Each time you pack your bag and head off to the gym, you must have a clearly defined goal in mind. You should either be aiming to get bigger, stronger, faster, leaner or all of the above. Without a goal in place, you’ll be wandering around aimlessly with no direction to your training and your efforts will be without reward. However, if you have established a certain level to which you want to achieve, and you’ll stop at nothing to make sure you are successful, then results beyond what you could have ever imagined could be on your horizon. It is, for this reason, I believe you must approach each training session like it could be your last, leave nothing to chance and break through your preconceived barriers that have been holding you and your physique back. If you can eliminate the element of fear in your training, whether it is fear of injury or fear of failure, then you are ready to reach heights in your training that you never knew existed. Here are a few tips to get you there.
To get stronger, train with stronger
When I first started training, my friend and I were pretty much at ground zero and had roughly the same strength. As time progressed, he grew stronger much quicker than I did (he later became an IFBB Pro) and I was left to play catch-up. At first, this was very demoralizing because I didn’t understand how this could happen if we were training the same way (great genetics was something at this age I hadn’t quite understood yet). Then I started to approach each training session as a competition. Could I keep up? Could I beat him on different lifts? Would I lead this training session? And so on. It was a great psychological tool for my training, and it worked! Since then I have had many training partners, and I’ve always looked for someone stronger than me so they would push me past any self-inflicted limits I would put upon myself. I know for a fact some of my greatest feats of strength in the gym are a direct result of this and I’m always on the lookout for someone lifting heavier than I would on any given lift and I make sure to introduce myself in the hopes of “using” them to my advantage.
Put it on display
You think you’re stage ready and lean enough to hit that most muscular? You may have to think again. When I finally decided it was time to put my physique up against others out there, I was pretty confident I was ready to go. Everyone in the gym said I looked great and my confidence was high. Then I was introduced to the humbling experience of looking good in the gym versus looking good on stage.
A friend of mine knew someone who was competing and thought I should take a look at him. He also suggested I hit some poses next to this person. Feeling good about it I did and well to put it lightly, was I ever wrong. The detail and separation this person possessed compared to my current condition was night and day, and that was my hard reality check. Rather than taking it as a defeat, I worked my ass off even harder to make sure this experience never happened again the next time I thought about stepping onstage; and it worked!
Take a chance
Bodybuilding is a subjective sport, and if you are incapable of taking risks, then this probably isn’t the sport for you. Some will say that just getting onstage and surpassing that fear is a win. Others say winning is what counts. Then there are those that say looking better than your previous best is how you should approach it. Regardless of your philosophy, you must be willing to put yourself out there, be judged and accept the results. You should never let your inhibitions create a situation in which you don’t allow yourself to experience success; however you define it.
We all have our limits, but you’ll never know what those limits are until you set expectations for yourself, fight as hard as you can to meet them, then surpass them. To help get you there, AST Sports Science has formulated some of the greatest products available for this very reason. Dymetadrine Xtreme will get you looking like an anatomy chart so that you won’t have to feel embarrassed as I did and you will be stage ready when you think you are. And the new formula is twice as strong!
And finally, supplementing with the new Urso-X is an opportunity you simply cannot afford to miss and those who don’t use it will be the ones taking their chances with no safety net.
It is human nature to have fears and expectations can at times feel very heavy. Once you’ve figured out how to manipulate these for your benefit, then you are ready to set new personal bests, surpass any set goals and break through to the next level of physique development.
