“Achieve your goals” is perhaps the greatest cliché in the fitness world.
It is also sold highly and dearly traded in major fields such as business, academia, sport, industry, the Queensland Country Women’s Association, etc – in fact all the fields where there is a buck in selling a dream.
But just as important is the less talked about “know your limits” cliché.
I write this because I was given a recent reminder of my own limits.
I was doing my normal weights routine (4 sets of Bench, dead lift, Incline and squats with 8-6 reps), but decided to add another set of each and a new exercise – the prone bench pull (the pull provides a good balance to bench work and makes your chest, biceps and traps bulge #noneedforcurls).
Workout done I felt good and strong.
By the next afternoon I was hobbling, with glutes, hammies, quads and lower back all screaming at me and my upper body yelling almost as loud.
I felt like I’d been beaten and dumped in a ditch.
Compounding the inconvenience was the re-emergence of an old knee injury.
It’s an injury that is a bit like a little brother.
It’s always around, is slightly annoying some of the time but generally tolerable, and intensely painful when you need it least.
For the three days I was stiff and sore in the muscles, my knee ached and I had virtually no flexibility in the joint without pain.
On the fourth day I woke up feeling good in the muscles and no knee pain at all.
It tells me the knee pain was just part and parcel of my body dealing with the deep muscle pain I was feeling from doing an extra set of each exercise at close to maximum for 4-6 reps.
I should have added the new exercise in one workout, then add the extra sets one-at-a-time after that.
As a result of not recognising my limits my body paid me in the currency of pain.
It reminded me of the words of a wise person, who wrote: “He who knows not his limits, limits what he knows.”
My personal philosophy is small gains are good gains.
Big gains take time and consist of lots of small gains – so be patient and don’t say “I won’t workout today”.
You’ll feel better if you do, just learn to recognise your limits.