s fair share! That’s right, training your arms can help you injured leg, training your leg can help your injured arms. Training anything can help your injured pride!
Thwarting Death!
Yes, this happened. More than once, in the company of a few different people. But the guy that offered this answer is no stranger to adventure and took it in his stride as I did and tells it as a simple story of adventure.
After all, any time you don’t die, is a nice reminder that you are still alive!
Now, if I were to ask you the same question, “What is the biggest lesson / effect / thing that you have taken from WG and applied in your real life?”
How would you answer?
Chat soon
Dave Hedges
And don’t forget to check out the podcast thing going on at www.patreon.com/davehedges
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