Confidence. Can you feel it? Don't let go.

By Jesse Kepka
NASM Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Coach and Corrective Exercise Specialist

Curve balls. They’re hard to hit. They throw you off balance. They make you spin a little wonky. Sometimes they hit you in the butt or the back and leave a bruise or a stream of blood. Often, they leave heart punctures of all depths. Sometimes you see them coming, and sometimes you don’t. But it’s still possible to be ready. I want you to be able to take the falls and pop right back up with a sly little grin. I want you to feel strong.

When we take our bodies through eustress (good stress) in the gym, we are enabling ourselves to better handle higher levels of life’s emotional stressors, i.e. curveballs, with less wear and tear. We are sharpening our pop-up time from the knock-down to be quicker and more efficient. The gym talks of “taking reps to failure” is a positive outcome. Even though the word “failure” usually elicits a negative feeling, it’s a victory in the gym.

Confusing, eh? It seems counter intuitive. But if we don’t know where failure is, we’re not working hard enough. If we don’t know where failure is, do we even know what the goal is? I’ve been working on power cleans, and I hate them, i.e., I love them. See where this is going? Every time I fail in execution (it’s a lot, guys – I get mega growly), it makes me far hungrier to hit it. Now we’re getting somewhere. When we say, “get your mind right,” this is the calibration that needs to happen even before you heat the pot.

Lifting heavy things makes you feel strong. Feeling strong allows you to take the curves and dust your shoulders off with ease. The confidence makes your legs move to pick you up off the ground, no matter how many hits you’re taking. Life is a beautiful shit show, from sprinkles to tsunamis, you know this. You need big legs to withstand battle. And it’s even better if you’re doing it smiling, because you know it’s all good. (I’m working on the smile during failure part, so solidarity.) Sly. Little. Grin.

I don’t care if your strong is 5lbs, 50lbs or 500lbs of pushing or pulling or squatting. If you’re moving the metal and it’s hard, you’re doing it right. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently. Don’t ever think you’re not strong enough and be proud of your body and who you are becoming. Hold ever so tight to your confidence. If someone tries to strip it, come get me for back-up. Promise?

Good talk.

Strong is so, so beautiful.

“Baseball” by theseanster93 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.