Can your mindset handle injuries and disruptions to your training?

Today, I'm talking about my personal opinion and approach when it comes to navigating injuries and/or interruptions to training 💭

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DISCLAIMER
The Eat Like Ruby podcast is not a substitute for professional medical or dietary advice.
The advice given in this episode is general in nature and should not be used to treat any medical conditions, health conditions, illnesses, injuries and/or any nutrition related conditions, deficiencies or similar.
This podcast is not to be used as, or in place of, medical advice or dietary advice.
Please consult your health care professional before implementing any of the advice, information or protocols discussed in this episode.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello fam, welcome back to the pod. If you are new here, welcome. If you are a regular listener, welcome back. Today I'm gonna do a little bit of a different episode, I guess you'd say, big mindset episode today. So today I'm going to talk about injuries, is one part of it, but then the other part of it is related to injuries and just more so looking at like our mindset when something happens that interrupts our training. So there's a couple of little things that I want to say before we get into the episode. Very first thing I want to say is I'm not gonna speak about physically dealing with injuries in terms of like how we should rehab them. I'm not gonna be giving out medical advice, training advice, etc. In that sense, obviously you've got to talk to the right people about your own injuries and medical conditions. So just wanted to make that really clear. I am going to talk a lot about the mindset side of these things, but I also want to make it very clear that I'm not giving advice. I'm obviously not a mental health worker, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a therapist. So I am not giving advice about how to deal with these. I am also want to speak today about my own experience with these things, and then watching hundreds of women that I've coached and worked with over the years, like watching their experience and just picking up on so many things throughout that time. Because for a little bit of context, and I'm sure we'll get into some of this today, but I've literally worked in gyms since I was like 17, and I'm about to be 35, and then I've worked in the online coaching space for about eight years now. I've personally had medical conditions and injuries along the way. Obviously, I've seen people in gyms with those things. I've worked with online clients with those things. I've watched my husband play football and then move into endurance sport. We've done a lot of physio, I have a lot of conversations with physios, whether it's mine, his clients. So I just feel like I've had so much exposure to this. And like I said, there's just been so many things you pick up on along the way that just feel like it was time to do a little bit of a mindset episode about all of this stuff. But I just want to reiterate, I'm not giving advice. Obviously, everyone's experience is different. We have tens of thousands of podcast plays and downloads every month, so we cannot speak to every individual person. We're not speaking to every individual person. I just more so wanted to like bring some awareness and I guess kind of just talk about my perspective of all of this. I think I have a very unique perspective, and I have worked very hard, very hard. I would say the biggest work that I've done on my mindset throughout my entire life is learning to manage my emotions, and a large part of that came off the back of medical things and injuries. So I'm sure we'll get into that again today, but that's more so what I want to speak about. And I just want to say as well, I know that everyone is dealing with different things in this space. I know that everyone deals with them differently. We've got different levels, different intensities, different durations of injuries. So everyone is then gonna deal with all these things really differently. And I just want to point out that I am doing this episode with nothing but love. And I think there are going to be things in this episode that definitely trigger people. And I think there's even gonna be things in this episode that make people be like, shut up, Ruby, you don't know what you're talking about. You obviously don't know how hard it is for me, you don't know what mine were like. And side note, I don't know what other people's injuries are like, I only know what mine have been like. But that's almost something that I want to point out is like so many people go through this. And I think when people do go through these things, they think they're the only one, or they think they've had it the worst, and they just think like no one knows what this has been like for me. And we'll get into that a little bit more today. But just coming back to my point, I think if you are in the thick of something like this right now, you might have a bit of a response like that. And again, I just want to say like the last thing I want to do is upset anybody or trigger anybody. And I think it's gonna be one of these things where it's a bit of a catch-22, like probably the people that would benefit the most from hearing this are potentially the people that are gonna get triggered and tap out early. And then the people that listen to the whole episode probably listened because they didn't really get triggered. And if you didn't get triggered, maybe you didn't really need to hear it as much. So it is a little bit of a catch-22 in that sense. And on that note, we are gonna have some people listening that probably haven't experienced this stuff on too bad of a level. So you might hear this episode and be like, oh wow, like seems a bit dramatic, seems a bit intense. Like, I've never, I've never had that. Maybe I've had a little bit of an injury, but it definitely didn't go that bad or it didn't put my mindset in that bad of a place. But again, that just backs up my point. Like, everyone's experience is really different. And I know for a fact that a lot of people do go to a pretty bad place in their mindset when something like an injury happens. So everyone is gonna be in a different position. If you're not ready to listen to this, that is totally fine. That's the really cool thing about podcasts, they're always gonna be here. So you might not be ready to listen right now. You might have heard all that and thought, no, I can't handle this, I'm out of here. You might hit a point during this episode where you think, no, that's enough for me, I'm out of here. But just know you can come back and revisit it anytime you need to. And if nothing in this episode bothers you too much or you don't have too much of a response to it, if anything, I would take that as a little bit of a win because it probably means that you aren't in a bad place with these things or you haven't been in a bad place with these things before, which, like I said, I would definitely take that as a win. So I'm gonna get into it and like always, take what you need to take from the episode, leave what does not serve you, and we can go from there. So I said in that intro that I want to talk about injuries a little bit, but I also want to talk about how we react or how we deal with it when there is an interruption to our training. And like I said, I'm not gonna give advice in this episode, but I have a very, very strong opinion on this. I would say this is one of the strongest opinions I have in my whole life. If people don't want to take on board any of my nutrition advice or opinions, that's totally fine. I would prefer people to take this one on more than nearly anything else I've ever said on this podcast. And what I'm talking about is I feel very, very strongly about the fact that I think anybody who is into training should have systems and things in place to help them deal with the fact that something could interrupt your training at any time and your training could be taken away from you. And if you've never really thought about this, so you don't really even know how you feel about it, that's totally fine. But I think the biggest assessment or like the most important thing that people need to do is ask yourself if your mental health is dependent on training. And again, I can't stress enough I'm not giving mental health advice. You might be working with a mental health professional, and training might be part of your mental health plan, right? That is awesome. I cannot stress enough I'm not giving advice. But in my opinion, there is a big difference between training helps my mental health compared to my mental health is dependent on training. In my opinion, that is a red flag. Training can absolutely help support our mental health. Again, in my opinion, our mental health should not be dependent on training. And if we look at two of the most obvious examples why, in 2020, I was a gym manager and the prime minister went on TV on a Sunday night and said, I'm shutting gyms down indefinitely. Out of nowhere. At the start of that year, no one would have bet money on the fact that that would happen. And like I said, I was a gym manager at that time, and I watched so many people have a very, very bad response to that in terms of their mental health. And obviously, I just want to point out that a lot of other things happen at that time. Obviously, I'm talking about COVID. A lot of other things happen at that time that compiled to then leave people in a poor position of mental health. So I'm not taking away from that at all. But what I'm talking about, and the reason I wanted to bring this up, is because just like that, literally, here's the prime minister on TV just going, we're shutting down gyms indefinitely. And again, they shut down a million things. I know that. But so many people, like I said, I was a gym manager and I was an online coach as well. Like I was doing both at this time and just got inundated with people that were like, I can't cope with that, Ruby. Again, look at that right there. Something outside of your control has happened, and your instant reaction was, I can't cope with that. And if we look at the next obvious example, which is where the injuries come in, let's say we wake up tomorrow morning, we step out of bed, and we roll our ankle, and we literally can't walk, can't run, can't lift, can't drive, can't get ourselves to gym, can't get ourselves to sport, can't play sport, like we can't do any of those things for six to eight weeks. Again, something outside of your control could kick in like that, and your training could be taken away from you. That is why, in my opinion, it is so important to catch the difference between yes, training can absolutely help my mental health and be part of my overall mental health plan, but my mental health should not be dependent on training. Because if something like that happens, and those are just two examples, but like if something like that happens, those are things that are outside of your control. So there's nothing you could do about that. There was nothing any of us could do when they shut down the gyms in 2020. So coming back to being in a position where it's like my mental health is dependent on something that I can't control, that I can't change. That is why I think it is such a red flag. And like I said, predominantly we're gonna talk about injuries today, but it's essentially that same thing where it's like training's good, life's good, mental health's so good, like living my best life, loving everything. Something intercepts that that we didn't expect and we didn't have control over. Suddenly now I can't train, suddenly not so good. And I just want to come back to those two things I said there, guys, where yes, training can absolutely be part of our overall mental health plan. So then if something does happen, like the gyms get shut down or we get an injury or something pops up and it affects our training, it makes sense that it can have an effect on our mental health. Like we just might not be vibing as much as normal. We might be a little bit bummed out. It's like, yeah, that sucks. I wish that didn't happen. Bit of a bummer, gonna be a bit of a shitty few weeks. I think everybody can see the difference between that versus my mental health absolutely plummeted when that thing happened. And again, this is where some people listening who haven't experienced this would be like, wow, bit dramatic rubs. But equally, there's gonna be people listening that are like, no, my mental health has plummeted when something has interrupted my training. So everyone is gonna have a bit of a different experience with that. But if you can relate to your mental health really taking a big hit when something interrupts your training, this is where you want to come back to that question of going, does training help my mental health, or is my mental health dependent on training? And that's what I would look at is like, what other systems, what other things do you need to have in place that if training was taken away from you, you could fall back onto those things? And then, like I said, that can leave you in a position where it's like, yeah, it still sucks a bit, like I'm still a bit bummed out, but it's not having that huge detrimental impact on my mental health. And I would honestly, if you're someone who's listening, I would say nearly everyone listening has some sort of interest in training or you wouldn't be here. I would ask yourself right now, if something was to happen and you literally could not train for the next six weeks, would you be all right? Would your mental health be all right if you could not train for the next six weeks? If the answer is no, I would personally look at that and go, what do I have to do to get that answer to be a yes? What work do I have to do? What systems do I have to put in place? What do I have to get sorted so that if something were to happen and my training was to get taken away from me, I could answer that question with yes, I would be fine and I would be able to cope and navigate that. And this is gonna be different for everyone. It might mean that you have another little side hobby. If you're someone who's put all of your eggs in the one basket of training, maybe you need to get like another little hobby on the side. Maybe it's more so like mindset work and that sort of thing, where maybe you need to take up something like journaling, meditation, breath work. Maybe it's a combo of these things. Like it's gonna be different for everyone. And like I said, I'm not gonna sit here and give advice on how we should all personally do this because different people respond well to different things. But I just think it's so important to think about that for yourself. And really, and this is where I guess we could start to look at how I've navigated this, but really it's looking at if something were to happen right now that were to take your training away from you, would you have a very emotionally reactive response? Or would you be able to sit through that and go, okay, cool, what does this actually mean? Like what is my life gonna look like? And just actually be able to have the emotional intelligence to actually navigate the process instead of just have a big reactivity response to the process. And I guess that kind of brings me into my next point, which is really looking at injuries, because I think injuries are especially where we can see this big emotional response from people. And again, please don't get me wrong in thinking that I'm saying like we need to have no response and we need to be completely robotic and just totally fine with all these things. Like, it is absolutely the human response to be like, I like this thing, it's a big part of my life. Maybe it's a big part of my self-worth, my purpose, my progression in life. Everyone gets something different out of training, but those are really common things people can get out of training. We can get purpose out of training, we can get progression out of training, we can feel like it's something that we're moving forward with. We can get value and self-worth. It can make us feel really good about ourselves. Again, everyone's gonna get something different from it. So it absolutely makes sense that if we were to have an interruption to that thing, we would have an emotional response of being like, well, I wish this wasn't happening, right? But again, there's a difference between someone going, oh, I wish this wasn't happening, versus someone having a complete emotional spiral. And that's where I think the difference is is like, yes, we can feel like it's a bit of a bummer and it sucks, but it's like, can I actually cope? And even if we stop for a second and look at some of those things I just said, that would almost tie back to that last point, is I think it's important to ask yourself what it is that you get out of training, and then essentially look at what else could I get that from in my life so that if training was taken away, I've got that thing. So if we think about somebody who uses training for like it gives them a sense of like progression and I'm moving forward, I'm succeeding with this thing, I'm achieving with this thing, then it's like, what else do you get success with in your life? Where else do you feel achievement in your life? Where do you feel progression in your life? So that if something was to happen with your training and it's like, okay, I'm maybe not going to progress with my training over the next few weeks, but I get that from something else. And I'll use myself as an example on that one. I've spoken a little bit on the podcast before about my heart. I've always really intentionally kept that talk to a minimum in every aspect of my life. So I do have a heart condition. So I've always given that the energy and the attention and the focus that I have to, always applied any advice I've been given. Like I've always done what I need to do in that space, but then I'm like, I'm not giving it one second extra. And that's why it's come up at times on the podcast, but I've never just sat here and talked about it for ages because we don't need to. But coming back to that, I've had times where I've had to reduce my training because of that. And they've literally said things to me like, we're gonna measure your heart today, you're gonna have five days off training, we're gonna measure it again. And so straight away for me, that could be like on a Thursday, and then it's like, you're not training, you're not walking, you're not doing anything until we measure it again on Tuesday. And for a person who's trained anywhere from like three to six times a week for my entire life, well, straight away, that's like, well, there goes my training for the week, right? And I pretty quickly again, I've done so much work on this to be like, that shit cannot derail me. Like that shit just cannot derail me because what would happen if it did? And that's definitely something I want to talk about today. But what would happen if any time they said that to me, I was like, oh my god, this sucks. I was supposed to train legs tomorrow and I've got goals and I've got this, and I get so much fulfillment from my training, and I get so much success from my training, I get so much progression from my training, that's been taken away from me for the next five days. I'm so hard done by, I'm such a victim. Like, all of these things can come up for people, but what is that gonna cause? How is that gonna help? The facts are the facts. The cardiologist is sitting there across from me going, Rubs, you're not training for five days. I can tell him how much I hate that. I can tell him how much that sucks, how I'm so hard done by, how I wish that wasn't happening. He's not gonna go, oh, okay, then just go and train for five days, right? So I learned very early on to be like, there's shit in this situation that I cannot control, and there's shit that I can. And that brings me back to my point there is I started to work out very early on what is it that you get from your training robes? And I love the progression of training and I love the fulfillment. Like I love going and doing a session and being like, I hit new weights or I hit new reps, I had good range, like I felt like I'd progressed somewhere in that session. And I leave feeling very fulfilled and very stoked on myself. And so when I started to find myself in this position with my heart, and also like I've just had injuries over the years as well, where I've applied this same thing, straight away when