The battle of mind and body: Building not just physical but mental strength

Hey Guys :) hope you have all had a great week of training and eating well. I have had such a hectic week I can't believe its Friday already, definitely looking forward to a long weekend!

Today's post was inspired by one of my regular clients who has been coming to me for almost a year now. We train about 2-3 times a week and I have seen some amazing changes in this girl in her fitness and strength however she struggles a lot with something that many of you and even myself at times can relate to- the battle between mind and body.

This week during one of our sessions I had her finish an already tough weights session with a burpee and push-up drop/increase set which basically went from 15 push-ups and one burpee to one push-up and 15 burpees. This is a tough set to get through, extremely repetitive not to mention it really tests your body's power to silence the mind which is screaming at you the entire time to STOP. During the set she kept saying over and over "It hurts so much" and I could tell she would have been quite happy to stop right then and there but she pushed through right till the end and then understandably collapsed exhausted on the floor.

Now whether she realised it at the time or not in that session her body not only grew stronger but so did her mind because she forced herself to push through the pain she was feeling and to silence the weak voice in her mind urging her to stop.

Mental strength is not something that is easy to develop and it takes battle after battle between the body and mind to gradually build it. Each time you push through some pain to complete a difficult workout you not only strengthen your body but your mind strengthens a little bit more as well.

Once your mind finally accepts that the pain will eventually stop it no longer tries to encourage your body to stop when it feels pain but to push harder and that right there is when you know you have hit a point of being not only physically but mentally strong.

It comes back to the good old saying of "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger". What some people fail to realise is that just as strength takes time to build physically, it also takes time to build mentally.

Persist with the pain, push and challenge yourself and if you need help get a workout partner or a personal trainer who can help push you further because in the end you can't attain full physical strength hitting your absolute best without first building the strength mentally to push through the pain and struggle!

Fit FREAK of the week is on it's way but in the meantime keep eating CLEAN, training MEAN and living LEAN :)