Pushing for greatness in fitness
I see a lot of people who appear to be highly active, either by exercising or because their job requires it, but yet they seem to struggle with weight and endurance or they are frustrated at not gaining any headway on their fitness goals. They are clearly active, so why isn’t their body showing the effects?
After some research, I found out that our bodies will adjust to our normal activity level. It doesn’t consider all that extra walking or lifting as anything extra because our bodies do it every day — it’s become normal. I’ve experienced this for myself early on in my fitness journey. I would do 20 to 30 minutes on a treadmill using the same program every day; level walking, incline for a few minutes, back to level. I would get off not having broken a sweat, and worse, not really feeling like I’ve done anything strenuous enough to affect a change in my fitness. Turns out, it was that “normal” situation that was preventing me from seeing any advancement. I was using the same comfortable program every time and my body had gotten used to it. If I wanted to see any measurable change in my fitness, my comfort zone was going to have to take a backseat.
Pushing past your comfort zone is the thing I wanted to speak about today. I go to the gym, I perform the prescribed workout, break a sweat, feel the burn and leave feeling good. I always try to up my game, increase the repetitions and weights or maybe try and move a bit faster, pushing my cardio limit a bit. I believe I’m pushing beyond my comfort zone until … my coach appears at my shoulder urging me to continue on; to push a bit harder, to lift those weights again, to peddle faster. In my mind, and often out loud, I’m saying, “I can’t do it!” but I push on a little bit more, and to my surprise, I am successful. Go figure.
Well, despite my desire to be unique, it appears in this respect I’m not. It’s normal for our brains to find a comfort zone and do its best to keep us within it. While our fitness levels continue to change for the better, our brain is blissfully unaware. We need to educate our brain on the fact that we have a new comfort zone. We accomplish that by pushing for greatness and by giving a little extra so that our brain can see what the body can actually do and get comfortable with that.
There are a number of ways you could be encouraged to do more. One is yourself, sometimes it’s your workout friends, and for me, it’s often my fitness coach. I put the question to a couple of fitness coaches: “How do you know when to push someone to do more, to get them into the uncomfortable zone?” The answers I got were very similar. It all comes down to knowing your athlete, understanding their needs, objectives, desires, if they respond well to being pushed during the exercise or whether they prefer an after-the-fact conversation. It varies greatly between athletes.
Your head will almost always be the first to tell you to stop, but you have to trust your coach to know you and your abilities. Your coach has your best interests at heart. They want you to succeed, attain your goals, improve your fitness and overall leave healthier than when you arrived.
Sometimes moving your fitness needle higher requires you to get uncomfortable, so let it happen and push the limits to best of your ability. Trust in your coach and remind your brain that it doesn’t know everything. Get comfortable being uncomfortable and move your fitness needle even higher.
Charlie Ley is a grandfather and senior athlete.