I'm in those positions, I just go, okay, well, where can I get that somewhere else? And now my brain, I shit you not. Like, I've done this work to the point where if I have an injury right now, I said a few weeks ago on the podcast, I think it was last week, that I do have a shoulder injury at the moment and it's pretty unexpected. And my thought process now, with injuries or anything at all, the second something like that happens, my thought process goes, what a great week this is gonna be for Eat Lack Ruby. Because the six hours that I would have spent in the gym, I'm gonna spend that on the laptop. And you better believe I'm gonna make some wicked effing progress on that laptop. Like, and that might mean like refining something in the business that has been in the back of my mind for ages or just making some content. Like, content is just one of those things where you're always chasing your tail, trying to keep on top of content. So I'm like, hell yeah, I'm gonna sit there all morning on the laptop and just get ahead with so much of my content. I'm gonna fix that one thing that's been pissing me off, like whatever it is. That is literally my thought process, and it took me a long time. Like my family, especially, I think like my mum and my husband would be listening, going, she wasn't always like that. When she used to get news like this, she didn't used to handle it like this. And I tapped into that after a while. And I know I'm all over the place here, guys, but this shit has lived in my head for years. I've wanted to do an episode about this for years. So I'm just tapping into all of the thoughts that have been piling up. But what I was saying there is, I didn't used to always respond like this. I used to go into that victim mentality, poor me, I'm so hard done by. Why is this happening to me? I'm just trying to look after myself. I think anyone with an injury or similar can relate to getting into that mindset of thinking, like, why is this happening to me? Like, I'm out here trying to look after myself. Why don't you injure the people that just sit on the couch all day and do nothing? Let them have the injuries. Don't let us have the injuries. We're trying to do the right thing. So if you can relate to that thought process, you're so not alone. Like I've thought that, I've had so many clients say shit like that to me. And so my mind used to just go there and I used to just be so emotionally reactive. Meaning, I used to just get news like that and instantly just be like such a victim. And then coming back to what I said before, I had to just start having the awareness around that and going, how is this helping, Rubs? Like, no matter how upset you get, no matter how much you play victim, no matter how much you whinge or bitch and moan, it's not gonna change the actual reality. It's not gonna change the situation. And again, guys, like coming back to what I said at the start of the episode, if you're in this position right now, I'm not shaming you or not judging you, I'm not saying you need to just snap your fingers and start changing your approach, but I think we just need to start, if nothing else, having that awareness of like there are certain parts of this that I can control, and there are certain parts that I can't. If I've done an injury or I've got something going on that I can't control in my body, I can't control it. So, what can I control? I can control my response, I can control my reaction, I can control how I navigate things over the coming weeks and months. And it's things like that that I think people are either going to be ready to hear or they're not. So if you've got an injury at the moment and you heard that and you thought, F you, Ruby, you don't know what this is like for me. First of all, I would have said that to someone probably eight years ago. I'd say, like in 2018, 2019 is when I was just like, you don't know how hard this is for me, you don't know how shit this is. If you're telling me to get over it, you obviously don't understand how shit it is. And so coming from a person who once thought that and was once in that position, that is where I couldn't even tell you exactly how I started to change it or exactly when I started to change it, but I did. It was like I was navigating this in the years following losing my dad as well. And that's how I found out about my heart condition because my dad passed away from that condition. They looked at my heart, they were like, eh, not good news robes. And so that went from there. And then around the same time, I had some injuries, and so I was navigating all of that, like lost my dad in 2016, navigated a lot of that through, say like 2018, 2019, and it was somewhere along that way. I would say more so in like 2020 was when I started to really work through this. And I did a lot of work on my mindset around that time and just literally on my emotional intelligence, if nothing else, just like handling my own emotions. And I think that just played a huge role. And I think also like 20. 2020 was the main COVID year in Queensland. That was the first COVID year for everybody. And I think even that started to teach me, like I said, I was a gym manager when COVID happened. And then the gym was shut for about four months in Queensland. And then we had those random, you know, what were they called? Um, snap lockdowns. Like we were shut for three days once a month for like two years, literally. Um, and I know people in other states were just shut for those whole two years. Like everyone had a bit of a different experience with that. But coming back to me starting to deal with all these things better, even that scenario I think really helped because it was like, okay, you're a gym manager, the gym's shut. What else can you do in this time? And I had started Eat Lack Ruby in 2019 and was juggling both, like managing the gym and building my online business. And then when I realized this isn't going away, like COVID, when we all realize, because I think in that first week, everyone was like, so like how long is this gonna be for? And then we started to realize this ain't a short-term thing. And I was just like, I'm going all in on Eat Like Ruby. I'm at home all day, every day. Let's go. And I think that was one of my first experiences of just being like, wow, something shitty has happened. How can I pivot and use this? And I just want to side note and say, I know for a lot of people they weren't able to navigate COVID like that. And I don't mean any disrespect. I don't want to offend anybody like I know that was a horrendous time for so many people's businesses. But coming back to me just learning how to navigate things a little bit differently, that was such a pivotal time for that. And then, like I said, alongside that was when I was like dealing with some things with my heart and then injuries and stuff. And I just started to have