The main reason people training is to change.

To transform. 

To become a different version of what they currently are. 

Yet, most people who want to achieve this are constantly disappointed in their outcomes and spend d countless hours seeking out new strategies, tools and ways to achieve their goal. In reality though, there's only one thing they need to do.

Reframe your hard.

We all know we need to train hard to change. However, most people train at a level that is nowhere near their capacity, either in volume and/or in intensity. 

Training hard really hurts but it is the fastest way to train. The main trend now is people seem to be worrying about training too hard, which conceptually doesn't make sense. I totally agree that recovery is important but on the flip side of that you need to ensure that your training is actually hard enough to give yourself something worth recovering from. 

Nutrient and diet are another area where we are constantly looking for an easy out. Dieting should suck. You should be hungry, tired and want to eat more food. This is a normal response to a low calorie diet done well. If you are in a massing phase you should fell full, tired of eating and bored of it. They are both hard and should suck.

Most people let themselves off the hook too easily under the guise of self compassion or their effort is enough. If they want exceptional results, it is not enough! 

Pushing through diet fatigue can be one of the most resilience building activities you can undertake and can help facilitate an ability to work harder and tolerate more in nearly every other area of your life, which is an invaluable strategy to have.

Finally, the 1%ers. The little details. The extra mile.

The evidence based fitness community (which I'm a part of) has done a great job in getting people not to worry about the little details. If you want fitness to enhance your life, this is great advice. This article is not written towards that approach.

If you want elite results, preparation and details matter. The more small things you do to separate yourself from the pack add up and compound over time. If you want o squeeze every bit of juice out of the orange, this is what you have to do.

So if you want the best results, actively seek out discomfort and reframe your hard. That is one of the main benefits of ice baths, saunas and their ilk: it is not their physiological benefits, it is their psychological benefits. They make other things seem easy as they are so damn hard. 

And one final reminder: you get to choose your hard if you act now. Life will become hard for all of his at some point. We are unique in the fact we get to choose our hard now to make our lives easier later. 

Sounds like a logical choice to me.