Brian Johnson introduces a Spartan Training 101 series using obstacle-course racing to build resilience. The 10 core ideas cover mindset, consistency, practical training steps, and a behavioral rule: remove quitting as an option. He emphasizes the importance of post-race integration to lock in what you've learned.
Chapters
Foreign. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living 101 Masterclass Series. Today you might have noticed I'm wearing a different black shirt. We cut the long sleeves off. This is the official team optimized Spartan Racing shirt. Got a little optimized on the back. And I've actually got my numbers from last weekend's race still faintly on my arm. Last weekend I did a beast. I've done a sprint, a super and a beast. I've been thinking about this type of class since I did my first race. And here we are, Spartan Training 101. How to become immune to obstacles in your life. And if you're feeling it, do your first Spartan race. As always, we've got 10 big ideas. Let's take a quick look and then we'll jump in. Alright, so We've got our 10 big ideas that we're going to walk through in the class. Let's walk through them quickly now and then we'll go deeper in a moment. So our first big idea is your number one obstacle. Your number one obstacle. Doing an obstacle course race or anything in your life, whether it's a Spartan race or getting your black belt in aikido or whatever, is the voice in your head telling you why you can't do something. That is our number one obstacle. We're going to look at that a little bit more deeply and see how many things in your life you're saying are not possible. We want to move past that and that's why I love Spartan racing so much. It's the perfect metaphor for life. We're going to face obstacles, we need to move through them, go over them, under them, around them, whatever it takes for however long it takes, etc. But again, number one obstacle, the second big idea is obstacle immunity. What do we get when we consistently show up and face our obstacles, knowing that there are opportunities to get better? We develop an immunity to obstacles. Again, the metaphor between this sport, hobby and life is, is why I'm engaged in it as much as I am. The third big idea is chasms and sidewalk cracks. So Joseph Campbell says that on your hero's journey, you're going to come up and you're going to face a chasm. He says jump. That chasm is not as wide as you think. And what I found in doing these is the times that I've almost pulled out of doing the races and other things in my life, I realized it wasn't even a chasm, it was a sidewalk crack. So again, we're going to Talk about this in the context of racing and the context of your life. How many chasms do you need to reframe as truly sidewalk cracks? Fun idea. Our fourth big idea is 1% plus 110%. 11. And your number one. We're going to talk about those different numbers and how they're significant and how your consistency is going to be your greatest asset. That is our getting 1% better, 110% commitment to that. And then 11 is a fun number for me. We're talking about the fact that champions do more. Anytime I have a set of 10, I do 11. We'll talk about why and we'll have fun with that. And then we'll figure out your number one thing you need to do on a consistent basis in order to get in the shape you need to be into for this type of race. The fifth big idea is signing up and getting to the starting line. George Leonard, an aikido master, says, something happens when you put your name on a board. When you sign up and say, I'm going to go for the next level of black belt training in his case, or I'm going to do a spartan race in three months or six months in our case, or whatever the case is for you, something happens. We're going to talk about that as an important part of mastery in our lives. And we're going to talk about getting to the starting line. That's actually paradoxically, way harder than getting to the finish line. We'll talk about how many times I almost didn't get to the starting line in my races and how I got there and how we can get there every single day. Again, the race is a metaphor for our lives. Are you getting to the starting line of your life every single day, every morning, etc. The sixth big idea is our self image. Our self image, that voice in your head that's telling you why you can't do this or anything else in your life. That's the major obstacle again, that we need to face. And it's your self image that's dictating what you're saying to yourself. So you will never outperform, consistently outperform your self image. And if your self image, physically or in any aspect of your life is here, you're never going to consistently perform here. So we've got to drive your self image up. You are an athlete. This is one of the things that I've been working on. We'll talk about my story. I was the smallest kid in my high school and being an athlete hasn't been a part of my self image. It's been fun to build that consistently. We'll talk about how the seventh big idea, your number twos. So we want to talk about for whom will you have the strength to do this race? We're going to go back to our ideas on hero training. A hero has strength for two. For whom are you going to have strength? To show up and do this kind of race? To move through the obstacles in the race and in your life and from whom are you going to get strength? So your number twos, for whom will you have strength? From whom are you going to get strength? Mentors, advisors, people at your gym, etc. It'll be a fun one. The eighth big idea is training camp. We're going to talk about the specifics of how to actually train. We're going to look at the fundamentals of training effectively. I'll talk about what I do on a consistent basis, mastering the basic three as I see them to do a Spartan race well, which is getting used to hills, getting a good grip, strength and developing certain skills that will be required in the race. And then of course there's the bonus burpees which has become my favorite movement exercise, basically a high intensity push up and jumping jack. So we'll actually do that as part of the class. We will show you how I do burpees, both a step back, simple version to get stronger and then the actual kind of race form burpee. I've done 30,000 of them so far this year and I love it. So the ninth big idea is race day. We've got five things we're going to think about on race day. Starting with your sleep. Interestingly, two nights before the race is actually the most important night. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about what to do the night before if you're having a tough time sleeping and then how to show up on that day of the race. And then the 10th big idea is to categorically remove the option to quit. Categorically remove the option to quit. This is what a lot of the great ultra distance athletes like Joe decenna, the founder of Spartan race and others talk about. When you start something, you need to just absolutely remove the option to quit. You are getting to the finish line unless they're taking you out. For me, it was on a stretcher. There's no way I'm not going to finish this race. Now that doesn't mean you're going to finish every race, but that's the attitude with which you started categorically removing the option to quit. And of course, the most important aspect of applying this is to our lives. The race, again, is just a metaphor. And then the 11th bonus idea is the day after the race, which is the most important day. We're using this race as an opportunity and a springboard to step our games up, to move to a different level of performance. The race in itself is really irrelevant beyond the fact that it's helping us become better people. So what do you do the day after the race? You show up, you get ready for the next one. You make this a part of who you are as an overall part of your lifestyle. It's not a one and done thing. It's a cultivation of a different way of showing up in the life. So you are immune to obstacles and prepared to. My commitment is I can race any day of the year, so I'll do X number of races a year, but I'm prepared to go any day of the year. There's a new identity that's being created. And as we step up and have fun. So that's a quick look at Spartan Training. 101. Let's dive in.
