How Stoicism Can Help in HYROX

Most sportspeople nowadays appreciate that success in their chosen sport(s) is down to a mixture of both physical ability and mental ability.

However, very rarely do athletes spend much time consciously working on the mental side of their sport. Encouraging the physical side of training is rarely a problem for most sportspeople but knowing how to train the mental side – so we can push through physical barriers, develop mental toughness, cope with pressure, maximise performance in training and events, control emotions, manage stress, stay focused, etc – is not always so easy.

Unfortunately, very few of us also have the resources to visit a sports psychologist for a regular weekly 1:1 session. And if we did, is that even enough? Many people live and breathe their fitness lifestyle, so having a framework to guide them 24/7, as opposed to a few hours with a psychologist, can be extremely beneficial.

I have personally built a mental framework for my sporting endeavours that is very much built around Stoicism. Here I explain briefly what Stoicism is, and some of the ways in which it can help to improve your sporting performance…

What is Stoicism?

Stoicism is a form of philosophy which, in simple terms, acts as guide to a way of thinking and behaviour.

Tim Ferris, a well-known Stoicism enthusiast, describes it as “an operating system for making better decisions and being less emotionally reactive “. William B. Irvine described Stoicism, as “a cure for a disease. The disease in question is the anxiety, grief, fear, and various other negative emotions that plague humans and prevent them from experiencing a joyful existence.”

Much of what we know about Stoicism has come from the writing of three principal leaders: Marcus Aurelius (the emperor of the Roman Empire, who you may know as the old guy towards the start of the “Gladiator” film), Epictetus (who was born a slave and eventually went on to found his own school where he taught many of Rome’s greatest minds, including Marcus Aurelius), and Seneca (a playwright and advisor to the Roman Emperor, Nero).

Stoicism is frequently misunderstood. A “Stoic” person is commonly thought to be emotionless, and the fact it is a ‘philosophy’ can make it seem, to an outsider, incredibly boring or not practical in the modern world. Neither of those assumptions are at all true. Stoicism does help someone control their emotions, but it certainly does not expect them to not have any. It also differs from other philosophies in that it is practical and applicable to the world in which we live.

Essentially, it is a toolkit we can use regardless of our vocation or hobbies in life; it can help us to become a better spouse, parent, business owner, friend, person or, of course, athlete / sportsperson.

Stoicism in Sport

Whether it’s coping with injuries, obstacles, frustrations, losing, winning, training, preparing and much more, Stoicism can help to guide us in sport and be a major factor in helping us to perform at our best. It has become extremely popular with players in the NFL in America, as well as with functional fitness athletes (including Crossfit and HYROX competitors).

The adoption of Stoicism amongst elite sportspeople should not be of any surprise – with even the slightest advantage in sport making the world of difference to someone’s results, the benefits of a simple to follow mental framework for performance maximisation is priceless.

Main Stoic Teachings

There are a few central teachings and values within Stoicism. Let’s have a look at what they are, and how they can be applied by fitness athletes, at any level, to improve performance…

The Dichotomy of Control

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own . . .” – Epictetus

Probably the single most important practice in Stoicism is to focus on only those areas in which we have control / influence. In Stoicism this is known as the ‘Dichotomy of Control’.

The weather has turned out badly, and you had plans for a nice day out? Your flight is delayed? The customer service rep wasn’t as helpful as they could have been? Your kid woke up in the night, again? Not happy with the start time you’ve been given for your next HYROX event? The bad weather is going to impact your OCR race? No amount of moaning, tantrums or feeling sorry for yourself will change any of that.

There is no value in wishing for a different situation if you cannot change it. Not only would it be pointless, but it would also be time and energy wasted – both of those being valuable resources which could have been put to better use. Appropriate allocation of your precious resources isn’t just the sensible thing to do; it gives you a distinct advantage over those who don’t do it.

To give a relevant example in the world of sport, tennis player Andy Murray said in a BBC documentary that one of the main things he has worked on is not wasting energy thinking about past points during games – what has passed cannot be controlled.

Perception

“Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been.”- Marcus Aurelius

Perception is our interpretation of the world and events around us. Essentially, it’s how we see the world. One event could be witnessed by many different people, but all of them could have a different perception of what happened. A rainy day could be perceived as bad for the person who is going for a long run that day, but a farmer may see the rain as being good for his crops.

Stoics aim to not see a certain situation as “bad”, but rather perceive it in a way in which they don’t feel harmed. It is natural to feel disappointment in some situations and the Stoics would never advise you fight nature. However, rather than wallowing in the pity and negativity, they aim to look at it in a more positive light.

For an athlete, for example, let’s take an injury, which most people would likely initially agree to be an adverse event. How else could that be perceived? Perhaps as an early warning sign from the body they had been overtraining or using poor technique. Maybe it can be seen as a good reason to focus on other areas of their sport which aren’t affected by the injury. For example, when I was suffering with achilles tendonitis I saw it as a chance to work on my rowing and Ski erg, as well as strength, whilst slightly reducing my running volume.

