The SAID principle

I recently got a job as a personal trainer. Part of this job is developing workout plans to help my clients reach their fitness goals. When it comes to working out, it is important to be constantly pushing yourself a little bit past what you think you can do, and what you did the day before. If you don't push your body, it doesn't get better and you don't reach your goals. This principle of training is called overload. You load the body more than it has taken on before so that it can get better. 

The reason why this works is called the SAID principle.

Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands.

When you demand your body to do a little bit more than it has done before, you body adapts to that workout. It rebuilds that breakdown you caused to be stronger. That way when you ask it to reach that level again, it can without a problem. That is why the pushing has to be constant. If you push yourself once, you improve a little bit, but then you stay at that level.

In one of my classes recently, we talked about this principle. And my teacher brought up an interesting point. He applied it to spiritual training.

Our Heavenly Father is our spiritual personal trainer. He has a plan for each of us, to push us further than we have gone before. To give us more than we have had before. That way we can adapt and get stronger spiritually. So that we can be refined. He has a goal for the kind of person He wants each of us to be. He sees our potential, and knows what we are capable of. He wants us to get there, and He knows the best way.

I have a couple of clients that don't really have goals. They're content where they are and just want to be fit for themselves. They don't have a vision. These are the clients that I want to push hard because they don't see what they're capable of. They way to show them is by using this SAID principle. Imposing higher demands than they have had before or thought they could go. Then after they have made improvements and saying, look this is where you were, and now look at where you are. 

The same with our Heavenly Father.

He gives us hard trials to go through and tasks to accomplish. And when we are able to worship at His feet and see His glorious face, He will show us, look this is where you were, look at where you are now and what you have done.

The trainers that are most relatable to, are the ones who have been where the client is. They have had to lose weight, they were once weak, they were at rock bottom. They know what it felt like to be there, and they know how to get out of it. 

We have that same opportunity spiritual with our trainer. Christ has felt every pain, every trial, every tribulation. He has "descended below them all" (D&C 122:8) so that He can carry us back up. He knows exactly what we are going through, "that he may know according to the flash how to succor his people according to their infirmities" (Alma 7:12). 

There is a saying that He won't give us more than we can handle. Brad Wilcox, in his book "The Continuous Conversion," challenges this thought. It isn't that he won't give us more than we can handle. We can't improve that way. He gives what we can handle with Christ. It is when we rely fully on the Lord and His atonement that we become the people that Heavenly Father wants us to be.
And just as people have a hard time achieving their fitness goals without a personal trainer with the knowledge to get them there, we cannot improve and become like Christ without relying on Him because He has the knowledge to get us there.