‘Doing’ in exchange for ‘not doing’ is powerful beyond measure.
“Discipline is a byproduct of your willingness to do hard, often mundane things, especially when you don’t want to.
Overcoming the natural desire to ‘not do’ in exchange for ‘doing’ is powerful beyond measure.
Want a leg up?
Just do what the commoner won’t.
It’s that easy.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
I’ve just finished up my 6-week ‘Stairs & Swings’ Protocol.
For those who don’t know, I was performing a minimum of 100 swings/day & climbing 10 flights of stadium stairs/day.
Sometimes I would do more, but never less than 100 Swings & 10 Stairs.
This protocol was to be done every single day, for 42 days straight.
I created this protocol to enhance a baseline of GPP as I head into my next phase of training (the Broad Axe protocol I created) which for me personally, is heavily conditioning based.
I knew building up to my next phase of Broad Axe, I wanted to create a simple protocol to follow every day. Obviously, I wanted it to be consistent & beneficial, but more importantly it needed to be recoverable.
If I was going to commit to doing this every day, I needed to be able to recover from it.
Swings = Total Body Strength/Power & High Value/Low Tax
Stairs = Trains the Lungs/Legs & Low Risk/High Reward.
Knowing the benefits of these two exercises and the lack of wear and tear they place upon the body, I decided to combine them together and do them everyday.
A major rule for myself was that ALL training must be done outside, regardless of weather.
I chose this time of year strategically because if you know anything about Georgia, this time of year can be wild.
I trained through it all, 30-degree temps, 80+ degree temps, beautiful sunshine, driving rain. I didn’t miss.
For the first two weeks of the protocol, I was sick as a dog, too.
It took multiple rounds of antibiotics to finally kill off the sinus funk, but part of what discipline has taught me, is to do what you said you’d do regardless of how you’re feeling.
Knowing “life” happens, I made this protocol “easy enough” knowing that I could still accomplish its requirements on even the toughest days.
And yeah, feeling like shit, walking/driving past not 1, but 2 climate-controlled gyms I own to go swing a bell and climb concrete stairs in 40-degree rain, wasn’t ideal, nor was it fun.
But that was the whole point.
Discipline is about knowing what’s easy and comfortable and choosing to do what is not. A bunch of times in a row.
Set the intention. Execute
