“Momentary muscular failure.” This was a term I learned back in the 1970s training at Steel City Nautilus in Pittsburgh. A key principle of Nautilus training was to push to the point where an additional repetition of the exercise was not possible without rest. Sometimes (often) that point of failure was pushed a bit further by a trainer or lifting partner demanding “one more”.
Growth in life—be it Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, or Social—demands “momentary failure”. Growth demands that we push beyond our current limits (the overload principle). Like at Steel City Nautilus, I sometimes need the extra push to find my point of failure. Otherwise, I am likely to quit before I reach the appropriate stimulus for growth.
Another aspect of “fitness” is knowing your weaknesses. In exercise physiology, we test the fitness of the body system (e.g., maximal oxygen consumption or VO2max) to determine our plan for progression. We need to know our limits to set the level of stimulus for adaptation. Less than a “minimal effective” stimulus for growth, and there is no change. Of course, there is also a “maximal recoverable” stimulus, as well. There is such a thing as too much failure, and we do need to see periodic successes to remain motivated.
The key to the principle of failure in life is to use failure to discover weaknesses and to change accordingly. Otherwise, we cannot properly progress—grow.
It is by failing that we succeed. Avoiding failure (or shielding one from failure) denies one the opportunity to self-evaluate and identify weaknesses. If we don’t know our limitations, we cannot grow.
Push the limits. Allow the Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social dimensions to know their weaknesses, and grow!
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!