The Gym Isn’t Supposed to Be Easy

The gym isn’t meant to be easy. It’s meant to reveal what needs work. To create a roadmap of what to work on and how to get stronger.

Easy is what you can already do. Expanding your capacity—that’s the hard part. The process of getting stronger and moving better is about stepping into the unknown, testing your limits, and adapting to new challenges. That’s where growth happens.

But difficult doesn’t mean reckless. Training hard doesn’t mean ignoring your body's signals. It doesn’t mean letting your ego dictate your training. It means showing up and leaning into the challenge with patience and intent.

Progressive overload—the principle that you need to progressively increase difficulty to get stronger—applies to movement, just like it does to lifting weight. If you always move in the ways that feel natural and easy, you’re just reinforcing what you already know. Strength and mobility training should expose blind spots, not just build on existing strengths. If it gets easy, it’s wrong!

The work you put in at the gym is an investment in making the rest of life easier. It’s being able to handle daily tasks without discomfort. To move freely, without hesitation. To have the physical confidence that comes from knowing your body is capable. Hiking on the weekend with friends, easy! Chasing kids around, easy! Make this shit easy but don’t expect the gym to be. 

And that kind of ability is earned.

For some, hard is building consistency, for the next it might be learning to push a little harder and for someone else it might be going lighter, dissolving the ego and training at a level that allows you to move with better range and control. Everybody's hard is different, everyone’s easy should be different. 

The view from the top of Mt. Washington is far grander for those who climbed than for those who drove. The gym works the same way—struggle and effort make the reward that much greater.

So no, the gym isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to prepare you for a life that is. Ultimately not too much worthwhile achieved in life is easy anyway ;)