The Skill of Suffering

The Skill of Suffering

Most people who show up to the gym fall into two camps:

1. Those willing to go hard and truly challenge themselves (to suffer), and
2. Those who aren’t.

Even within the group that’s willing to suffer, there are two subgroups: those who do it intelligently, and those who don’t. The first group is the smallest but the most effective.

The Fear and Purpose of Suffering

“Suffering” often sounds intimidating or extreme. And without purpose, it can be both of those things. The nuance in good programming is pushing people to a place they wouldn’t reach on their own BUT for a reason. The trick in coaching is to make sure that suffering serves a purpose and that the work being done is high quality.

The “Avoid Suffering” Crowd

People who avoid discomfort in training miss the mark. Influencers love to sell the idea that training can be easy and still effective, usually right before pitching their program. The problem with that mindset is it leaves a lot of potential untapped.

If your only goal is to look good, maybe you can get there without ever truly pushing hard. But I’m not interested in training purely for looks, or coaching people who are. You can have both, the look and the performance. So why not want both? Usually because it’s hard. But if someone is afraid of doing difficult things, what does that say about them?

Many people have also been fed the lie that training intensely will inevitably lead to injury. The truth is, it’s not intensity that hurts people, it’s poor movement quality. This stems from not knowing how to do movements correctly or from not paying attention. That’s an easy fix: hold yourself (or your clients) to a clear standard of movement and quality. When intensity is paired with good form, results come faster. And when people experience good coaching and clear standards, they quickly buy in because real progress happens quickly.

The “Go Hard or Go Home” Crowd

The other side of the coin is the group that goes hard but are “mindlessly intense.” They’ve learned that intensity drives results, but they haven’t yet learned the cost of sacrificing quality. For them, progress actually requires pulling back enough to fix bad habits.

They’ve seen results, so they tend to ignore the negatives, poor movement, lost range of motion, or cutting corners to finish faster or lift heavier. That ego-driven mentality eventually stalls progress. Maybe they stop improving, maybe they get injured.

Progress for this group means spending time on corrective work, it's not sexy, but it's crucial. When they finally clean up their movement and commit to standards, their ability skyrockets.

Finding the Balance

The best approach lies in the middle. Some days should be highly intense, but never at the cost of standards. Other days, intensity should take a back seat to perfect quality.

For the timid, that means adding some fuel to the fire and reaping the benefits. For the overly aggressive, it means focusing on movement quality and expanding their capacity through smarter training. Moving better opens up access to more raw strength and ability because your body isn’t fighting against itself.

Variety matters. Approaching fitness from both ends of the intensity spectrum builds a more robust, adaptable kind of fitness. One that’s both capable and sustainable.

Suffering Intelligently

Suffering intelligently is a skill, one that develops over time, especially with the help of a good coach. You learn to tolerate both the physical challenge and the mental grind of doing hard things.

Winning the “Quit / Don’t Quit” conversation with yourself during a tough air bike workout gets easier each time you do it, as long as you keep winning the argument in your head. Quitting doesn’t always mean walking away. Sometimes quitting means not committing to the standard, cutting depth, choosing too light a weight, ignoring the strategy, or letting your form slip.

Every one of those moments is a chance to practice the skill of intelligent suffering, doing hard things with purpose and precision. That’s where real progress lives.

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If you're interesting in learning more about how we use an intelligent approach to challenge or members, Schedule a No Sweat Intro HERE and we can find a time to tell you about our Personal Training and Group Class options.

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