Over his years helping gay clients work through emotional traumas, Craig Freund has witnessed trends relating to shame, self-esteem, and body image. Queer people are more likely to experience body image issues due to being historically ostracized from society.

Healing from internalized shame takes practice, but ultimately leads to a positive feedback loop for your mental and physical health. Craig recommends practicing positive self-talk, setting realistic goals, and celebrating your wins to fight the shame demon and crush your fitness goals.

Craig Freund MA, LPC is a true modern gentleman, psychotherapist, and writer in Denver, Colorado. Craig is passionate about working with men in therapy and in supporting the gay community to reach their true potential in living happy and successful lives. Find him at www.ElevatedCounseling.org.

What it Means to Be Proud of Your Body

With June being pride month, it’s appropriate to explore how people in the LGBTQ+ community get healthy and fit. For many of us fitness is valuable and necessary, but folks in the gay community are more likely to experience body image issues than their heterosexual counterparts, which can hold them back from pursuing the fittest version of themselves.

As a licensed psychotherapist who works with gay men, I often hear stories of body shaming, low self-esteem, and body image issues. These experiences are counterintuitive to developing a healthy lifestyle. Victims of body shaming (either internally or externally) are more likely to struggle with eating disorders, or a variety of mental health challenges like anxiety and depression.

So why are members of the gay community more likely to experience these issues?

Shame as a Barrier to Progress

In the mental health world, shame is considered a toxic emotion. Rooted in feelings of negative self-judgement, shame says, “I am bad, wrong, broken, a failure, not good enough.” This kind of thinking is common among LGBTQ+ people not just as a result of modern consumerist society (which affects everyone), but generations of minority stress.

Historically, we have been ostracized or discriminated against. Only in the last decade has approval for gay marriage been embraced by just half of the population.

As we are rejected by society, we internalize that shame. When a young gay child reads about someone like himself being bullied or beaten, he feels his natural self is unfit to be part of society. But carrying shame is not what it means to be proud or to achieve a pride body! In the long-term, shame does nothing for productive behavior changes that lead to being a strong, fit, and healthy individual.

Health and fitness work best when coupled with body positivity.

Recognizing the detrimental impact that shame can have in the LGBTQ+ community, we must look for a better way to motivate and support one another through fitness. As individuals, it helps to embrace the idea that “I am good enough as I am, and that is why I deserve to be healthy and fit. I deserve to feel good.”

While no one is perfect (and perfection is not the goal), being proud and having a pride body is about recognizing that you are good enough just as you are. Embracing that fact means you have enough self-esteem to train for a triathlon, or improve your nutrition, or work on having a strong back squat – because you deserve to feel good physically and emotionally.

Our goal is to create the opportunity for a healthy long-term relationship with your body. And research has demonstrated a strong correlation between mental health and physical health – as we improve one, the other is sure to follow. Celebrating your differences and recognizing the ways in which you are enough supports both your mental and physical health.

Community Shame

As we work to overcome internal shame, we can start by identifying the ways we might be shaming one another. One of the more central themes of LGBTQ+ pride is community, yet this community can actually be harsh toward its own members. In psychotherapy, we practice becoming aware of unconscious biases and the projection of the shadow (negativity & darkness in the ego).

When we feel shame and insecurity about our own bodies, we project that shame onto others in an attempt to bring them down to our perceived level. In this way, shame perpetuates and spreads like a contagion, embedding negative feelings about our bodies into our psyches. As so many of us in the LGBTQ+ community have experienced a variety of traumas, having compassion and empathy for our shared experiences goes a long way.

In fitness, community can be one of the strongest motivators along your journey. Finding a supportive, inclusive, and empathetic training community can be difficult, especially for those not living in large metropolitan areas. TrainHeroic allows communities like this to grow organically in a digital context. For example, coach Lizzy Bristow (AKA Daddy) tailors her workouts for LGBTQ+ clientele and has created a thriving online community. Her programs like “From Saddie to Baddie” and “Pride Ready” aim to boost self-esteem along with physical fitness, making all genders feel like shooting stars.

Overcoming Shame

One of the most challenging, pervasive issues in the LGBTQ+ community, overcoming shame paves the way for health and fitness regardless of your body type. Shame limits our ability to maintain positive change and make our health goals happen, since you are more likely to take negative, indulgent actions toward your body if you feel like it’s not worth nourishing.

But shame can’t survive empathy. Having empathy for ourselves and others helps us embrace our imperfect, beautiful bodies inside and out. And having a strategy for responding to shame that incorporates empathy is a key piece of the pride puzzle. The lovely Brene Brown established a strategy for responding to shame called Shame Resilience Theory. Research shows that we need to recognize shame first in order to minimize its detrimental effects.

1. First, we call it out for what it is. Identify what the shame is about and any cultural or societal factors that may be contributing to those feelings.
2. Second, connect with people you trust who might share your sources of shame. This allows us to receive empathy, and to deconstruct and dispel the reasonings behind shameful feelings.
3. Repeat steps 1 & 2 to keep challenging those negative ideas around your self-esteem. Notice your own positive qualities and point out the ones you see in your peers. Handling shame can be an ongoing process that takes regular practice.

Along with having an anti-shame strategy, a few simple steps can support your quest for health and a positive self-image. Start by practicing positive self-talk – encouraging and supportive internal dialogue. Think of it like how you might hype up a friend who is trying to lose weight or get their first pullup. Be your own cheerleader!

It’s also incredibly helpful to have realistic goals. We like to use the SMART acronym: Smart, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-Based. Expecting to be Mr. Universe in a few weeks will only demotivate and discourage your efforts. But SMART goals hold us accountable and give us something to celebrate as we inch forward one decision at a time.

And don’t forget to recognize your progress. Celebrating your wins – even the small ones – keeps you trending upward. Instead of always focusing on where you want to be in terms of fitness, notice incremental progress like strength gains, weight loss, more energy, or increased self-esteem. The positive feelings associated with progress are a natural reward and dopamine release that sustain our efforts.

Resources & Pride

Making an effort to achieve your personal proud body is a great way to celebrate pride! And having a supportive community can absolutely get you there. Share your desire to improve your body image with your coach. Find a welcoming, inclusive fitness community that encourages positive, goal-oriented mindsets.

You can tap into LGBTQ+ fitness groups on MeetUp or through your local community center. If you or someone you know is struggling with shame or body image issues, reach out to a licensed psychotherapist for support. Psychology Today is a good place to start especially if you don’t have insurance and need more affordable services. You can also check out Open Path Collective or look for local nonprofits that offer affordable counseling services. Support is out there!

Stay strong and be proud!

