I read a post of a former trainer of mine, in Dallas, Texas where he said,
"If you aren’t making faces, ask yourself, are you flexing/working out hard enough?"
Then I thought to myself, "hell yeah, I make gym faces!" That's when I know I'm pushing myself.
When it comes down to it, there are two types of pain really - pain that hurts you and pain that changes you. Pushing yourself isn’t easy but for change to occur, you have to get yourself to that point of good pain and then push past it through those additional repetitions.
Those additional repetitions - just past the pain-point and onward - those are where change begins. Most people stop lifting when the pain-point happens and that is when they just stay on the plateau.
For each person, along their own fitness journey, there comes a time when motivation is no longer the driving force. For me, I've come to call this "motivation evolution." I've seen this happen for people over the years, and I've seen it not evolve for people as well.
When your initial motivation to get into the gym has evolved, this is when the motivation that got you there turns into the discipline that keeps you there.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was known as the Austrian Oak, in the bodybuilding world.
I admired this face-making machine when I was in my twenties and I still do today. At an early age, in his fitness journey, something motivated him. His motivation quickly evolved into discipline and this disciplined-force then drove his journey farther and higher in the world of competitive bodybuilding, taking him on to win his his first amateur Mr. Universe title in 1967 and on to win four more Mr. Universe titles. Arnold also won the professional Mr. Olympia title six years in a row (1970–75) before retiring.
The man is the definition of discipline.
For most of us, the mere discipline basics are difficult. We find it tempting to eat fast food when we're in a rush. To not have a slice of Lorraine's homemade lemon pound cake at the office party, to ensure that your body has enough water all day, every day. Discipline to do your cardio. Discipline to get yourself in the gym at a minimum of 3 days per week and most importantly, when you get there, drumming up the discipline to make faces and crush it.
It’s not easy. If it were, everyone would be doing it.
BUT
We’ve all seen that someone stop, redirect their journey and do it and we've all heard them say - “if I can do it, anyone can do it.”
This is 100% true. ~~Anyone can do it~~YOU can do it, too.~~
You're only in competition with yourself. If we honestly cared that much about the opinions of the other people in the gym with us, we’d never step foot in a gym to begin with. Forget how you look inside the gym because you know that that you’re working very hard to change and evolve and that is what matters.
Go forth, wear your gym face and crush your goals!
Comments