This Is Supposed To Be Hard

So call it cliché if you like, but “the hard” is what makes High-Intensity Training and High-Intensity Interval Training great. It is also why it may not be for everyone. As much as some of our diehard #HITFITFAM and myself would like to say HIT FIT is for everyone, that workouts are infinitely scalable (progress and regress), and that your grandmother can do it—it’s not for everyone. Yes, what HIT Fitness Warehouse offers is all-inclusive in the sense that the movements & combos within the HIT FIT ideology can make all bodies physically strong and functional. Yes, your grandmother can adjust our methods enough to suit her specific needs and make her body stronger and more functional.

But successfully completing a workout relies mostly on the mental fortitude of ‘grams.’ The scaling possibilities are only effective if the individual has the willpower to greet our challenges of the workout with moxie. Did they follow instructions, where they coachable or did they just do it ‘their way’?

Since day 1, We have always said, The true “hard” of what HFW has to offer lies in-between the ears of the person debating on whether they quit or ‘soldier-on’. What makes HIT FIT methods hard but effective is the decision that person must make, as their body shouts obscenities at them, to stay and fight instead of quit.

What Makes a Quitter Stay?

Is it possible to disregard the protests of your body in the middle of a workout, begging you to rest? Ask any of our success stories, and many of them will tell you about their first experiences with this internal battle of will and how, in the beginning, they wanted to quit and debated whether or not their Health & Wellness was a priority to them. But then, they will continue to tell you how they learned to push past them and find another gear.

How did those people graduate from being “quitters?”

One word: Community.

We have created an environment in which mutual respect and support is just as much a part of the fitness regimen as the kettle bell complexes and running are in Bootcamps. In group classes, the person who finishes last is often the person receiving the most applause and cheering. And it isn’t a millennial “everyone gets a ribbon” thing. This cheering and support come from genuine respect and admiration for the finisher because he or she has just shown great mental strength by facing the challenge the workout presented head-on and not giving up, despite seeing their fellows ahead of them or maybe even lapping them.

Cheering happens within the warehouse doors at HFW because everyone at one point or another has been in their shoes, has been last, has struggled to finish that final push up or pull up, but somehow found it within themselves to physically make their body cooperate with their mind. That mental effort is what is rewarded with support, and what keeps them coming back for more. No one cares about how you modified or scaled the workout at that moment—just that you don’t quit. And with a creed like that, the community breeds itself to be a stronger, healthier and more successful TEAM.

The Community of Hard

The lesson of resiliency is the bread and butter of one’s success at HIT Fitness. This lesson bleeds into our personal everyday lives as well. Hence why the communities within these gyms become so close-knit; the people are made of the same stuff. We are training for something bigger and more valuable than football, or recovery from injury. We train for the ‘ Sport of Life.’

#trainingforlife

• They see the value of hard work, despite a little discomfort along the way.

• They see the value of supporting those around them because it always comes back in return.

• They see the value of learning about nutrition to aid in their health and longevity as well as increase their performance in the gym.

• They see value in trying new and challenging things without the fear of failure or judgment.

From personal experience, I can say I have formed relationships with people from our facility that I already know will last a lifetime. And not because they share a similar interest in Fitness, but because they are honorable, caring, hard-working, honest people who invest in me and my personal development as much as their own. And Fitness becoming a priority In Their life has only helped them become more honorable, hard-working, and honest.

SUCCESS STORY

Our HIT FIT FAM community brings out the best in me...

Today, I am immersed in HIT FIT because it has given my life new direction and continually forces growth. To give the workouts alone all the credit for that would be a bold-faced lie; the people who do the workouts with me who have taught me about striving for more in and outside of the gym.

Hard Makes Life Easier

Rest assured, I have learned countless lessons about failing in the ‘Sport of Life’ through the Challenges the ‘ Sport of Fitness’

—— The biggest lesson is the response to failure. I’ve learned that it’s okay to not be good at something the first time I try—or the 100th time. I just have to keep freaking trying. Eventually, if you stick with it, you’ll get that first pull up, that first double under, or that damn 800m Run without stopping and walking. Once you learn to battle through the physical discomfort and frustration to reach that physical goal, other outside fears because nothing but a minor speed bump on your fitness journey, rather than impossible mountains to climb. You Learn how to EMBRACE THE SUCK

So after all this reflection, I’m choosing to retract my previous statement earlier on in this blog, “HIT FIT is for everyone*.” Everyone who is willing to accept a challenge, knowing they might often fail to complete it, but not fail in giving their full effort. Because, well, “it’s supposed to be hard...the hard is what makes it great.”