Training is more than just exhausting yourself into a pool of sweat.

Strength training requires patience and persistence. It is more than “working out”. In order to to continually progress toward our goals the real effort is in the “working in”. The “working in” is the time and effort required to think and assess where we are, where we are going and how we are going to get there. And that means more than just considering what training program you need to follow.

If we were to tell you that the secret to your results lies in working out less, would you believe us?

The secret is that there is no secret.

Training can and will be the easiest part. The real challenge comes next. Piecing the physical work with the emotional work, so that we have our whole body working together.

Our bodies and minds are giving us clues every day. Subtle clues that we can often overlook amongst the hustle bustle of our everyday lives.

We move our bodies because it feels great.
We move our bodies because it reduces our stress.
We lift weights because we feel strong.
We challenge ourselves physically because it helps us to feel unstoppable.

We have felt the great physical benefits of why we choose to train.

We all have a unique feeling that we achieve when we uncover our strength. Whether we’ve had a bad day at work, a fight with our partner or just simply cannot be bothered talking to anyone; we get it. Taking the time to get out of our heads, work out and experience our strength is so important to so many of our ladies at HQ.

It’s when we start to talk about “working in” that things can get a little confronting and scary.

You see, working out is the clearer path. The sets, the reps, the intensity, the volume. The things that are easy to execute. The things that we can tick off as completed.

“Working in” requires a lot more patience and kindness. It can be the grey areas of our lives that we don’t know how to tackle. The areas of our lives that we can’t see the correlation towards our results. We think it’s irrelevant and continue to work out, when deep down we know we need to go there but we are afraid. It can feel like a far fetched story, believing that our physical performance in training may in fact be due to the work we do outside of the gym. We get it, so many of us have been there.

We saw the signs, we chose to ignore them, we added more to our plates. We trained more. We made more food restrictions. We tried new diets. We decided that it wasn’t for us and then started all over again.

Oh boy have we been there.

Working in is where the real challenge lies and can be terrifying.

How can I begin to work in?

Quite like your trigger & activation sequence you perform before you train, the following things help our coaches and many of our ladies to prime themselves in order to delve into this grey area of growth:

1.  Rest days are no joke: schedule these days in with as much importance as your training days. Do something that your body and mind will thank you for. Enjoy a hot bath, grab a bath bomb and lap it up. Enjoy cooking with your partner, have a midweek date night. Enjoy going for a walk, choose some tunes or your favourite podcast and go.

2.  Prioritise sleep: sleep is the only time where our bodies get to truly restore. Promoting an environment for deep restorative sleep is something that must not be overlooked. Turn off technology long before bed. Dim the lights 30 minutes before sleep and most importantly set yourself a bedtime and honour it. Allow yourself to get 7-8 hours each night. A rested body and mind will be your best defence at opening into the grey zone.

3.  Check in: at least once per day, take a few minutes to honestly ask yourself how you are feeling and what is going on. Don’t ignore the headache. Don’t ignore the low energy. Don’t ignore the irritated mood you’re in. These are all signs, ask yourself why they are there.

4.  Check in and then check out: once you have checked in do you need to then check these thoughts out with someone? Do you need to ask for help? Or vent to your best friend? Or thank someone for their kind words. Once you have sat with your thoughts, send them out. Whether it’s something you need help with or something nice you want to share those close to you want to know.

5.  Choose your material: whether you are a reader, a writer, a listener or all. Choose something to get you thinking and something to get your brain hardwired to a positive frequency. A book, a podcast, an article, get choosing! Day to day we see, hear and ingest so much information that will affect our outlook on our lives. We have the choice to filter what we want our brains to thrive on. Make positive choices!

Jumping into the grey zone and making an active choice to work in can feel like a mammoth task. Start with these small tasks and then we can tackle it further from here!

For your next step, we have an incredible tool that will set the scene further for you.

Hit email (below) and let’s take the next step into the grey zone together.