Why Workout Pain Is Good

The reason the saying “No pain, no gain” is so common is because it’s true: If you never feel discomfort when you exercise, you’re not getting all the benefits. What separates great athletes from mediocre ones isn’t only talent and training – it’s also how well they can handle discomfort.

When I’ve helped out-of-shape friends get back into shape, the first thing we do is get them more accustomed to struggle. You train hard, which is uncomfortable, and then you get sore – and then you’re uncomfortable because you’re sore. But you have to keep going. Think about it this way: You acclimate to the pain in order to experience less of it. As you get stronger, you reach higher levels, and so you feel less sore.

Of course, there are also times when you shouldn’t work though the pain. Smart athletes know there’s a difference between the agony of being hurt and the agony that makes you stronger, faster, and better. The pain of an injury, unless you’re masking it with ibuprofen or other drugs, is usually pretty identifiable compared with the pain of sore muscles. Cultivating a relationship with discomfort will help you discern the difference between good pain and bad.

You already know that you’re going to hurt during a long ride or hard workout, when you crash in big waves or even when you’re stretching through tight muscles in a yoga class. You have to ask yourself, “What can I bear?” I’ve always had a huge pain threshold – I’ve broken legs and dealt with it – and the ability to deal with the pain of injury allowed me to heal faster.

One of the best ways to keep from getting too comfortable and complacent is to do something you’re not good at or something you don’t normally do. So if you’re good at running, you might suffer when lifting weights, so you don’t lift. Yet to become a better runner, you may have to lift. It will hurt at times, but you will become a better runner. You don’t want to do a hard workout, but you go through it. It’s superagonizing, but when you finish it, you’re rewarded with an endorphin high and a sense of accomplishment. For example, riding goofy-footed has helped me become a better right-footed surfer.

So if you lift, and all you do is low reps – seven, 10, 12 – start throwing 30 reps into your routine. You’ll find out right away that you can’t take even half the weight, and that’s not fun. As soon as you get into volume reps, it’s almost like cardio training, and it’ll be pretty uncomfortable. But if you’re a strength guy, you’ll benefit from higher-volume reps. On the other hand, if you’re an endurance athlete or high-volume guy, you’ll benefit from working on your strength and lifting heavy weights. You really should focus on trying to have the whole package: flexibility, strength, and endurance.

By Laird Hamilton
http://www.mensjournal.com/

What to Do When You’ve Made Someone Angry

by Peter Bregman 

I was running late. My wife Eleanor and I had agreed to meet at the restaurant at seven o’clock and it was already half past. I had a good excuse in the form of a client meeting that ran over and I wasted no time getting to the dinner as fast as possible.

When I arrived at the restaurant, I apologized and told her I didn’t mean to be late.

She answered: “You never mean to be late.” Uh oh, she was mad.

“Sorry,” I retorted, “but it was unavoidable.” I told her about the client meeting. Not only did my explanations not soothe her, they seemed to make things worse. That started to make me angry.

That dinner didn’t turn out to be our best.

Several weeks later, when I was describing the situation to a friend of mine, Ken Hardy, a professor of family therapy, he smiled.

“You made a classic mistake,” he told me.

“Me? I made the mistake?” I was only half joking.

“Yes. And you just made it again,” he said. “You’re stuck in your perspective: You didn’t mean to be late. But that’s not the point. The point is that you were late. The point — and what’s important in your communication — is how your lateness impacted Eleanor.”

In other words, I was focused on my intention while Eleanor was focused on the consequences. We were having two different conversations. In the end, we both felt unacknowledged, misunderstood, and angry.

The more I thought about what Ken said, the more I recognized that this battle — intention vs. consequences — was the root cause of so much interpersonal discord.

As it turns out, it’s not the thought that counts or even the action that counts. That’s because the other person doesn’t experience your thought or your action. They experience the consequences of your action.

Here’s another example: You send an email to a colleague telling him you think he could have spoken up more in a meeting.

He replies to the email, “Maybe if you spoke less, I would have had an opportunity to say something!”

That obviously rankles you. Still, you send off another email trying to clarify the first email: “I didn’t mean to offend you, I was trying to help.” And then maybe you add some dismay at the aggressiveness of his response.

But that doesn’t make things better. He quotes the language of your first email back to you. “Don’t you see how it reads?” He asks. “BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!” You write back, IN CAPS.

So how do you get out of this downward spiral?

It’s stunningly simple, actually. When you’ve done something that upsets someone — no matter who’s right — always start the conversation by acknowledging how your actions impacted the other person. Save the discussion about your intentions for later. Much later. Maybe never. Because, in the end, your intentions don’t matter much.

What if you don’t think the other person is right — or justified — in feeling the way they do? It doesn’t matter. Because you’re not striving for agreement. You’re going for understanding.

What should I have said to Eleanor?

