Sweat and Sacrifice: It’s OK to be Uncomfortable

Kidding! It's not Kelsey. Goose is back in the blogging world and has a solid post, just in time for the holidays!

Every now and then random people approach me asking, "How do I get abs?" "How do I lose weight?"

My answer: “Well, what are you doing right now?”

It’s surprising to me how much people underestimate the amount of time and hard work it takes for change to happen. Whether you’re an athlete not breaking a sweat in the weight room or a Desk Jockey who thinks walking 25 mins on a treadmill is a hard workout, the outcome is the same. If you don’t put in the work you don’t get any results!

NO RESULTS FOR YOU!!

A simple, yet extremely effective, rule to live by is: If you aren’t sweating you aren’t trying! Not breaking a sweat can be attributed to 1 or more of the following:

- Improper warm-up etiquette

- Moving too slowly

- Using too light of a weight

Wrong! Errr-body got time for dat!

Are you warming up properly? If you aren’t breaking a light sweat, lubricating your joints, or elevating your heart rate, what exactly are you doing?? A great quote by Olympic Weightlifting Guru, Greg Everett, “If you’re not warming-up, you’re not tough or elite, you’re lazy.”

If you skip or half-do youe warm up, well done! You've set yourself up for an injury or, at best, an unproductive workout!

How fast are you moving through your workout? If your workout speed can be described as “Slower than molasses on a winter day” we’ve got a problem on our hands! Going too slowly or taking too long between sets of exercises is not only a reason for the lack of perspiration but is also detrimental to strength gains.

Don’t be that guy!

Are you going heavy enough?? Once passed the learning period, where technique needs to be mastered, there is no reason to do “easy” weights. If the weight/load of an exercise isn’t in the least bit challenging there is no point in simply going through the motions.

Motivation: Somewhere in China there is a child warming up with you max!

Getting sweaty and uncomfortable are side effects of truly pushing the limits of your body in you quest for greatness! A concept that one of my coaches constantly drilled into my head was “If you are comfortable, you are not giving your 100%." Whether you are conditioning or resistance training, I believe this concept to be true.

The human mind is a very powerful thing; it is also incredibly lazy if you let it be. When things start to get tough, when your legs burn and you are breathing heavily, your mind likes to tell you that’s enough. However, the reality is that your body is still good to keep going, you’ve just got to find the resolve to push through the fatigue and finish whatever your objective is. That is mental toughness, that is what separates 1st from 2nd place. No one ever said getting better was a walk in the park. Getting better sucks, it’s painful, and super frustrating. But in the end when all the work has been done in the weight room and on the field, when you’ve lost countless ounces of sweat and winced through sore muscles, that’s when results will show. And that’s when PRs will be broken and victory will be gained.

Rant over. Happy Holidays!