I recently listened to Tim Ferris talking with the legendary actor Hugh Jackman on the aforementioned’s podcast and was fascinated with the discussion on the 85% rule. Hugh explained that in order to achieve peak performance we should not aim to achieve a 100% output rate in any given endeavour but to peak at no more than 85%.
Hugh gave an example of Olympic 100m sprinter Carl Lewis who became the subject of a research study when a sprint coach couldn’t understand how Lewis would routinely be in last or second to last place at the 40 metre mark but then would miraculously sprint right past the front runners and go on to win the race, oftentimes by 10 metres. Many people put this down to Lewis being a slow starter but by carefully scrutinising video tape, the sprint coach determined Lewis being a slow starter had nothing to do with why he was regularly winning. By closely studying head on video footage of dozens of races, he realised that what Lewis was doing or should that be what Lewis wasn’t doing, was running at 100% effort.
Whilst all the other runners were exerting themselves, pushing themselves for the final stretch through gritted teeth and clenched fists, Carl Lewis remained in a totally relaxed state. His breathing was slow and deliberate, his body was loose and his form remained consistent throughout and he would just come right up from behind and whistle right past everybody. This is how the 85% rule was born.
In my own experience as a Brazilian jiu jitsu practitioner, I can relate to this theory. One of the key concepts in BJJ is to relax and not over exert yourself. Beginners to the sport and even some advanced practitioners find this very difficult and will often use all of their strength when sparring, invariably tiring themselves out and making themselves much more vulnerable and susceptible to being submitted by their opponent.
In Brazilian jiu jitsu the less effort you can use the better, oftentimes just doing enough to stay safe, maybe 10% effort at times or as coach Matt Thornotn says use as much effort as necessary and never any less. At times you may need to use more effort but you would never want to use 100% of your available attributes, be that strength, endurance, speed etc. If we can limit our output to 85% whilst our opponent may utilise 100% then victory is ours for the taking.
Try using just 85% effort the next time you are in any kind of competitive endeavour and see how well you perform compared to when you give 100%.