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Molly Sughroue is a six-time Big 12 champion and All-American track athlete from Oklahoma State currently training for the 2024 Olympic trials. She combines her experience working with world-class coaches, athletes, and sports psychologists to come up with five key pillars of accountability.

Simple Strategies to Keep Showing Up

Even the greatest athletes struggle to get out the door some days.

In the words of two-time Olympian and Boston Marathon champ, Des Linden:

“Some days it just flows and I feel like I’m born to do this, other days it feels like I’m trudging through hell. Every day I make the choice to show up and see what I’ve got, and to try and be better. My advice: keep showing up.”

Sounds simple, right? But showing up every day is much easier said than done. If it was easy, everyone would have six-pack abs and a million dollars burning a hole in their pocket.

This might come as a letdown, but here’s the truth: there aren’t any secrets. No magic pills, no little-known science, no special sauce. You just have to simply do it. And that long-term consistency can be really, really hard.

There’s no way out of showing up and doing the work. But there are simple strategies that make it a little easier.

1. Find Guidance/Support

Doing hard things alone day-in and day-out is incredibly difficult.

Sure, it’s easy to make it through the first month, but then your dog gets sick so you take a day off. Then it starts raining outside so you tell yourself you’ll do it later. But now you just got into a super binge-worthy show on Netflix and you’re just oh-so cozy…

Suddenly a week flies by and you haven’t done anything to further your progress.

That’s why you need support — a coach who calls you on your sh*t or at least comes up with solutions when the going gets rough. A community that holds you accountable for doing your workout and checks in when you don’t. Other people to pull you along.

The difficult becomes a bit more manageable when you feel supported. Performance levels improve and you’re much less likely to burn out. A little friendly competition never hurts either!

Tip: The TrainHeroic Marketplace offers hundreds of training plans as low as $10 a month from expert coaches all around the world, as well as training groups/teams that hold you accountable and offer support!

2. Track Your Progress

Feeling like you’re going nowhere and wondering what’s the point? There comes a “sticky” part in most training plans where people often drop out.

Physically tracking your progress prevents this from happening and improves your likelihood of achieving your goal.

Let’s face it. Seeing progress is motivating. And sometimes that’s all you need to keep going. Set milestones and small goals along the way to keep you from getting overwhelmed by the overarching goal.

If you use an old school log book or journal and that works for you, have at it. But it helps to have access to modern tools (such as Readiness and Stackup in TH’s Athlete Pro account) that show your data trends over time so you can see correlations and tweak your habits as needed.

3. Change Your Perspective

Finding a coach/community and tracking your progress? Sure, sounds easy. But this is where things get real.

I used to be the glass half-empty kind of girl. If you handed me a glass of water, I would literally pour that sh*t on the floor because that’s how I viewed life. It wasn’t until I changed the way I think and basically rewired my brain that I started seeing real progress in my sport.

When you change your perspective from “I have to workout today” to “I get to workout today,” putting the work in becomes a lot easier. And a lot more fun.

The key here is learning to love yourself. If you love yourself, you start making decisions that benefit you and stop self-sabotaging your goals.

For example, instead of thinking “OMG I can’t have any sugar!” think about how awful you feel afterward and let that feeling influence your decision. “I don’t like the way I feel when I eat too much sugar, so I’m not going to eat it.” Logically, it makes ZERO sense to do something that makes you feel bad.

You don’t give your dog chocolate because you love your dog and want what’s best for it. You should see yourself in the same light. Love yourself as much as you love your dog.

And remember: pressure is a privilege. The ability to set high goals and go after them is a reason to be thankful.

4. Celebrate Your Victories (No Matter How Small)

Some of the best advice I ever received was to write down three things I do every day that contribute to my goal. It can be as simple as getting 8 hours of sleep or meditating for 10 mins. Cooking a healthy meal is also a big W in my book!

Three victories every day add up fast. And it’s so rewarding to look back at all the things you’ve done for yourself, which helps you love yourself (#3) and holds you accountable (#2) to keep doing those three goal-oriented things every day.

You don’t have to write things down, though.

My coach used to put a hair tie in her bag after every workout. On race day, she’d have a nearly full bag of hair ties as a reminder of all the hard work she put in.

Find what works for you, and keep celebrating.

5. Make It Fun

Most importantly, enjoy it. Experiencing joy is the greatest motivator. And if you’re like me, doing hard things and seeing what you’re capable of is probably your version of fun.

This is also where everything comes together:

• Committing to a coach and/or community that gives you a sense of belonging and support
• Hitting milestones and physically tracking/seeing your progress
• Changing your perspective from “I have to” to “I get to”
• Celebrating your victories and being proud of yourself

There’s no way around doing the work. But if you have fun doing the work, you’re going to keep showing up. And that’s all there is to it.

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What goes on in your brain before you attempt a big lift? Are you fighting off anxiety demons? Thinking about dinner? Or are you zoned in on the task before you. Turns out, a little mental strategy goes a long way. Joseph Lucero, owner of Harvesting Strength, is a powerlifter and strongman coach with years of practical S&C experience in high school, collegiate, and professional settings. In this article, he talks about the importance of mental imagery and how to use your mind to set the scene for your big lifts. Try his methods before your next 1RM and don’t be surprised if you PR.

Let your mind be your ally

In our youth we’re told by coaches and authority figures, “if you can believe it, you can achieve it”. It’s been a running mantra for the longest time, especially in any motivational sports drama that celebrates the underdog. 

When I was told to dream big and think of success, those words inspired me to do my best and give it my all. But now, as an adult I feel that saying can’t truly improve my performance. The concept doesn’t really have the same effect…

But could it?

Even if it sounds like folklore, the fact of the matter is weird—what they say is true. If you can believe and imagine your own success, you can produce success. 

But it takes more than just thinking to be successful. You have to put your thoughts into action. For athletes, this usually relates to nailing a complex series of movements. When it comes to exercise performance, whether through traditional sport or strength sports, “thinking” of success means placing yourself within a mental framework.

If you want to run a 40-yard dash in four seconds or squat 600 pounds in your upcoming competition, you need to think of yourself in that situation as vividly as possible. This mental trickery gets you feeling like you’re actually in that moment in real time.

Using a mental imagery practice could mean the difference between a successful lift and a failed one.  

What is mental imagery?

The human movement systems consist of the skeletal system, muscular system, and nervous system. Your bones and the musculature of your anatomy are what generate movement, but only through the instruction directed by the nervous system. 

The science of human movement supports the use of mental imagery. When my mind tells me to type the words on this screen, my nervous system sends the signals for my hands to engage with the keyboard to form the words in this article. 