“I see you’re angry. You’ve been sitting here for 30 minutes and that’s got to be frustrating. And it’s not the first time. Also, I can see how it seems like I think being with a client gives me permission to be late. I’m sorry you had to sit here waiting for so long.”

All of that is true. Your job is to acknowledge their reality — which is critical to maintaining the relationship. As Ken described it to me: “If someone’s reality, as they see it, is negated, what motivation do they have to stay in the relationship?”

In the email back and forth I described earlier, instead of clarifying what you meant, consider writing something like: “I could see how my criticizing your performance — especially via email — feels obnoxious to you. How it sounds critical and maybe dismissive of your efforts in the meeting.”

I said this was simple but I didn’t say it was easy.

The hardest part is our emotional resistance. We’re so focused on our own challenges that it’s often hard to acknowledge the challenges of others. Especially if we are their challenge and they are ours. Especially when they lash out at us in anger. Especially when we feel misunderstood. In that moment, when we empathize with them and their criticism of our behavior, it almost feels like we’re betraying ourselves.

But we’re not. We’re just empathizing.

Here’s a trick to make it easier. While they’re getting angry at you, imagine, instead, that they’re angry at someone else. Then react as you would in that situation. Probably you’d listen and let them know you see how angry they are.

And if you never get to explain your intentions? What I have found in practice — and this surprised me — is that once I’ve expressed my understanding of the consequences, my need to justify my intentions dissipates.

That’s because the reason I’m explaining my intentions in the first place is to repair the relationship. But I’ve already accomplished that by empathizing with their experience. At that point, we’re both usually ready to move on.

And if you do still feel the need? You’ll still have the opportunity, once the other person feels seen, heard, and understood.

If we succeed in doing all this well, we’ll often find that, along with our relationships, something else gets better: our behavior.

After that last conversation with Eleanor — after really understanding the consequences of my lateness on her — somehow, someway, I’ve managed to be on time a lot more frequently.

Security personnel deployed in Ash-town as two people killed.

Security personnel have been deployed in Ash-town near the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi after an attack by some cutlass-wielding men claimed two lives.

One of the deceased, Kwadwo Asamoah popularly known as Gausu is said to be a body guard of MP for Manhyia, Matthew Opoku Prempeh. The other victim has been identified as Victor Ocran.

Public Relations Officer at the Ashanti regional Police Command, ASP Mohammed Tanko who confirmed the incident tells me security personnel have been stationed at the area to forestall any reprisal attack.

The incident occurred around 2PM Wednesday.

The Police say Gausu was a wanted man before his death. He was mentioned as having participated in a violent confrontation during the electioneering period last year that led to one Mafius being wounded severely.

Residents of the area are leaving in fear of a rival gang which has sworn to avenge the deaths.

 

 

Learned Helplessness

The Misconception: If you are in a bad situation, you will do whatever you can do to escape it.

The Truth: If you feel like you aren’t in control of your destiny, you will give up and accept whatever situation you are in.

In 1965, a scientist named Martin Seligman started shocking dogs.

He was trying to expand on the research of Pavlov – the guy who could make dogs salivate when they heard a bell ring. Seligman wanted to head in the other direction, and when he rang his bell instead of providing food he zapped them with electricity. To keep them still, he restrained them in a harness during the experiment.

After they were conditioned, he put these dogs in a big box with a little fence dividing it into two halves. They figured if they rang the bell, the dog would hop over the fence to escape, but it didn’t. It just sat there and braced itself. They decided to try shocking them after the bell. The dog still just sat there and took it. When they put a dog in the box which had never been shocked before and tried to zap it – it jumped the fence.

You are just like these dogs.

If, over the course of your life, you have experienced crushing defeat or pummeling abuse or loss of control, you learn over time there is no escape, and if escape is offered, you will not act – you become a nihilist who trusts futility above optimism.

Studies of the clinically depressed show that when they fail they often just give in to defeat and stop trying. The average person will look for external forces to blame when they fail the mid-term. They will say the professor is an asshole, or they didn’t get enough sleep. Depressed people will blame themselves and assume they are stupid.

Do you vote? If not, is it because you think it doesn’t matter because things never change, or politicians are evil on both sides, or one vote in several million doesn’t count? Yeah, that’s learned helplessness.

When battered women, or hostages, or abused children, or long-time prisoners refuse to escape, they do so because they have accepted the futility of the attempt. What does it matter? If those people do get out of their situation, they often have a hard time committing to anything which may lead to failure.

Any extended period of negative emotions can lead to you giving in to despair and accepting your fate. If you remain alone for a long time, you will decide loneliness is a fact of life and pass up opportunities to hang out with people. The loss of control in any situation will lead to this state. A study in 1976 by Langer and Rodin showed in nursing homes where conformity and passivity is encouraged and every whim is attended to, the health and well-being of the patients declines rapidly. If, instead, the people in these homes are given responsibilities and choices, they remain healthy and active. This research was repeated in prisons. Sure enough, just letting prisoners move furniture and control the television kept them from developing health problems and staging revolts. In homeless shelters where people can’t pick out their own beds or choose what to eat, the residents are less likely to try and get a job or find an apartment.

