As we all go through life there are certain things that we fail at. Certain things that we are not good at from the beginning but we don’t give up and keep trying. They say you learn from your mistakes right?
Your first day on a new job you probably made a few mistakes but you didn’t get fired, you didn’t get frustrated and quit right away. You worked and learned and got better each day. Hopefully your coworkers were able to create a comfortable environment where you could try things on your own and they would teach you if you made a mistake. This is probably how you worked your way up to the position you are in today.
We should take the same approach in the gym and embrace failure. Failure is okay and it is how we grow and get better.
There are different types of failure in the gym. Failure does not mean trying to lift a weight that is way to heavy for you and you end up dropping it on yourself, it does not mean trying to do things that are so high level that you can’t do it and end up in a funky position and hurting yourself.
Those are the types of failures we want to avoid in the gym, anything that will end up slowing down progress or hurting yourself.
The type of failures we want in the gym are ones that are positive and create change.
Two ways we can challenge ourselves and possibly fail are with the type of exercise we use and the weight we use.
First lets talk about the exercise we use. When we are learning a new exercise it is perfectly okay that the first few reps are not absolutely perfect (still safe but maybe not perfect). You have to practice and get better, if after one or two not “perfect” reps you give up you will never get better.
Next lets talk about the weight that we are using, in order to elicit a response the weight must be challenging. Overtime as we get stronger the weight we are using must increase to continue seeing results. There is going to be a point in time where you may be unsure if you can increase your weight and you are going to have to just give it a shot.
Lets say you are doing a squat 12kg kettlebell and you are doing 10 reps, you have been doing it for a few weeks now and are thinking about trying a 14kg you don’t know if you can do 10 reps with the 14kg but do know you can probably do 6-8 reps safely and then put the kettlebell down safely give it a shot. You will probably surpries yourself and do more than you thought you were capable of. Again I say all of this keeping safety in mind first. If at any point you feel that you will not be safe it is probably not appropriate to challenge yourself.
While some people may have a hard time stepping out of their comfort zone and challenging themselves often times it is not your fault. If your gym does not create an environment where you can fail successfully maybe it is time for a new gym. Your gym should be filled with people who support you, encourage you and who are trying to get a little better each day just like yourself.
Your gym should not be a place where you feel uncomfortable, where you feel that everyone is judging you and that everyone is competing to be better than one another.
If the first gym I described sounds like the place you want to be you are in luck! This is the exact environment we try to create at Core Principles. If you are interested in finding out more shoot and email to info@coreprincples-sc.com or give us a call @ 203-914-6396.
-Coach Pat