If we practice imagining ourselves doing something with the highest intent and as vividly as possible, our body receives the same signals from the central nervous system that engages our muscles to fire as though we’re performing the movement in real life. 

Even though you’re not exerting any force on the bar, feeling the sensation of successfully completing a lift fires off the same impulses you need to produce that movement. It’s a fraction of the system usage you actually need, but you still get a tremendous benefit from using your brain. 

Why using your brain is important

Studies show that working with mental imagery results in fractional engagement from your movement systems that can make difficult athletic feats feel “comfortable” and “familiar”. 

Mental imagery works on connecting your nervous system with the muscle fiber recruitment you need when actually performing the lift, making the shot, or taking the jump. This is one of the strongest tools for competitive athletes to help elevate their training to a new level.

It also translates to learning new movements—getting enough mental repetitions to understand and break down the individual components of an exercise. Think of it as a way to refine your technique without having a heavy load in your hands. It also relates to the concept of “watching film” on a Saturday morning with your youth football team. 

But for mental imagery to have an effect, you want to experience those ideas and thoughts in detail from within, not just watch them on a screen. Athletes who practice mental imagery tirelessly say that they can feel the barbell in their hands, smell the iron and chalk before attempting a massive personal record. 

Even though performing mental imagery for a 700-pound deadlift won’t necessarily give you a 700-pound deadlift, the more time you spend in the mental space of locking out that heavy lift, the more familiar you and your body become with the idea. 

How to practice mental imagery

Practicing mental imagery concepts doesn’t have to be a complicated process. Just spend 5-10 minutes a day in a secluded environment and rehearse what you’re about to lift in vivid detail. The more of your senses you recruit, the more realistic the experience and the better your focus.  

Start in a controlled and calm environment. Or try being physically in the gym where you plan to train or compete. I’ve experienced several instances in a competition setting where I would train at the venue to mentally prepare myself and live the competition before it even started. I’d go to the platform, imagine myself in front of the crowd, and see myself lifting with success. 

When I engage in mental imagery before I approach the barbell, I think about the weight already in my hands, the knurling scraping against my calluses with my explosive speed. I focus on one or two cues and feel the tension in the dominant muscles I’m using for the lift. 

My mind and body fire off like they’ve already made the lift, so why couldn’t they do it again?

Are you going for a heavy squat this week? Are you trying to hit 225 for 10 reps on bench next week? Before your performance, spend some time working on your mental imagery. 

Give yourself the best shot at making the lift by helping your mind better anticipate the situation and find more comfort in the challenge. Because ultimately, your body doesn’t easily go where your mind hasn’t already been.

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How’s your New Year’s Resolution going? Just checking in. Has your hard-charging commitment stuck around, or have you found yourself falling off the metaphorical wagon? Even if you have a solid plan in place to keep your new fitness habit alive, you might eventually find yourself struggling to show up.

Maybe you skipped a day or two of going to the gym… then it turns into several days, and pretty soon your good habit fades into the background of your life. Work and kids and responsibilities take over. Suddenly that creeping feeling is back. The one that made you want to change in the first place—that feeling of not being the badass you know you can be.

The Keys to Fighting Motivation Fatigue
Inspired By Master Habit-Builder, James Clear

The decline in motivation is a common struggle. It’s easy to assume a law of equal return for your efforts, i.e. if you try your best and put in a lot of effort, you’ll get a lot of results. 

But James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, says, “Habits don’t really work this way. Rather than having some linear relationship with achievement, habits tend to have more of a compound growth curve. The greatest returns are delayed.”

A lot of people slip into this gap between what we expect and what we experience. Their motivation trickles away as they see little immediate return on their daily sweating.

“It’s all effort, and no reward. This can be a frustrating experience, and you need something to help you stick with it while you’re waiting for the long-term rewards to accumulate.”

So how do you hang onto your workout habit when your motivation fades? When you know consistency is key to getting results and showing up is essential, but the excuses come easily?

While it sucks that we have to find ways to game the system a little (that system being your own brain), we’ve got two strategies from the habit guru himself to help keep you on track to actually seeing progress.

Key #1: Use Temptation Bundling

Temptation bundling means combining something you enjoy with the sticky habit you’re trying to solidify. Allowing yourself to do something you want to do alongside the thing you have to do. This is a way to game the system so that you associate the difficult thing with the enjoyable one, like an immediate reward.

If your goal is to lose weight, try not to use food (treats) as a reward. Maybe you’ve got a juicy podcast or book you’re addicted to—temptation bundling would look like only hitting play on Audible once you’re in the car on the way to the gym.

It might seem easy to skip the “have to do” part when thinking about this strategy. Like, I know I can listen to my murder podcast whenever I want, why would I bother to wait until I go to the gym? The point here is to make your workout habit more attractive by coupling it with something you enjoy. 

James Clear says, “you can also use temptation bundling to make the process itself more enjoyable.” Listen to that podcast while working on your 30-minute zone 2, engine-building cardio sessions. (Pretty sure hearing about murder mysteries makes those go by quicker anyway.)

Here’s his formula for this strategy:

“I will only [HABIT I WANT TO DO] when I [HABIT I NEED TO DO].”

Caption: I will only make eye contact with my gym crush when I’ve done a proper warmup.

Key #2: Try a Commitment Device

A commitment device helps keep your decisions for the future non-negotiable. It’s a choice you make now so that future you can’t skip out on doing the thing you need to do. This can take a lot of shapes for different habits, but for fitness it’s often a social or financial obligation. 

If you’re trying to get in the habit of doing more yoga, a commitment device might look like signing up and paying for a class online, then adding it to your calendar for later this week. If you don’t go, you just wasted that $20 and there ain’t no motivation quite like one that takes your money. 

Similarly, making a plan to meet your friends at the gym around the same time for a class or workout is like a social contract. If you flake out often, the crew might see you as unreliable and won’t invite you to other fun things. Cut to you being a lonely, sad panda. 

This one might be a weird cooking flex, but: set your chicken out on the counter so it gets to room temperature as a commitment device for meal-prepping. Meat cooks more evenly at room temperature, and you can’t put it back in the fridge once it’s been out, so you’re basically on lock to cook it. 

“A well-structured commitment device requires you to put in more work to get out of the good habit than to get started on it.” (You’d have to buy more chicken if you let that package go bad.) 

Little tactics like these make all the difference, especially if you’re at risk of giving up when you fail to repeat your healthy habit. Trick your brain in just the right ways so you keep showing up for your stronger, leaner, faster future self.

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From total fitness newbies to seasoned athletes: the right programming makes all the difference when chasing your strength, weight loss, or competition goals.