When you are able to succeed at easy tasks, hard tasks feel possible to accomplish. When you are unable to succeed at small tasks, everything seems harder.

Rats given the opportunity to escape electric shocks are half as likely to develop tumors than those who are forced to bear them. Rats already suffering from cancer will die faster if placed into the inescapable shock experiment.

Every day – your job, the government, your addiction, your depression, your money – you feel like you can’t control the forces affecting your fate. So, you stage microrevolts. You customize your ringtone, you paint your room, you collect stamps. You choose.

Choices, even small ones, can hold back the crushing weight of helplessness, but you can’t stop there. You must fight back your behavior and learn to fail with pride. Failing often is the only way to ever get the things you want out of life. Besides death, your destiny is not inescapable.

You are not so smart, but you are smarter than dogs and rats. Don’t give in yet.

Credit: http://www.youarenotsosmart.com

HR EXPERT WANTS EMPLOYEES TO ENFORCE PAYMENT OF THEIR SSNIT CONTRIBUTIONS

Human Resource expert, Wisdom Gomashie, wants employees in the country especially private sector workers to secure their future by ensuring that employers pay their SSNIT contributions.

He says failure to do so will make their future an uncomfortable one. He laments the situation where workers retire to become liabilities on their families.

The HR expert who says the future of Ghanaian workers should not be taken for granted wants employees to personally visit SSNIT offices to ensure their employers are paying their SSNIT contributions.

He was speaking to Ultimate radio’s Bernard Buachi after news broke that SSNIT had secured bench warrants for the arrest of directors and owners of 17 companies for defaulting in the deduction and payment of their employees’ social security contributions.

SRC PRESIDENT WANTS AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR STUDENTS

The newly elected President of the Students’ Representative Council of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology wants government to rapidly complete some of the affordable housing structures for students of the University.

Caleb Fugah says accommodation challenges on the campus poses great concern and will be his immediate priority as he takes over the mantle of leadership of the students’ front.

The SRC President is particularly worried the “double intake” into the University this year will compound the woes of students when it comes to accommodation issues.

He believes the accommodation situation will get worse with the intake of fresh students this academic year. He is also concerned about the rapidly rising cost of hostel and Hall accommodation on the campus. He believes the rising costs are arbitrary.

Caleb Fugah who has endeared himself to many students of the KNUST through his promises to mitigate many of the students’ challenges believes that the accommodation problems will be greatly eased if government could move to rapidly complete some of the affordable housing structures for the students of the country’s premier Science and Technology University.

 

PLIGHT OF THE AMBITIOUS GHANAIAN YOUTH: MY CASE

Hello, it’s me again. This post is dedicated to all intelligent young people all over the world who have been and continue to be suppressed for one thing and one thing only; being young. To all youth especially in Africa and particularly in Ghana who are looked down upon despite their smartness in the name of lacking experience.

Many times have I heard people complain about the youth of this country and how they are engaging in fruitless ventures, how they have become lazy and how they lack a certain work culture that allows for individual and collective prosperity.

Is that really true? Who moulded the Ghanaian youth into this “hopeless entity”?

I remember when at 17 years old, I was already working in the newsroom of Classic FM, a private radio station in Techiman. People would come to the station and ask of me. They would see me and get disappointed. Why? I “was just a kid!” they will pass comments like, “….and you sound so mature on air” or but “you are just a kid”.

Sadly enough, these “grown-ups” wouldn’t say anything to encourage my abilities. All they did was to show disappointment. I even remember once, one of the Parliamentarians came around. I was then the News Editor for another radio station in the same town; Asta FM. He wanted to see the news Editor and was shown to my office. He came there and insisted on seeing the news Editor. He wouldn’t accept me as a News Editor of a radio station. He finally asked “are you people serious here?”

So much encouragement from an MP. Hmm.

And this kind of treatment has continued for a while, not only in my case but with many other young people.

Hardworking young employees continue to be stifled for the greed of old men who should rather be encouraging them for the good of the nation.

This disdain for the ambitious youth in many of the private and public offices in this country should not and will not stop the Ghanaian from progressing.

The situation where young men are flatly denied opportunities despite their qualification and that in which young ladies are granted opportunities on condition of sexual gratification can only work against the good of our nation.

It’s pathetic how these men are able to go to church or their religious places of worship and behave as though all is well. As if God does not consider workplace malfeasance and other crimes a sin. As if God will look the other way for them to perpetrate their immorality.

To the ambitious youth of Ghana, and Africa who is being stifled for the sole “crime” of being young, have faith and never give up. Work harder for; “the Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”