Bootcamp DOMS - It's gotta be good for you...

This morning we bootcamp crew made Rich, our trainer, a very happy guy.

As we started to congregate at this morning's session in Bradfield Park, just before 6.00am, there was a common theme coming through the conversation.

DOMS (or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) was the cause of everyone's complaints this early Friday morning.

And I, fresh from Ironman New Zealand, was suffering like everyone else.

Wednesday had been my first day back to bootcamp.  I was glad to be returning to the fold after 5 weeks away but was also under strict instructions from Coach Dave to temper my activity.  I'm still in recovery mode and so had to make sure I eased my way back rather than go gangbusters.

And so I did.

We did a whole stack of backwards running up stairs, running backwards up hills, lunges and squats.  About halfway through my injured knee started twinging  a little so I stopped with the deep knee work and moved onto cobras, tricep dips and push ups while everyone else did backward step ups.

All good and everyone was happy ... until Wednesday night when virtually every muscle in my body started seizing up.  By Thursday morning I was walking around like an old woman and feeling very achy and sore.  And more than once I was thinking to myself that I wasn't this sore after ironman this year.  

What the?!

I certainly didn't think I had gone hard out but could only imagine that my 5 weeks away from Bootcamp was punishing me big time.  This morning, and due for another hell session, I seriously questioned whether I'd get through it and quietly tossed up whether I should be going.  But I decided to suck it up, and glad I did.

Because as I was standing in the plaza with my fellow bootcampers it soon became clear that my 5 weeks away wasn't the problem.  Instead Rich had managed to come up with a cunning routine that had challenged muscles that we hadn't activated for a while. And that's a good thing.

And so while we were all suffering, he was a very happy trainer.

Oh, and apparently it proves that 50 minutes of bootcamp is tougher than 13 hours of ironman....  In which case I'm looking forward to seeing them all on the start line of ironman next year!

Pass me a walking frame.

Mental Toughness - It's a Winner

After a four week break (2 weeks pre- and 2 weeks post-ironman) it was back to Bootcamp this morning.

It was great to be back with the old gang again, turning up just before 6.00am under the harbour bridge not knowing what Richie was going to throw at us for the next hour.  I was feeling refreshed, ready to go and, more importantly, ready to push myself.

After our warm up and then the first couple of drill sets of squats, runs and steps ups, J turns to me and says "you make it look so easy".

Heart rate at 162, breathing heavily, sweating like a ... well sweating like a hot thing, and me, the non-athlete - making anything exercise-related look easy seemed like a complete oxymoron.  But, cool as a cucumber, my response was simple.

"It never gets easier.  I think you just get better at pushing yourself harder."

But it got me thinking.  While it certainly wasn't easy, why did it look easy?

I think it came down to mental focus.

Beginner or experienced, improvement only comes by pushing your limits, not only physically but mentally as well.  And I think people underestimate the role your mind plays in helping you succeed or fail in your goals.  This morning I was feeling mentally strong, focusing on good form and pushing myself to do as well as I could with the task we had been given.  As a result I suspect that, rather than portraying distress with pushing myself, I was instead portraying a calm determination and using my inner strength to push through.

You can see another example of this on the latest series of The Biggest Loser which has started in Australia this week.  The contestants are in that beginner stage of having no confidence in their abilities, no experience with pushing their bodies in exercise and the distress they are feeling is out there for all to see.  They are finding the workouts hard and their minds are telling them to stop.  They think they can't do it and, without the trainers there pushing them, they would give up.

Their minds haven't been trained to understand that a workout is supposed to be tough.  That you push through and feed off that difficulty in order to get stronger.

The trainers are pushing them to their limits and over the next few weeks we will see a transformation in these guys, not only in their physical abilities but also in their mental toughness.  The workouts won't get any easier, but those that make it through to the end will have become mentally stronger, more focused and will have been able to push themselves that much harder as a result.

You may not be athletically gifted but it doesn't matter.  Mental toughness could be your biggest asset - and ultimately that's what will get you to the finish line of whatever goal you've set yourself.