How To Mentally Dial In To Your Training

Welcome back to the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast. In this episode, Jerred Moon digs into one of the most overlooked aspects of training: mental intensity.

Many athletes focus on physical effort and intensity, but mental engagement matters just as much. If you are going through the motions, your results will suffer. This episode covers why mental focus matters more than going all out every session, the science behind mental fatigue, how to structure training to maximize focus, the impact of music on strength and motivation, and simple strategies to improve workout effectiveness right away.

The True Meaning of Intensity

A common misconception in fitness is that intensity equals exhaustion. Many athletes believe that if they are not dripping with sweat and gasping for air, they did not push hard enough. But intensity is not just about effort. It is about mental engagement.

The most effective training sessions are not just physically tough. They require deep mental focus.

Instead of mindlessly moving through a workout, be intentional:

• Use your warmup as a skill-building opportunity. Focus on breathing, running form, and movement quality.
• Pay attention to your technique. Do not rush through squats, deadlifts, or presses with sloppy form.
• Treat every rep like a chance to improve. Training with intention leads to better long-term results.

One powerful strategy: think of your warmup as practice for the main session. If you cannot perform air squats with great form, your loaded squats will suffer. Focus first. Intensity follows.

Mental Fatigue and Training Performance

Ever noticed that some days you feel strong and engaged, while on others you struggle to push yourself? Mental fatigue could be the culprit.

The Science Behind Mental Fatigue and Strength Loss

A 2020 study found that just 30 minutes of a mentally demanding task before training significantly reduced squat volume, especially at heavier loads of 70% of max and above.

This means that a mentally draining workday can lower your training performance, social media scrolling before workouts can zap your focus, and too much cognitive stress before training leads to decreased motivation and weaker lifts.

How to combat mental fatigue before training:

• Train earlier in the day, before your brain is overloaded with stress.
• Use a pre-workout reset. Try box breathing for two to four minutes before training to clear your mind.
• Eliminate distractions. Limit phone use before your workout and transition your focus to training mode.

Eat the frog first thing in the morning. Mark Twain once said, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” If you train early, you will have more energy, focus, and drive to crush your workouts.

How Music Affects Performance

Music is not just background noise. It can directly impact your performance in the gym.

A 2021 study examined 10 experienced lifters and found that music increased reps performed, boosted barbell velocity and power output, and improved motivation to train. The best part? Those lifters had been training for more than seven years, meaning even advanced athletes saw significant benefits.

How to Use Music for Better Workouts

Key findings from the study:

• Self-selected music worked best. Listen to your favorite songs.
• Repeating the same song had a strong effect. Try looping a single song for deeper focus.
• Music had to be at least 120 beats per minute. Fast-paced tracks work best for motivation.

Pro tip: curate a workout playlist with high-energy songs instead of random shuffling.

When not to use music: training in silence occasionally can be beneficial. It forces you to listen to your internal dialogue and build mental toughness. Try a “no motivators workout” with no music, no pre-workout, just you and the weights, to test your mental resilience.

Bringing It All Together: How to Train with Intensity and Focus

1. Treat Your Warmup as Training

Focus on movement quality, breath control, and intentional reps.

2. Minimize Mental Fatigue Before Training

Train earlier in the day if possible. Take a break before hitting the gym, two to four minutes of box breathing. Avoid mentally draining activities 30 minutes before workouts.

3. Use Music to Enhance Performance

Select high-energy songs at 120+ BPM. Stick to a consistent workout playlist for focus. Try looping a single song for added intensity.

4. Shift Your Mindset: You Are Here to TRAIN

Approach workouts like an athlete. Eliminate distractions and be fully present. Push yourself even when motivation is low, because building mental toughness is the point.

Final Thoughts: Mental Focus Equals More Gains

The difference between mediocre and exceptional results comes down to mindset and focus. You do not need to train for hours, you need to train with purpose. Minimize distractions and mental fatigue before workouts. Use music strategically to boost strength and motivation. Your warmup sets the tone, so be intentional from the start.

