Our bodies seek a comfort zone, in physiology this is called homeostasis. It takes tremendous will and determination to break out of this natural comfort zone, but the rewards can be great.
I think sometimes we forget how adaptable our bodies are. In training if you do stuff outside your comfort zone, eventually your body will adapt.
You may have watched the Crossfit Games this past weekend and thought how do they do that. Well, first they are great athletes, but also, they didn’t just start doing that day 1, they kept pushing themselves and pushing themselves and they built up to that level.
There is a principle called The SAID (Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands) principle. The SAID principle dictates that your body will adapt to specific stress put on it.
Our bodies will change to meet the needs of the stresses we are providing. Our bodies can adapt very quickly, as long as we continue to practice and allow for optimal recovery.
Physical training is obviously a huge passion of mine, but even I struggle to break out of my comfort zone on occasion. One way that I’ve learned to break through is by hiring a Coach for myself. By removing myself from the equation I allow my Coach to devise workouts for me that I never would write for myself. This method allows me to remove the limits I might place on myself, simply show up and execute the task at hand.
For example, right now I am doing hypertrophy cycle, the first week my coach Chad Wesley Smith called for 8 sets at 8-10 reps. Looking at it I thought I was going to die. After doing the first week, I was hurting and thought my heart was going to pop out of my chest. Then I got the next week and it was now 9 sets, when I looked at it I thought I really struggled the week before, so this week will even be worse. Then the next week came and it went to 10 sets. By the third week my body had adapted, I was able go up in weight and I was catching my breath much faster.
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As you see in the videos, my body was able to adapt because I continually practiced it. Over time your body will do the same.
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Our bodies will do amazing things, and we are able to push ourselves usually more then we think. Yes, at first it might be very difficult, but you will be surprised how fast you will be able to do more.
