There’s a point in difficult workouts that we’ve all experienced:

We want to quit or slow down.

Lungs on fire send a sharp pulse of panic to our brain, or the drudgery of miles on miles sells boredom in a package wrapped with the comfort of a car and air conditioning.

A voice in your head tells you that you’ve done enough. Worse, it tells you that you can’t do anymore. Then you’re thinking falls inline with the voice. You talk yourself into slowing down or quitting. Or you fight back against the voice. But the question is, are you using the right weapons for the fight?

At times, our well-intentioned fight back devolves into self-judgment bouncing around inside our skulls. It might start well, but often times it ends up sounding like an ill-equipped dad yelling at his kid for not holding the flashlight still.

Keep going, you idiot.

Don’t be soft.

Everyone’s gonna think you’re a pussy.

Well-intentioned but unproductive, talking to ourselves this way makes things worse. I realized that by watching one of my high school teammates.

We were backfield mates on the football team. I was the quarterback and he was the tailback. He was big, handsome, all-american type kid. He was politely mannered, came from a great family, and everyone loved him, including me. Our coaches loved him because he seemed so hard on himself.

I remember us jogging back to the sideline after he fumbled and we lost possession. As we hit the boundary, he said outloud to himself, “You’re such a pussy; stop fucking up.” And it wasn’t for show; he was sincere. Our coaches were in ear shot. They took it as an extreme form of self-accountability. I know because my brother was one of the coaches, so I was privy to details that other players weren’t. I overhead a conversation about my teammate. They loved him because he took responsibility and came down hard on himself.

But I noticed something else about my teammate, even as a 17-year old kid – his harsh self-talk didn’t help. Despite having the size and speed to launch him into the upper echelons of Pennsylvania high school football, he fumbled; he made bad cuts; he dropped passes. He perpetuated brutal self-talk throughout all of it.  

Mind you, this was the early 2000s, and emotional management hadn’t yet permeated society as it has today. Hell, I don’t think an adult around us would even have the term self-talk stored in the recesses of their brain. So, I’m not writing this in judgement, only as an example that I lived through to illustrate the truth that negative self-talk isn’t helpful.

The good news is, it’s not necessary to count on my assessment of my teammate when I was 17 years old. We have peer reviewed research.

A 2016 study (I linked it in case you want to read the research) demonstrated that negative self-talk led to increased anxiety levels. That anxiety increased fear of failure and fear of making mistakes. 

Another study found that negative self-talk was associated with losing tennis matches. It also found players that found self-talk useful won more points than players that did not.

How we talk to ourselves, particularly in stressful situations, matters. But no matter what, that voice is going to creep up on us at times. What do we do about it?

Years later, as I was in the midst of creating Human Predator Packmule, I did a brutal high-intensity continuous (HICT) step up session. It was a real bastard, a nice combination of hurt and suffer. I did 2 sets of 20 minutes with 100 pounds in my pack.

The thing that makes HICT rough is the monotony. You do the same thing over and over for, in this case, 20 minutes. Then you rest for a few minutes and do it again. There’s a lot of space for the demons to whisper in your mind.

I got through the first set well. I’m not saying it was super-neat-fun-time. But I powered through without concern. Then I strapped on my pack for the second set. It felt like every weight in the gym was loaded in my pack. My shoulders politely, but firmly, asked me just what in the hell I was doing? My legs spoke up just after. I apologized, then got started on the second set.

For context, I’ve studied mental skills for a while and have a psychology degree. And even with that awareness, the voice crept into my head during that second set. 

This sucks. You sure you want to do all 20 minutes? You’d be fine with 10.

Fuck, my legs are tired.

Hunting is stupid. I don’t even like hunting. Why am I doing this? 

After that last statement, I knew it was time to shut that goddamn voice up. That’s when I knew it wasn’t “me.” Then a mantra lept into my mind:

You’re fine. You’re just uncomfortable.

It was true. I was in my air conditioned gym in suburban Washington D.C. I wasn’t injured. There wasn’t anything at all wrong. I just had a little bit of hurt and suffer coming down on me and my brain wanted me to quit so we could go find of sweet, cool water and a plush chair. So, I was gentle, but firm, with my brain.

You’re fine. You’re just uncomfortable.

It was like the fog cleared and I saw the open road. Now, I didn’t make an unrealistically positive statement. And I didn’t berate myself with anything negative.

I just told myself the truth.

Then I followed it up with a cue: focus on driving hard through each step.

The mantra gave me a dose of realism. 

The cue gave me something to focus on.

It’s an open-face self-talk sandwich that I still use all the time.

We’ve come to the part where we help you.

How can you use self-talk to get you through difficult workouts?

Start by acknowledging the voice and realizing that it isn’t going anywhere. When shit gets uncomfortable, your brain will try to stop you or slow you down. This is normal. Now, you can space out utterances of the voice and turn down the volume through practicing mental skills and self-talk. But it won’t totally go away.

Second thing – don’t lie to yourself. If something’s hard, you can acknowledge that it’s hard. But that doesn’t mean the difficulty should change your behavior. Last week I was doing V02max intervals on the stairclimber and the voice talked to me. I replied with, “Yes, this is brutal, but it doesn’t mean you need to slow down.” Both statements were true. I accepted reality but also told myself that just because it was hard and I was hurting didn’t mean that my behavior needed to change.

Third thing – focus on execution. Tell yourself what to do to perform. “Drive hard through each step.” “Turn your legs over.” Whatever it is and whatever works for you. Focusing on performance cues keeps you in the moment and focused on the task while quieting the voice.

Fourth thing – don’t judge yourself. It’s not helpful. Saying things like, “This shouldn’t be this hard for you,” will only make things worse. It will start a cycle of negative self-talk that could increase your anxiety, slow you down, or talk you into quitting. Just accept things as they are. Sometimes workouts feel harder than you expect them to. That’s part of the deal.

Fifth thing – realize that self-talk is an individual thing. The examples I mentioned work for me. Try them out if you wish. But the best thing for you to do is come up with mantras, phrases, and cues that work for you. Just be sure to keep them on the neutral/positive side and don’t lie to yourself.

Try these strategies out. Play with them and see what you come up with. When you feel the panic rising during a workout that brings the hurt, they’ll be there to calm you down and keep you moving forward.

(Mental skills training and self-talk is a big part of what we do in Backcountry Ready. Click HERE to get yourself a slot in Backcountry Ready.)