Physical Training, Mental Gainz

Part of my role at the gym involves meeting with new/prospective clients, and helping them decide whether or not training at Full Range is right for them. Often, our conversation centers around the physical benefits that they will experience, and how these will enhance their life as a whole.It is usually not until a stronger relationship is formed that we talk about the other, deeper benefits of training: the mental and emotional side of things.Most people are familiar with the concept of exercise leading to a release of endorphins, a chemical that not onlyreduces the perception of pain, but also triggers positive, or even euphoric, feelings in the brain. "The runner's high," as it's called.However, the mental benefits that I’m talking about today go beyond a chemical reaction; I’m talking about the way our actual thinking changes when we commit ourselves to getting better through rigorous trainingI used to describe it to people as “having the volume turned down” on many of the day-to-day issues that I found stressed me out. It could be that the physical challenges that we face here in the gym make some of the “small stuff,” that we normally sweat, seem like just that: small.Another interesting mental shift I seen is in the way we learn to perceive fatigue, or even pain. I’ve introduced many people to tough, lactate-based CrossFit workouts over the years, and there’s a very common response that I see: about 3 minutes AFTER we finish, the person’s eyes start to glaze over, and I realize that they aren’t really hearing what I’m telling them, and MAYBE they even run to the bathroom. This is a stress-response that occurs not because of the intensity that they just experienced, but because of their reaction to it.We learn, through repeated exposures, to harness our anxiety surrounding fatigue, and to not “freak out” as we start to breathe heavy, or feel a burning in our legs (hello, Assault Bike). I believe this translates directly into our lives, in the sense that we become more aware of how we respond to a challenging circumstance. We come to understand that reacting, or over-reacting, only makes things tougher, and takes away from the end goal (here, to finish a workout, or get as many rounds as we know we are capable of, or to outfit Coach Cooper in a Clean & Jerk ladder).Lastly, something that I take great pleasure in seeing develop in our members is a growing sense of overall self-confidence. The mental talk starts to change over time. “I can’t,” becomes “I’ll try,” which becomes “Yes! I did it.” And as this cycle repeats itself, I see folks starting to take more risks, or challenging themselves more in workouts, and so it goes on.These are the things that are hard to relate to someone who has yet to go through it. But people that do commit, and do experience these shifts, can say that they are undeniable.I’ll leave you with this: As the days get shorter and colder, it can be hard to find motivation to do our normal functioning, let alone come to the gym and work on ourselves. I implore you all to think of how training with us helps you mentally, and emotionally, and see these benefits as being just as important as looking better naked, or hitting performance goals (though these things are awesome, as well!).