Do You have a Game-Face!?
Can you remember the last time you were in the middle of a session that you weren’t entirely sure you were going to make to the end of?
Take yourself back, remember the trickling sweat down your forehead, the shortness of breathe that was causing slight panic in the back of mind and the jittery feeling in your stomach that couldn’t decide if it wanted to reacquaint you with your previous meal or not!
Now remember the look on your face??
Was it …
(A) the same face you adopted when you first witnessed Bambi’s Mother getting popped – all teary eyed with a wobbly upper lip?
or was it …
(B) a mixture of Anger, Motivation, Determination, Will to Succeed. One half Death Stare, One half Lions Roar. All rolled up in one crazy arse Snarl, complete with random drops of spit and saliva around your chin. Think Incredible Hulk with a migraine.
I’ve been thinking a lot about intensity and focus recently, and a few people have mentioned the notion of a game face to me over recent weeks, here’s some of my broad opinions on the topic.
Now if you answered No to the question at the very top of the page, Your gonna be an (A) by default.
You have probably never tested yourself in a gym, weights room, group class or sporting event etc Hell you probably can count the times you broke a sweat on one hand!!
You’ll have no clear goals, no will power or determination to achieve said goals if you had them. You’re scared of a little hard work, You don’t want to put the effort in and yet you feel you deserve the results. You finish your training sessions looking exactly the same way as when you started! You treat your health and fitness as a game, something to pick up and put down when the mood suits. You start 10 seconds after the the whistle and finish 10 seconds before the end. You have no desire, no fire inside fuelling the progress towards improvement. You know how I know this? because you have no Game Face!
In sessions I’m always watching, I can tell those that want it, those that will do well, those that will get what they came for! and it’s those with the gritted teeth, the sweaty screwed up features, red as can be, concentration and intensity all over their faces, the ones letting out the odd scream and shout! not the incessant moan and whine!
These people are the (B)’s amongst us, proudly displaying their GAME FACE for us all to see and they don’t give a shit how it looks or how they sound because they’re not in control of it! This is their body’s way of helping them through their pain. These faces terrorise long runs, they send chills up the spine of PB Lifts and they make Boot Camp sessions Crap in their pants!! When you have you’re Game Face on, you’re gonna incite Fear in any session that stands in your way!
I Grunt, I Shout, I Gurn, I slap My own Face, I Growl, I Swear. I sometimes wonder later what my neighbours must have thought was going on in the Gym, but at that precise moment I have no thoughts outside of my session, what people would think, Staging it?! OTT!? I do what I feel is called for Pre-Lift or Mid Conditioning round to get me further, to scrape that last 1% of effort from my weary bones.
My Game Face and all the noise that comes with it confirms to me my mind is 1000% fixed on the task in hand. If my mind is committed to a task the battle is half won! I can control this element, I’m giving myself that best possible start.
Now I’m not trying to tell you to pull a funny face and you can achieve anything, what I’m saying is if you can Commit the mind to a task the outcome has a much greater chance of being successful, the body still may or may not follow and you still can win or lose, but that doesn’t really matter, the will to complete the challenge was there and you did all you could.
I’d put good money on no sporting records ever being set by a smiling competitor!!
Our facial expressions rarely lie, a lot of the time they’re out of our control. So the next session you do, bare in mind,
Are you talking more than you’re gasping for air?
Are you yawning more than you’re gritting your teeth? Are you smiling more than you’re frowning?
If so, are you a (A) and you didn’t know it!? Where is your Game Face and Why the Hell haven’t you got it on!?