that approach to everything. Was like, okay, cool. I've just gotten news that I wasn't expecting. How can I pivot on what I was gonna be doing over the next few weeks and months and work with this new news? Like, yes, maybe I had a goal to train every single day for those two months. Not really, but let's just say like she's got a goal to train every single day. Cardiologist says, no, you can't train, or physio, you know, you've got an injury. Physio says, no, you can't train. And I would just instantly go, okay, well, what can I do? And then, like I said before, that just started to become my default was just like anytime I would get news like that, or I'd get a niggle. Even if I get a niggle now and I'm like, oh, I was planning on training legs today. I've got this niggle, I'm not doing it. That's fine. I'll see how the niggle feels tomorrow. In the meantime, what can I do today? I can fix that thing in the business, or I can spend more time with my husband, I can spend time with the dog. He's sitting one foot away from me right now, staring at me, like always. But I would say, just overall, like learning to adapt and just go, okay, this wasn't the plan, but this is the reality. And that's where I think it's so important to just do a little assessment for yourself and to think if I was to get told something like that right now, let's say again, I would say most of our listeners sitting there right now have some sort of nutrition training, body composition, or performance goals over the next few months. Whether you're doing fat loss, muscle gain, events, sport, gym goals, anything at all, right? Most of us are gonna have goals. If something were to happen right now and you were to get told you cannot work on those goals for the next two months, would you be all right? And then the second question I would ask to that is if you wouldn't be, if you answered that question with no, then ask yourself, are you okay with that? Are you okay with knowing that something could happen at any moment that takes your training and your goals away from you and you don't think you would cope with that? Because the thought of that, like the thought of that was the catalyst for me was like, I don't like the fact that I can't cope with this. I'm not willing to accept that I'm a person that can't cope with shit. So I'm going to become a person that can cope with shit. Like that was that was the extent of it for me, was because just realizing, probably realizing with my dad first of all, and then the years following that being like injuries, health conditions, COVID, etc., that was probably just like bang, bang, bang, roofs. If you can't see, shit can pop up that you weren't expecting. I'm not sure if you've realized, but you've just been hit with like a quadruple whammy of shit that you were not expecting. So if you do a little self-assessment and think, wow, I don't cope well at all when shit pops up that I wasn't expecting. Am I okay with that? No, I'm not. So I need to work on that. And that kind of brings me to another point that I wanted to make in this episode. I did say early on, um, it can be easy to get into that real victim mentality. Like, poor me, I'm so hard done by kind of mentality. And I can't stress enough, guys, I'm not judging or I'm not shaming. Like I said, that was definitely me. I see clients do this, I see people do this, I've seen Shaq. Actually, Shaq, Shaq navigates things very well. Yeah. Shaq actually, he's probably someone that was I was like, wow, you handle things way better than me. I need to be more like you. So he handles it well. But I've I've seen so many people go to that place of just a real poor me mentality. And and you truly feel it to your core. You're like, no, this sucks for me. Like, I am so hard done by in this moment. So again, I'm not shaming, I'm not judging. But one thing that I have thought about a lot as I've navigated this is honestly, who do I think I am to demand my body to do shit for me at this point for 35 years and expect it to never have any pain or niggles or injuries or anything in return? Like, literally, who do I think I am? What world do I think I live in that I can demand 35 years from my body and then crack the shit anytime it niggles back? Like, are you kidding me? And I just think that that is an important little thing to think about and to accept, in my opinion. And I'm not saying we just have to accept like infinite pain and 35 years of pain on top of that, but I just think that that is important to Cork is like, do you like do you have an unrealistic expectation of like anytime you get any sort of little niggle or anything? Like, how dare, how dare my body bite back? How dare my body do this to me? And that actually brings me to another point, and I think this one is very common as well. And again, we're not shaming, we're not judging, but with all of this, I just want to bring the awareness because I think I think so often we go through these things internally, and sometimes we do try and voice them to people, and then we feel like this person doesn't understand me, no one understands me, no one gets it, etc. So it's not often that we hear it all spoken out like this. So that is really my point of this episode is to just speak some of this shit forward or bring some of this shit forward and just kind of have it all out there for people to be like, oh yeah, wow, I have experienced some of those things, and I'm not alone. And also maybe I haven't like heard them from an outside perspective and kind of looked at it from the outside perspective, it's kind of just rolled around in my own head. It can just kind of give us a little bit of a different perspective when we hear someone else talk about it. So that is really my point here and what I wanted to do with this episode. And coming up to the next thing I wanted to talk about is I think it is so common for people to have a very strong narrative of I do this stuff for my health. I train for my health, I do my nutrition for my health, I'm doing this for my health. And then side note, whatever health means to you. So some people are like, you know, I lift weights for my bone health, my muscle health, some people do cardio for my cardiovascular health, some people are doing a lot of mobility for my joint health and mobility reasons and whatever, right? Like everyone's got a bit of a different idea of what health is. But most people have a narrative with their training of like, I do this for my health. So then that can kind of feed back to another narrative of like my intentions are good. I'm doing the right thing, I'm doing a good thing here. Like this is all really well intentioned. And I think that is what can then create that victim mentality because then it's like if we get an injury or something happens, the mentality is like, I'm just trying to look after myself, and this is how I get repaid.

