Physical Pain, Frustration, and Mental Muscle in Running
How training discomfort and therapy help build the resilience needed to face life's challenges.
Tolerating physical discomfort in running closely mirrors our ability to endure emotional pain. Drawing on insights from psychoanalyst Laura Aliberti, learn how endurance sports and psychoanalysis explain the development of mental muscle.
High-intensity running workouts frequently require confronting discomfort. Whether during a VO2 max interval session or the grueling final miles of a marathon, intense physical exertion pushes boundaries that demand endurance. This capacity to withstand organic discomfort often draws a common parallel among endurance athletes: if the body can handle the physical strain of running, the mind becomes equally equipped to navigate daily anxieties and frustrations.
Building frustration tolerance in manageable doses
From a psychoanalytic perspective, coping with suffering does not stem from sudden trauma, but rather from learning to manage tolerable frustrations over time. Psychologist and psychoanalyst Laura Aliberti explains that this progression resembles childhood development, where an individual gradually realizes they can handle absence and discomfort in manageable doses. In running, hitting a pacing wall or missing a target time often shatters expectations. Learning to withstand this disappointment without breaking down strengthens the ability to identify and process deeper anxieties.
The concept of psychic musculature
Just as physical strength requires repetition, progressive overload, and recovery, emotional resilience relies on similar dynamics to develop. The metaphor of psychic musculature illustrates how confronting small daily challenges—such as grinding out a long treadmill session in the rain or navigating breakups and major life transitions—builds an internal reservoir to handle severe crises.
Emotional conditioning, whether gained through demanding experiences or therapy, works proactively. It does not erase the pain of difficult moments, grief, or the losses that come with aging, but it provides the foundational stability needed to respond with maturity when adversity inevitably strikes.
Desire, rush, and the need to celebrate the process
To sustain the demanding routine of long-distance training, commitment must be rooted in genuine desire. In psychoanalytic theory, desire is the driving engine behind human action. However, the bombardment of digital stimuli and the hurried pace of modern life often push athletes into a relentless checklist mentality, where one milestone is immediately discarded for the next, stripping the experience of meaning.
Celebrating the journey and acknowledging the effort invested across months of training is essential to avoid feeling empty after crossing the finish line. When focus is placed exclusively on the clock, runners lose the emotional connection and transformative growth that the training process provides.
The value of expressive writing and journaling
As a tool to slow down and process emotions, manual therapeutic writing serves as a powerful means of internal connection. Rooted in the psychoanalytic principle of free association, the practice involves writing in a notebook without self-editing, filters, or digital interruptions, capturing raw thoughts and feelings in the moment. This exercise helps anchor lived experiences, organize the mental clutter brought on by daily pressures, and preserve meaningful memories that the rush of daily life often erases.