The fear around maximal effort.

I haven’t written much about rowing because it doesn’t relate in many ways to weightlifting or the things I’m looking to achieve in the weight’s room. But I spent a good 13 years or so where rowing consumed me; was a part of every life decision I made, was my work and my hobby, was my social circle, my ambitions. I learnt a lot from it, and this particular insight is I think transferable.

Rowing toughened me up, in the kind of way where you’d think ‘yeah I’m tough I can push myself’ and then you row for a few years and laugh remembering the delicate little flower you actually used to be. In training to compete in rowing I voluntarily put myself in many uncomfortable positions; rough weather, difficult water conditions, incompatible crews, pain, exertion. Rowing is an incredibly effective means to repeatedly expose yourself to situations where your brain says not only ‘I don’t want to do this this’ but, ‘I’m not sure I can do this’. And then you do it anyway; and you build confidence in what you are capable of, and a willingness to go to ever darker places to work hard and go fast.

It sounds all a bit hard core but there is a bit of science behind it. I’m not going to reference literature here, this is literally the subject of my Masters and you’re just going to have to take my well-educated word for it. A rowing race lasts on average say 6-7 minutes (it varies by sex, boat class, environmental conditions and of course competitive level). The full body movement, relatively slow movement (by human maximal effort race standards), additional loading as a result of needing to propel a boat through water, and the awkward duration that’s a bit too long to be totally anaerobic but not quite long enough to perform aerobically, essentially means that maximal effort in a race situation hurts. The goal of training is to both learn where that line is mentally and physically, and over time push that line further out.

Every rower knows about the 2km erg. The 2km erg (erg= rowing machine or rowing ergometer) is a key testing tool to assess athlete physical performance (and mental fortitude) in rowing. And athletes are generally terrified of them, far more so than when racing on water despite the supposedly comparable effort.

I’ve thought about this a lot. Experienced it myself, observed others experiencing it, talked to high performance athletes about it, read about it. Here are my conclusions.

There’s always going to be a little bit of trepidation when you know the effort ahead of you is maximal, especially when it’s going to hurt. The genuine fear many feel however is totally unjustified, and I think it boils down to two often poorly managed factors; the internal struggle, and knowledge of the outcome.

The internal struggle

“The brain will give up before the body does”

I think it’s fair to state that any physical exertion requires at the very least mental co-operation. A maximal exertion however… admittedly stretching out of my area of expertise here but my experienced layman’s perspective is that you won’t achieve a truly maximal physical exertion without mental assistance- to fully commit effort and energy. In a 2km erg pretty early on your legs are going to start to burn, and you’re going to feel like you’re struggling for breath. Understandably, brain goes ‘hey not keen maybe just don’t do this’. Or, going for a new 1RM in training and brain goes ‘this is going to feel heavy I might drop it on myself that’s not good we should just not’.

Maximal efforts like these require countering the internal voice telling you to stop and are incredibly personal battles absolutely noone else can help you with in the moment. It can be a scary thing to sit there with ourselves knowing it’s you v you. To ask hard things of yourself- and then get the answer. Not having the skills or experience to manage internal dialogue leaves you vulnerable to losing that battle, and consequently room for fear.

Knowledge of the outcome

“Don’t train so that you might; train so that you can’t not”

A concept I’ve heard many times from high performing athletes and coaches is the idea of ‘knowing rather than hoping’. And in turn I think a lot of fear around maximal effort situations stems from when hope overrides the knowing (from a lack of supporting evidence, aka unrealistic expectations). This also links to control, for example instead of going into the 2km erg with a plan formed around your preparations and what you are capable of, you just want to beat the person on the machine next to you. Problem is you don’t know what they are going to do, so now you have no actionable plan or knowledge of capability.

Knowing is driven by evidence and consistent evidence enables the situation of knowing. Testing will reflect your training. Inconsistent training and a habit of missing lifts half the time means you stand up there on the platform for your first attempt in the snatch and your scumbag brain goes ‘hey what’s a snatch again?’ and you quite reasonably start to question if you are going to make it. You don’t know you’re going to make it, because you often don’t in training. So now the internal struggle is amplified because you’re trying to get assistance and commitment in the face of justifiable doubt.

Framing (or reframing) thoughts, perceptions and internal dialogue to support performance is I think one of the less obvious factors that separates the best from the rest; from attitudes and efforts in training, through to the handling of testing and competition environments. If this is an aspect of peformance you’ve not thought too much about before, here’s your first actionable step: pay attention to the thoughts floating around in your head- when you ask yourself to work hard, when you apply maximal effort, when you perform (or imagine performing (compete/race/test)). You need to know what you’re dealing with before you can look to make changes.