#302: How Intense Are You?

I have read in various fitness magazines about intensity and how working out intensively will improve our exercises and speed the results we derive from our workouts.

Intensity is more mental than physical and is the result of desiring something with our very being. Intensity drives us full bore toward our goals and ensures that nothing less than our utmost effort will suffice.

Perhaps you are beginning a jogging program or are only up to two chin-ups or 10 pushups at a time. The quantity is not as important as the intensity with which you complete your exercises, fitness experts say. Do them so intensely that all else around you disappears. Focus firmly on feeling the muscles during the exercise and give each one your all.

They claim that if we approach things with intensity we will soon discover amazing things happening. The weight we wanted to lose will begin to disappear . The exercises that seemed so hard at first now are hard to ignore. Our mountain of anxiety will begin to disappear. Our sleep will improve.

Intensity is becoming oblivious to everything else around us for the time we are exercising. Exercise time is workout time, not time to stress over problems or think of the grocery list. An intense attitude will flush out those worries and allow the exercises to be more effective. Go all out for the time you workout. Test your limits. Eliminate thinking about anything that has no bearing on what you are trying to accomplish at the moment.

Most of know what it feels like to be physically exhausted after a workout. We know what it is like to be aware of muscles we were not sure we had. But perhaps it is time we racheted up the intensity level, to pull everything we have from every workout session and get the most from every exercise.

Perhaps it is time we become more dynamic and rigorous in what we do, in our workouts and in our lives. No more half-efforts. Full out all of the time, every time.

Intensity. Let's try it for added success.