If you are serious about maximizing your training, bring the same mental intensity to the gym as you would to anything else that truly matters in life.

Ready to elevate your training? Join Garage Gym Athlete and experience structured, results-driven programming. Start your free trial at GarageGymAthlete.com and take your fitness to the next level.

And remember… If you don’t kill comfort, comfort will kill you.

Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast, Jerred Moon here, and I'm hopping on for a quick episode to talk about how to focus a little bit more in your training sessions. So I realized I was talking about this in the last podcast episode with Joe and I was talking about how important focus is when you're training.

And a lot of people talk about the importance of intensity and how. You know, as time goes on or you get bored with training or whatever, your intensity can start to drop off. And when you lack intensity, you start to see fewer results. And that's absolutely true. But not everything has to be super intense all the time.

And so I think the definition of intensity is really important. It's like, do I have to be sweating out of breath on my back? At the end of every workout to have hit the appropriate intensity for a training session, and the answer is no, unless you're defining intensity as like your mental effort, how concentrated you are during the training session, if that's the case.

Then yes, you need to bring a mental intensity to every single workout. And that means focusing on everything that you do. Now, this is hard to do in perpetuity. It's hard to do every single training session. It takes a lot, and it will fatigue you mentally. And I'm gonna give you some ideas to I, you know, work this through.

It's really two main things that I'm gonna go over today. But if you just think about focus in a training session, if we're talking about your warmup, it's like, is my warmup intentional? Do. Are the movements I'm doing in the warmup going to help me be ready for the training session? That's very important.

And then when I'm going through the movements, am I trying to do quality movements? Like if I'm stretching my hamstrings or I'm running on the treadmill, like I look at a warmup as practice for fitness for your training. So like if I'm doing a quarter of a mile jog, let's say on the treadmill or just out in the street as part of my warmup.

That's a great time to work on running form. Maybe work on your foot strike, focus on your breathing. Can you, can you do some nasal only breathing when you're running? Like that's the time to experiment, not in the middle of a five mile run. And so you can get way more intentional with everything you do.

So if you look at you. Warmup as something that's actually getting you warm for the training session, but also it's an intentional thing that you're doing to practice other things and to be super intentional with your movements. Like if I'm doing an air squat, can I do that a little bit more slow and controlled?

Can I double check my form? Can I make sure the things you're doing, the things I'm doing are helping me get better once I get to the training session? 'cause if you're. Squat is crappy and you do crappy squats in the warmup, then you do crappy loaded squats. You're, you know, you're adding up all the right ingredients for an injury in the future.

So you really wanna focus on those things. And that's part of the focus. I'm talking about bringing it to the training session. And then when I was talking about, um. You know, these full body move, these full body splits and how they're just as effective as growing muscle and getting stronger. And the reason I love them is because how engaged I can be mentally.

I can be super engaged mentally when I do these training sessions because it's much easier for me. It a bite-sized chunk to be like, okay, I'm doing squats, then after squats, I'm going to bench press, or I'm going to kettlebell swings, whatever it is. It's much easier for me to focus. In those bite-sized movements, one movement pattern at a time, as opposed to it's like, okay, we got squats, then we got front squats, then we got lunges, and then we got, uh, you know, you know, hamstring curls or you know, Romanian deadlifts, whatever the case may be.

There's so many different leg movements. You start to lose a little bit of that intensity and some of that mental focus. And I really think this is a huge unlock. To a lot of results in fitness. So it is intensity. It's bringing that intensity every single session, but it's more of a mental intensity and not this idea of just going as hard as you can every single workout.

So if I ever talk about intensity. Bringing intensity every single time. That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about bringing the mental intensity, like an intense focus to your training sessions. And I think if you only trained three times a week, but you had a serious mental concentration, serious mental intensity, you would see more results than the person who's just checking the boxes and going through the motions.

