Each of us has a “comfort zone”. A place in which we feel safe and comfortable.

For many people, their comfort zone is at home, watching tv each evening. If they put on some lycra and headed down to the gym they would feel like a fish out of water. They would been insecure. They would be out of their comfort zone.

So most people opt to stay within their comfort zone. And that’s one reason why people stay overweight and don’t start a diet.

But it’s possible to extend your comfort zone. If you swallowed your pride and went to the gym every day for weeks on end, eventually you’d start to get to know people. You’d get used to what you are doing. You’d start to enjoy going because your comfort zone has changed. It just takes a lot of motivation to get there. A lot of self-discipline.

Almost everyone, myself included, if they’re not careful will fall back into their comfort zone. Even if you start going to the gym all the time, sooner or later you will find yourself back infront of the TV one evening because it’s too cold, wet, tiring etc. These are the times when you need to consciously force yourself out fo the door and off to the gym.

Exercising, losing weight, getting fit are all examples of areas where your comfort zone can cause you real problems.

For example, when you start lifting weights as part of your exercise regime it’s pretty tough. You put a lot of effort in. You need to learn the exercises. You need to figure out which weights you can lift. But over a few weeks you get used to the new regime and you start to enter another comfort zone.

Once you’re in it, if you’re not careful you will lift the same weights, the same number of times and do the same exercises for ever more (unless you stop even going to the gym).

As muscles need to be forced to grow with growing pressure on them, your progress will grind to a halt. You’ll still be going to the gym just as much but thanks to your comfort zone you won’t be gaining muscle or losing weight. This can lead to frustration.

The same can be true of cardio. You can get used to running for 20 minutes 3 times a week after a while. You know roughly how far you will go. You’re used to it. You’re in your comfort zone.

For maximum progess therefore in your fitness regime you need to consistently push the limits of your comfort zone. Try running further, or for longer. Regarding weights I have started to change the exercises I do every 3 months, and make changes to the number of sets, reps, order of exercises or weights lifted every 4 weeks to constantly keep my body guessing.

As I say, you *do* need to consciously do this. But you’ll notice such a change after a few weeks of extending your comfort zone it;s just one more weight loss and muscle gain tip well worth bearing in mind.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Even more importantly, please tag this blog if you think others may enjoy it:

Translate This Post Now:

Related Posts:

“Before” Weekly Update

So here are the details for my physique "before" the Body For Life challenge. These photos are scary - I've realised how fat I look! You get an entirely different perspective

Getting Burned Out

Well I've been going to the gym now for 7 weeks in this challenge (and several weeks before getting comfortable with the various exercises involved). So I've probably been going

Jason Vale - The Juice Master

Jason Vale's greatest claim to fame is that he helped glamour model Jordan to lose 2 stone in 3 months. The technique Vale uses is that of a "super juice diet"

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 at 11:32 am and is filed under Weight Loss And Fat Loss, Building Muscle And Getting Toned. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.