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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

#21

Post by eric_h »

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.

a meditative state is definitely helpful in reducing the body's consumption of oxygen.

I got my open water scuba certification many years ago from a former Navy SEAL.

At the time, I was 4' 8" and weighed 85 pounds.

The Navy SEAL was about 5' 10", 200 pounds.

Every single dive we went on he used less than half the air that I used, and I used less air than the rest of the dive group (because I didn't need as much given my stature).

He explained that he used a meditative style breathing pattern and simply remained very calm underwater.

/anecdata

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

#22

Post by CPLX »

No1 wrote: post #19

Tucked in at the end of the article is this gem: Before he founded Marquis Jets, the world’s biggest private jet company, Itzler was known as Jesse Jaymes, a white rapper with the hit single “Shake it Like a White Girl.”

I'm glad they put that in there, until I read that I figured he was your typical run of the mill billionaire instead of someone with actual originality and artistic talent.

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

#23

Post by Afton »

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…

I can do 6 chinups right now (I happen to have tested last night of all things). If I tried to do 100 chinups, I would certainly be scheduling a Physical Therapy session tomorrow to deal with the pain in my elbow. Unless I was having surgery for a tear in my shoulder.

There is lots to recommend "don't give up". But it also has to be tempered with "Stop if it hurts". You'll get fit/strong/endurancy-faster if you can keep training tomorrow than if you have to spend three weeks icing your wrists and gobbling down NSAIDs.

EDIT: Leaving this up for posterity because why not. After re-reading your comment, I'm not convinced that we disagree. It's just that the whole thing becomes extremely nuanced once you start talking about things like: "I'm stopping doing e.g. chinups today so that I can do more tomorrow. I'm not giving up on my goal, I'm just altering the timeframe". Here it's not clear how you should interpret the "Don't give up" mantra.

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

#24

Post by jerf »

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.

It isn't just science, it's engineering. The fact that using a piece of your brain consumes more oxygen than bits that are quiescent is the fundamental principle that fMRI is based on: http://science.howstuffworks.com/fmri1.htm

I don't know exactly how much, but it's an amount usable for high-tech imaging.

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

#25

Post by jkot »

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.

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

10 years ago I could swam 50 meters. At that time I was doing tai-chi, meditation etc...

'Proper study' is here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11352604

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

#26

Post by rdancer »

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…

backpack weighs twenty-five what?

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

#27

Post by maxerickson »

rdancer wrote: post #26
crikli wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

backpack weighs twenty-five what?

Pounds.

It's probably a somewhat obsolete usage of #, especially in a twitter world, but it isn't really obscure (the key is often called the "pound sign" when it isn't called a hash).

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

#28

Post by beachstartup »

recently i hired a barbell / weight coach to train me (he really pushes me hard, harder than i ever thought i was capable of going), i find that i usually start wanting to mentally 'give up' at around the halfway mark during a training session. 40-60%.

but since i'm generally healthy, the trick is to decide to go until i absolutely can not move anymore, whether it's 2 minutes or another hour. once you've made that decision in your head (your mental "escape route" having been established), the rest is easy. when you have a professional watching your form and supervising you, this is perfectly safe. if i can still move the weight, i keep going. if i can't move the weight, then it's a good time to stop.

for me personally, it's much harder to wake up 3x a week at 0530 and go to the gym than to finish a physical task when you feel like giving up. that's where the 40% rule doesn't really help me much. once i'm there it's not that hard to finish.

btw, for those of you thinking of hiring a trainer, don't just walk into a gym and ask for one on staff, find a reputable barbell coach in your area and work with them on a long term training plan that suits your budget and goals, then pay it all up front because otherwise you're not going to get your ass out of bed at 6am.

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

#29

Post by stephencanon »

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.

Kidney damage will absolutely kill you if left untreated.

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

#30

Post by ianamartin »

What the fuck did I just read? This is (scientifically) proven because of a non sequitur about placebo effect?

I'd kind of like to have 2 minutes of my life refunded to me. And the pint of blood I just lost from stabbing myself in the eyeballs when I realized that some people actually take this spam-subscription bait seriously.

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