I honestly believe that. I think that you will see more results and the science kind of backs this up, and so I want to kind of get into two different studies just to help you. You know, real quick here to, to understand how you can approach this and utilize it in your training and how science kind of backs that up.

But I'm sure you have days of training where you feel like you can really push it, but you have other day days where you're just going through the motions and this could have a lot to do with your mental fatigue. So that's the first thing I'm gonna be talking about. There was a 2020 study done. And it found that just 30 month minutes of a mentally demanding task before training reduced squat volume significantly, especially when going to 70% or greater.

I. And most of the times when they say mentally demanding task, they can talk about doing a stroop test, which is just very engaging mentally and can tire you out. You can think about work as a mentally engaging activity. You can talk about looking at your phone, depending on what you're doing on your phone and how that engages you mentally, social media, whatever.

All of these things might be slightly taxing if it's done just 30 minutes before your training. And then as you get heavier, you're less. Mentally engaged. You just don't want to push it as hard naturally when your mind is already tired. So the key takeaway here, under the mental fatigue side of things, knowing that if we go into a training session mentally fatigued, how are we gonna then bring this intensity?

Like what are we gonna do? Well, the first option is you could just only focus on your training, right? You could just be like, you know what? I'm gonna treat my training like I'm a professional athlete and I'm not going to, uh, work as much in my job. I'm not gonna focus as much on my kids. Like I'm just going to absolutely prioritize training.

And I say, kind of say that tongue in cheek in like sarcastically. But in all honesty, I know guys like this. I. Where training is the number one priority, and then work and family, like they fall somewhere else down the line. And I'm sure you know people like that too. Uh, these are the people typically two training sessions per day or multiple hours of training per day, yet they still have kids in a job.

And you're like, how do you do it? And it's like, how do they do it? They neglect some of their most important responsibilities. In all honesty, that's what happens. Um, so that's one option. Uh, it is not the, not the one I'm endorsing, but it, it's an option. That's something that you could do. Now, the other option that I think is most.

Practical is you schedule your training before mentally fatiguing tasks when higher performance is desired. So we can't always do that. Sometimes like you train, like I'm recording this podcast. And I'm gonna have to train in the afternoon just 'cause I have my days structured. I like to train in the morning.

I can bring more intensity, uh, and I can just do, um, hit the workouts, how I want a little bit better when I train in the morning. But today specifically, I'll be training in the afternoon. So I've been doing a bunch of mentally demanding tasks and then I'm gonna go into the gym and reset and ideally. I would like to train earlier in the day, but if I can't, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go into the gym and I'm just gonna pause for a moment.

I'll probably do some box breathing for about two to four minutes, something like that. Just some sort of a reset to let my brain disengage from what I was doing and get engaged in what I'm about to do. Now, it might not be the best mental intensity I could bring versus like a morning training session, but it's like I'm trying to reset so I can go into this.

As mentally fresh as possible. So I think having some sort of like buffer period in between can really help. And so I think if you can really tackle your training earlier in the day, that's the main takeaway. Like let that be your mentally demanding thing because I. What's cool about fitness is if you do something really demanding in the gym, it doesn't necessarily take a toll on your work unless you're pushing yourself like to, like limits beyond maybe what your capability are.

Like if you're doing, uh, you know, a Murph weighted Murph every morning before you hit work and you're not really trained for that, yeah, maybe you're exhausted going into work, but most of the time you're gonna feel energized and feel great after a training session. So, I mean, we all have life. Uh, to work through on a daily basis.

And life is demanding. It's a demanding mental tasks by itself if you're doing it right, but Mark Twain once said, you know, eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. So do the hard things first and you're good to go. 'cause the fact is, if you're training consistently, you're good to go.

But if you are looking to squeeze more performance. You want more performance gains outta your training sessions, just check your mental fatigue in relation to your training time so you can get more of that mental intensity, more of that mental focus and see more results. Now the second thing I wanna talk about, and this will be the last thing, is music.

