I learned something very interesting this morning.
As ya’ll may or may not know, I meet with a trainer once a week at the gym. (I’d love to go more than once a week, but it’s so expensive.) I’ve been doing this for a year and a half now. Because my core is so strong now, I no longer have pain in my hips and lower back. This makes it worth the price.
My trainer uses Rippetoe’s Starting Strength as inspiration for his training. (He’s also a certified cross-fit trainer.)
It’s taken a long while for me to build up the strength to do squats, particularly weighted squats. But I can now. However, when I first tried doing squats with weight, I internally freaked. Fear blasted through me. I was afraid I’d fall over. Or I’d go down low and wouldn’t be able to recover. Or I’d hurt myself, hurt my knees.
My fear has no basis in reality. I’m strong enough at this point that none of those things occur. The muscles around my knees are stronger than ever because I’m doing squats correctly. So over time my fear diminished, my confidence grew, and weighted squats became not only easier, but enjoyable.
This morning, after being away from the gym and doing squats (was sick with a sinus infection for a few weeks) we came back to them. The fear came back as well. We started with the regular bar (45 pounds.) And it was heavy and hard and I had problems with my form and I was terrified again.
But I got through the first set. I felt better, more secure by the end of it.
After I rested, I picked up the bar again.
Because my fear had diminished, the bar was lighter. It had easily shed 5 pounds. My fear had made it bigger, weighed it down.
I need to remember this — that confidence makes loads lighter, things easier to do. Fear makes everything harder.
There was a time in my life when I let my fear direct me, in a good way: “I am afraid to do X. Therefore that is the thing I must do.”
It might be time to revisit that.