I Have a Question for You

I Have a Question For You

 

 What would you do if you weren’t afraid?  In class on Tuesday, Kat and I put everyone through a workout with heavier weights than they had used in the past.  No one seemed confident of handling those weights. But they did it.
 Everyone in the gym hit a personal best that day.  They conquered weights they had never before touched.  It was empowering.  They learned that they just had to face the weight, and then they could do it.  I was proud to see them all, men and women, pressing 36-kg kettlebells and 100-lb barbells, swinging 32-kgs, and overhead squatting with 24-kgs. 
 Before that, I had noticed that they were getting too comfortable using the same weights every workout.  They couldn’t progress that way.  It wasn’t challenging enough.  They weren’t going to get stronger without a struggle, even if they were afraid to try. 
  My mission is to make people strong and to especially help women get past their resistance to it.  In truth, everyone is held back from fitness, by deeply held fears of change of one kind or another.  The struggle to become strong is a struggle against those fears.  We are adaptive creatures, but we are afraid of the unknown and what it might bring. 
 For example, while each person’s package of fears is unique, many women shy away from using serious weights because of the prejudice that it’s somehow too manly to grunt and use them, as well as the fear of getting bulky, particularly with heavy social pressure to be thin.  Some people fear the macho-like competition that comes so easily with lifting clearly measurable weights.  Then there is the more general fear of looking bad if one doesn’t lift enough, and the fear of doing something with which one is unfamiliar, stumbling and maybe even getting hurt.
 Besides all that, almost anyone can relate to the just plain fear that using weights will be hard.  It’s not easy to get up first thing in the morning and face the pain.  That makes it all the harder to face any fear of commitment, for that’s clearly what it will take, a long-term, possibly permanent commitment to doing the ‘hard.’  It’s not easy to stay with it. 
 Finally there’s the fear of fitness or the fear of true change, becoming in some way different from what one is now.  Even the many people who hate their bodies have usually at least somewhat adjusted to them.  One’s appearance and condition acquire the comfort of familiarity, if nothing else.  Who knows what the actual affects of fitness and losing weight will be on oneself and one’s relationships with others?
 These fears can hold us back, but fears can drive us forward as well.  People strive for fitness out of a fear of sickness or poor health, even out of a fear of the aging process.  We often have a very basic fear of what others might think of us.  In our society, for all its problems with obesity, there is a huge fear of gaining weight, of not looking good.  Not just for the sake of health, but because of possible social consequences.  Another fear, one I can relate to personally, is that of being weak, as women have often, in the past, been taught to be.  This is particularly true in our mostly competitive world.  I don’t want that to happen to me.
 These fears, healthy or not, can sometimes drive us in positive directions, just as they can sometimes drive us to less effective alternatives, like diet pills.  Fitness, particularly with the Art of Strength, is an excellent way to cope with such fears.  There are all kinds of benefits to be had, but the focus here is on fear.  One of our clients, Beth, has said on more than one occasion, “I don’t lift heavy, because I don’t want to get big.”  That’s no surprise; trainers hear that all the time.  Yet now, after a couple of months, she insists on using the 100-lb barbell and the 90-lb log.  On Tuesday, she hit her personal best on the overhead squat with a 20-kg kettlebell.  Awesome. 
 Beth got over her particular fear, using heavy weights and finding that she felt empowered by them.  And she enjoyed doing it.  She set aside her ‘larger’ concerns and focused on just taking each step along the way.  That’s what worked for me as well in my last competition.  Instead of letting the big picture, my fears about how I would look, sabotage me, I kept my perspective for each event.  I saw what I was doing, just for what it actually was — like just picking up a rock.  Nothing more.  That made it much easier.
 In Tuesday’s class, we started small.  The first set was light, the second set a little heavier, and then, we hit them with the big stuff — what they hadn’t yet tried. When I asked everyone to choose a weight that they had not used before, they all groaned.  They just saw something too big for them to do.  “You want me to do 10 reps with THAT?”  I told them, no, even if you can do just one rep, do it, just get it up.  Then that’s what they did.  And some of them kept going.  One rep at a time, doing all 10. 
 Everyone was surprised and thrilled, and changed by knowing what they had just done.  They knew something new about themselves.  To see each step of what you have to do, for what it is, and only for what it is, not adding any larger concerns, helps you get past your fears.  That’s doing it instead of fearing it. That’s how we change. 
 When I found myself unable to do the deadlift, it overwhelmed me at first, but then I managed to put it into perspective, to simplify it.  That experience helped me later to deal with my fears in competition.  What I and Beth and many others have learned is how to counter our fears by staying in the moment, and not making a bigger deal out of something than it really is.
 We can’t just get rid of fear.  By reaching and surpassing our limits, we only find new challenges.  For example, in achieving fitness, we take on the challenge of keeping it.  We have to continue to work hard, even when we would rather do something else.  On Tuesday, after everyone surprised themselves with what they could do, and felt great for it, Kat and I told them that now, they know and we know what they’re capable of, that they can do more than they thought they could. 
 We mustn’t become complacent.  We have to keep the discipline and keep trying for something new.  I’m often asked, “Does this ever get easier?”  I answer that, yes, it will, but that’s when we have to step it up another notch.  After everyone had finished on Tuesday, Mabel, another client, decided to try to snatch the 20-kg bell for the first time.  She was nervous, and we were all nervous for her.  Everyone was watching her.  She took a deep breath, grabbed the handle, and snatched it up.  It should always be hard.  There has to be a struggle.  Otherwise, what’s the point?  At least, though, Mabel’s first achievement that day made it easier for her to reach for and accomplish her second achievement. 
 Achieving fitness goals can bring on new versions of our fears.  Anything that changes us brings on new challenges and adjustments.  When people lose a lot of weight, it often takes them longer to see themselves as they’ve become than it does to actually lose the weight. As we become fit, our relationships with others may change, and with ourselves as well. We become different from what we were and have to adjust to that. Change leads to more change — and new fears.
 Some years ago, I left a steady, well-paying job in finance to become an underpaid personal trainer, which is what I really wanted to do.  That only led to new concerns and fears about using training methods that seemed to me ineffective. But I had already made the leap.  So the next step was to discover something new — kettlebells and AOS.  That brought new needs and opportunities for me.  Now that Kat and I have our own gym and teach what we want, our challenge is to spread the word and to get our clients to reach new goals.    
 In the gym, with a strong core, you are better able to stay grounded and react to whatever is thrown at you from wherever it comes.  Standing on one leg, when someone throws a ball at you, you can keep your balance while you catch it and throw it back.  Similarly, when you have strong convictions and confidence in yourself and the experience of achieving something, you’re strong inside and are more likely to handle what life throws at you.   You will continue to encounter new fears, even as you cope with old ones.  And who knows where that will lead?

So what would you do if you weren’t scared?  Leave comments here.