- Oct 29, 2004
- 843
- 0
- 0
Workout Routines/Fitness Articles/News Updates
Training, the Mental Aspects - Written by Big Canuk
We all are creatures of habit. It's something that a bodybuilder wants to avoid though. A lot of us still cling to the same old routines we've been plugging away at and perhaps we try to add some extra weight every week to tell ourselves we're progressing but we all know when we team up with a new partner for a workout or two and get into some new, radical exercises, we feel a huge difference occurring. New muscle fibers getting hit, better growth, more rev, etc.
We've all experienced this and yet a few weeks later, we start falling into the same trappings and stagnate again. Is there a way to avoid this and keep the fire burning? We all know most of the battle is in the mind anyway. If we can see ourselves doing it, we can. If we can't see it, we don't do it. That's why it's so important to see your muscles in your mind as you do the exercise just pumping up and getting huge and ripped. If you can see it, you can achieve it. I recently read an article where they took a large group of people and half of them were put on a weight training program. The other half were told to spend their time just thinking about weight training. (Now mind you these test subjects probably weren't bodybuilders but the results are amazing nonetheless.) At the end of 2 months, the people who just saw themselves training in their minds had better results than the ones who actually did the training!
Now, I know I'm talking to a group of guys who know no limits and are burning with the desire to hypertrophy no matter what it takes so it would stand to reason that if we will do the "big" things to do it, we should definitely do the "little" things to ensure we get the body we know we can unlock and possess.
Since about 90% of our brain isn't even knowingly used by us, we should put emphasis on that area. The visualization technique is just such a tool. As I said earlier, see the muscle just exploding in growth. The reason we have mirrors in the gym is for that visual effect. Now, imagine this. You see yourself getting a pump while doing an exercise by looking in the mirror as you workout or you mentally see yourself literally exploding with growth in your mind as you do the exercise. If you see yourself doing it, even just mentally, the body usually follows.
Just another example of this that we've all heard is where they took a bunch of basketball players and divided them into two groups. The first group spent an hour per day shooting baskets while the other group sat for an hour an imagined themselves shooting baskets. At the end of two months, the group who imagined shooting baskets far out shot the actual practicing group! Apparently, when you imagine yourself shooting baskets, you always see it going through the hoop. You never imagine/see the ball miss the shot. When you practice shooting, many shots are missed and you see that. The body responds in like fashion and the results speak for themselves.
There's no reason we can't apply this to our bodybuilding routines. If it means extra growth, better cuts, making that lift we've always wanted to get or just getting that edge we could all use, why not start at the place where it all starts? In your mind!
Training, the Mental Aspects - Written by Big Canuk
We all are creatures of habit. It's something that a bodybuilder wants to avoid though. A lot of us still cling to the same old routines we've been plugging away at and perhaps we try to add some extra weight every week to tell ourselves we're progressing but we all know when we team up with a new partner for a workout or two and get into some new, radical exercises, we feel a huge difference occurring. New muscle fibers getting hit, better growth, more rev, etc.
We've all experienced this and yet a few weeks later, we start falling into the same trappings and stagnate again. Is there a way to avoid this and keep the fire burning? We all know most of the battle is in the mind anyway. If we can see ourselves doing it, we can. If we can't see it, we don't do it. That's why it's so important to see your muscles in your mind as you do the exercise just pumping up and getting huge and ripped. If you can see it, you can achieve it. I recently read an article where they took a large group of people and half of them were put on a weight training program. The other half were told to spend their time just thinking about weight training. (Now mind you these test subjects probably weren't bodybuilders but the results are amazing nonetheless.) At the end of 2 months, the people who just saw themselves training in their minds had better results than the ones who actually did the training!
Now, I know I'm talking to a group of guys who know no limits and are burning with the desire to hypertrophy no matter what it takes so it would stand to reason that if we will do the "big" things to do it, we should definitely do the "little" things to ensure we get the body we know we can unlock and possess.
Since about 90% of our brain isn't even knowingly used by us, we should put emphasis on that area. The visualization technique is just such a tool. As I said earlier, see the muscle just exploding in growth. The reason we have mirrors in the gym is for that visual effect. Now, imagine this. You see yourself getting a pump while doing an exercise by looking in the mirror as you workout or you mentally see yourself literally exploding with growth in your mind as you do the exercise. If you see yourself doing it, even just mentally, the body usually follows.
Just another example of this that we've all heard is where they took a bunch of basketball players and divided them into two groups. The first group spent an hour per day shooting baskets while the other group sat for an hour an imagined themselves shooting baskets. At the end of two months, the group who imagined shooting baskets far out shot the actual practicing group! Apparently, when you imagine yourself shooting baskets, you always see it going through the hoop. You never imagine/see the ball miss the shot. When you practice shooting, many shots are missed and you see that. The body responds in like fashion and the results speak for themselves.
There's no reason we can't apply this to our bodybuilding routines. If it means extra growth, better cuts, making that lift we've always wanted to get or just getting that edge we could all use, why not start at the place where it all starts? In your mind!
Last edited by a moderator: