David Goggins' Latest Workout Reveals A Forgotten Training

Technique Everyone Should Be Using

Not everyone can claim to have gripped the minds of (almost) every man between the
ages of 20 and 40, in this Instagram obsessed era, for two full hours. But David
Goggins has done this not just once, but twice, in his appearances on The Joe Rogan
Experience – arguably the most popular podcast for men around.

So, why the appeal? Well, as you are about to see in the following workout videos, he is
not another self-help guru skilled in nothing but talk.

First: context. David Goggins is the only man in history to complete elite training as a
Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, has set records in
numerous endurance events (including doing 4,030 pull-ups in 17 hours and winning
the Infinitus 88k) and has been named by Outside magazine as The Fittest (Real) Man
in America.

So far so superhuman. But if you actually listen to his story, Goggins feels pain just as
much as anyone – he has just learnt to overcome it.

And although you might expect Goggins to say he has got to this point in spite of a
childhood of poverty, prejudice and physical abuse, as he has discussed at length with
Joe Rogan, he credits this background with giving him the keys to success in the
endurance space.

On that note: in a world where most men can be seen snapchatting between sets,
Gogginsʼ latest workout reveals a training technique we should all adopt: setting the
phone aside and focussing on your pain, rather than trying to take your mind off it.

“Weʼve been working out hard in the gym for a month, but we havenʼt seen any
results… So we get all down. You study for a test and didnʼt do as well as you thought.
What the fuck did you expect? Youʼre not doing the work,” he captioned the Instagram
post.

“Itʼs never enough until you feel this overwhelming feeling of shit: Iʼm outworking
the crowd.”

“A lot of us are full of shit. We think we are doing more than what we truly are. We are
under a false illusion that just because we are working, we deserve and are supposed
to be exactly where we want to be in life,” Goggins added.

“But what the fuck are you basing that off of? I talked to a young college student
the other day and he said he was working his ass off in school but not making the
grades. I asked him against which he was measuring his hard work? He explained in
 high school he didnʼt have to work that hard. So, he is measuring his level of work
against a baseline of essentially nothing.”

According to Goggins, the same applies to the gym: “If you want to measure yourself
against someone, make sure it is a person who is waking up early and going to bed
late… We fill our heads full of bullshit on what hard work looks like… [but] the truth of
the matter is that hard work does not look pretty, the effort behind it is sometimes
mind-numbing.”

“The amount of focus involved is sometimes more than people can bear.”

Of course, Goggins acknowledges this forgotten technique of embracing the pain may
not be for everyone (“like I say all the time – my message is not for everybody”), but he
maintains that “until you can get to the raw truth about how hard you are really
working, you will always be asking yourself, ‘Why havenʼt I accomplished this yet or
succeeded at that yet?'”

“Sometimes you need to just look at yourself when you are trying your hardest but
still not succeeding and simply suck it the fuck up and say I still havenʼt done
enough. So when is it enough? Only you have the answer to that. What is ‘itʼ worth
to you?”

A quote from Gogginsʼ interview with Joe Rogan perhaps sums up Gogginsʼ attitude
best: “the greater the suffering the greater the peace.”

This in mind, itʼs no wonder Goggins questions our reliance on music to get ourselves
through a training session, something he made abundantly clear on Joe Roganʼs
podcast.

“A lot of men like to put the headphones and listen to music… but what if that shit
comes off? You get popped in your… mouth. Your headphones are on the sidewalk
brother. What are you going to say to yourself then? I train my mind. I [imagine] Iʼm
going to get popped round the back of an alley one day man…. and thereʼs going to be
no music… you better figure it out.”

“Whatʼs that flame inside of you that keeps you going? Let that keep you going. Not
this.”

It may sound extreme, but if Gogginsʼ transformation from a depressed, overweight

young man to a U.S Armed Forces icon and one of the worldʼs foremost endurance
athletes is anything to go by, maybe dropping the headphones could (at least) take you
from no six-pack to six-pack.

And even if it doesnʼt, according to Goggans, itʼs not about that anyway. Itʼs all about
suffering – and building your mind.
 View this post on Instagram

Either you are getting better or you are getting worse. You sure as fuck are not
staying the same! This is me coming out of the water looking like fucking Swamp
Thing back in 1997. I sure as hell was getting worse. Through my life I found out a
lot of things about myself. I found out you can never tell what you are made of
during the good times, thatʼs something you must find out in the bad times. There
were several times in life where I wanted to quit. And there were several times in life
where I did quit. Having a mentality of giving yourself a way out helped get me to
look how I did in that picture. There is a harsh reality in life. A reality that took me
years to figure out. Everybody comes to a point in their life where they want to quit
but it is what you do in that moment that determines who you are. I was hoping that
the good Lord or the powers that be were going to gift wrap me a nice happy life.
One that when I woke up there would be instant gratification, instant success,
instant money, and a shit ton of happiness to go along with that. Well, Merry
Fucking Christmas! As Jack Nicholson said, “While my existence grotesque and
incomprehensible to you might end up saving you from the horrible existence I
once lived.” You donʼt have to allow your previous life make you feel, look, and act
like a piece of shit! Own that motherfucker! Choke that motherfucker out! Attack it
with a verocity of a lion going after its prey. As human beings, we all have the ability
to fuck shit up. And when I say fuck that shit up, I mean that in a positive way. We
have the ability to dominate, to overcome, to stand alone and to conquer! Donʼt
allow this weakened society to make you believe that itʼs ok to just be a mediocre
human being. Life isnʼt about a trophy- but it sure is the fuck about achieving more
than what you ever thought was possible! Stay hard always!

A post shared by David Goggins (@davidgoggins) on Sep 16, 2019 at 4l34pm PDT

Read Next

Get the latest from D'Marge Delivered To Your Inbox