Are you to comfortable?

When I am talking about comfortable this applies to all aspect of your life not just in your training. But for this post we will mainly focus on using exercise as the example and you can see how it expands to life. I read an article last night talking about the "no pain no gain" analogy that gets thrown around all the time. If you know me I am a firm believer in no pain no gain. Let me explain why.

The biggest reason why I am a believer is your forced to come outside your comfort zone. If you always stay inside your comfort zone you tend to get lazy, accustomed to routine, and you never grow as a person or you training never gets you to the level you want. So lets take your training, are you where you want to be? When was the last time your really pushed yourself outside your comfort zone and tried something different? It can be a new exercise or even a new set of exercises for that day. When you are in your comfort zone you are just at maintenance or you might not even be where you want to be. I am a firm believer in change, change is for the good always we might not know why at first but in the end it always will be. As far as change for working out I do not think there is a maintenance period with fitness, there is always areas to improve on if its to gain 10lbs, to lose 10lbs, to get a faster lap, to beat your max Deadlift, the list is always on going. Do you see where I am going with this? Your training will never grow and just become stale if your always doing the same thing. You see the people in the gym and we all have done it at times most of us being unaware of the fact at first but catch yourself doing the same thing over and over.

Like I said it goes with life and personal growth as well. If you are afraid of discomfort and embrace being comfortable and lazy then who you are now is who you will be tomorrow. If you study and look at all the greats Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, Napoleon Hill,Benjamin Franklin, Ghandi, Walt Disney, there are just so many to name. If they did not step outside their comfort zone and embrace the discomfort think of all the things we might not have or how different the world would be today. As Tom Venuto said in his article "being better than the you of yesterday" life and fitness go hand in hand they are always evolving and it is an ever growing process.

Ok back with the training and no pain no gain, I know some people are thinking well thats just dumb why do I always have to be in pain that will cause injury and so on and so forth. Yes I do agree but to a certain extent. That does not mean you train without using your head, which this is about and go try something way past your abilities. This is about pushing yourself past your limits but not overdoing it. I will use another one of Tom's great analogies. "Do you know how you develop flexibility? What does the trainer tell you? You stretch to the point of discomfort, but not to the point of pain, right? You get into a position of slight discomfort and you hold it, right? You hold it just long enough, and then what happens? The discomfort goes away, because the muscle becomes more pliable, and the range of motion is increased. And the next time, you stretch it a little bit further." Do you see where I am going with this the reason I love fitness is because its a part of life and it does teach you great leassons in life. Still to this day I do not know where I would be without it. People say sometimes I am crazy and yes I know I am haha but its for the good because thats what sets me apart from the ordinary. Yeah I am very far from perfect no one is perfect because remember there is not end its an on going learning process of growth everywhere around you.

So my advice to everyone is to everyday do something that causes you to go outside your comfort zone do one thing with your fitness/health and one thing for your personal development in life. Always remember change is a good thing and "Do what you always did, get what you always got."

Dedicated to you!
-Matt Holmes




P.S. To find out more about Tom Venuto please click HERE