Clichés can be problematic. They usually contain some true nugget of wisdom, but through endless repetition, they start to lose their power and resonance.
One such cliché insists that to succeed in life you have to get out of your comfort zone. I think I can now safely agree that this is the key to success at most realms of life. Well… that and a shit ton of coffee.
For those seeking a life of health and hotness, it’s often hard to break out of the rut of doing the same workout you’ve been doing. After all, it’s so… comfortable. In a world where most warmups consist of a jog, it can be intimidating to do a full-body, dynamic warmup in a commercial gym. Loading a one arm dumbbell press with the appropriate weight can make you feel like a dingus next to the dude doing partial reps of 315 (with busted form) on the bench press. Or my personal favorite fitness act of mild humiliation… foam rolling your inner thighs. (Though I can’t help but hope that at least some people are enjoying the view…)
And let’s call out the reality of the situation: MOST of the more progressive practices of training feel out of place in most gyms. But such is the cost of admission to a higher level of achievement – being willing to look foolish.
When I first started working out, I was horrified by EVERYTHING. I was super skinny, I felt (and WAS) super weak, and I worked out at a gym with a bunch of meatheads. And although I sort of fit in – since I was making terrible choices with my “program” like everyone else – I still felt like a fish out of water. I also feared I would be physically eaten by large dudes. (They were very large, they grunted a lot, and generally seemed hungry.)
In time, my work started to pay off a little bit; I started gaining a little bit of muscle, and I began to grow accustomed to the gym environment. By repeated exposure, what was once basically traumatizing slowly turned into something I almost looked forward to.
So believe me when I say I understand that this isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do. When you’re nervous to be at the gym at all, it can be quite a leap to will yourself to do the type of training that folks like us recommend.
Now you could just get after it and make it happen yourself. We all know people that have no problem jumping off that emotional cliff. But if you think you’d like some more support and coaching, you can always email us at tellmemore@wordpress-562750-2570978.cloudwaysapps.com, and we can help you get acclimated to doing “uncomfortable” things. Because while hard training is uncomfortable, I think, for most of us, the hardest part is the feeling of awkwardness that accompanies being unsure of what we’re doing.
But there’s no way around it. You HAVE to work through the fear and timidity if you want the results. Trust me. I’m an EXPERT on looking foolish. I have the life equivalent of a PhD in looking like an idiot. And as Joseph Campbell reminds us, “the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
Seriously. Stop wasting time. Life is short. Do the right thing for your health and hotness. If you need me I’ll be straddling the foam roller, working on my inner thigh soft tissue quality.