It's Not Easy… But You Can't Give Up

There’s something you need to understand, especially if you’re new to the 12 Minute Athlete, new to interval training, or even new to working out at all.

And that something is this: these workouts aren’t easy.

In fact, they’re really, really hard.

And they’re supposed to be hard.

As someone who may have never done a handstand before, never done a strict pull up, maybe even never done a full push up, you may look at the 12 Minute Athlete workouts and think: I can’t do that.

Let me tell you a secret: I would have said the same thing even just a few years ago.

Back then, my workouts consisted of a three mile run; nothing else. I hated them. Plus, I couldn’t do a pull up (or a push up) to save my life.

And now… well, now, I feel pretty good about my fitness level. Sure, I always want to get stronger, faster, and fitter.

But really, who doesn’t?

You can do these workouts

It doesn’t matter what your current fitness level is. You can do the 12 Minute Athlete workouts.

Yes, they’re tough. But the great thing about them is that they’ll always be tough. That means you’ll never hit a plateau or get bored and stop making progress like traditional workouts.

Because the key to these workouts is that you work as hard as you possibly can.

And that means that if during a 12 minute workout, you can only start out doing two reps per interval, that’s OK—as long as you’re working as hard as you can. And if it takes you 20 minutes to do a challenge workout, and you need to rest every few reps, that’s OK too.

To be honest, when you get fitter and can do more and more reps, faster and faster, it actually gets almost harder to push yourself. When you’re just beginning, and you get from 2 reps to 3, or 3 reps to 5, that seems like a huge accomplishment. And it is.

But that doesn’t mean that once you get stronger and faster, you can start slacking off.

For example, if you’re doing high knees w/ jump rope, and you start out doing 55 reps during a 30 second interval, that’s great. As you stick with it, you’ll quickly improve—and see your numbers jump from 55, to 65, to 75, to 85, and maybe to 95.

But once you hit 95, it’s not going to feel any easier, because you still have to push yourself and go as hard and as fast as you can. Yet your progress will slow—rather than gaining 10 extra reps every week or two, you might be lucky to gain 1 rep every 3 weeks.

But you can’t slack off. You can never slack off.

No matter what your current fitness level, you need to tailer the workouts to your specific fitness level and needs. And keep working as hard as you can.

You have to stick with it

The key to these workouts is to keep doing them.

Yes, they may seem hard at first. Even though it’s only 12 minutes of your day, you may have a hard time getting motivated to do them.

But if you keep trying, keep on doing them 3, 4, 5, even 6 times a week, you’ll see massive improvements—fast.

But you can’t give up. Because giving up means no results, no gains, no conquering your fears.

It’s not easy. But nothing worthwhile ever is.

Now what are you waiting for? Go work hard. And have a little fun while you’re doing it.

Image credit: Photomax