There is good to be found in everything if you pause and look for it. If nothing else a “bad” situation can be used to practice Stoic virtues – a chance to show strength and patience, for example.

Journal

I examine my entire day and go back over what I’ve done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing by.” – Seneca

Journaling is one of the most common and important Stoic practices. Seneca and Epictetus were both known to journal and the reason we know so much about Marcus Aurelius is that his writings – known as “Meditations” – come directly from his diary.

Journaling can take many forms, and everyone has their own preferences. Most Stoics would take a small amount of time (just a few minutes is fine) to journal in the morning and then again in the evening, before sleep.

The morning journaling helps to prepare for the day ahead and set intentions. What do you want to achieve and experience, who do you want to be, how to you want to train / perform, etc? It’s also a time to think about (and write down) a few areas of your life that you are grateful for.

Evening journaling, on the other hand, would be used to reflect on the day just passed. Did you experience, achieve, and be all the things that you wanted? Did you live up to the values that you expect of yourself? What could you have done differently? What did you learn today? As an athlete did you train or perform in the way you wanted? What needs working on?

Journaling has numerous benefits, especially for a sportsperson. It can be great for your mood, for constant improvement, for being clear on what you want to achieve each day, and for improved sleep (by clearing the mind). It is not just a way to get what you think down on to paper – rather it allows you to think more deeply.

To assist with your journalling, this “Daily Stoic Journal” from Ryan Holiday is very useful.

View from Above

One exercise Stoics commonly use is known as “the view from above”. Aimed at helping you to reduce the significance of your perceived problems, whilst appreciating the interconnectedness of us all, it asks us to zoom out from our person and see things through a much wider lens to better understand our (tiny) place in the overall universe.

A simple way to do this would be to imagine yourself in a helicopter, which takes off and gets increasingly higher and higher. All the time you are looking down below, and gradually realising just how big the world is and your small part in it.

From this perspective you don’t see separate countries, politics, rivalries, races, etc – everyone on earth is a single being. Material items seem less important. The problems you have been consumed by can be put into perspective. The insult you received, your injury, a relationship issue; what once seemed like a huge burden can quickly appear to be just a trivial matter.

Memento Mori

“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” – Seneca

A regular practice of the Stoics is to meditate on mortality, i.e. think about your death, the fact that you are going to die and the fact that your death could be at any time (this isn’t as depressing as it sounds!).

In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote that “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

We can often think of someone, if not ourselves, who has had a near death experience, and it has changed their life for the better. They start to fully appreciate the gift of life, and the fact it can be taken away at any second, leading them to live their life with more purpose.

However, you don’t need a near death experience to kick start yourself – you can just (preferably daily) remind yourself of your death. Because it is coming. It’s just that most people don’t act as if it is…

We waste time on meaningless tasks, concern ourselves with issues we can’t control, worry over what may or may not happen, and forget to appreciate all that we do have, putting off our happiness until sometime in the future (“I’ll be happy when x happens”).

With a daily reminder of your death, will you be so concerned with how many likes your Instagram post got? Are you going to let that competition decision irritate you so much? Will you continue to stress over meaningless things? Will you constantly desire more as opposed to feeling gratitude for all that you have?

For the Stoics, a reminder of death wouldn’t just initiate a life of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll (as that likely doesn’t lead to lasting happiness). Instead, it would act as a reminder to ensure they are living in accordance with their virtues (showing strength / courage, wisdom, self-discipline, and justice / fairness). It would mean freeing themselves of worry, guilt, and anxiety, and doing (and appreciating) the truly important things now.

Premeditatio Malorum

“What is quite unlooked for is more crushing in its effect, and unexpectedness adds to the weight of a disaster. This is a reason for ensuring that nothing ever takes us by surprise. We should project our thoughts ahead of us at every turn and have in mind every possible eventuality instead of only the usual course of events… Rehearse them in your mind: exile, torture, war, shipwreck. All the terms of our human lot should be before our eyes.” — Seneca

One of the most well-known Stoic practices is known as “premeditatio malorum”. It translates as the “pre-meditation of evils”. The practice involves imagining future difficulties in any situation and a) learning to be ok with the outcome of those, and b) put in place contingencies to minimise the chance of them happening or limiting any negative effects if they do.

This exercise helps to prepare us for the setbacks that life inevitably throws at us and allows us to make peace with them in advance. Done right, this can be a game changer for a sportsperson who doesn’t have complete control over their life or everything that happens.

As coach of the England World Cup winning rugby team, Clive Woodward was known for his meticulous planning. He would think through numerous possible scenarios and prepare the team to be able to appropriately deal with those. If a certain player gets injured, what do we do? If it is particularly sunny that day, what changes? How about rain? What if a streaker runs on to the pitch and the game gets delayed? How do we react if we concede two tries in the opening 5 minutes? “There shouldn’t be anything you come across in sport or business where you haven’t at least thought about.” says Woodward.

