“You’ve lost that Loving Feeling”
By Sean Wells
For those of you who know the movie Top Gun, you will remember this; the scene where Maverick(Tom Cruise) sings to a woman in a bar(turns out it is his future advisor in the movie). Maverick sings a song “You’ve lost that loving feeling”. The song’s title is more important for the context of this blog than the words. However, if you want to see the clip go here. skip to 2:41.
The song in this context and specifically the title refers to something that I see happen to people in the gym. Specifically, those that have been training for awhile – but usually those who are training CrossFit. These people get addicted to the feeling.
Chasing the feeling
When I say “feeling” I am referring to how they “feel” after a particularly hard training workout. The “feeling” that happens when they are laying on the ground after this hard workout and they are in a puddle of sweat. The “feeling” is probably best described as a sense of accomplishment, success, maybe a “feeling” of superiority over those who couldn’t have done a workout as hard as this. This “feeling” produces the chemical Dopamine – same as a runner gets after completing a run “Runner’s High”.
Dopamine and Serotonin
Dopamine and Serotonin are the trophies we get when do the right things. Triggering these chemicals is the brain’s ultimate goal. Our bodies follow our brains around. We are constantly led toward the pursuit of happiness by our brains desire to get these chemicals. When we are knocking out these “hard” workouts and laying on the ground we are triggering these responses.
Just like anything else in life – everything needs to be done in moderation. The above mentioned “hard” workouts that leave you laying in a puddle of sweat at the end of the workout might not be the best for you. Especially if you are doing these type of workouts day in and day out. But being human and having a brain that realizes what makes us happy(different than other mammals). Our brain is telling us to chase this “feeling” and people doing CrossFit know what brings it on; the difficult, longer duration, sweaty workouts. So we chase this “Loving feeling”.
Long Term Success
What does this mean for our long term success? Quite simply it is not ideal to just chase the “feeling”. Similarly, a runner can’t only run, they need to strength train, work on running technique, maybe do some dynamic stretching, get a massage once in awhile, see a chiropractor, etc, etc. Strength and conditioning athletes, CrossFitters, we need days that we aren’t left lying on the ground. Why? Who says we can’t do this every day? Well, for one, every Strength and conditioning coach(you want sources hit me up I will send you books to read) in the world that is understands physical training, every runner who has only run and any CrossFitter that didn’t have a plan with their training.
How do we do things at OG?
What we do here at OC is balance what you want with what you need. And we had better measure it! Set goals and then logically look at how we are going to chase those goals. Looking at 10+ years of being open and having very few injuries, having significant success in helping others be healthier, feel better, look better, perform better(1,000’s of people now). If in those 10+ years we didn’t continue to implement what works better than what doesn’t we wouldn’t be doing our job. Our job is to help you reach your goals. Do not just chase the “Loving Feeling”, figure out what you want – logically, set up a plan of action to go get it and implement said plan.
“Chasing a feeling always leaves you behind” this quote has stuck with me. The quote is in essence what you don’t want to be doing. You want to know where you are going and implement a plan to get there.
Always Moving Forward!
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