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Your Body Doesn’t Care

by Michael Plank

Sometimes when I ask my son to do some chore he says, “I don’t like doing that!” And I catch myself saying what I heard from my parents when I was a kid… “That’s ok. You don’t have to like it.”

I usually heard it when I was complaining about something like chores, or homework, or going to school. It always felt tough and kind of mean.

But I thought of it the other day. We had a tough workout and a lot of people were discouraged. It sucks feeling like you don’t do well. It sucks when your coordination just doesn’t come together. It sucks when you’re so stiff from sleeping on the floor in your kid’s room that you can’t get good overhead range. It sucks when your energy levels just aren’t there because you were up late arguing with your spouse.

Then you get to that workout and it slaps you in the face and kicks you in the gut while you’re down. There are days like that.

But here’s the good news… Your body doesn’t care whether or not you have fun working out. At all. You might be on the verge of tears because you’ve spent the last 3 minutes whipping yourself with a rope and successfully jumped over it ZERO times. You might be ready to throw something because your elbows are just so slow on those cleans.

But your body doesn’t care at all.

Your muscles are still getting stronger. Your heart and lungs are still getting more efficient. Your brain is still wiring new patterns. You’re still learning. Most importantly, you’re still being consistent. And if 50lbs felt heavy today when last week it felt light, you’re body does. not. care. It still responds to stress, and it will still give you favorable adaptations – which means you’ll still get fitter.

That’s why we tell jokes and play music you like and tell you about the things you did that were good… because we know it can be hard, and we know there can be days that feel discouraging. But we also know that the most important thing is showing up. And as long as you do that, you’ll get better. So we’ll keep playing your favorite songs, and we’ll keep helping you build relationships so these become your favorite people, and we’ll keep highlighting things that will feel like your favorite moments. And we’ll do that so that even in those moments that suck you can remind yourself that you don’t have to like it for it to be 100% worth it.