If your New Year Resolution is to get fitter, you’re only as strong as your level of commitment to that new you. What’s your plan of attack when you walk into the gym? If you’re just showing up with no idea what to do and making things up on the fly, you’re gonna fizzle out eventually. A lack of direction will ruin your progress.

Lone wolfs and solo gym-warriors, take heed

Maybe you program for yourself, or you bought a PDF from a fitness influencer, or your coach is stuck in the dark ages and just sends you an Excel spreadsheet. Hopefully you’re tracking your weights and logging your workouts or you’ll only have some vague idea of your progress. 

What happens when you get to the end of your cycle? Do you re-up? Find something new? Wing it for a while?

If you don’t have your workouts set weeks in advance, preferably by a coach, you’re missing out on some key components to goal-setting (and goal-smashing).

All the big dogs and bad babes have coaches or at least a plan of action for chasing their physique and strength goals. Recycling the same movements week after week forever can stall your progress. But a solid game plan provides structure and holds you accountable to your daily fitness.

To reach your strongest and leanest self, it pays to know what you’re doing or to outsource your training format to someone who does. Here are some solid reasons athletes benefit from following a program. 

Why You Need a Training Plan to Get Those Strength Gains

Get personalized attention from a coach.

The value of individual, one-on-one coaching can’t be overstated. You only stand to benefit when a knowledgeable professional gives you their full attention. Having a coach program for you means they can recognize your weaknesses and give you progressions to help you conquer them. 

When you sign up for a training plan subscription in the TrainHeroic Marketplace, you can connect with a coach, send them videos to check your form, ask them questions, complain about cardio, and get individual feedback on your lifts. Even if you don’t live in the same state (or country!), you have access to them. 

Know the workout before you get to the gym.

Having a set training plan means you can focus on getting the work done, because the programming is already in front of you. You can trust that the sets, reps, and weights you’ve got to do today will move the needle on your fitness. Programming takes the guesswork out of training and allows you to attack your workouts with fewer distractions. 

Training plans are often designed to prep you for competitions or meets, and to educate you on why you need to work on something in a specific way. Stop wasting precious mental energy on figuring it all out yourself, or going the trial-and-error route just hoping something clicks. 

Track your progress & avoid plateaus.

If you’re winging it, you’re probably going to default to using the same exercises over and over again without learning anything new. And even if you’re actually doing the movements you hate, you’re more likely to go easy on yourself. Or maybe you want to push harder, but don’t really know how.

Logging your weights gives you measurable progress over time. And if you’re using a smart log like TH, you can see tons of historical data for your performance. Having a training plan gets you out of your comfort zone so you can attempt heavier weights, drill the skills you suck at, and evolve into a better athlete. 

Hold yourself accountable.

If you’re not making progress, the truth could be painfully simple: you might just not be working hard enough. It’s a tough pill to swallow for someone dedicated to being fit, but the good news is, it’s an easier fix than you think. Having someone coach you or program your workouts is usually all it takes to step on the gas.

If you want to become the kind of person who works harder and smarter to be athletic, the right plan will get you there. Holding yourself to a higher standard of fitness means doing things most people don’t do. Most people don’t realize just how important their training plan is. Get support from a coach so you can put in the work and become the fittest version of yourself. 

Maybe for you it’s not about getting your New Year resolution to stick, because you already train like a beast. Working out is part of your identity and your lifestyle. You’re committed and consistent and maybe even find it fun. But like anything else you do regularly in life, at some point you might hit a wall. 

Motivating Reminders From Top Athletes & Coaches

Training can get tedious, discouraging, repetitive, and boring. Any seasoned athlete will tell you that’s totally normal and to be expected when you’re showing up every day to become a fitter person. The seasons come and go in cycles, and different periods of your life might call for you to become a different kind of athlete. 

Temporary situations aside, what if the “blah” just doesn’t go away? And what kind of ruts are we talking about here? Be it long-term injury, chronic stress and fatigue, or unclear goals, top athletes have a handful of values and strategies to help them in times of athletic woe. 

Cultivating your own mental toughness takes intention, practice, awareness, and desire. These skills don’t just apply to your fitness, but are useful in all the important aspects of your life: your health, wealth, relationships, career, even your hobbies and passions.  

You don’t have to roll over and accept some arbitrary fate—that fitness has become a total chore and just isn’t fun anymore and maybe you don’t need to try so hard after all.

Keep being a savage and bringing the heat to your sessions with a few reminders from the pros. 

(We’re all this guy sometimes. But it doesn’t have to be forever.)

Wise words on a winner’s mindset from the best in the strength game

Winners are consistent

“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.”

—Dwayne The Rock Johnson, WWE Champion

Consistency is the hallmark of achieving anything worthwhile. In order to become an author, you need to write consistently. In order to become a virtuoso musician, you need to play your instrument consistently. If you want to lose 30lbs or gain it or PR your back squat, you need to train consistently. 

If showing up to the gym regularly becomes a struggle, reduce the friction by planning ahead. Set out your gym clothes, prep your meals, and figure out ways to get a hit of dopamine every time you workout so you’re more likely to keep doing it. 

Winners get obsessed

“This is hard work. This is an obsession. We are all equals as human beings. You could be anyone if you put in the time. You will reach the top, and that’s that. I am not talented, I am obsessed.” 

—Conor McGregor, UFC Champion

It’s not uncommon to hear of top athletes nerding out over the tiny details of their lives, from counting macros to hacking their sleep routine to making the smallest tweaks in their deadlift form. Being obsessed with your fitness will help you become great at it over time.

You’re more likely to experiment with new methods or get creative with solutions if your commitment level reaches the point of even mild obsession. Immerse yourself in new sources of knowledge. Pattern your habits after people who already have what you want. A splash of obsession can lead to amazing results. 

Winners see obstacles as challenges

“No matter the situation, you can always try and turn it into a positive by learning and evolving from that experience. But it also reminds you that you’re never alone even when times are tough.”

—Tia-Clair Toomey, Olympian & Five-Time CrossFit Games Winner

For most top athletes, failure is just another learning opportunity. If Michael Jordan had gotten discouraged every time he lost a game or missed a shot, he would never have become a household name in basketball.

It’s a running theme for anyone who succeeds at anything: you’re gonna fail sometimes. What you do with that failure and the feelings that arise from it is up to you. Use that failure feedback to grow into a new mindset or find better tools to deal with future challenges.

Winners keep their goals rigid and methods flexible

“The score takes care of itself.”

