Four Ways to Train Effortlessly; All Gain with No Pain
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 12:46PM 
Zen teaches about how to attain effortless movement throughout the day. You must learn to stop fighting your mind and use it as a resource instead. Write down your tasks and get them out of your head to turn your brain into an idea machine instead of a stressed-out task holder with no more room to keep up with all the work to be remembered.
In the same way, you can transform how you approach your workouts to turn them into a resource instead of work. Here's a few methods that are proven to work:
- Bike and run to explore an area, not just to burn calories. Exploring is tons of fun and you learn a lot at the same time. Go down new streets and pay attention and you'll notice all kinds of information that can help you daily.
- Run as meditation. Ditch the iPod and just run. Bring a piece of paper and pen or a voice recorder and jot down all the tasks and ideas that come to you while you go. After a while, they'll all be gone and you'll have a clear head. Repeat often.
- Swim like a fish. Personally, I like to imagine that I'm flying like a bird over the ground or I'm in zero gravity. However you do it, just play. Doing this is a fantastic way to get yourself into the pool and warmed up.
- Bike to work. Do this and you'll save gas, arrive at work more energized, and also be putting in time towards training hours.
A big question is, "How hard should I go when training effortlessly?" The answer may be individual, but what works best for many is to go at an earnest effort, but not too hard. Go like you have someplace to be and you don't want to be late, but you're not going to kill yourself over it. Imagine you're trying to catch a TV show that is your favorite, but you've already seen it many times, so it's not the end of the world if you miss it.
The trick is to turn workouts into something you want to do instead of what you have to do. Once you figure out these methods, you can train for something as big as Kona and not get stressed out about it.
How do you train effortlessly?
Reader Comments (1)
Very helpful Bret! As ever. I found i love riding to work and i do much better when i ride to explore and have a destination.
If i am just going out to get 30 miles in i do not do so well. So i make up things. RedBox is a good one. If i have rented a movie on RedBox i can return it 20 miles away across town to give me a destination.