unknown 29:50

Right?

SPEAKER_00 29:51

And again, I think any injured person listening is like, amen, that was me. Like we have that very strong narrative of I was doing this to look after myself. How dare my body or the universe or God, like whatever we believe in, how dare they repay me with an injury and pain and whatever else we want to associate with it. And I always think this is an important thing to pull apart a little bit because I think there can be some truth to this, but I don't think, like for a lot of people, I don't think it's the full truth. And what I'm talking about is, and side note, most people haven't even really thought about this. So it's not like I'm not saying you're a liar, I'm saying there's probably some subconscious stuff going on that we haven't even really thought about. What I'm talking about is yes, we can absolutely train for our health, and I would say a lot of people are training for their health in a way and partly, but we're also partly training for our body composition and our aesthetic or our performance goals or our ego or some vanity reasons or whatever it is. And I cannot stress enough, guys, that is fine. If we don't realize I have an entire business built on helping people achieve performance and body composition goals. So it'd be pretty funny if I was sitting here saying that's the wrong thing to work towards. But what I think is important to understand is if you have this narrative of just like, I'm doing this for my health, I have the best intentions. How dare this happen to me when an injury happens? Usually it's like, yes, you are doing this for your health to one extent, but you're also doing it for some other reasons as well. And some of those other reasons might have taken over a little bit. So what we're talking about is sometimes people are in the gym and they are just like, stuff it. I'm gonna chuck a bit of extra weight on. There's a person on the leg press doing 200. I'm gonna see if I can do 210, right? A little bit of an ego, a little bit of an ego lift off. Or we see people commonly like, I'm just gonna jump on the chin-up bar and see how many I can do. I'm just gonna jump down, see how many push-ups I can do. Or I'm gonna take up running and I'm gonna start running like X amount of distance straight away. There can often just be these little ego things on top of our training as well. And this isn't always a bad thing, but sometimes these things can lead to injuries. And it's just important to clock that narrative of like, I'm so hard done by. How dare my body respond like this when all I'm trying to do is look after it. It's like, no, all you were trying to do is hit a PB that you weren't ready to hit, right? And I know that not all injuries happen that way, so this might not be the case for everybody, but I think it's easy to look at the role that we didn't play in it and how hard done by we are and kind of ignore some of those other things. So I just think that's an important thing to think about. And following along with that whole thing of like, I train for my health, the main reason I do this is to look after myself. I actually call a little bit of bullshit on that for some people. And I have actually called bullshit on this for some people in a loving way, and I talk through it with them. But sometimes people go, I'm just trying to train for my health. I'm just trying to look after myself. Now I've got this injury, I have to step away from some of the things that I was doing and work on fixing the injury. So let's use an example of, you know, someone might do like lower back or a hip injury, it's pretty common for a lot of people. So, side note, if you've had a lower back or hip injury, welcome to the club. There's a million of us here. But if you're, let's say you're a gym girl who wants to build your physique, you want a nice ass, you want nice legs, again, there's nothing wrong with that, but you've probably got a program in place with some hip thrust, some squat variation, maybe some RDLs, different things like that. If you do some sort of hip injury and you have to step away from those things for a while and do really common to have to go into doing like a lot of bodyweight glute work, right? Just to get the glutes working, some boring core work, like dead bugs, planks, etc., right? If we come back to that narrative of someone who's like, I'm training for my health, I'm training to look after myself. If an injury presents itself and we then have to step away from some of our big lifts and some of the things we've been doing, and we have to work on some body weight stuff, some mobility stuff, some activation stuff, et cetera, to correct this injury. If you were solely training for your health, you wouldn't care. You would happily do those things because you're like, well, this is what my body needs right now. And I'm just training for my health, meaning I just want to do what's best for my body. What the physio and everyone is telling me is best for my body right now is to move away from all those big lifts and work on all this stuff. I've got this narrative of like, I'm just training for my health, I'm just trying to look after myself. When someone tells me this is the stuff that's going to help you look after yourself right now, if that shit doesn't align with my other goals, that's where I crack it and become the victim. So piece all that together. If we were just doing it for our health, we wouldn't care what we were doing. But when we realize, like, hey, but those things that I have to do now to fix this injury, they don't support the other goals of growing a nice booty and nice legs. Suddenly I'm a victim. And again, guys, speaking absolutely from experience on this one, think about all the things I've spoken about on the podcast, even in recent months. I've spent the last few months doing that muscle gain phase pretty much with the sole focus of growing my glutes because I had glute and hip injuries over the years that meant that I didn't get to grow them that much. So I've absolutely been in this position where they were like, no RDLs, no squats, no nothing. You've got to do like bodyweight glute bridges and bandwork and clamshells and all of that. I've been in that position and I thought I was the biggest victim when I was there. I was like, how dare you? How dare you take me away from my heavy hip thrusts? And for me, I just had to piece that together and be like, wow, that's very ego-driven from me, first of all, which is just important to catch. And then I guess it kind of brings me to my point here, or something that I personally have done to navigate this and think about this. If I use myself