You know, this is very interesting. This is another study. Um, and, and I'll kind of start with my, my thoughts on music. I think there's a lot of benefit to training in silence. I. Um, listening to your internal chatter and seeing how you talk to yourself, seeing how you, um. Yeah, just seeing what your, your mental chatter is when you are doing hard things like when things get tough, when the heart rate gets up, the weight gets heavy, what is happening inside your brain?

Don't drown that out with music all the time. I think having the, I call it the no motivators workout. It's like no pre-workout, no. Uh, music, nothing. Just you and the weight or you and the road and just get to know yourself a little bit better. I think that's a phenomenal way to go about things, but I don't think you have to do that every single training session.

So going back to the science, there was a 2021 study done of 10 men with an average of seven years of training experience and a training frequency of at least two to three days per week. And they found music can be a game changer. So the reason I like this study right off the bat is 'cause it, well, one, it's a little bit small.

I don't like that. But I do love the fact that this is a study done of people of advanced training age. They've been training consistently for seven years. I'll take that any day of the week versus somebody who's just a college kid who's been enrolled into a strength and conditioning study for 20 bucks and has no fitness experience.

That's almost useless in my, my, my opinion. This is something that's, uh, you know, useful. 'cause if I had 10 friends, 10 guys who have been training for seven years and we tr tested something, I would like that. I would, I'd be like, yeah, I, I'd take this as maybe not scientific fact, but you know, something that could definitely point me in the right direction.

So anyway, the study was very simple. Uh, they did three sessions. One session was max testing. One session was music during warmup and in between sets. And one session was no music. So everyone was their own control, and they all worked within these, uh, different, uh, you know, variations. And the findings were that.

In nine out of the 10 participants listening to music during the warmup in between sets, improved bench press, repetition, performance, barbell velocity, and power and motivation to train. So that's a lot versus the people of no music who didn't have those improvements. So I think that that's amazing. They had all of these things.

They improved repetition, performance, they moved faster, which we know means stronger 'cause speed and power are related to strength. And then they also had more motivation to train like they just wanted to. That might be the most important part of everything that we're talking about. Now. There were a few notes from the study on just the implementation of this.

So the music was self-selected, so they got to pick whatever they wanted, which I think is a huge thing. Like, listen to what you wanna listen to. If you're going to listen to music, don't, I can't say like, Hey, this is the song. Go listen to this song, and that will motivate you and you're gonna be all pumped up and hyped up.

Like for instance, I hate jazz music. You put jazz music in my ears. I guarantee performance is gonna drop in the workout. But for some people, that might just be exactly what you need to get after it. So. Music was self-selected. Choose what you like and pick what you like, uh, and utilize that in a workout.

Now here's the, the more interesting thing as part of the study is they listened to the same song on repeat and understand, doing this from a scientific perspective is like. We can't have like a playlist, like we need the same song over and over again to kind of control as tightly as we can in the scientific study.

So they self-selected the music, but they kind of got to pick their favorite song and they had to listen to that song over and over again. Now, I've done this at times, I've done this while working. I've done this while working out. Like you kind of find a song that just kind of hits right, and you're like, yeah.

I'm gonna listen to this one over and over and over again. So maybe try that out the next time that you're in a training session. If you have like a, a music or a song that's really, you know, pushing you in the right direction, uh, maybe try listening to it on a repeat. But I don't think that's the biggest takeaway.

I think the takeaway is more of the playlist idea you would wanna listen to, like every song you've ever liked. Um, you know, on Shuffle because you might hit some Taylor Swift song you forgot, you hit, you know, a couple years ago with, followed by some EDM and then Hard Rock, like you don't want to go down that road.

So my main takeaway is select what you like and then probably have a workout playlist if you don't already. And now the last thing was they found that the song had to be at least 120 beats per minute, which is reasonably easy to do. Like I'm not a big. Beats per minute guy when I am looking through music, but I'm like, I'm not assessing my music based off of the beats per minute.

