Building Mental Strength

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No matter your current goals, you’re not going to improve your body without first strengthening your mind! Your thoughts ultimately control your actions, and it’s a strong mind that pushes us to eat right, train hard, and stick to a plan for the long haul. Even the greatest routines for nutrition, training, and supplementation will fail if you don’t have the will to carry them out. So, why don’t more people grasp this critical concept? Why do so many trainees – and even accomplished athletes – become stagnant for months or years? I don’t know for sure, but I have a theory: it forces you to acknowledge your shortcomings! It’s easy to blame your gut, your weakness, or your lack of muscle on things outside your control. But if you accept responsibility for your own successes and failures, you’ll realize that your progress – or lack thereof – all starts in your head. Fortunately, you can also CHOOSE to be better. Even a sub-par plan will work wonders if you follow it aggressively, and most of your results will come down to sheer strength of will. With that in mind, here are 5 more tips for improving your own mental strength.

1. Test yourself You can’t improve what you don’t measure. It’s true for bodybuilding as well as business; you’re not going to gain mental strength without constantly testing your mental! Your mind is like a muscle, and it WILL “atrophy” if you don’t keep it challenged. There are plenty of ways to put your mind to the test, but since our ultimate goal is a great physique, what better place to do it than in the gym? My favorite way to test my own mental strength is to put myself through a grueling workout – the kind I wouldn’t normally do, and that I can’t just repeat day after day. This kind of workout has got to be insane! One of the best tests of will is also one of the oldest – the 20-rep breathing squat. Walk out with a weight you can normally get for 10 or 12 reps, and keep breathing heavy and grinding them out until you get to 20! It’s brutal and exhausting, and it will let you know what you’re made of. You can do variations with other exercises and even with machines, but as always – the squat is king! I also like cardio-centric mental tests. I know, I know – you’re a bodybuilder, and you don’t need to run! That kind of thinking is exactly why sprints and circuit work can be such great tests of mental strength for lifters. You’re not used to that kind of training, and it adds a whole new challenge to your workouts. Don’t make the excuse that you don’t want to “go catabolic,” either – one run or one circuit workout isn’t going to ruin your gains!

No matter your current goals, you’re not going to improve your body without first strengthening your mind! Your thoughts ultimately control your actions, and it’s a strong mind that pushes us to eat right, train hard, and stick to a plan for the long haul. Even the greatest routines for nutrition, training, and supplementation will fail if you don’t have the will to carry them out. So, why don’t more people grasp this critical concept? Why do so many trainees – and even accomplished athletes – become stagnant for months or years? I don’t know for sure, but I have a theory: it forces you to acknowledge your shortcomings! It’s easy to blame your gut, your weakness, or your lack of muscle on things outside your control. But if you accept responsibility for your own successes and failures, you’ll realize that your progress – or lack thereof – all starts in your head. Fortunately, you can also CHOOSE to be better. Even a sub-par plan will work wonders if you follow it aggressively, and most of your results will come down to sheer strength of will. With that in mind, here are 5 more tips for improving your own mental strength.