Are you training hard enough?
Are you aware of your current intensity levels?
A big part of this is figuring out where your challenge point actually is. Too often, people rarely push themselves and they stay stagnant in their workouts. Just mindlessly working though a list of exercises. By experimenting, going beyond the familiar stopping point you often uncover better standards. That shift can redefine not just what you’re willing to do, but what you expect in return. You have to step into that hidden territory yourself, discover what it feels like, and let it reset your sense of what’s possible. The only way to know whether your usual standards are serving you is to surpass them on a regular basis and see what happens.
There are many different training methods available to you and we have covered quite a few in this series, but there is one thing that beats them all when seeking the best results from your workouts.
Working that little bit harder.
Doing everything right whilst going through the motions and being firmly in your comfort zone is often the reason you’re not making any significant progress and getting disheartened.
For growth and strength to occur, we need to apply strain, tension, and ultimately some micro damage to our musculature. Fearing the discomfort associated with going beyond your familiar stopping point simply won’t elicit that response you’re looking for.
That, therefore, means embracing the unease and stress we experience when things start to get a little challenging. Wanting to feel that elusive “burn” rather than avoiding it because it’s uncomfortable, or you’re tired, or it’s difficult, or you’re not really feeling up to it today.
There, of course, may be moments when tapering down the intensity and simply ‘getting it done’ is necessary; I’m not denying that.
But, for most, grinding out a couple more reps, increasing the weight, deepening the range of motion, and hunting down that uncomfortable exercise-fuelled feeling could well be the difference between stagnation and accelerating progress.
As with anything in life that isn’t plain sailing, progress requires you to transition into certain uncomfortable feelings with regularity. So, it makes sense, if you can, to interpret those feelings as good, rewarding, and reassuring - even though they aren’t, in and of themselves, ‘pleasant’. When you make room for the burn, you realise that it’s not actually dangerous, just intense, and that intensity can energise your workouts once you stop seeing it as undesirable.
Hard and consistant training is the ultimate vehicle for self-improvement. You have to put the effort in to see progress and done correctly you get out what you put in. The opposite is also true. If you go through the motions or only rock up once in a blue moon, or spend the whole time taking selfies to show your Instagram followers that you’re “at the gym” then your results are going to reflect that too.
This is the secret to true growth:
Carry everything in your workout past the point you’d normally stop - even if just by a small amount - and do that regularly.
Reframe how you look at exercise, it will be a game changer.
Even still, our bodies are excellent at adaptation and regardless of how hard you work, you might still hit a plateau as you get better. As your skill level improves. Continued progress may become more difficult to maintain.
Then what?
This is what you can do next…
Next - Has your progress stalled?