In a physical therapists office, a long time ago (somewhere in Jersey)…
I was facing one of the hardest battles of my life, trying to bend a knee 90 degrees after ACL surgery 2 weeks prior. Like most people coming back from surgery physical therapy is pretty routine, but what most don’t realize is its pretty difficult. Your muscle, ligament, bone, organ, whatever procedure you had, it makes no difference your body was put through a traumatic experience.
Trauma can cause FEAR
As we all know FEAR can mean two things “Forget Everything And Run,” or “Face Everything And Rise”
There was a time I was afraid of fitness, like you
There was a time I was afraid of exercise, like you
I was 270lbs and I was AFRAID of experiencing all those negative feelings. The initial tear, the fact my knee would blow out at the drop of a hat, the struggle of going up stairs, and my biggest fear, falling again. I’ll never forget when I slipped getting into the shower post surgery and practically broke down in the fetal position, all those feelings surged back through my body in an instant.
Getting on a treadmill to run took me almost an entire year because of that fear
FEAR will make you comfortable
FEAR will make you complacent
FEAR took my greatest strength; my confidence.
It literally took me step-by-step to get my confidence back, but when I did, I was unstoppable. That was the catalyst that launched me to where I’m at today and along the way I’ve heard similar stories, similar fears, and similar victories.
If you feel like you’re in the same situation here are 3 questions you really need to ask yourself:
- So why does exercise truly scare you?
- What obstacles are in your way?
- What excuses are holding you back?
Fitness and Fear
We are fed from a firehose everyday with information from Facebook and the media. Unfortunately within the fitness industry, injury is always coupled with exercise due to the dreaded “Fail Videos.” To think that someone has the time to sit on a machine and record someone to watch them get hurt is sickening, but that’s reality.
This creates a response in your brain that immediately says “Oh I don’t want to do that, I don’t want that to be me.”
You don’t HAVE to be that because chances are that person saw someone else do that and figured “Oh I could do that too,” or “That person is really shredded, I want to look that shredded too!”
The Obstacle is the Path
“I want to lose weight before I start exercising,” or “This looks TOO serious for me,” these are mental blockades you are putting up because of fear. Exercise WILL in fact help you lose weight, but the reality of that statement is your just not ready to commit.
So be honest with yourself, why are you so afraid to commit? Are you afraid of failing? Getting your hopes too high? Do you lack the work ethic?
Challenge: Ask yourself the REAL questions and write them down, do the extra work needed. All of your fears are in your head and that’s where they’ll stay if you don’t face them.
Excuses..
everyone’s got them, but you don’t need to be like everyone, just be yourself. The most obvious ones when it comes to fitness are “I don’t have the time,” and “I don’t have the money,” it’s bogus because you DO have the time and you DO have the money.
The reality is you want to SPEND your TIME BUYING things you don’t need, but you’ll never admit that out loud because your afraid of what’ll happen when push comes to shove.
Challenge: For 2 Weeks, don’t go out to eat and don’t spend money on $6 frappachinos. Then see what not only happens to your bank account, but your body as well. If it works out well try it for another 2 weeks.
So how does someone conquer these excuses? How do you get rid of these fears? How do you move forward?
The sooner you participate in a proper exercise regiment that’s coupled with a great nutrition program the less you’ll be AFRAID of the next doctors visit.
You can come up with every excuse in the book, “I have a bad knee,” “My back is too tight,” “I don’t like the way my thighs sound when I run,” and the dreaded “I can’t.” When you tell yourself you CAN’T do something it means you WON’T do something. Which ultimately leads to your AFRAID to do something, but doing SOMETHING is better than doing NOTHING.
Remember that the only “obstacle” that’s in your way; is you.
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