No Pain Is Sane

Life is not a Gatorade commercial.

It’s time you learn the truth of how you can compete with the elite.

The Myth

Perhaps one of the greatest fitness myths of all time is the idea of “No pain, no gain.” As catchy as it sounds, it’s just plain wrong. The truth is 80% of your max effort will get you 100% results!

I know this may come as a surprise to many people, but it’s important to know you don’t have to be sweating blue gatorade out of your pores to have an amazing game changing workout. In fact, many workouts don’t require sweating at all to improve most of your athletic abilities or endurance.

Now, before you get frustrated please don’t let me deter you from those shirt soaking high intensity workouts where you know you gave it everything you had in the tank. Let’s be honest, there’s nothing like getting in a good sweat and testing your limits.

My intention is simply to bring awareness to the mentality of “no pain, no gain” which I believe has become an epidemic in our fitness culture.

The fitness and sports media is filled with images of people “leaving it all” on the field, pushing their bodies beyond the point of breaking and even sweating gatorade out of their pores.

While exercising our competitive nature is a wonderful expression that inspires unlimited potential on a very innate level, the misconception society has perceived from media images tends to be a lifestyle that results in more injury and less results for the average fitness enthusiast.

Of course it is important to always maintain a never give up attitude in all aspects of life, but when the idea of experiencing pain becomes the level of standard associated with a “never say die” mentality you have a recipe for disaster.

The Truth

Contrary to what the media wants us to believe, if you followed around an elite athlete for a few weeks you would see that the days of gatorade sweating from their pores are few and far in between body maintenance routines, and well balanced sleeping and eating schedules.

Furthermore the intensity athletes exhibit when testing their limits is a calculated training session involving a skill set they have been practicing and building most of their lives.

In reality most elite athletes focus on the opposite of testing their limits during training sessions, spending the majority of their days: properly warming up, training movement patterns, focusing on soft tissue work, and developing flexibility and mobility.

This fitness lifestyle has recently grabbed the attention of several sub-cultures in the fitness industry and being dubbed as “prehab” training.

As you can guess the term is a play on “rehab,” but focuses on preventive maintenance for the body which results in a well oiled machine capable of handling almost any type of athletic environment and becoming resilient to injury.

Another reason gym goers may have developed some misconceptions about their fitness lifestyles is the influence the bodybuilding community has over the fitness industry. People tend to generalize the concepts of body building and then apply them to both their everyday lifting and nutrition philosophies distorting the reality of what a workout should be, and do for the body.

The focus of most bodybuilding is to produce micro tears in muscles each time a muscle group is being worked which allows muscles to heal bigger and stronger. To create this result you typically push your muscles to failure in a set. This is a very effective technique assuming you understand just how serious it is to nourish your body with calculated rest and refueling.

The average person pushes themselves to failure and then do not give proper rest or refueling to allow adequate recovery before the next workout. This keeps the muscles in a constant state of breaking down instead of building up.

Even bodybuilders benefit from taking the 80% Rule approach much of the time to create sustainable and long lasting results.

The 80% Rule

So what is this 80% rule and why is it even something to consider? Well if you knew the people I know who have built their fitness lifestyle around this rule, and you saw what type of athletic abilities they were capable of, you too would become an instant believer.

One of my mentors and good friends Max Shank, the creator of Ultimate Athleticism, adopted this philosophy in his trainings over a decade ago.

Today Max can deadlift 600+ lbs, squat 500+ lbs, perform one arm handstands, straddle planche, fall backwards from standing into a full backbend, hang from a pull up bar one handed and raise both feet to his hand on the bar all while drinking a glass of water!

Okay so the water part is a bit extreme, but you get the point.

Max and many other professionals who continue to train by the philosophy of the 80% rule have not compromised their joints, ligaments, tendons or muscles in years and still continue to develop aesthetic compositions and athletic abilities that rival elite athletes. The concept is simple and that’s why it works.

When you are performing a lift or isometric hold of any type,always stop when you reach 80% effort of your 100% max effort. The fitness industry trains people to push beyond the 80% effort usually aiming for 110% effort, resulting in poor form, unnecessary strain and even shocking the nervous system, which is a whole different can of worms! None of these scenarios facilitate the proper growth and progression in a fitness routine.

By stopping a movement or hold at 80% of your 100% Max you ensure proper form is maintained the entire set. And most importantly you send inviting neuromuscular signals to the brain to begin developing neural pathways and programming that will develop stability and strength which will lead to proper activation of muscles, further leading to advanced coordination and raw power. And as an added bonus you won’t be sore for 4 days after a gnarly day in the gym.

So to make sure we understand this concept:

If you are doing a set of push ups, it’s okay to stop when you start getting tired. Avoid waiting until you are burnt out and struggling to do one more. When you are performing an L-sit or planche progression, don’t wait until you start shaking to stop even if it is only for 1 second.

By stopping these moves before they go into the 90% intensity range, your body will acknowledge your attempt and begin adapting. Even if you are in a modification for the full move stopping at 80% will still work perfectly and progress you to the full move faster.

It may take you a few weeks to understand what your 80% intensity truly is because you’ve most likely been going 110% for as long as you can remember. So be patient and play with this concept in all of your lifts and static holds. You will begin to see some surprising results in no time.

Josh was born and raised in Lexington, KY. He played collegiate soccer at Transylvania University where he also studied business and psychology. Upon graduating college in 2002 he chose to begin a professional career as a restaurateur. Josh watched his business grow exponentially over the course of a decade, while he watched his health steadily declined. In 2011 Josh developed a mysterious disease, that modern medicine could not explain. He decided to embark on an optimal health journey to discover a cure. His journey lead him to receive his certifications as a personal trainer, RKC Kettlebell instructor and Yoga Alliance instructor. Josh’s unique combination of business, personal training and ayurvedic nutrition experience organically spawned a system that is guaranteed to upgrade the life of everyone from office executive to professional athlete. Josh now pursues his passion in teaching others to find their perfect work, life balance.

Main Photo Credit: Skydive Erick/shutterstock.com; Second Photo Credit: Valeriy Lebedev/shutterstock.com; Third Photo Credit: Dean Drobot/shutterstock.com; Fourth Photo Credit: wavebreakmedia/shutterstock.com; Fifth Photo Credit: Zai Aragon/shutterstock.com