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The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness

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Re: The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness

#11

Post by vinceguidry »

It's entirely too hard to ascertain whether doing 2.5x more of whatever it is you're doing right now is really going to get you where you want to go. Sometimes, probably most of the time, the goal is learning, you want to immerse yourself into the space of possibility and figure out what's important.

For a SEAL, someone regularly called on to do the impossible, the 40% rule makes perfect sense. For most of us, doing 100 pull ups instead of 40 is mostly missing the point. Spending 2 hours in the gym instead of 30 minutes for me is actually counter-productive. It's not how many pull ups you do on a given day, it's how many times in a given year you do pull ups.

Re: The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness

#12

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

ErikAugust wrote: post #8

"Who is this guy? I’ve never seen anything like it. And during the race, I kept an eye on him and around mile 70 — he weighed probably 260 pounds, which is quite large for an ultra runner — he had broken all the small bones in both of his feet and had kidney damage and he finished the race." Running 100s at 260 pounds - and continuing through kidney damage and broken foot bones isn't tough - it's just stupid.

It's also necessary in some circumstances. Kidney damage and broken foot bones probably won't kill you. Getting caught will.

Re: The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness

#13

Post by ErikAugust »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #12
ErikAugust wrote: post #8

"Who is this guy? I’ve never seen anything like it. And during the race, I kept an eye on him and around mile 70 — he weighed probably 260 pounds, which is quite large for an ultra runner — he had broken all the small bones in both of his feet and had kidney damage and he finished the race." Running 100s at 260 pounds - and continuing through kidney damage and broken foot bones isn't tough - it's just stupid.

It's also necessary in some circumstances. Kidney damage and broken foot bones probably won't kill you. Getting caught will.

It's an ultramarathon - not a battle.

Re: The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness

#14

Post by pc86 »

jkot wrote: post #7
smileysteve wrote: post #2

One reason Navy Seals need to be good at this is that they are swimming 50m underwater in one breath. When swimming while holding your breath, your brain is telling you, stop, you're low on air, indeed, you can ignore than and swim the rest.

When swimming underwater, brain should not be telling or ignoring anything, it should be totally empty. Idle brain consumes about 25% oxygen, even more when it is being used.

I would love to see a source for this that thinking about something uses more oxygen.

Re: The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness

#15

Post by cpncrunch »

Afton wrote: post #6

These techniques are useful when you have a large pool of young extremely healthy men. Then when they blow out knees, shoulders, back, etc you can just select the ones who didn't break. Claiming that this is a useful and effective way to train is a terrible idea. The only reason this kind of article is useful at all is that virtually everyone who trains a sport fails to train hard enough . In other words, after you r…

The other problem is overtraining:

http://www.outsideonline.com/1986361/running-empty

Sometimes you get to the point where the harder you attempt to push through fatigue, the more likely you are to do long-term harm. Unfortunately it's difficult figuring out when you've reached that point.

Re: The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness

#16

Post by crikli »

Afton wrote: post #6

These techniques are useful when you have a large pool of young extremely healthy men. Then when they blow out knees, shoulders, back, etc you can just select the ones who didn't break. Claiming that this is a useful and effective way to train is a terrible idea. The only reason this kind of article is useful at all is that virtually everyone who trains a sport fails to train hard enough . In other words, after you r…

I regularly participate in events known as GORUCK Challenges. They're 12 hour+ endurance events led by current and former special forces operatives from all branches of the military.

Yes, there are plenty of young extremely healthy men at these events, but they're the minority. The majority of participants are over 30 years old, in good but not great or extreme condition, and tend to be 10-30% female.

These events are hard. Hours of PT, carrying of heavy objects for hours at a time, all while wearing a backpack that weighs at minimum 25#.

Success rate is about 94%. Yes, there is some principle of self-selection at work whereupon if you're dumb enough to sign up for such a thing you're predisposed to survival, but the biggest reason that participants finish is because we are all capable of so much more than we think.

That's the point of the article, IMO. Don't try harder, just don't fucking quit. Hell, try less if that's what it takes to not quit.

Edit: accidentally hit enter too soon. I wanted to say something about "not training hard enough" not being the issue with most athletes I see, rather they're training too hard with poorly designed programming.

Re: The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness

#17

Post by Phlarp »

pc86 wrote: post #14
jkot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When swimming underwater, brain should not be telling or ignoring anything, it should be totally empty. Idle brain consumes about 25% oxygen, even more when it is being used.

I would love to see a source for this that thinking about something uses more oxygen.

Just the act of thinking won't consume more oxygen, but thoughts can lead to physiological changes, like panic, that do consume more oxygen.

Re: The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness

#18

Post by Phlarp »

pc86 wrote: post #14
jkot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When swimming underwater, brain should not be telling or ignoring anything, it should be totally empty. Idle brain consumes about 25% oxygen, even more when it is being used.

I would love to see a source for this that thinking about something uses more oxygen.

Just the act of thinking won't consume more oxygen, but thoughts can lead to physiological changes, like panic, that do consume more oxygen.

Re: The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness

#20

Post by wpietri »

crikli wrote: post #16
Afton wrote: post #6

These techniques are useful when you have a large pool of young extremely healthy men. Then when they blow out knees, shoulders, back, etc you can just select the ones who didn't break. Claiming that this is a useful and effective way to train is a terrible idea. The only reason this kind of article is useful at all is that virtually everyone who trains a sport fails to train hard enough . In other words, after you r…

I regularly participate in events known as GORUCK Challenges. They're 12 hour+ endurance events led by current and former special forces operatives from all branches of the military. Yes, there are plenty of young extremely healthy men at these events, but they're the minority. The majority of participants are over 30 years old, in good but not great or extreme condition, and tend to be 10-30% female. These events ar…

> Hell, try less if that's what it takes to not quit [...] most athletes I see [...] they're training too hard

Yeah, this was a huge lesson for me. I was used to being good at the things I spent time on. So when I'd try doing sporty things, I'd overestimate my current level and underestimate how much work it takes to improve. Training would be awful and discouraging and I'd quit.

Less ambitious training was the key for me to learn to not give up. At this point I've done a couple of triathlons and I don't know how many distance runs. I never would have gotten there without a big dose of humility and being realistic.

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