—Bill Walsh, NFL Coach

Winners and losers both have the same goals; the difference lies in the methods they used to get to one result or the other. Since there are many paths to success, it makes sense to keep yourself open to leveling-up the strategies you use to get you there. 

Let your goals set the direction, but focus on designing your habits and systems to actually make progress. When your systems are malleable, they can be improved upon. You can pivot when something isn’t working or double-down on things that are working.

Winners prioritize recovery

“Rest is a weapon. What was once seen as a weakness is now a strength. There are all kinds of ways to recover, what I call regenerative strategies.”

—Brett Bartholomew, strength and conditioning coach, author, consultant, and Founder of Art of Coaching™

You can’t out-perform poor recovery. No amount of hitting the gas will compensate for a lack of fuel and all top athletes make rest a priority. This means everything that happens outside the gym: sleep, nutrition, myofascial release, stress management, relaxation, hot/cold therapy, saunas, yoga—the list goes on. 

Mat Fraser, five-time winner of the CrossFit Games says, “the goal is winding down and setting myself up for a successful next day.” Consider if you’re feeling excessively burned out: are you recovering enough? Are your regenerative strategies today setting you up for a plate-smashing tomorrow?

Winners take action

“There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big, just as long as you understand you need to put in hard work to make things happen.”

—Annie Thorisdottir, CrossFit Games Champion

Probably more important than any of the other skills is the capacity to actually do something. As Jeff Olson says in The Slight Edge, “do the thing and you shall have the power”—so simple and elegant, and yet so easy to stumble around or avoid. 

It’s easy to default into dreaming and let those dreams make you feel like you’re doing something. It’s easy to fall into comfortable paralysis. But action breeds confidence and courage. And you can “trick your brain” into manufacturing motivation by just doing the damn thing. 

Our favorite resources

Sometimes a jolt of motivation from inspiring humans doing incredible things is all it takes to re-fuel your fire. These powerful books and podcasts will feed your desire to finally bag the goals you keep chasing year after year. 

Listen and read about topics on leadership, exercise science, daily habits, personal values, training, mindset, and psychology. Learn some of the best tactics and tools to help you scoop one shovel of dirt a day, lay one brick at a time, and various other references to construction materials.

Books

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Chasing Excellence by Ben Bergergon

Tough by Greg Everett

The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson

You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday 

Podcasts

Modern Wisdom | Chris Williamson

Chasing Excellence | Ben Bergeron

The Good Life Project 

The Daily Boost | Scott Smith

Barbell Logic

The Sonya Looney Show

“I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.”

—Serena Williams

Chances are you made it through the first week. Motivation is fun and easy to come by in the beginning. I’m ready to make a change! I know I can do better! I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired! 

Keep These in Mind & Success is Truly Inevitable

The New Year is a powerful catalyst for personal growth and a popular time to tackle that mountain you’ve been meaning to climb. If, like many people, your mountain is to improve your health and fitness, the question becomes: How bad do you want it?

Because that first-of-the-year motivation doesn’t last forever and eventually you’ll have to make a choice—keep doing the thing, chasing your New Year’s Resolution, or stop doing the thing. It’s that simple. Keep showing up to the gym or let the time slip by on the couch. Keep packing your gym clothes or give in to “just one more email” at work. Keep giving away your power, time, and energy or take control by prioritizing your workouts. 

The truth is, this is your year… if you want it to be. And if you tackle that want strategically.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”

-Will Durant (not Aristotle)

It’s a simple, logical concept: change your habits in order to evolve who you are as a person. But the bad habits can be stubborn and sticky, while the good ones are often fickle and fleeting. With so many other things vying for your attention, creating new habits or ditching old ones takes intentional effort.  

We’ve collected a few of the best mental tools and tactics from professional lifestyle optimizers who write entire books on how to become the person you’re meant to be. That best version of yourself is waiting to bloom from the deep-seated knowledge that you can make it happen. 

Read this thing and act on it. 

Make your New Year’s Resolution Stick with these 6 tips

1. choose the right habit

James Clear, author of the bestseller, Atomic Habits, says something profoundly obvious yet immensely easy to overlook when working to improve your lifestyle: “The most important decision you will make is what habit to build. Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle.”

Clear offers up the idea of identity-based habits in which you focus on “who you wish to become, not what you want to achieve.” Sure, you want to lose weight and be considered a fit person. Instead of focusing on the outcome of being fitter, focus on becoming the kind of person who is fit. 

What does a fit person do? They work out 5-6 days a week. They choose the fruit over the muffin. They get enough sleep and eat enough protein. You’re much more likely to stick to the habits that align with the identity you want, because “improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.”

2. aim for progress, not perfection

When you focus on the habit required to meet your New Year’s resolution instead of the outcome, it’s easier to align with the idea of “progress, not perfection.” Don’t tackle everything at once—chip away on one piece of the puzzle at a time. Improve one habit so your new identity becomes a reality in bite-sized pieces. 

If you’re 30lbs overweight and never go to the gym, it’s an unrealistic expectation to think you’ll just jump into daily hour-long workouts without eventually hitting a wall. When making the choice to workout becomes overwhelming, simplify it. Get on your bike for just five minutes. After five minutes, you can choose to get off. (But more than likely, you’ll stay on for another 10.) Progress. 

As Jeff Olson says in The Slight Edge, “Any time you see what looks like a breakthrough, it is always the end result of a long series of little things, done consistently over time.”

3. track. your. workouts.

Sure looks like there’s a trend here with “this seems obvious” ideas, but it’s always helpful to have someone remind you: track your dang workouts! How will you know if you’re making progress (#2) if you’re not logging your weights? How will you be able to celebrate the wins (#5) if you have no idea just how hard you’re winning?? 

No matter how you train, you should be logging metrics like your weights, sets, reps, times, and RPE (rate of perceived exertion). Old school composition notebooks had their era. The nostalgia for those raggedy pages is sweet, but we’ve got smarter tools now—tools that can tell you the weight you were squatting months ago without forcing you to flip through pages.  

Listen, we know you know where this plug is going, but we think it’s fitting and appropriate given our desire to provide athletes with the best tools for tracking their workouts. Get the TrainHeroic app and see more awesome data on your fitness than a notebook could ever give you.  

4. dont lapse more than twice

The important thing to remember on this point: if you fall off the wagon, don’t lose all hope! Letting your mind become overwhelmed by the idea of failure leads to stress and judgment and guilt. Before you know it, one lapse turns into several in a row. 

That sort of resignation to inevitable failure is how people give up. Refer back to #2 for progress, not perfection. Get back on the bike the next day. Letting the days pile up where you skip workouts and make excuses just reinforces your old identity, the one you don’t want anymore.

