How One Great Montage Will Change Your Home Workouts Forever
A personal story of how watching Rocky IV assisted me in losing lockdown weight.
On the 6th of January 2021, the UK begrudgingly entered a much-needed third national lockdown. This was a devastating way to begin a new year for those of us who were fortunate enough to aspire to achieve goals in the midst of this tragic pandemic that is still wreaking havoc on the world today. The closure of gyms, as well as the doom and gloom vibe brought by the lockdown, proved a huge hindrance for anyone trying to stay fit, healthy, and keep the pounds from tacking on.
For myself… this became a harsh reality. Home workouts became repetitive and eventually tedious. The thought of running outdoors in the north of England during the winter was not appealing in the slightest. I became completely unconcerned over my lack of movement and the vast amount of calories I was consuming. I needed a spark, some form of inspiration to get myself back on track both mentally and physically. As a lover of film, I often look to the movies for inspiration, and it instantly became very clear which film I should watch… Rocky IV (1985).
You Need a Montage, Even Rocky Had a Montage
Why the fourth one specifically is a question you might ask? A question with a very simple answer. The film is about achieving the impossible with a minimal amount of assistance. Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) develops himself into such a prime condition that allows him to overcome a killing machine of a fighter, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), with no equipment, no science, no performance-enhancing drugs, just pure will, and determination.
The film gave me a much-needed ignition. I would repeatedly watch the famous training montage during every warm-up, and listen to the soundtrack on every run. The workouts were no longer tedious. A repetitive process became a tradition, a ritual. The montage taught me to get creative, be more resourceful, and have a positive focus on what I had at my disposal rather than what I didn’t. I did not necessarily chop down a tree or run up a mountain, but I did overcome the obstacles that I placed on my own way.
How Cinema Affects Us Mentally
There’s more at play here than simple motivational imagery. There’s the age-old optimistic saying that “if you can imagine it, then it will come to you.” Although at face value that sentence seems like an empty piece of “hallmark” motivation that you would scroll past on social media, there is some weight within the message.
The process of visualization can be an effective tool, especially when wanting to reach a specific goal. Imagining something transforms your goal into a fantasy, but visualizing the process of achieving that goal acts as a motivational stepping stone to get you to where you want to be.
In 1999, the visualization process was put to the test under a psychology study performed by Liam Pham and Shelley Taylor. The study consisted of a group of students who had to either visualize themselves achieving a successful exam grade, or the steps they would have to take to achieve that grade. The results showed that the students who visualized themselves reading and revising spent longer actually studying and got better grades in the exam. There are two reasons why the visualization process worked:
Planning: visualising the process helped focus attention on the steps needed to reach the goal.
Emotion: process visualisation led to reduced anxiety.
The Visualization Process On-Screen
So how is the psychoanalytic process of visualization relevant to my experience watching the Rocky IV training montage? Simple… the montage showed Rocky’s own visualization of laboring for the required skills and physique to achieve his own goal in action. The use of montage editing condenses a long period of time into a fast-paced scene, but within each transition, you see each step of a process being actioned.
As I discussed earlier, I would repeatedly watch the montage before training, not to fantasize about achieving a physique like Rocky, but to aid in visualizing my own process of achieving my goal. My end result was not to beat a Russian killing machine but to simply lose some stubborn lock-down flab. To achieve my goal I didn’t have to climb a mountain, chop down trees, or outrun a car in the snow. I just had to put myself through a challenging process that I was initially avoiding. The montage essentially would give me a visualized image that I could embed and alter to fit my own process in achieving my goal.
How You Can Find Your Own Montage
I cannot recommend this process enough to anyone trying to achieve a fitness goal in times such as these. The beauty of the process is that it can be utilized for any goal you have. Although I do highly recommend the montage in Rocky IV, you can easily find your own special montage with the plethora of great cinema we have at our disposal. Especially in this day and age when superhero films are thrown at us umpteen times a year, there are a myriad of montages that portray a protagonist’s process in action.
The take-home message from reading this piece is not ‘if you can imagine yourself as the hero on the screen you will achieve it.’ Rather, get the hero on the screen to help you envision your own process so you can achieve your own goal. It’s simple… If I can change, then you can change… everybody can change.