Woodward often gives an example from the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens where a Canadian man in a tutu managed to get into the pool during the men’s springboard diving event, causing a delay to the final dives. Up to that point, the Chinese team were leading by a significant margin. However, this interruption caused a delay of 2.5 hours. Once the diving resumed, the Chinese, Americans, and Russians all badly messed up their dives, which left the Greeks (who had been down in fourth) to claim the gold medal.

The leading teams had allowed the incident to completely distract their focus. Woodward says this simply shouldn’t happen and wouldn’t have if potential scenarios, as much as possible, are considered pre-event. Sure, they may not have foreseen a Canadian man in a tutu, but an interruption which caused a delay between dives certainly could have been.

Spend some time thinking through all the possible circumstances that could disrupt your event / training / life and consider how you would act in those scenarios. Is there anything you could do in advance to minimise the chances of them happening, and their effects if they do?

This is one of the habits we see (and talk about here) in top performers throughout the world of sport, and is certainly something that can improve your HYROX performance.

Prepare for the Worst

“Instead of averting your eyes from the painful events of life, look at them squarely and contemplate them often. By facing the realities of death, infirmity, loss, and disappointment, you free yourself of illusions and false hopes and you avoid miserable, envious thoughts.” – Epictetus

The Stoics advised that a person should set aside a certain amount of time each month to ‘practice’ poverty. This involves rehearsing your worst-case scenarios by living them out as far as is reasonable. By doing so you inoculate yourself against these fears and quite often realise that what you have been fearing isn’t so bad after all. You could, for example, wear your worst clothes for a few days, sleep on your living room floor (as opposed to your comfortable bed) and eat food which costs just a few pounds a day (or even consider fasting for a few days if appropriate after seeking medical supervision).

In many ways this is like the Premeditatio Malorum exercise (mentioned above) but it’s not a theoretical exercise; it’s something to actually do. Once you practice this, and once you learn to confront, live with, and accept what you’ve been fearing, then that fear almost stops being a fear, and ceases to disrupt your life. To apply that to a sportsperson, less fear and anxiety (in any aspect of your life) almost always improves performance.

What do you fear most? What causes you to feel anxious? How can you start to face that now? Where can you make yourself feel uncomfortable?

Perhaps you could take cold showers or ice baths every now and then, eat cheaper simple (but nutritious) food, or even have others around you push you harder in training. Michael Jordan would constantly push, berate, and test his Chicago Bulls teammates in practice sessions. This didn’t make him especially popular the amongst the players, but it meant they were ready for anything when the real games came along. Practice ‘pain’ to help you build strength.

Amor Fati

“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (19th century German philosopher)

“Amor Fati” is a well-known Stoic philosophy which translates as “a love of fate” or “Love Everything that Happens”. It’s about not just putting up with everything that happens but trying to love it and fully embrace it, no matter how potentially challenging it may be.

Marcus Aurelius described this as – “A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.”. Separately he wrote – “To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony.”

In a competitive sport this superpower would drive your opponents insane. Imagine if they looked over at your smiling, content face when you’re in the depths of the toughest of races. They’ll think they’d finally met a superhuman – “this person is a machine; they simply aren’t going to give up”.

When Eliud Kipchoge entered the history books as the first person to run a marathon in under 2 hours, you can see that, for much of that time, there was a large smile across his face. This is a very deliberate tactic that the runner uses to help him relax and minimise the exhaustion of the race.

In a study, researchers asked a group of 24 runners to wear a breathing mask (which measured oxygen consumption) whilst completing four blocks of 6-minute runs on a treadmill. During each they were asked to either smile or frown. The results showed that the runners who smiled had a low perceived rate of exertion and were, on average, 2.8% more economical, using less oxygen. This improvement can translate into a reasonably significant improvement in running times.

A smile through the pain approach ties in perfect with Stoic philosophy – appreciating all that is happening, not wanting things to be different, and loving what is. A smile boosts your mood, it helps you to relax, it helps to take your mind off the pain you’re in, and that all has clear physiological effects. As Kipchoge himself said “When you smile and you’re happy you can trigger the mind to not feel your legs.”

The approach can be applied to training sessions too. For example, if a fitness athlete, deep into a tough training session, fatigued, sweating, with all their muscles hurting changes their mindset from “I can’t wait for this to be over” to “I’m loving this”, the impact on their energy levels can be astounding.

Applying Stoicism to Your Sport

Please know that this article isn’t meant to be prescriptive or suggest that everything that the Stoics advise is going to be appropriate for every person in every situation. You are, of course, free to use what you wish, and discard that which isn’t a good fit for you. The Stoics certainly didn’t consider their words to be the be all and end all. But it is my belief, and experience, that incorporating at least some elements of Stoic philosophy can improve your life and sporting performance dramatically.