While everyone has to deal with occasional circumstances outside their control, like illness or injury, consider what the person you want to be would do. What kinds of choices would they make to ensure their fitness identity remains a reliable constant?

5. celebrate small wins

Once you start gaining traction on a new habit, it’s easy to let your hunger for success overshadow the gains you make along the way. For a lot of us who are driven and goal-oriented, moving on to the next thing without stopping to smell the proverbial roses can really cramp your satisfaction.

Those small wins might not seem like a lot in the moment, but remember, it’s the cumulative effect of your daily efforts that get you to your goal—30lbs lost or gained, a new PR on your deadlift, or better health markers from your doctor all took small, incremental victories to eventually happen.

Neglecting to celebrate small wins can make it feel like you’re spinning your wheels. Start Monday by writing down 3-5 gains you’ve made in the past week. Physically put a check mark next to the things you’ve completed and reflect on how it feels to take action. Over time, you’ll be able to look back on your lists with a deep appreciation of what it took to smash your goal.

6. get an accountabilibuddy

Humans were meant for connection. Studies show that habit changes are most effective when you share them with like-minded people who have similar goals in mind. You can commiserate your struggles, celebrate the wins, and encourage each other to stay the course. 

Try to make a friend or two at the gym—someone you see every time you’re there and feel comfortable saying hi to. Tap into your community of fellow athletes and connect with someone who’s on your level or maybe even a little stronger. Surrounding yourself with people who already have what you want puts you in the mindset of getting there.

To you lone wolves and solo warriors, be not afraid of the fitness community! Having another person involved (even virtually) can make all the difference in your journey to be the fittest version of yourself. 

remember

Big health and lifestyle changes don’t happen overnight, but as the result of repeated positive decisions in the right direction. One choice at a time. One workout at a time. One nutritious meal at a time. 

In The Slight Edge, Olson mentions that a good habit is both “easy to do and easy not to do.” It’s easy to lace up your sneakers and easy not to do. It’s easy to order the chicken and vegetables meal at a restaurant… and easy not to. Either way, the choices you make consistently will get you exactly the outcome that they support.

“Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”

-James Clear

So, who are you becoming this year?

// Getting into Group Flow, a New Way to Set Goals, and Other Performance Lessons from Scott Carney’s “The Wedge”

The brain and nervous system are two of the most underserved areas of human performance, but yet might well hold the key to better physical and cognitive outputs that elevate you above your competition. 

In the first segment of this two-part interview, New York Times bestselling author/award-winning investigative reporter Scott Carney (who you might know from his book What Doesn’t Kill Us) explained how to insert a pause between stimulus and response, use your breath to control pre-game nerves, and get started with contrast therapy (heat + cold). 

Now, we turn our attention to how to hardwire joy into your training, what to do to get your training partners into a group flow state, how to use your conscious mind to alter or delay subconscious reactions, and more.

In your book, you talk about how kettlebell passing slams you and your partner into group flow. What can sports teams do to access that state of deep embodiment?

The thing about the wedge is that there are many ways to do it – it’s not just one technique. 

To set up wedge training, you should expose your group to an external threat or stress. 

Then create an environment in which everyone’s focus is on this external thing, and they’re all working on that object together, not so much paying attention to each other’s movement. 

That’s how you get into flow very quickly.

In a way, a good soccer game is ideally a flow state, where everyone’s following the soccer ball, and their eyes are on the ball. 

That’s the threat. That’s the stress. That’s where everyone’s in concert. 

If the whole team knows where the ball is, they’re also intuitively aware of where the other players are on the field. That’s when you’re in flow. 

You break out of flow when you start putting your attention on other objects. When the roar of the crowd becomes the object that you pay attention to, for example, that’s what distracts you.

In one of my favorite passages in The Wedge, you write something like, “If we work out with a purpose, the sheer joy of the experience, that positive association hardwired joy into our nervous system.” Can you explain this?

Sure. 

If you’re feeling a little tubby, maybe you set a goal of losing five or ten pounds. 

Then the entire goal of each workout is losing that weight, which is essentially born out of telling yourself, “I’m fat.” You’re hardwiring the goal of losing weight with anxiety, and when you’re training, you are working for your anxiety. 

For me, that’d be a terrible thing. But it’s one of the most common goals that people have in gyms around the world.

They’re performing physical movements out of a space of self hate, or at least self reduction. 

Whereas if you did the same exercises, and said to yourself, “I’m doing this workout because I love it,” I believe you’d see better results. 

This is because you’d be hardwiring joy into what you’re doing, rather than letting the desired outcome and the motivation behind it dictate everything. 

Don’t go to a gym if you don’t like gyms. 

Find something physical that you like doing. I really love cycling, doing yoga, and throwing kettlebells. 

These are the things that actively bring me joy, because I like doing them. Once you find that thing you love, pursue it, do it often, and try to excel at it. 

Can you expand on the topic of goal setting a little?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to win a race, but only one person can achieve that. 

What about everyone else in the field? 

They should still be able to get something positive out of the experience. You need to do things like running because they make you a fuller person. In the future, nobody will remember who won that race, unless it’s an Olympic final. 

For the rest of us – the 99 percent – there needs to be a different motivation. You should want to run that race or play on a team because you love it. If not, what’s the point? 

I also believe that top performers probably fall into two camps. 

They’re either in flow states the whole time because they find fulfillment in what they’re doing. They are in the moment and this is who they were meant to be. Or they fall into the other camp, where they are grinding and breaking themselves to get that last two tenths of a second off their race time, and it’s killing them.

We are too focused on winning and not focused enough on living.

What you said about hardwiring joy into training and competing also relates to the topic of neural symbols, which is a key tenet of your book. Can you riff on this subject a little?

The more time we spend acting out of positive associations, the more these bond with whatever the ambient conditions are. 

You’re literally hardwiring your brain, which is creating these things called neural symbols that inform absolutely every way in which you perceive the world around you. It can also work the other way, and negative past experiences can color future ones. 

For example, when one person watches a fireworks display, they think it’s the best thing ever. But when someone who’s traumatized with PTSD from their time in the military sees the flashes and hears the bangs, they want to run and hide. 

They’re seeing and hearing the same thing, but their context is very different. 

The first person who enjoys the fireworks has only positive associations between past experiences and the emotions they elicited. But for the former soldier, it’s not the same. And it might not only be loud noises and bright lights that trigger them. 

Perhaps they were walking through a market in Afghanistan on the day of their traumatic experience. 

They smelled tea wafting from one stall and heard children singing, and felt the warmth of the sunshine on their back. Then everything got blown to hell.

