Your “Worst” Seconds Are Your Most Important

One of the biggest mistakes I see people making in health and self improvement is thinking hours on a treadmill or weight machine is what it will take to make a difference in their lives- and use that as an excuse to do nothing.

Two thoughts:

When it comes to your body and health, the worst thing you can do is nothing.

Allow me to quote from the New Body New Life Program:

“Nothing will destroy your life faster than anything.”

Your body was designed and created to be used and challenged. Used it grows stronger. Unused it decays and breaks down.

You don’t need to live in the gym to have a healthy body. Generally speaking, the results of exercise are in direct relation to the effort, not the duration.

In other words, while a long walk is better than nothing, a series of short sprints will do more to improve your aerobic conditioning.

You can challenge your muscles with long light weight workouts- however it will take A LOT of time- while briefly lifting heavier weights allows for improved strength and conditioning in a fraction of the time.

My point is the big benefits of exercise don’t come from hours of time [my average workout is around 20 minutes].

The biggest benefits come from those few seconds of challenge.

With most any exercise, what counts is those few seconds of maximum effort; those “uncomfortable” seconds where you’re really pushing yourself.

For example if you’re at the level where all you can do is go for a walk, every five minutes or so, walk as fast as you can.

Those 30 seconds or so of “hard” walking- not the half hour walk- is what will allow you to improve your conditioning versus just maintain it.

If you’re running or doing some other type of cardio, add in at least one 15 to 30 second all out challenge where you’re giving max effort [three of four times would be even better].

It’s the same with weight lifting. Bodybuilders call it “training to failure.” On the last set of each exercise, they will cheat a little on their form or use a spotter to help keep going until they can’t budge the weight another inch.

Again, it’s not the exact weight, number or sets, or specific exercise that matters, what matters is the challenge.

What matters is that for a few seconds, they are challenging that muscle with everything  they’ve got.

This is where seconds make the difference in your life.

Those few seconds of maximum effort are what transforms you, mentally and physically- because you’re pushing yourself out of your mental and physical comfort zone.

Physical and mental growth can’t come from a life of stasis.

They can only come when you push yourself, when you’re actually challenging your physical capacity.

You’re going to hear a lot of conflicting opinions here. “You’ll over-train.” “Your body needs time to recover.”

That’s true, however for most people overtraining isn’t the issue, it’s undertraining.

Your body is a fantastic machine capable of incredible feats of strength and endurance.

A man from Belgium ran a marathon [26.2 miles] everyday, for a year.

One of the biggest bodybuilders in the sport recently said “The smallest guys in the gym are the ones that worry about things like the exact number of seconds they should take doing reps- they need to just get in the gym and lift the darn weight.”

In other words, don’t worry about over-training or getting every little detail lined up in advance- get just out of the stands and into the game.

Think about anything major you accomplished, from raising a family to graduating from school.

Did you have every detail of every day planned out?

Or did you take it day by day?

Why would something so important as transforming your body work any differently? You can’t plan out every detail. But you can plan to somehow challenge yourself once a day,

Don’t worry about getting in depth knowledge about nutrition, anatomy, or exercises.

Just eat five or six meals a day of natural food.

Three days a week challenge your heart and lungs.

Three days a week challenge your skeletal muscles.

Don’t worry about having just the right shoes, workout gear, or workout routine.

Worry about how to fit in a REAL challenge- even if only for a few seconds- into your daily life.

Don’t listen to the “experts” that say you need to buy something or do something special to transform your body.

Focus first on getting a daily challenge that fits your abilities and circumstances.

Just TAKE ACTION and get started. The pieces will quickly fall into place.

That’s how a body, life, and future is transformed.

To your health, success, may God bless, and seize the day.

Michael