Know your Limits!

 It is often suggested that we should push on, continually push on, in search of perfection or some ultimate goal. In the world of health and fitness this is portrayed as the quest for ever bigger muscles, or ever decreasing body fat percentages or lifting heavier and heavier weights, or… you get the picture. The thing is, no one ever seems to question why. 

Why is this the goal? Despite the logic that we, as human beings, are not capable of continually getting stronger, or faster, or leaner or more muscle bound, the drive for always being better pervades the health and fitness space. In my view that is completely wrong.

Yes, there is, and always will be, an element of what is termed ‘progressive overload’ in programming for my clients, where their workouts gradually increase in intensity. But that will be tempered with times of lower intensity work.

Also the programming will be suitable for the client, based on their physical capabilities, their goals, and – if working remotely via the Power of One Fitness app – what equipment and time they have available to them.

With regard to what I’ve been doing in the gym, I’ve changed my workouts completely in the last year, moving from lifting heavy weights to purely callisthenics. Why have I done this? For a couple of reasons: the main one being that I was struggling to continually lift heavy weights. My nervous system, muscles and joints were starting to struggle with the heavy lifting. I couldn’t recover fully in time for the next scheduled workout, which meant that workouts were either getting pushed or were not as strenuous as required to affect the adaptations I wanted to achieve.

Secondly, I wanted a new challenge. Purely moving your body through a range of different exercises in ways that I hadn’t done before was very challenging indeed. As well as being a physical challenge, it was also a new mental one too, and the satisfaction of being able to conquer a difficult exercise is something that is (in my head at least) a great experience.

Being in my fifties now, callisthenics allows my body to handle multiple workouts a week, while still challenging my body. But also it is not so arduous on the bodily systems, which allows recovery to happen within twenty four hours. 

The change was about recognising my limits and adapting what I was doing in the gym to suit.

It was a personal choice based on how my body was feeling, after an honest internal conversation. I was not in my thirties any more, and so could not lift like I did back then, let alone recover as quickly.

And it is those kinds of conversations that I love my clients to have with themselves and then with me.  Doing so will allow the programming to be suitable for them, allow them to enjoy themselves in the gym (or wherever they are working out), provide them with achievable challenges, and still create the adaptations that they are seeking.

So, as the above quote says, knowing your limits is a strength, not a weakness. I could have carried on trying to lift heavy weights regularly, but would undoubtedly have become injured, which would have hampered overall progress. Knowing my limits and what now works for my body was key to being able to carry on enjoying my time in the gym and still make the positive adaptations that I was after.

If you would like to have an honest conversation about health and fitness, and not just have some random programme thrown at you that probably isn’t suitable for you or your body, then please click here (or the gold button below).