At this point in your life, if you haven’t heard the “no pain – no gain” slogan, you must have been born with headphones on.
There are a number of other slogans that sound plausible that many have bought into,such as “get out of your comfort zone.”
And what about the coaches who tell their athletes how they expect “110% effort at all times.”
How about 100 percent effort?
In many, many cases, 70% would be absolutely perfect because the athlete won’t “overdo” the thing being attempted.
Show me a hoops star who shoots free throws with 110% effort and I’ll show you a guy putting up bricks.
Ever watch an athlete in a game swing too hard, throw too hard, shoot too hard or do the dumbest thing imaginable because of the ideal of “extra effort?”
Recently I watched a championship game, with one out left in the 7th to claim the prize, and one of the players gave so much extra effort – the 110% motto – that it blew the game.
It happens all the time, in sports and everything else.
Many potentially great athletes or fitness phenoms actually hinder themselves by overdoing it.
The truly superb athletes understand that effort that looks effortless is what you want. You most certainly do NOT want effort that calls attention to itself.
Coach Gable at Iowa used to say, “The goal is to make your wrestling as EASY as possible.”
He’d tell us to work very hard to make our sport look easy – even though it is obviously hard.
Coach Wooden used to say, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”
Same idea.
The objective is NOT to get out of your comfort zone. It’s to get into THE ZONE.
And you don’t get into THE ZONE with extra effort.
You get into THE ZONE with the seemingly effortless touch, stroke or movement.
This is why I’m a big believer in non-extreme exercise.
Every workout I go through is designed to make me feel good and by making myself feel good when I train, I make progress on a daily basis.
Now, it almost goes without saying, but how can you truly feel as good as you want to feel, if you never exercise your body from the neck up.
No, I’m not talking about positive thinking. I’m talking about exercising your neck so that you have greater blood flow to your brain and nervous system, and therefore, much better movement in the rest of your body.
Think about it.
If I increase blood flow to my brain, how would this not benefit the rest of my body?
It has to help because your brain is connected to your spine and your spine is connected to your limbs.
You definitely feel good when you exercise your neck easily and effortlessly.
This is why I perform an entire range of neck stretches every day.
All of them are simple and easy to learn – and you’ll find them in the FureyFaithful.com membership site under the video link on Neck Qi Gong.
If you decide to become a member NOW and never do anything other than follow along with the Neck Qi Gong exercises – you will have gotten your investment back one hundred times over.
And it won’t require you to give me 110% effort. Go through each exercise slowly and gently, with deep breathing.
Do the exercises to feel good rather than to PUSH YOURSELF.
Do the exercises to connect your brain to your body at a whole new level.
Enroll NOW and get the feel good train rolling through your brain and body.
Matt Furey