✿islandgurl

✿islandgurl

Saturday, August 25, 2012

"Challenge Your Comfort Zone"

Why is it that every time life starts to get a little more comfortable, something comes along to force you out of your comfort zone? Because it makes you a better person, that’s why. And the same is true for your exercise routine. If you’re feeling too comfortable, it’s time to kick it up a notch. For example, if 30 minutes on the stationary bike is barely making you break a sweat, take your workout to the treadmill. You might find you can only complete 15 minutes of running, whereas you could go forever and ever on the bike. That’s because you were stuck in the same old, same old comfortable routine. Same thing goes for the treadmill. Running on the treadmill day in and day out your body will become accustom to it. Push past that and go outside and hit the pavement, grass or track and do some real live running and see how different you feel and how much harder it is than the treadmill. It is extremely different and you will see once you try it. One thing I do when I use the tread mill at the gym, I will do interval sprints to keep my body from ever being comfortable while on the treadmill. I will do 12-15 60 sec. interval sprints to 60 sec. rest and I will do this until all 12-15 sprints are completed. Once this becomes easy and I feel too comfortable I will change the speed from 7.0 to 7.5 - 8.0 and also change rest time to only 30 sec. between 60 sec. interval sprints. Just keep pushing yourself and keep yourself out of that comfortable zone and easy going exercise style. It's not suppose to be comfortable, it suppose to be uncomfortable and we need to make it that way be excelling and pushing ourselves past that breaking point. "Uncomfortable Zone"

Don’t forget to take this lesson to the weight room with you too. If you’re still using weight machines and have hit a weight plate plateau, you’ve mastered the machine and would be better served by switching to free weights. Since free weights (dumbbells, barbells, medicine balls, etc.) literally have no strings attached, they force your muscles to work harder to stabilize the path of the movement. On a machine, the attached pulleys and levers are doing it for you. I'm a firm believer in mainly using free weights with a few exception machines for legs, and back. I was raised on free weights from my first days of learning to be a bodybuilder and competing. Free weights are much harder and take more strength. They make for better, bigger muscles and they surely take you out of your comfort zone. So, leave the machines alone for awhile and only use for defining or finishing off a muscle group. Use the free weights to hit your muscle groups harder and to get you out of the regular weight plate plateau and push yourself past your comfort zone                                                                                                                                       
So if you want to see results at the gym and in front of the mirror, it’s time to step out of your comfort zone. You're body will show the results I promise you that. It's worth the pain and being uncomfortable to see your body become unstoppable in all that you set out to physical challenge it with, and to see the beautiful changes in the mirror every day. 

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