Music and fitness: What distance running can teach us about success.
To be successful at anything you need to have rhythms and routines in place so you can capitalize upon the compounding effect of consistency. And if you’ve never read “The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy, I’d highly recommend that you do so, as he does a great job of unpacking how we can all benefit from this natural phenomenon. That said, one of the routines that I’ve instituted in my life is to run every Tues, Thurs, and Saturday. Now historically speaking, I’ve never liked distance running because of the boredom factor. I’ve always been a quick burst of energy kind of guy, which is why I like tennis, basketball, football, martial arts, and weightlifting. However, it was a subtle shift in my mindset about distance running that gave me the additional insight I now have about music and success that I’d like to share with you.
Running is as much a mental exercise as it is physical. And being a retired military vet, I know how your mind can break much sooner than your body will. So a strategy I’ve come up with is that if I calibrate my physical output on a scale of 1-10, then I never run faster than 5. Why? It’s because the closer I get to 10, the more my body kicks into survival mode, which causes it to look for a way out (i.e. to stop or slow down). Not to mention, it opens a possibility of injury which will certainly sideline my progress. So if my mind is the gateway to the quality of my performance, then I have to find a way to regulate my emotions. Therefore, by running consistently throughout the week (coupled with an effective diet), then the sensation of 5 the following week would be equivalent to perhaps 5.5 or 6 from the prior week. So as you can see, the goal is to increase the capacity of my output without realizing it or overextending myself physically and mentally.
If you were to ask me how it feels to play music on a high level, I’d say it feels like flying with little to no extraneous energy to do so. And if you ask a runner what it feels like when they’re experiencing “runner’s high,” they’ll probably tell you the same thing. But it only feels that way once you find a groove. Thus, when you run for the sensation of 5, this allows you to maintain the most sustainable max-speed to energy conservation ratio while thinking clearly. But here's where the rubber meets the road (pun intended). Unless you’re a professional athlete who gets paid to run competitively, you don’t need an arbitrary benchmark like time, as the goal of running is for longevity of health, not a non-existent ribbon. But if you can take your ego out of your exercising by not judging the time it takes you to run your route, then your awareness of time can be thought of as a useful peripheral indicator of your progress. But again, time has to be an after-thought, not the main attraction. So when I practice my instruments, my goal is to do so with the least amount of energy possible while still maximizing my speed and agility. So when I’m consistent with my practicing, and am relaxed enough to tell when I’m compromising the integrity of my technique, I’m able to self-correct on the fly. Which I can’t do if my thinking isn’t clear (which tension in the body will always cloud).
Lastly, the linchpin that connects everything I’ve mentioned is breath, as a lack of it always creates tension in the body, which in turn affects the clarity of the mind. So for me, the true value of running is that it strengthens the capacity of my breath control. Which is why I believe that if you reflect on the weight of every major decision you’ve ever made, good or bad, it’s arguable that the quality of your breathing was always a supporting cast member throughout those decisions.