As I have mentioned in my previous article I'm not an experienced guy when it comes to training. Infact, just being 22 years old some could argue I'm not experienced at anything (yet). But it is painfully obvious even in my limited experience the huge epidemic that faces many people when taking the plunge into self improvement either physical or mental. The dreaded excuse.
I want to say first off before I delve any further that I am not looking down on people who I reference or describe in this article. This would be extremely hypocritical of me, as I have been at times the worst culprit you could find for excuses. Infact, the past 7 years for me have been checkered with periods of inactivity, half hearted training and some pretty catastrophic excuses!
I cannot speak for everyone, but my main catalyst for making excuses and cheating myself out of a very beneficial and productive activity was fear. Fear of working hard to be precise. Working hard for newcomers can sometimes be quite a shock to the system! Especially when you don't lack the real understanding of what the hard work represents and does for you. Straying out of that nice cosy comfort zone can be a difficult task. Many of us dip our toes into the water and immediately withdraw, we want everything including our training to be wrapped up in that lovely comfort zone.
This isn't just confined to the ranks of beginners either in my opinion. Could just be my gym but I've never seen a queue for the squat rack... a guy who I go to the gym with has been training regularly for years now. When I suggested we train legs and proceeded to the leg press machine his face recoiled with horror, his eyes bulged out his head and the words ' I can't, I've just brought a new pair of jeans and I don't want to grow too big for them' splurted out from his mouth. Despite the fact he'd spent the whole journey to the gym moaning how he isn't making any gains, he all of a sudden had a fear he'd grow at the rate Bruce Banner does when he gets angry and tear his beloved jeans up. Leg training as anyone who lifts weights knows, is not easy.
Although you can push yourself maybe in certain areas of training if you miss out a body part you don't like or find boring to train you're limiting your own potential. The excuses we make can come in many different guises and forms. When I first started training I found my back to be my strongest body part. Infact I enjoyed the successes of my back training so much I started to neglect other body parts that needed attention. My excuse? I enjoy training back so much, that's why I always do it. The truth is I became too focused on exercising my back because that is where I was strongest, the other body parts were much harder for me to train and at that point in my training, less enjoyable. Without realising it I was running away from the harder parts in my training and staying within the boundaries of my new found comfort zone.
All the time I hear people say they want to lose weight or get in shape and 90% of the time it is followed by a BUT (insert excuse here). This is especially evident in gyms in January, gym memberships shoot up in January and the gyms get more busy, it then starts dying off again. Comittment to training and the training itself is not easy, rather then face the task head on a lot of us find it easier to hide behind an excuse.
Another big one I stumble across on the internet all the time is the excuse of genetics. Yes genetics determine our potential growth and the rate of our growth, but it doesn't excuse you for being out of shape and not achieving what you should be. Sure, you may never win the Mr Olympia, 99% of us don't have a chance of even competing against a Mr Olympia but genetics is only one factor of many. I'm going to cause upset with this statement but I am of the opinion that unless your Diet is 100%, your training training is 100%, your mind is 100%, Your rest is 100% and it has been for many years then you have no buisness bitching about your genetics. Deal with the task at hand. It's much easier for us to put these people on a pedestal and look at them as something different, then it is to put yourself through the exact same gruelling motions that they have on a daily basis to get where they are now. Their success is no genetic accident. Whatever your goals are, dont put yourself off with excuses before you have even began.
I've been one of these people for years now and to a certain extent I still am. I'm still able to make excuses for myself and sometimes I do. I'm not perfect and I am still very much a work in progress myself. But I would like to share with you some tips that I use to combat this. It may work for you, it may not, you might not even have this problem at all. We're all different.
Learn to observe yourself, take hold of your thought patterns and look at them, recognise when you feel like running back into your comfort zone. Analyse whether the choice you are making is really for the best of you. It is also wise to observe when you haven't ran into your comfort zone and have faced challenges head on. Learning to observe is looking inside and learning more about yourself. Some of us aren't aware we make excuses. I wasn't for a long time.
The biggest favour you can ever do for yourself is to just be honest. When you make the decision not to train, really look inside yourself and question whether your being genuine or wherever you are hiding from the truth.Is there more you can do? Or are you taking the easy way out?
Picking a role model and trying to strive for the abilities you like most about that person can also help. There are many, many people who have achieved excellent feats we could draw inspiration from. Imagine you are in that persons shoes, what would they do? How would they act? Would Jay Cutler excuse himself from that last rep because it hurts? Apply the mindsets of these people to yourself. After all, it brought them their success!
In closing this article I would like to state that, excuses are ok, but only when they are valid and you know deep down in your gut your being truthful with yourself. You don't have to turn yourself into a machine that feels nothing and mercilessly keeps going forward, you are human after all and should embrace that. This article is merely a point in a certain direction and an (possible) learning opportunity.
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