I was coaching this morning, but first let me set the stage: I opened the facility at 530a after a very late night of taking care of a friend. It was taking everything I had to keep up with coaching the class, and because it was a Monday, the clients seemed to be feeling very much the same.
I took notice of one client in particular. She has become one of the "poster children" of LINKED, one of our greatest success stories. Her commitment and dedication have paid off in spades.
She was in the middle of a grueling carpet-slider roll-outs set when I saw her falter. She then drop-set to the stability ball and finished that set of the exercise. I was quite pleased with her willingness to drop-set and regress downward to do the exercise right and finish strong. All too often, I watch people try to "power through" an exercise and completely botch it; usually doing more harm than good.
That's when it hit me, and I was inspired to share what I was actually watching. She had just demonstrated the very reason why she was such a outstanding success, while others success remains, as they would say, "average".
She pushed her own limits. She always had. Whether by prompting from the coaches or of her own choosing, this client would almost always push her limit. Failure IS an option for her. She would choose a progression or a weight that would be challenging. She would start the set knowing that she could not finish in the way in which she had started and would ultimately have to drop down in difficulty. Again, too many people get it in their heads that they must finish with what they start or they have failed; they "power through it" (you know who you are) instead of finishing right.
I am a firm believer that exercise promotes a mental toughness and fortitude. Training in this way absolutely strengthens your "mental muscle" as well as the bodies muscles. To train yourself to stretch or push your limits back, but not to break them (because, lets face it, limits are there for a reason), helps you to become stronger, faster, and more adaptable.
I can spend an entire lecture about true fitness being "adaptability", but this blog is only about stretching your limits. If you can find safe, fun, and effective ways to push yourself, like drop-setting, you will see results.
As always, thanks for reading.
docBdc
