See if this sounds familiar to you. You are in your workout, feeling good, and then you hit a wall. You get to where you can’t do another rep or take another step without resting.
Then you beat yourself up for being out of shape. You’re not out of shape, you just found out your limit. You achieved failure.
That may sound weird to achieve failure because that word has such a negative connotation. But when you are talking failure in exercise, that just means you are working hard!
In our boot camp classes we do exercise for time, rather than repetitions. That way someone who has been exercising for 20 years can workout next to someone who has been sedentary for 20 years. In the first week the sedentary person might have to stop before the 30 seconds is up. That is fine! We always encourage people to go at their own pace and work on their level.
This flips the mindset around and allows people to redefine that stopping point. If they stopped at 20 seconds in the first week, then they continue to work, get better, and in a few weeks they are blasting through multiple sets of 30 seconds.
You need to get a little uncomfortable to make changes, but never get down on yourself because you had to stop in the middle of an exercise. Next time you do that exercise if you get one more repetition, take one more step, or go one more second longer you have progressed. Keep achieving failure and redefining your limits you will get to where you want to be.
