Question of the Week

"How do you keep pushing hard in class when your mind is telling your body "your tired, just quit, this is too difficult, cheat!" ?
This is a fantastic question, get to the bottom of this one and you will have amazing results on the way to reaching your fitness potential!
The answer is very individual and must relate to your own sense of motivation, willpower, competition, fun, stubbornness, accomplishment...

Here are a few ideas from the front.
1) Keep it light!
a) No brain, no pain. One of my favorites from my early days of training!
The idea here is to justify in your mind that it is just fine to suffer and to struggle forward toward the impossible.
Realizing that in some way it is funny, crazy and the harder you push the more amusing it is.

2) Get competitive! a) Pick someone or everyone in the class to compete with.
Try to finish runs before them, be first to start the next exercise, use more range of motion in an exercise, use heavier weights, do more repetitions etc. If you know your competitor well enough, you can let them in on it. Although it is not necessary a friendly competition will push you both to continue improving. As many people are not motivated by competition please refrain from the "I kicked your butt!" dance around their mat. Not to mention this would prevent you from starting the next exercise!
b) Compete with yourself.
Run faster, further without walking, tell yourself you will just continue to the finish of this exercise, that you can do one more rep etc. Stay in the moment and do your best with each exercise. Track your timed workouts to follow your improvement.

3) Try mind tricks! a) Alter the importance of the exercise.
You think you cannot press your dumbbells overhead one more time. Imagine it's your baby you are lifting to someone on the roof to save her from a rising flood!
Can't run any faster? What if someones life depended on you getting to help in time and every second really counted!
It's too hot? Would you stop running from the wild rhinoceros out on the Serengeti, imagine the scenario to test your will.
Imagine you are at the Olympics and if you can hang on and give just a bit more you will have the Gold medal.

4) Just do it! Kudos to Nike for that one.

At some point we just have to buck up and do the work. Yes it is hard, if it wasn't the results would not come. Unless I were to make the mind tricks portion very real to you, you will have the choice to decide how much you can do, how hard you are willing to push and what you will allow to steal your progress.

Realize that most progress towards your goals happens outside of your comfort zone. Otherwise you would already be there!