Post #2 of 100 Days to Offload challenge.
I find planks such a boring and hard exercise. Even one minute of planking gives me chills and my body starts to shake as I'm about to finish a minute.
I do plank but not often, very rarely, once in a while kind of exercise because my mind always pushes me away from it.
But then I came across this Ted Talk and learned some new insights about this boring exercise. In this talk, the speaker talks about how planking can help in building grit and mental toughness.
In this talk, the speaker mentions about George Hood, a former Marine who set the Guinness World Record for the longest plank: 8 hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds. He even did a 10 hour, 10 minute practice attempt in 2018.
For me one minute feels like eternity and here is this guy holding that plank position for more than 8 hours. At some point I started wondering: did he even pee?
George Hood says plank is 90% mental. So what does he mean when he says that planking is mental? Is he saying that our body is capable but mind gives up before? Or does he just have crazy willpower and grit?
The TED speaker connects grit with biology and talks about a protein called BDNF — Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor. It plays an important role in the growth and health of neurons, helping them stay healthy and communicate effectively with each other.
Now all of this BDNF science is good to hear but it is still an active area of research. I don't know whether increase in BDNF will increase mental toughness or not.
But I do know that holding a plank position puts my body into discomfort. And at that time my mind wants to escape that discomfort.
So I want to try and experiment on myself, how long can I stay with the discomfort before giving up? Maybe that's how it trains our brain to stay with discomfort without escaping.
I'm going to give it a try. And while I'm planking, to distract my mind, I can try to read out loud a book. Or if I'm serious, then I can just pay attention to that discomfort like meditation. Where exactly is this discomfort in my body?
I'm going to start with one minute and then gradually increase it.