3 Attributes For Resilience

Resilience: The ability to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

Let's be honest - the average person reading this does stupid hard things. You see how much weight you can pick up. You run as far as you can - past the point of blisters and bleeding feet. You exercise until you are sick. Why do we do this?  Because we know that it will make us stronger mentally and physically. 

And I am all for that. Chase discomfort. Try harder. Become better.

But if you're going to put your body through all that, you need to make sure you are resilient. Make sure you can recover quickly from difficulties. 

How do you do that? The keys to resilience are fairly simple. It is just 3 things. But far too often we miss one or more of these key factors. When even one is neglected, we set ourselves up for failure and injury.

3 Keys for Resilience

1. Mobility: Can you attain the correct position?

2. Stability: Can you maintain the correct position against outside forces?

3. Strength: Can you generate power in that position?

What does this mean and how should you be applying it? Let's take the overhead press as an example:

1. Mobility: Can you get in the correct overhead? Or is the bar too far forward, forcing the back of the shoulders to overwork?

2. Stability: Once in that overhead position, can you actively control the barbell or are you relying on the passive structures - ligaments, joint capsule - for stability? 

3. Strength: Do you have a plan to build strength in that position or are you constantly maxing out, fatiguing yourself, and giving little time for recovery?