My Journey With Health And Fitness – Accepting Challenges Is Now Normal

It is hard to believe that as of tomorrow we only have 3 weeks left at our condo. I can’t believe how quickly the past 3 1/2 weeks have gone. Funny, time passes so slowly when we are waiting to come down here but then zips along at sonic speed while we are here. I guess I am just going to have to work harder at enjoying the awesome weather and our great friends.

Yesterday the owner of the fitness centre that I belong to posted on FB about it is the role of the fitness instructors to take us out of our comfort zone. They do this by challenging us with things like upping the weights we are using, pushing us a little harder, always trying the difficult way to do an exercise first and in general telling us to do the best that we can. For me them pushing me out of my comfort zone has made accepting challenges my new normal. It has helped me remove those mental barriers that tell me what I can’t do and instead I now always go to I’ll give it a try.

Just as an example, doing pull ups. We do these by standing on resistance bands and doing basically a chin up. The first time this came up during bootcamp I literally panicked. I destroyed my knee by falling though a hole that had been cut in the ceiling. That hole had simply been covered by a thin sheet of veneer so it obviously could not hold my weight when I stepped on it. 30 years after the fact I still have a fear of things like walking on platforms so the thought of standing on those skinny little resistance band terrified me. I did it that time but vowed never again because I was so frightened. The next time that exercise was in the mix I said no, I am not doing that and was given an alternative. However, after round one in our circuit I said screw this, I am going to keep doing these pull ups until I am no longer terrified of them. Well guess what, they are no longer an issue for me.

I posted back on FB that it is because of these instructors challenging me I now do 1 armed planks. I seldom want modifications to exercises (only ones that I know my knee won’t allow me to do such as kneeling) and usually if there is a ‘hard’ version of an exercise I give it a try. Challenging myself is what has gotten me to a fitness level I have never been at before but is where I want to stay. And those annoying voices in my head that try to stop me have all but disappeared.

So make challenging yourself your new normal. Get out of that comfort zone and strive to improve yourself. You only limit yourself if you don’t give it a try. And really, if you find you can’t do something, keep working on it, you will get there.