I’ve historically viewed stress like an internal fuse. Once I started experiencing a stress response, the fuse was lit and hopefully it was long enough to withstand the severity or amount of time a given stressor may be present. A shorter fuse could occur due to previous stress in the day, being sick, tired, or hungry. Once my figurative fuse burnt out, emotional reasoning ensued. My subsequent words, actions, and behavior were all excused because my fuse unfortunately burnt out. Not my fault.
Makes sense if you don’t think about it.
Stress often feels linear once we are aware of it and a stressor persists. Argument with a loved one, traffic progressively leading to your potential being late, children not listening, building hunger, fatigue, or discomfort. The feelings we encounter in response to stressors appear to have a mind of their own once the fuse is lit. Only good fortune in the stressor changing to our benefit can prevent an emotional outburst.
Uncontrollable stressors often feel like they produce uncontrollable stress.
Stress management strategies can be quite effective in responding to life’s inevitable stress. Reactive strategies, however, are often difficult to consistently produce due to stressor complexity and emotional reasoning. Many of our thought processes and downstream reactions are habitual. Inserting space between an uncontrollable stressor and response is hard. Once emotional reasoning begins, it’s even harder to reverse.
Many are governed by stimulus -> response. Perceived threat -> stress. Stressor -> lit fuse.
A little over two years ago, I was adding a prolonged forearms plank into my workout routine. Like anything else, I wasn’t great when I started. At best, I would be able to hold a plank for a few minutes before breaking. The more I practiced, the more time I could add onto my personal record. Before I knew it, I would set an intention to add at least a minute to my best time each subsequent attempt. I was able to build up to 41 minutes but you’ll have to take me on my word because I only recorded my 30 minute successful attempt:
It seems really impressive until you know that the current world record for a plank hold is more than nine and a half hours!
While my initial reason for pursuing the prolonged plank challenge was to cause adaptations in my shoulders and core, I quickly experienced the mental benefit of muscular endurance exercise, particularly with isometric holds like a plank.
Exercise is a self-induced stressor. We decide to exercise for a variety of reasons and often know what we are going to do and for how long prior to beginning. Over time, we develop strategies and technique to help with proficiency and efficiency in a given skill.
What I love about isometric holds is that they are a continuous, steady stressor. No skill needed once you’re in the position and the muscles contract. Same resistance will be applied to your body for whatever amount of time you are able to hold, or more specifically, you decide to hold. I make this distinction because I often thought my building fatigue and body shaking was the linear stress response of my system indicating it was nearing time to collapse.
I was wrong.
As I continuously attempted planking for time, I realized I could breathe through these bouts of building fatigue or stress. I would be shaking uncontrollably well before the time I had previously achieved and decided I wasn’t going to drop. I would go dark in my mind and focus only on a phrase to reframe the pain or on a controlled breath rate, particularly extended exhales in attempt to activate my parasympathetic nervous system.
I used to think the body informed the mind of when to quit. Planking for time has taught me the mind can override our body’s signal of stress, fatigue, or anything else.
Our mind is the driver of our decisions, not our urges or stress.
The 30 minute video of my plank is boring to actually watch to say the least. However, if you like to geek out on this kind of stuff like I do, you can see and hear various times in the video of me working through those bouts of stress. It’s still wild to experience that build and then release/reversal of the symptom severity while continuing to hold a given position.
No music. No distractions. That’s all wasted energy and focus anyway. Be alone with your thoughts while a continuous stressor is present. What does your mind tell you? What does your soul say back? This can be trained. Prepare a few affirmations (Rocky repeatedly saying “no pain” during the workout montage in Rocky 4 still gets me fired up to this day), have a go-to breathing strategy, and set your intention. I assure you that you can exceed your previous best times on most subsequent attempts with this strategy.
Don’t get me wrong. We need to listen to our bodies. The mind can override signals but this decision can be detrimental when ignoring true sensory alarms. Hurting is different than an injury. Hunger is different than starvation. Uncomfortable is different than unbearable. These signals feel equal when we don’t train within them. Learn to differentiate a feeling from a problem, an urge from a need.
My recommendation is always to just set a timer and plank for as long as you can until you begin to feel that building fatigue or stress. Drop at that point and note the time. When you return after proper recovery, go at least 5 seconds longer and progress from there.
Intentionally causing the stress response can be enlightening. You learn through controlled experience. Your unique, subjective assessment of the stress response can be reframed and evolve. This knowledge can then be applied to all life stressors. Those arguments, traffic, children, urges, or particular discomforts don’t have to have control over you.
The stress response isn’t linear.
There is no fuse.
Recognize your stress, consciously breathe while managing it and eventually overcome it without concern of the stressor. Optimize your response by proactively training with intentional stress. Your mind, even your emotional brain, has the ability to adapt.
Deliberately cause discomfort to train resilience.
Do this in response to a stressor like a plank hold and reap the secondary rewards of improved fitness and physical health.
A resilient mental state can be derived from the practice of intentional stress. Use this training to prepare for the uncontrollable stressors life inevitably will challenge us with.
Proactive > reactive.
Disclaimer:
The content provided is intended for general knowledge and informational purposes only and is not a replacement for medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional prior to making any decisions or changes relating to your health. Kyle Shepard is not responsible for any adverse effects resulting from the use of information in this publication.
Fascinating post Kyle. Two questions if I may.
Is it correct, if perhaps an oversimplification, to say you used planks to train your mind to tolerate or ignore signals from your mind to stop before your body had reached its limit? (i’m wondering if this could be a technique to train yourself to maintain higher levels of exertion during a race of some sort, in my case, cross country skiing)
Did you suffer any physical injury to your shoulders or any other part of your body during this process?
And if I may ask a third question, how much time did you did you give yourself for recovery between plank sessions?
Isometric holds and slow core exercises are my favourite! They challenge my stability and focus and make me feel so strong.