as an example, I absolutely love to train for my health. Especially, I think important side note on this whole episode is like once you've been through some injuries, I actually think injuries are pretty beneficial to go through. I think we need to go through injuries at times to just have a bit more respect for our body and for our training and to get that ego in check and just be reminded. I think we forget how good it is to be pain-free and to have a well-functioning body and have an able body until it gets taken away from us. And then we realize, like, oh my God, I've taken this thing for granted so much. So I actually think injuries are so important in that sense, as just like a bit of a reminder every now and then of like, hey, look after yourself. Don't just get after the ego lifts, don't just do all the cool shit. Actually, look after yourself. So I personally actually think they're really important. And I think a lot of people are probably going to be able to relate to that once you've been through a few things. And then you do get to that point where you're like, wow, anytime I can just train pretty well, I'm stoked because I've experienced what it's like to not be able to train. And that was really shitty. So bit of a side note, but coming back to myself here, when I've been in these positions of having to, like I said, scale back some of my lower body lifts and work on rehab and stuff like that, I think it's important to be able to sit there and go. For me personally, I would say I train for my health, like I do train for my health and my body. I also train for my mental health. Like I said before, I feel like I get progression and fulfillment from my training. So that is something I train for. And then I also train for body composition to look a certain way. So if something were to happen or when something has happened, where my lower body lifts have been taken away from me and I do have to do like a lot of bodyweight work and boring rehabby work, right? Like we can all admit it's boring as hell. But what I've essentially taught myself to do and just created that habit of going, okay, cool, if I train for those three things, one of them just has to go to the side right now. Like I'm not really gonna make any gnarly body composition progress while I'm just doing all this bodyweight stuff. But because I get multiple things from my training, I can push that thing to the side for now and focus on the other two. So if I were to go into the gym for, let's say, six weeks with a physio program that's like a lot of bodyweight stuff, a lot of rehab stuff, I could choose to view that. And that wording right there is very important to clock. I can choose to view that as an opportunity to work on some of those other things. If we think about the other things I get out of my training, being just looking after my physical health overall and then the mental health benefits, I can absolutely still get that if I choose to view it that way. Because I could say, okay, cool, for these next six weeks, I can do these exercises that the physio has given me. These are going to support my physical health because this is going to help me fix that niggle, fix that injury, and I can get back to my lifts eventually with better movement patterns, better mobility, better activation, whatever it is that they've given me to work on. I can view that as something that my physical health needs right now. So anytime I go into the gym and do that thing, that is beneficial to my physical health. I can also choose to view that as something that gives me progression and fulfillment. Right now, the physio has given me these exercises because they think I need to progress with these. I need to work on this stuff to improve my physical health to get back to my big lifts that are gonna improve my body composition. So it's all gonna tie in. But right now, this is just the stuff that I have to do. And I can choose to get my progression and my fulfillment from that, and I can choose to see that as the thing that is best for my physical health right now. And then side note on that, coming back to something I said before, if I have something that happens like an injury or similar, where they say to me, don't train for two weeks, my brain instantly goes, Okay, cool, what else can I do with those two weeks? I can do something with my work, I can do something with my house. Maybe there's something around my house that I wanted to work on, maybe there's something in my business that I wanted to work on. Straight away, just having that ability to go, I can't control that. I can't control the fact that they're telling me the best thing for me to do is have two weeks off. So there's no point getting emotional, having a reactivity response, getting into that victim mentality, telling the physio how much that sucks. I'm so hard done by. Like I said before, they're not gonna turn around and go, oh, okay, well, if you really want to, go and do it. Like they're essentially gonna say, mate, I'm telling you the best thing for you right now. It's up to you whether you do it or not. But I would take my advice if you want to get better, right? So what I'm getting at there is like all the whinging, all the bitching, the mentality isn't gonna change the reality of it. What we can change is like, okay, well, what can I do in this time instead? And that might be working on the little things they're telling you to work on. It might be resting when they're telling you to rest. And then this essentially brings the episode back to where we started. If something was to happen that interrupts your training or your goals, can you cope? Can your mental health cope? Can your mindset cope? Can you pivot and say, okay, well, what can I focus on instead? Or would you spiral straight away? And then come back to what we said after that at the start of the episode. In 2020, the gyms got shut down for months. People step out of bed every day, roll their ankle. If anyone does that today, I'm gonna feel really bad. It's gonna be like a jinx. But really, like things can happen at any time that we weren't expecting. And I think I said that at some point during this episode. Can you deal? Do you have the systems in place to deal when things pop up that you weren't expecting? And I think I'm gonna start to wrap this episode up here. But that's really what I would ask yourself is if we think about some of those pivotal questions we had throughout the episode. First one was, is training something that helps support your mental health, or is your mental health dependent on training? And then the kind of second question from that is what we just said. If