Training Distractions
I have trained in many settings and facilities. I have had access to some amazing ones, which had competitive teams and scheduled practice times, some where it was equally amazing with all the equipment I could imagine but I was only able to train alone, and I have also just trained in my garage. A different type and level of focus was required in each one but there were also common themes. The biggest distraction for most is their phone, and this certainly isn’t any less true for me. Whether it is dealing with work (outside of coaching), checking or answering emails, the ever consuming instagram stalking of my competition or answering/responding to text messages, the smart phone is the ultimate killer of focus in a training environment.
Another enormous distraction during training for me is music. There have been a few facilities where the music was not to my taste, so much so it was distracting. I consider myself to have great focus when I approach the bar but there have been times when I have approached the bar, only to stop what I am doing and back away after hearing Justin Bieber or Kesha violate my earspace.
The final distraction I will address is one that is probably the hardest to solve, and that is letting your personal, work, relationship, family, etc. struggles invade your training time. This is incredibly difficult for me, but I won’t limit it to myself either. I know my athletes who have struggled with life outside the gym have had a hard time making the most of their training time on their rough days. It is incredibly difficult not to let your outside and stress affect your training time. Very few, if any, U.S. lifters are “full-time”, meaning that the majority of those reading this have a day job, financial struggles, and a home life. Personally, the struggle with life’s uncertainties is was typically creeps its way into my sessions as I rest between sets. A 1-2 minute rest to breathe and chalk turns in a 5 minute “What if…” rabbit hole of a thought process. And that rabbit hole is just as dark, daunting and frustrating during training as it is any other time.
How do we regain focus?
The three distractions listed above are the ones that primarily affect me, and the solutions below are my personal tools to regain focus.
The first two, music and smart phone, I had to learn to solve very fast. The music issue has become easy as I currently train alone in the garage- if I don’t like it I can change it. But when I was in bigger facilities where it was not my call, I typically would visualize an “Off” switch to the rest of the world as I approached the bar. It begin by me saying, to no one but myself, “Click”. And I could feel the world go silent. Over time, as I built a ritual for every time I approached the bar to lift (anyone who has seen me lift knows I approach the same every time), the world would automatically “go silent” until I dropped the bar. My advice to those who struggle with outside noise and movement is to get deeply involved in creating a routine approaching the bar. Press the “mute” button or flip the switch as you begin. Let the world fall silent and still around you even if you are in a busy, packed gym. And lift.
The second item for me was the smart phone. I had to lessen the importance of it. I am (believe it or not) old enough to remember life before everyone had a cell phone. I did not have a smart phone until I was in my Mid-20s, and I had to think about the fact that for over 20 years of my life, and for life before smart phones, people could not be reached at every second of every day. Most people will call, send a text or email, or make a social media post and expect immediate response. That is ok- 99% of the time folks will be ok waiting 2 hours for my workout to end for me to respond. The world keeps spinning, time keeps moving, and the information they need isn’t time sensitive (sorry, but my opinions on the apparently awful person you’re dating or the amazing sandwich you had for lunch are not time sensitive.) If you can’t reach that line of thinking on your own then I would leave your phone in your locker or car, and give the people close to you the number to the gym for emergencies.
The final one is, as I said before, the most difficult to solve. The answer, of course, is fluid and different for everyone. One of the lines that has always stuck with me came from a coaching mentor and former employer, Cory Worf of CrossFit Weddington. He said, when referring to our job as coaches, that we should make the members time in the gym the best hour of the day. While this was said to affect my actions as a coach, it also became twisted into “My training should be the BEST part of my day.” For 2 hours, more or less, that rabbit hole of uncertainty has to be closed and my mind is on what I enjoy the most- improving myself. When it opens between sets, I do whatever I can to self-cue to bring focus to what I can make better RIGHT THEN about my lifts because that is the only thing I can directly control at the moment.
The final piece of advice on focus that I will hand out, concerning all distractions, is that it is OK to take a day from training for mental health. If you have been hitting it hard for weeks, months even a full year with no real stopping point, and out of nowhere life hits hard- you lose a job, you break up with your girlfriend/boyfriend, your bank account hit zero, the world ran out of bacon- and you get that awful pit in your stomach and pain in your chest, your arms and legs feel heavy and you know if you try to lift anything it will come back down and crush you, go home. And go straight to bed. And sleep until you can’t sleep anymore. But know that you only get that one day to lose focus- because the next day you have to be an athlete again.
Stephen Butcher
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