That explosion and the trauma and violence of that explosion are now wired in with the smell of tea, the children’s songs, and even the sunshine. 

The next time they experience these sensory stimuli, it could trigger a panic response and bring them back to that emotional moment of trauma, violence, and death.

Could deprivation or isolation tanks help someone who is dealing with such PTSD, or maybe even less severe negative associations?

In some cases. 

These tanks remove external stimuli, so all you’re left with is what’s going on inside you. 

The research shows that putting someone who is hypervigilant and overreacting to everything in a sensory deprivation tank for just an hour can break the negative cycle. 

So you find a lot of people who go into a tank coming out with significantly reduced anxiety because they’ve interrupted that cycle of emotion and sensation and stopped reinforcing it. 

PTSD is an extreme example, but everything we experience in the world is a combination of sensation and emotion. That’s what creates a neural symbol. These symbols are the bits and bytes of all human cognition of everything you’ve ever done in your entire life. 

Every thought, every book you’ve ever written, every book you’ve ever read, it’s all encoded in that little core kernel of information, emotion, sensation, and experience. And then that kicks it up to the higher brain functions. 

With techniques like breath work, contrast therapy, and getting into a sensory deprivation tank, you can start to replace a negative neural symbol with a more beneficial association by attaching new, positive emotions to stimuli you used to perceive as stressful. 

That doesn’t happen overnight, but if you can get in between stimulus and response and insert a moment of conscious choice or action, that’s a start.

// How to Recover From An Injury Or Major Setback Like A Pro

In the preceding part of this series, we took a look at how to re-frame your injury in a more positive and constructive way, introduced an “attack and distract” approach for the days leading up to your surgery (which also applies if you don’t need a procedure), and explored how to tame your anxiety. 

Now it’s time to look at what comes next. 

You’ve either emerged from a successful surgery or, if it’s a less serious injury, are later down the rehab road than when you read the first post. 

In either case, you’re now into the rehab phase where it’s easy to let the PT visits, the daily exercises, and being away from training get you down. 

We’re going to explore some ways to turn what could be a setback to lament into a learning experience to relish.

Injury Recovery Takes Consistency and Persistence

Now isn’t the time for sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, because you’re not able to train or compete. 

Rather, it’s a chance to step up, be a professional, and do the work necessary to come back and stay back. While what you do during physical therapy and, when you’re ready, with your strength and skills coaches, is largely dictated by others, this is only a small part of your day. 

How well your recovery goes and how quickly you return to competition is largely up to you. 

Eating well, doing exercises at home, and putting in daily effort – all are within your control. So instead of opting for the easy way out, do the right thing. 

As the great John Wooden said, “The work that you do each and every day is the only way to improve and prepare yourself for what is to come. You cannot change the past but you can influence the future only by what you do today.” 

Returning from an injury isn’t the result of a single heroic effort, but putting in the required work over and over again. So find at least one way to win your comeback daily, and use the same persistence and consistency that have served you well in your sport or training to progress in your rehab.

Continue Working While You Are Recovering

I’ve always said there are only two ways to train: below the neck and between the ears. 

When you’re injured, the former is off-limits, or at least you cannot do everything you used to physically. But the latter is always accessible, no matter what happened to you, how serious it is, or how long your return to play or training takes. While you cannot currently get your reps in on the field, you certainly can in your mind, with the technique of visualization. 

At its most basic level, this involves visualizing yourself swinging a club, shooting a free throw, or performing another skill perfectly. Don’t just think about what it looks like, but also envisage what it feels like. Then you can start to layer on other details by considering what you hear, sense, and touch in the moment. If your sport takes place outdoors, feel the sun on your back and the wind in your hair. 

If you play indoors in front of a crowd, imagine the roar of the fans and the squeak of your shoes on the hardwood. In this way, you can keep your game fresh mentally even while your body literally cannot play ball. 

You can find some pointers on other useful mental skills in my new app, Champion’s Mind.

Hone Your Other Skills

It’s up to you whether you view your layoff as a burden or a blessing. 

If it’s the latter, then consider this time away from the game as a golden opportunity to improve as an athlete and a well-rounded person. You might choose to focus on something that will benefit both your recovery and return to play, such as nutrition. In which case, start watching a little Food TV, buy a cookbook or two, and sign up for a class. 

Maybe you pick an old hobby backup that you haven’t had time for while focusing on your sport. 

Or there could be a new skill – like playing the piano or learning Italian – that you finally stop thinking about and start doing. 

With a growth mindset, your recovery opens up a lot of exciting possibilities. 

There are always new things to learn, try, and experiment with. 

Doing so means you won’t just be idly watching the days go by, but will be developing yourself, as well as providing a welcome diversion from the familiar routine around the physical side of your recovery.

Your Recovery Is Not All About You

One of the common pitfalls I see with athletes is when they turn the spotlight on themselves and their injury at the expense of everything and everyone around them. 

This manifests itself in a few different ways. First, it can breed isolation, where you cut yourself off from people and wallow in self-pity. 

Second, you can become too self-involved and almost narcissistic, constantly obsessing about yourself while letting the world pass you by. 

And third, you can easily get discouraged and start to believe that you’ll never make a full recovery, as you let the negative voice in your head take over. 

I once heard a story in which a student of Zen Buddhism came up to his teacher looking all glum and said, “I feel discouraged.” His master smiled and said, “Then go encourage someone else.” The point here is that when our own circumstances are getting us down or we realize we’re concentrating too much on our own needs, we should look outward and consider how we can help others. 

This could mean volunteering at a soup kitchen to feed the homeless, or signing up for a program to read to kids at your local library. Or maybe you pick a different teammate each day to call or text, ask how they’re doing, and give them some positive affirmation. This will benefit both of you, and will take your mind off your troubles. 

Also make an effort to reach out to friends, attend nieces’ and nephews’ birthday parties, and carve out more time with your family than you may typically have while the season is in full swing. 

Relationships are something else you can and should prioritize as you’re getting your body back to full strength, and all it takes is a little effort to reach out, show up, and be fully present where your feet are. 

That said, be careful who you’re around and in what context. 

Try to surround yourself with positive people, rather than negative ones who might trigger the avalanche of doubts, fears, and negative self-talk that you’re trying so hard to avoid. 

Also make sure that while you’re reaching out for help from a posture of vulnerability that you don’t come to depend too much on people or letting them do things for you that you could do for yourself. Be in community, but avoid becoming overly-dependent.

Don’t Hide!

I once had an athlete tell me that while he was injured, he felt like a carton of milk that was forgotten in the back of the fridge and left to spoil. 

Sound familiar? 

Considering yourself to be the odd one out is a common theme among the players I work with. 

