It hurts when I do this...
This entry was posted on 2/20/2012 9:12 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
How many times have we heard that line? How many times have we also THOUGHT that line when we make our own mistakes?
Getting older is never easy...and it seems to get a little tougher everyday. Between the weight of the world, the stress of a poor night's sleep, the quality of food available while we are out trying to save he world and the demands that pop up unexpectedly on our schedules, it is easy to overdo it every once in a while.
A minor strain or injury is NOT a terrible thing to have happen. We are constantly trying to reassure our clients that the occasional tweaked shoulder or achy knee is NOT the end of the world for their health and fitness. It is a setback, but it is also an opportunity to go forward with a better understanding of your body's limitations...and we all have them. A lot of people like to imagine that they are beyond getting injured or straining themselves by overworking every so often...but from my experience, if you are not occasionally feeling the effects of overdoing it you may not be working out hard enough or paying enough attention to hitting your target.
We always see people at the gym doing the same old safe exercises with a weight they have done for years, talking and enjoying themselves, occasionally working up a sweat and even breathing heavy...sometimes. But what message are they sending to their body? That it is fine where it is? That it does not have to get any stronger? That it does not need to learn to adapt to any additional stress or movement? Is that really the message we want our time in the gym to generate...that we are okay where we are at, and we don't want our body to change anything?
I don't think so...and hopefully, neither do you.
Our time at the gym is a chance to challenge your body...a chance to make it push a little outside of it's normal comfort zone. Sometimes, we only need that ONE extra rep to get the message across...sometimes two or three reps. Sometimes, it takes an entirely different exercise or exercise sequence...but we want our muscles to think they are just NOT strong enough to meet the demands we ask of them. Because of what we are trying to do, it is entirely possible that we could push just a little too hard every once in awhile.
It happens. It does not mean you screwed up. It means you may have overestimated THAT particular muscle on THAT particular day doing THAT particular exercise. Learn from it. Remember what it felt like...and remember that your exercise is designed to help you expand that range that you experience day to day...it is designed to push you just a little closer to the edge so your body knows it can continue to learn. Keep notes...and LISTEN to what your body is telling you...and then show it you listened by giving it the tools it needs to go PAST that point in the future.
