Rocky Balboa once said, “You gotta be willing to take the hits.”
These are big words for someone who retired from boxing after getting brain damage – from taking too many hits.
I like a lot of things about the Rocky films. They’re inspirational and emotional. They have big 80’s soundtracks and exciting workout montages. As films, they are super fun to watch.
And before we go any further – Rocky 3 and Rocky 4 are the best!
My issue with the Rocky series has more to do with how it embodies a certain training culture I see in the gym. I’m not just talking about the fighting athletes I know either; regular gym-goers train this way too.
My problem is not with Rocky, but with the Rocky mentality.
What is the Rocky Mentality?
Rocky mentality, pronoun – the pursuit of suffering and discomfort in fitness activities, with no guarantee of superior or faster results.
Example:
“Did you hear that Nick did supersets of deadlifts, pullups, and backflips yesterday?”
“Yeah, he has that Rocky mentality.”
If you’ve ever stepped into a gym, chances are you’ve met someone who suffers from the Rocky mentality. But how can you tell? I’ve compiled a list of ways that this mindset manifests itself on the gym floor:
- A preoccupation on mastering complex exercises*.
- Maxing out every session*.
- Making everything into a circuit with minimal rest*.
- Performing a drop-set with about 10 sets of dumbbells.
- Glorifying symptoms of excessive intensity, like throwing up.
- Drinking raw eggs for breakfast.
- Not being satisfied with a workout until you’re sore*.
- Adding more weight even when form has gone to hell.
- Performing fasted cardio just because you can.
- Repeating reps where technique wasn’t right, because “I’ll do it until I get it right.”
- Training even when you know the session will be terrible*.
- Training every day.
*Note: I’m not listing these for the sake of mocking anyone. For the sake of transparency, these are mistakes that I have made too.
Rocky Has a Point…Sort of.
I understand the value of overcoming hardship to achieve one’s goals. The ability to tolerate stress and discomfort can help you progress in life. As the saying goes, “nothing in life worth having comes easy”. Rocky embodies this idiom with pure determination, usually winning because of his capacity to take more punishment and fight harder than his opponents.
However, just because hardship and success are often connected, does not mean that hardship equals success. Sometimes, suffering is just suffering, especially in the gym where we have control over the type of suffering that we have to endure.
“Life always involves some suffering. Make sure your self-inflicted suffering leads to outcomes that bring you joy.”
Dr. Melissa Davis, aka. Regressive Underload
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How Winning is Done
The problem with allowing difficulty and discomfort to dominate your workout selection is that difficulty alone does not dictate workout effectiveness.
Here’s a list of impressive fitness feats that are guaranteed to be difficult and uncomfortable, or impossible and painful, for most people:
- Deadlifting 200kg;
- Running a marathon;
- Wrestling bears;
- Juggling kettlebells whilst blindfolded on a BOSU ball;
- Chasing chickens;
- Doing 10 backflips.
When using extreme examples, it’s easy to see that, while they’re all difficult, these tasks will not all produce the same results. However, we need to apply this when the differences are not so obvious. Choosing not to eat before a session is not hard in the same way that training consistently is hard, and yet one of these two approaches will actually get you results. Making bad choices in the pursuit of hardship will make training more difficult, but it will not get better results.
But Won’t It Make Me Tough Like Rocky?
I understand the appeal of putting yourself through torture in the gym in the hopes that it will make you tougher and therefore more prepared for hardship. I can understand the logic that if you have suffered more, you will “deserve” better achievements as a result. This mindset inspired my training style in the early years of my kickboxing career.
But unfortunately, you can’t out-work every problem. Mental toughness, and pain tolerance, and determination will only get you so far if you’re headed in the wrong direction.
Try Something Different
In the same way that you can’t always fix a bad recipe by adding more salt, you can’t solve every training problem by adding more hard work. Here are some examples of how to overcome the Rocky mentality – try the one that applies to your training:
- Strength athletes will often use 85-95% of their best their best lifts to calculate their weights on a given session. This training max helps them choose a weight they can lift with control and intent on even their worst day in the gym, whilst still providing a challenge.
- Leaving 1-2 reps in reserve at the end of a set is great way to take your muscles close to the limit without exhausting them completely, making for a more sustainable approach.
- Some predictors of running performance are aerobic capacity and running economy, both of which can be developed without running a marathon every day. Distance runners do most of their runs at shorter distances than the race they are planning for.
- It’s easier to process information and learn new sporting skills when you aren’t completely fatigued. Work on lower-intensity drills instead of trying to replicate a full-on competitive event every time you train.
- They say you can’t outwork a bad diet, but you also can’t crash-diet your way out of a miserable relationship with food. Pursuing a lifestyle that makes you miserable is the ultimate example of Rocky mentality. Address your motivations for wanting to change your appearance, and if it’s still a priority, then focus on sustainable changes.
Why Does the Rocky Mentality Appeal to You?
If you train this way because it’s the way you were taught to train, then fair enough. The Rocky logic is persuasive, but I hope this post has shown you the flaws in this training style and provided some alternative approaches.
If you train this way by choice because you feel like it helps you battle your demons, then I can understand that too. At the end of Rocky Balboa, even Rocky admits that his last fight was about getting rid of “the beast”.
However, just because exercise is something that can improve our mental and physical health, that doesn’t guarantee that exercising is always the form of therapy. At a time when we are all more aware of the relationship between exercise and mental health, it’s important to appreciate the need for balance. Training is not good for your mental health if you jeopardise your physical health in the process. If you have to train like a demon in order to process your emotional stresses, to the point of risking injury, then you are not striking that balance.
You should also bear in mind that if your fitness approach does leave you overtrained or injured, you’ll be robbed of this source of stress-relief. Sometimes, like it or not, you need to take some time to rest.
“Stopping means we must face the clamour of our minds or be hit by a feeling we hadn’t paid any attention to for some time. Proclaiming yourself incapable of switching off might be an excuse to avoid facing your inner dialogue.”
Dr Emilia Thompson RNutr
I’m not sure I’m qualified to give this post a nice, neat conclusion. It’s easy to laugh at the sometimes-ridiculous nature of the super hardcore gym athlete, but I do think there’s a genuine reason to be wary of this behaviour, too. If this blog does persuade you to rethink your training, remember the following points:
- Banging your head against a brick wall does not entitle you to success, especially if you’re standing right next to the door;
- The headache you get from banging your head against the brick wall is not a badge of honour;
- You don’t deserve to have your head banged against the brick wall.
Exercise is supposed to be a celebration, not a punishment.
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