When strength training, there’s a moment when you teleport into hyperreality. A fourth dimension. Your muscles boil against unbearable weight, and you switch from moving iron to discovering what you’re made of.
Real growth comes from the last few reps. It happens when you’re quivering under a loaded bar, ignoring a mind begging you to stop. You have to push yourself to a state of weakness to build new strength.
Even as you get stronger, strength training never gets easier. Your task is not just to lift weight, but to continually challenge yourself with heavier loads, greater range of motion, and more technical lifts. This not only makes you stronger, it hones your ability to do what it takes to become even stronger. Your tolerance for discomfort grows with regular exposure to it. And this principle extends far beyond the gym. Productive discomfort shows up everywhere worth going.
When your body needs something basic, like sleep or food, at least the path is clear. You know exactly what to do. But what about the things that knot your gut? The conversation you’ve been avoiding. The workout you keep postponing. The intimidating career move. The relationship in need of repair. The radioactive project nobody wants to touch.
When your instinct screams “retreat,” it often points directly where you need to go. You should consider moving toward what makes you flinch.
Growth, whether physical, mental, or emotional, happens outside your comfort zone, beyond your perceived limits, and near full exertion. It hides in those last few reps, that last mile, that extra round of practice, in that most challenging unit of effort. It happens when you’re not sure if you can, but you try anyway.
Quivering under the bar also attunes you to the true extent of your capabilities. It sharpens your ability to discern the difference between too little, just enough, and too much. As a result, you’re less likely to underperform or overreach.
When something difficult presents itself, recognize it as an invitation, a chance to grow. If the task ahead feels unpleasant, complicated, or even painful, that could be exactly what makes it valuable. You have an opportunity to do hard things that matter.
Pay in:
- Push that weight.
- Go for that run.
- Read that book.
- Make that apology.
- Have that conversation.
- Pry yourself open a little further.
- Make no excuses.
…and be grateful to do so.
“Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder. Don’t nobody wanna lift this heavy ass weight… I do it though!”
~Ronnie Coleman (Video)
“Everyone should get at least one good look at the eyes of a man who finds himself rising toward what he wants to pull down to himself.”
~David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (Book)
“It was too easy to let things come easy and go nowhere.”
~Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation (Book)