something were to pop up that interrupted your training or your goals, do you have things in place to help you cope with that? Or do you think you wouldn't cope? And if you think you wouldn't cope, are you okay with that? If there are things that could happen at any moment that are outside of your control that would interrupt your training and your goals, and you don't think you would cope if that happened, are you okay with that? Because personally, I'm not. I I saw that years ago and I was like, nope, I'm not okay with the fact that I can't cope with these things. So what do I have to do to get things in place to help me cope if that were to happen again? And there is one quick little story that I want to tell. I had this story in my brain the whole time I was planning this episode. It's been in my brain the whole time, and I just haven't found the right spot to slot it in. So I'm just gonna slot it in right here at the end. But I think a lot of people are gonna be able to relate to this, and that's why I want to bring it up. I had a conversation a few years ago with a client, and she might be listening, she might remember that it was her. Um, and I was talking to this client about the fact that she was on a four-day training program. And I'm a huge fan of four-day training programs, I think they're perfect. But she was doing four days in the gym and then walking most days as well, right? Which is awesome. She then said to me, I go to gym on the fifth day and do a bunch of like random high-intensity cardio circuity kind of stuff. And she had a four-day program from me. So she was like, Yep, I go and do the four days. I love it. And then I go on the fifth day and I do this big high-intensity thing as well. And she said to me, I just do that for myself. That's just something I love to do for myself. Training is the thing that I do for myself. And I think so many people are gonna be able to relate to that, especially if you're like got a really busy job or you've got kids or you look after people or anything at all where you feel like there's not much in your life that you get to do for yourself. I think a lot of people can relate to that. It's like training is the one thing I do for myself, right? Which can be awesome to an extent, but it almost ties back to that mental health thing at the start. And this client was a perfect example of that. So she was like, training is just the thing that I do for myself. I love it, it sets me up for the day. That's unreal. So, because my program for me is four days, I feel like I want to go and do something on that fifth day. And I said to her, Would you get a coffee and go sit on the beach and watch the sunrise? And she kind of was like, What? And I was like, Well, if you're just doing training, like if your theory with training is like I'm doing it for myself and for my Mental health and to do something nice for myself. Surely going getting a coffee, sitting on the beach watching the sunrise, surely we could argue that that is something that you do you would do for yourself, right? And for your mental health. And I could just see her like, what? I don't want to do that. And I was like, okay, so I would question whether that fifth session is just something that you like want to do for yourself, or do you feel like you have to go and do a fifth session every week? Because if it began and end with, I just want to do something nice for myself. I just want to do something for myself. You could get up and listen to a podcast and potter around your house. You could have an hour's sleep in if you want to do something nice for yourself. You could go down the beach and watch the sunrise. There's so many things that would tick that same box of just doing something for myself. So I would argue that you're having a pretty strong reaction to the fact that you don't want to do any of those things. You want to go and do that fifth workout. So clock the fact that you're telling yourself you do that because it's something nice for yourself. I don't think that's fully the case there. I think there's something else going on. I think that you think you need to go and do X amount of sessions a week. You need to hit that fifth session, like whatever story you've got going on there, and everyone's gonna have a bit of a different response to that and maybe different stories going on. But I felt like it just tied in with this episode of are we okay or would we be okay with stepping away from training and doing something else in its place to support our mental health and to support us in other ways? Or do we feel like we have to train X amount of times every week and then piece all this together? Something could happen at any moment that takes away your ability to train X amount of times every week, and you're gonna freak out. This client was freaking out just at the thought of it. I was like, at the thought of me saying, go get a coffee, sit on the beach and watch the sunrise was making her freak out. And again, no shame, no judgment, because I think a lot of people would be the same. If I told all of you right now, take a week off training, spend that time either sleeping in or go get yourself a coffee, go sit on the beach or sit on the lake, wherever you live, watch the sunrise and take some chill time. If that makes you freak out at the thought of like, no, I have to train, I would say you got to listen to some of this stuff in this episode and clock that fact of like, can you handle your training being interrupted? Could you handle training being taken away from you in some way to some extent? I think that is all for me today. Again, I feel like this is something I'll probably listen to and then have more thoughts or things where I'm like, I should have said this. So we might revisit this topic again, but I just think a cool one to get the wheels turning and again, just like always, do that little audit, do that little self-assessment of were there things in this episode that related to you? Were there not? Are there things that you need to acknowledge that maybe you don't want to acknowledge? And it's gonna take time, might take a little bit of a process, might be one of those things where you did tap out and you've just come back and listen to this episode like six months later. If so, that is totally fine. Everyone's gonna deal with this stuff in a different way, to a different extent, at a different pace. So just meet yourself where you're at. Don't shame, don't judge, just have a little bit of a think about all of it and just see where you might need to work on some things at different times. That is all for me today. I will be back very soon. Thank you so much.