But, um, you can easily check this out on, on like Spotify. You can, uh, you can select, you could pick running playlists based off of how many beats per minute they are. Uh, so you can, if you, if you're unfamiliar with what that would sound like, just if you're on Spotify or Apple Music, I'm sure Apple Music does it as well.

I use Spotify most of the time, but you can actually search it. And say, Hey, I wanna listen to something that's 120 beats per minute. They'll come up with like a running playlist or whatever you could probably find about what that cadence is, and then you can go back and self-select whatever your music is.

I don't think it has to be perfect. It just, I think getting an idea for what that is. So it needs to be fairly upbeat music. You're not listening to like classical or anything like that, but who knows again, um, you know, maybe you would, you would like that. Uh, and so that's basically it when you're getting into the focus and motivation is.

Try to pick a time that coincides with your optimal time for training. That's the thing. Watch your mental fatigue. Try to get it earlier in the day. Try not to do it after something incredibly mentally demanding. But I'd say if you did have a really mentally demanding day and you can still go get the training session done, that's building a different muscle.

So like let's not discount that. Like if I'm just absolutely exhausted, I had the hardest day. I feel like I can't even think straight. And maybe it was like incredibly stressful and I still finished the workday and I go do a training session. That training session is not gonna be optimal if like compared to had I done that training session first thing in the morning, but I'm building a different muscle of being able to push myself to do something I probably don't really want to do when I'm really tired and really mentally fatigued.

Again, the training session might not be phenomenal, but what you're building up for life there, that mental toughness, that mental fortitude, that's also huge too. So let's not forget that there's no, no real such thing as like a bad. Training session. You know, so long as you don't get injured, there's no real bad training session.

If you can go in and do the training session, you know, good for you. You did the training, that's solid. That's the biggest part of it. But what we're talking about here is how to get the most, how can you squeeze the most out of a training session? And that's when you wanna bring that mental intensity and that mental fortitude.

So when you do that, when you're bringing that, you need to be the least amount of mentally fatigued as you possibly could. So that's a big part of it. Uh, and then also music. Getting in there and finding some music that helps you and trying to be dialed in mentally. And then the last little tips I had, just like kind of on the side, like I said, making sure that you have that super intentional warmup.

I think that sets the right frame of mind for the rest of the training session. Knowing I'm being super intentional with my movements. Everything I'm doing, I'm practicing everything, that everything is practiced for the actual training session. Having that mentality and then also maybe some breath work.

Or just a moment of silence. Whatever works for you as you transition from something that's more mentally tough to that training session, but treat it like it's an event. Okay. Like when you go into training, be like, Hey, this is training today. This isn't my workout, this isn't exercise. This is my training.

I'm training my body. I'm training to get better. I'm going in this to train today. That's why we always say train. That's why we say training sessions here at Garage and Athlete. I'm here to train. When you take that mentality, that's half the battle. Like you show up. I'm here to do something. I'm here to get better.

I'm here to be a better human. I'm here to train hard. I'm here to do all these things. That's what we're going after when we want to hit a training session, and that will make you so much better and you see so many more results if you attack your training sessions this way to the best of your ability for as long as you can.

Well, that's it for this one, for all of our garage gym athletes out there. Really appreciate you tackling the training sessions and also just being a part of the community. For anyone else there who wants to try our training, be a part of Project Delta, which is coming up very soon. You can go to garage gym athlete.com, sign up for a free trial.

We'd love to have you. Just test it out. It's a trial, it's not a marriage, right? Just, just test it out. See if you like the training. Uh, see if we can, uh, impress you with our programming methodology. I think you'll really enjoy it if you haven't. Been a part of, uh, you know, very structured, intelligent programming before Garage Gym Athlete is the place to test that out.

But that's it for this one. Remember, if you don't kill comfort, comfort will kill you.