Hey y’all! How are you doing? Are you eating cleaner, working out harder, drinking more water, planning ahead and believing in your body’s ability to change? By now, your running has to be finding a groove, or at least you’ve hit it a couple of times so you know what it is you’re going to find out there on the road and why so darn many folks are addicted to it. If you haven’t found it yet, commit to running for me today ok? Today could be the day.
Most folks that work out, find that it’s really challenging to actually change their body! You’ve seen them, haven’t you? They’re at the gym all the time, but you never see any difference in them. Have you ever wondered why? My claim to you is the answer lies in the CZ. The Comfort Zone.
Most people avoid conflict. Most avoid being uncomfortable. Don’t you? That tension, anxiety, uncertainty of what is going to come next. Whew! We just want to know that we’re ok and have some confidence in the outcome. Well then, how crazy is it that to effectively change our bodies, both inside and out, we need to go to a place of uncertainty?
In camp, we teach folks how to be really comfortable being un-comfortable. That is the place where the transformation lives. Think of it this way; if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve already got! Book your ticket to a new land….the land of transformation.
Know this about that land; it’s going to be filled with uncertainty, challenges, speed bumps, out of body experiences, feeling nauseous, reaching failure – counting to three and getting some more! Most of all, know that it’s also going to be filled with success and positive changes. Know that you will find strength in places other than your muscles and that the strength, courage and confidence you discover there will permeate your entire life. Sound like the results you want? Take a deep breath then and let’s go!
How will you know you’ve reached it? How do you approach travelling to this new place? The obvious answer is to just kick it up a notch, right? Well, that’s true, but there’s a bit more to it than that.
How you know you’re IN your comfort zone is to ask yourself if you can carry on a conversation with what you’re doing. If you can, then know you’re choosing to stay where you are. There are drills you can do to learn your exertion. Mark off two different spots – maybe you can use mailboxes in your neighborhood. Make them about 30 or so yards apart. Now, just run at a light – can chat with your friend pace and count your steps from one box to your target box.
Let’s say it takes you 40 steps. Now, I want you to cover your target area in 10 percent less steps – so ten percent of 40 is 4, your target number of steps is no 36. Turn around and run back with a little bigger stride and little faster pace. That was 10 percent out of your comfort zone, now do it again and discover how it feels to be at 70 pcnt, then 80 pcnt then give me a full on sprint!! START LOW on that sprint and make sure your legs are warmed up properly before you do it though. As adults, especially adults that haven’t sprinted or run hard in years, sprinting is really hard on our bodies. It’s a really great thing for us to do with our bodies though and I highly recommend it at least once a week!
That’s how to find your pace out of the CZ for cardio, now let’s talk about finding it with strength. I see folks in gyms frequently just moving weights around. They’re looking like they’re doing something, but my claim to you is they’re not doing a whole lot.
For the same amount of time, you can produce powerful results! I saw a video one time about the difference just one degree can make. Think about this, at 211 degrees Fahrenheit water is not boiling, but just one degree hotter and you have a chemical reaction that produces boiling, steam and power! Here’s how to crank it up a notch, how to get one more degree out and go from staying the same to irreversible change.
First, familiarize yourself with the muscles on your body. Know what they look like, how they move and what actions they produce for you. For my purposes here, I’m just going to discuss the biceps muscle on your arm. When your bicep shortens, it moves the lower half of your arm toward your body. That’s it!
Now the way to get at that little guy is to think about it! Think of how it’s shaped, where it is, what it does for you and then make it do that! Grab a weight that you can handle, but wouldn’t accidently find yourself swatting at flies with. (I’ve actually done that!) That’s a sure sign what’s in your hands is NOT heavy enough. J I want you to bend your knees, engage your quads, tighten your abs, chest up nice and proud, chin up. Now tuck your elbows into your sides, do not balance them into your ribs. I want them, well, imagine you have like Frankenstein bolts sticking out of your sides and you clamp your elbows onto those bolts. Now, squeeze that muscle and miraculously watch the watch come toward your shoulders. Focus on your muscle, not on the movement – does that make sense?
I want you to squeeze that muscle. Keep tension on that muscle, do not let the weight drop. Control the movements. Actually make requests of that muscle and make so many requests, it finally tells you no! That’s when you know you’re approaching a place of change. If you don’t reach that point of failure, your biceps will stay healthy, they’ll be nice and look fine, but they won’t change. If you’re looking to really change, then here’s what you do next. You let the weight drop quick shake it out, quick count to 3 and then keep going. If you really want to change, then do that over and over. Push that muscle, max it out. Long and slow reps, reps at tempo, 3 counts up 1 down, 1 count up 3 down, pulses at the top, isometric contractions, reps half way up and then to the top, half way up and then ease it back down.
Point is to think of that muscle, how it’s shaped, what it does and work it. The work is done when you take that muscle from it’s longest point to it’s shortest and make it burn, make it fail, shake it out and keep on going!
Now, apply this to the rest of your body! We’ll talk about how to do that in greater depth soon – how to properly work your body, where to start, if you’re a beginner and how to focus and continue to produce muscle confusion and out of the zone workouts when you’re at the top of your game.
Thanks so much for checking in with me! I hope to see you out there playing hard and staying young!
In Fitness and In Health,
Melanie Churchwell
Aka Melly Mel
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