When you’re training HIT, especially in a group where others seem fitter than you (‘seem’ is the operative word), it’s kinda like browsing your WeChat Moments. All you see is people posting how great they are. They may be at a new restaurant or hotel grand opening, or they may be on vacation to somewhere exotic, or how amazing their food tastes.
Everyone’s amazing except you!
Hopefully you know that not everyone’s amazing except for you. We all have positive moments in our days but we also have not so great moments in our days. Social media just doesn’t like to share those unpleasant moments – only the awesome times. Which isn’t inherently a bad thing except that it skews our perceptions into believing that everyone is great but us.
At Olive Branch, we view everyone has their own fitness journey that they go through. There will be ups and downs in that journey but the most important point is that you have to actually go through that journey.
There will definitely be very fit individuals training next to you and instead of feeling lesser than them, it’s good practice to use their hard-working attitude to inspire you to push yourself harder.
There are also those who seem to be working very hard but their form could be terrible. They may be going faster than you or doing more reps than you but you may not have the keen eye to detect how poor their technique may be.
Of course, this isn’t about criticizing others and making yourself feel better but rather to re-adjust your focus to what really matters – YOUR fitness journey.
Try not to get caught up in the competition of exercise (you should really save that for sports), because the nature of competition will push you to win and beat others and that mentality will result in you sacrificing your technique. That will increase the risk of injury and makes the exercise you’re doing less effective – both of which are counter to your goal of exercising which is to improve your health!
If you really are a competitive person, then be competitive towards yourself. Try to beat your own goals but with strict adherence to form and technique.
I know it’s always a struggle to go to the gym and even more so to push yourself to train at a high intensity.
But try taking a higher-level view.
A workout is like taking one step – it’s trivial. But taking one step-after the next becomes a journey. When you look at the bigger picture, you will see how insignificant each individual workout is. Look again at yourself in the mirror after 8 months, and you’ll see the real results of all the workouts you’ve done. And that is your journey spelt out in real life.
So make it a good one!