“Rather than focusing on ‘getting comfortable being uncomfortable,’ our training mentality should be focused on expanding the realm of the comfortable, gradually and without heroics or drama.”
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the oft-used phrase, “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.” I have mixed feelings about it. It’s catchy, and captures something of the twisted mind of the distance runner, imbued with a sense that progress comes through suffering. Yet I think it’s misleading to focus too much on the “uncomfortable” component. While discomfort may be a reality of training, spending additional mental energy focusing on that discomfort detracts from the effort itself.
At its core, the phrase says that we must strive to be comfortable in challenging situations. I like this idea a lot. In fact, I believe it is at the root of all sound training practices and more broadly, any growth and adaptation that we wish to pursue. This is one of the great features of biology, that we actually have to place some type of stress or challenge on an organism to lead it to adapt.
As athletes, then, we should not focus on how hard we are trying or the discomfort that we are feeling, but rather on the notion of maintaining relaxed, efficient form and focus in the face of a challenging workout or situation. The stress is the goal of the effort, not something to be interpreted negatively. Rather than focusing on “getting comfortable being uncomfortable,” our training mentality should be focused on expanding the realm of the comfortable, gradually and without heroics or drama. This process, repeated over time, can lead us to comfortably perform feats that would previously have been unimaginable.
Chris Lundstrom is the head coach of Minnesota Distance Elite – formerly Team USA Minnesota – which includes some of the top distance runners in the USA, including Annie Frisbie, Dakotah Lindwurm, Breanna Sieracki and Joel Reichow.
