Maximize Your Fitness Results by Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone
It’s time to sweat, huff and puff and get uncomfortable! Can you really get a 12 pack in 5 minutes? Want to lose those lingering last 10 pounds you can’t seem to shake?
I’m here to tell you, you must be a little uncomfortable in your training sessions and when you work out some of the time, otherwise wouldn’t everybody workout?
I have a saying that I whisper in the ears of my clients who are ready to give up on that one little last rep, or if they feel another bead of sweat rolling down their face: I smile big and quietly say, “ this is where your body changes”.
Here are a few tips to bust that plateau and push a little harder:
Music: Rock out, find that song that makes you move and groove. Sure works for me. Now you can enjoy your tunes on the water! How fun is that. If you’re paddling a long distance paddle, just don’t turn it up too loud so you can hear a whale breaching or spouting behind you ( only on Maui )
Self Message: What’s your mantra? What can you say to yourself so you get through that tough set? Come on you wimp! What would you say??
Setting goals EVERY workout to meet your long term goals: Track your results so you can see progress. Without benchmarks you have nothing to weigh your performance against. At your next work out, tell yourself you’ll do 50 hard ab crunches or add and extra10 minutes to my treadmill time.
Change It Up: You want a hard body, you must train hard in many different ways. If you’re bored I guarantee your body is more bored and content to stay the same if you do the same. Simply by adding 25 jumping jacks between each set, look out that can add up and be a great training variable!
Keep in mind, there is a difference between pain and a little stress on your body. Be prepared to be a little sore once in awhile. Muscle soreness is a part of the body recovering and even on the second day after a hard work out, you can feel it the most.
Intense training is good, but equally important is rest and recovery. Learning about how to eat for training and recovery will allow you prepare, get through and recover through a harder training session.
Suzie Cooney, CPT
