EXERCISES TO BURN FAT

GATHERING FEEDBACK Many years ago, in the race in which I set my 5K PR, I thought I had gone out too fast. I ran the first mile in 4:56about 20 seconds faster than I meant to. When I reached the 2-mile mark at 10:10, I assumed that my inevitable unraveling had only just begun. Sure enough, shortly thereafter I started to feel terrible. My suffering took on cosmic proportions.

But when the finish clock became visible in the distance and I realized I still had a chance to break 16 minutes for the first time, all of that disappeared. I caught an instantaneous, powerful second wind and kicked strong to the finish line. This is a clear example of how fatigue is essentially a choice, which the brain has a certain amount of leeway to reverse under the right circumstances.

The motivation derived from monitoring performance feedback is one circumstance that can push back the wall of fatigue. Performance feedback is information that tells you exactly how you are doing in pursuit of a specific performance goal. It is another source of information that your brain’s anticipatory regulation mechanism can use to make more accurate and aggressive calculations about what your body can really do. When I counted off the seconds aloud as my CrossFit volunteer held the dumbbell aloft for the second time, I was giving him performance feedback that helped him beat the mark of 15 seconds he had achieved the first time. He would probably not have destroyed that mark if I had not given him performance feedback and instead had left him to guess how he was doing.