The stuff that scares you the most is the stuff you should be doing first.
Normally I don’t deviate too far away from topics of fitness and health but I just had a big wakeup call recently that really caused me to take action on something that I have been terrified of for the past 6 months.
What that is I’ll save for a later blog but I realized how this closely relates to workouts.
One of the most dreadful work outs my clients have is when there is a lower body focused day or when we have to work to correct their weaknesses.
We always want to train our strengths, that’s fun, but correcting our weaknesses or areas of improvements is… well not fun and sometimes downright scary! It hurts and breaks down our tender egos that we have worked so hard to build along with our bodies.
Think about this for a second.
We go to the gym to fix or correct something but we start to notice that we have some areas that we really accel in and next thing you know we are working on those areas more and leaving the areas that really needed to be worked on behind. This is a VERY common theme that a lot of us see in the gym.
What we don’t realize that happens over time is eventually our strengths are held back by our fears then in a cylindrical correlation the strengths will help further fuel our fears… think about for a second. I just blew your mind didn’t I; ya… I just blew your mind 😉
Let me explain this a bit with the analogies of a typical male gym rat. A lot of guys are known to only train their upper bodies and leave their legs to the way side. Sure they may do a few sets of leg extensions but that’s it. What then ends up happening over time is that their upper body becomes their dominate point and the legs their weaker point. Their upper body development becomes the baseline of their body’s physique and expectations in their workouts all the while the lower is just staying the same and not keeping in proportion to the baseline of development as the rest of the body.
As time goes on what they may NOT notice is that their strength is just feeding their weekness so much that the strength 
is becoming held back. They will try to get bigger arms and chest bigger but they just won’t grow, they want broader shoulders but no luck. They will do everything and eventually subcub to the fact that nothing works.
Why didn’t this work? Well because they didn’t train their damn legs and do what scared them! EVERYTIME I have a guy come to me who wants bigger arms sure I train their arms but I correct then train their legs. Low and behold their upper body is growing again!
They eventually started working on their fears of the weakness in their legs and next thing you know everything started moving in the direction they wanted.
This applies to life as well.
We are all scared of something and this fear is holding us back from our true potentials. Scared to speak up in that corporate meeting, well then no one is going to know how bright and talented you are. Scared to walk on a bodybuilding stage, then you’ll never know how lean and sexy you really can become. Scared to ask that cute girl out, then you’ll never know how compatible you two really are.
These fears hold us back from us achieving so much more in life. BUT there is hope. I’m going to tell you the secret to beating this fear and getting the results you want.
The secret is to Back Yourself Into a Corner.
Seriously; back yourself into a corner and watch what happens. You’ll see a side of yourself and realize an inner strength that you didn’t even know was there. When you are backed into a corner you only have one way to go, forward and right past that fear which turned out to be all in your head in the first place.
Want to get over that fear of speaking up in the meeting, tell everyone in the beginning that you have something to 
contribute. Want to get over that fear of stepping up on that bodybuilding stage, pay for the entry fee and hotel room ahead of time (cough cough). Trying to get over that fear of asking that cute girl out, tell all your friends that you’re finally going to talk to her and you won’t back away from that.
Each time your backed into a situation that the only thing you can do is move forward then you’ll get over that fear… honestly you have no choice.
So if you ever need that motivation back yourself in a corner then you only have one way to go
So do this, every day do something that terrifies you
In Health and Awesomeness,
Travis Merritt, BS, CPT, CES, RBT is the owner of Fitness Revolution in Rowlett, TX.
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