This is exaggerated when an athlete completely withdraws from team activities. Don’t believe that just because you can’t take the field, that you have nothing to offer. Of course you do! 

As I just touched on, you can contribute to building your team’s successful, winning culture in lots of ways. You could take a rookie under your wing or, on the other end of the spectrum, tap into the wisdom of a veteran and find out how he or she bounced back from injury in the past. 

Maybe you make this the time that you become a more vocal leader in the locker room, or one of those “glue guys” or girls that holds a team together through good times and bad. 

The same goes for games. 

Sure, it can be exasperating to attend a game that you know you should be playing in. 

But look at it another way: what can you learn by watching a match from the sidelines rather than playing in it? Probably quite a lot. 

One NFL player told me that he was able to see football games in a whole new way while he was rehabbing by seeing them from a fan’s perspective. 

Doing the same will allow you to watch tactics unfold, note how your coach’s principles of play manifest themselves, and observe how you might fit better into the latest game strategy when you return. 

You’re unable to help the team win on the field today, but you can make sure you’re prepared to do so tomorrow.

// Scott Carney Shares the Secrets from His New Book The Wedge

As a roving reporter cutting his teeth on overseas assignments, Scott Carney lived as cheaply as possible so he could “focus on writing stories that matter.” This consistent dedication to his craft is evident not only in his anthropology-focused journalism but also his authorship, from his first book The Red Market to his 2017 New York Times bestseller What Doesn’t Kill Us. 

Continuing where the latter left off, his latest book, The Wedge, explores the frontiers of human performance, with Carney’s trademark blend of solid scientific research, insightful interviews with experts you might not have heard of but need to know, and refreshingly candid participatory journalism that George Plimpton himself would be proud of. 

In the first installment of a two-part Q+A, Carney explains the core concept of The Wedge, shares some stress/anxiety management techniques, and explains why you should overcome your aversion to ice baths and saunas.

Could you briefly explain the idea of The Wedge?

The easiest way to think of it is separating stimulus from response. 

What sort of mental gymnastics do you get into when you’re trying to create a space between when you feel something and when you react to that feeling? 

The wedge exists not only in very stressful environments, such as ice baths and with certain breathing techniques but also in every environment that we inhabit. 

We can either react very quickly to something without much thought, or we can take space and insert choice or agency to give ourselves an ability to control our reactions and our biology.

What are practices that anyone can develop to insert that wedge between stimulus and response?

When you really want to get inside your own biology, the easiest techniques are breathwork, the ice bath, and heat training. 

These really let you get deep into what your physical personal limits are. 

They also allow you to get in touch with your autonomic nervous system to a degree and train yourself to better perform in stressful environments.

In the book you mention using breathwork to control anxiety. How might that apply in a training context? 

All of the breathwork techniques that I wrote about can manage anxiety, because when you feel anxious, it’s not just that it’s your mind projecting what the future will be like. 

It’s also a feeling in your body – literally a physical sensation. 

Breathwork is really good for creating a set of physical relationships and a set of physical sensations that then you can learn to control. That’s why anxiety gets reduced when you start doing the Wim Hof breathing protocols or Brian Mackenzie’s protocols.

You can train your CO2 tolerance, which I also write about in the book. If you get better at working with reduced oxygen intake – which in that moment can be very stressful – you will have a performance boost and lower anxiety when you get back to competition and everyday life.

Going back to cold exposure for a moment, how can people get started with that, given that an ice bath can seem intimidating?

The whole nature of experience is that it’s subjective. Ice water for me might be merely uncomfortable and for another person it’s terrible. 

Everyone has to be aware of where their own desires are before they put themselves in a certain situation. 

However, I do think that if someone tells me that they would never take a cold shower, that says a lot about how they’re hardwired. That’s their own anxiety coming out. Unless they have a diagnosed condition, and I’m thinking Raynaud’s that’s been diagnosed by a doctor, everyone should be able to take a cold shower. 

There’s no one who’s going to die at 40 degrees in the shower. And actually, your water is probably shooting out at 60 degrees. What you’re reacting to is the notion of discomfort. Get in there, expect the discomfort, feel it, and then get better at dealing with it. 

What you shouldn’t get into is damage. You don’t want to get to a point when you’re in the cold and push it so hard that you come out and are fighting a core temperature drop for an hour afterward. 

What about on the heat side of things? What would be a minimum effective dose there?

Almost everyone can handle a sauna at 140 degrees without too much trouble for 15 minutes. 

You would have to be in incredibly bad cardiovascular shape to not be able to do that. When I take a sauna, I start at 180 or 190 degrees and stay in for 30 to 50 minutes. A hot tub obviously couldn’t be at that temperature. If you were in a 140-degree hot tub, you’d die. But because air temperature doesn’t conduct heat quite as much as water, 140 in a dry or infrared sauna is really not all that intense.

In general, you’re supposed to stay in these hot environments until you get to the point where you feel a little claustrophobic. This is your body’s autonomic signal that warns you, “I’m too hot. I should get out.” 

You should stop before you feel like you want to run away, when you notice your breathing is a little more strained than normal. Once you’ve felt what that “get out point” is, then in the future you don’t need to go that far. You’ll just know when you’re getting near it. It’s hard to establish a baseline for where that turnoff point is without actually getting close to it.

What are a couple of the main physiological or psychological benefits athletes can get from regular exposure to hot and cold?

Emotional and physical resilience. 

I’m more interested in the mental side of it than the physical element. 

The wedge is the meeting point between the two, so it certainly has benefits for both. But the wedge is largely a mental technique, because there’s a decision point between stimulus and response. When you’re getting too hot, when you know you’re getting to your edge, and you choose to push it or not. 

Once you’re familiar with what your limits are, say in the hot or cold, you can apply that knowledge to your limits at whatever thing it is that you’re working on. Your weight limits, or something like a PR in the high jump in track. 

There’s no single piece of magical advice because everyone is different. But once you learn to control yourself in one stressful environment, your ability to tolerate stress in other environments increases. 

We only have one autonomic nervous system. 

It splits into two pathways: parasympathetic and sympathetic. You’re either in fight or flight or rest and digest mode. What you’re trying to do with hot and cold, breathwork, and other techniques is to increase your self-awareness and ability to influence your biology. 

The environment presents passive cues and switches all the time, but you can consciously choose to tell yourself, “No, I’m not going to follow that passive programming. I’m going to stay in a parasympathetic or sympathetic state longer than what my innate reaction is telling me to do.” So while you’re in the cold, you can opt to relax. Or you could choose to do hot yoga and not freak out about feeling the heat.