Hey what's going on?
Today I want to talk to you about an experience that changed my mind about “effort.”
So over the weekend I flew down to Miami for our company retreat:
Saturday morning, my buddy Nils and I went into the gym.
At around 6:45 am, with jelly legs after a full “knees over toe” protocol, we wobbled to the door to grab a cappuccino and hang.
When my boss walked in.
"Boys you ever lift failure before?" he asked.
I think I knew what he meant but half of me didn't want to know.
For context, this guy is 6’3, jacked, and a former center for Princeton football.
But of course being the new kid on the team, I wanted to tag along. And so he took us along for his dead simple yet massively effective work out:
Rather than lift 5-6 times a week, 3 sets per exercise like a standard regiment, he had a more 80/20 approach:
1 body part, 1 set
6-8 reps (until absolute muscle failure)
3 times a week
Absolute failure meaning if a fly fell on the weight for the last rep there would be zero possibility of you pushing the weight a millimeter.
The point is, if you can push your body to its breaking point, via 1 extra rep, or 1 extra pound per week you will GUARANTEE hypertrophy because your muscles will be forced to grow to react to the environmental stressor.
But something funny happened when I tried:
As I was pushing for my 8th rep “to failure”, Dickie looks me in the eyes:
"Oh bro, you have 12 more reps to go"
At first I was pissed off. Was he judging my ability to push myself?
But then I realized, he was 100% right, and I kept pushing and pushing and pushing, until the bar literally couldn't move.
12 reps later, I stood up from the machine a little shocked and embarrassed.
How had I misjudged my limit by more than 100%? Have I ever pushed myself to the limit in anything?
That's when I realized, no.
I don't know my limit and my mind gives up half way before I'm actually there.
And so I went into the sales week with the same mentality:
Sell to failure.
The results?
I doubled my closed deals from the week before and doubled my income.
Simple as that.
The point is we think we have an idea of what our “limit is.”
But our brain wants to maintain homeostasis. It doesn't want that uncomfortable feeling of going beyond its normal range of experience. But if you can push, in that moment where your mind tricks you into believing you're done, you can literally double your outcome.
Go to failure.
Thanks for reading.
Reminds me of the David Goggins story where trained a guy on pull ups. After he said he couldn't do any more, Goggins says, "that's just the first set." Story goes, the guy did a lot more pull-ups.
It's kind of like when you force your neck through a tight t-shirt. It's a little awkward at first but you permanently expand your zone of comfort and what's possible.
Cool story about the +12 reps! I've had a similar experience, so now my effort bar in the gym is pure agony. But that's better than leaving something on the table.
P.S. Leg day challenge: warm up squat with just the bar and do 100 squats in a row. Pure pain.