Mindset of Body Building

This week I talked to a friend of mine who has been very busy working as it is around this time that his business really starts to pick up every year. It peaks over the Holidays and then starts to slow down again to normal levels after New Year. As a result, he has not been able to do as much as he wanted to in the gym and has not been able to get in all the meals that he needs to consume on time either. Because of this, frustration has set in and he has been contemplating perhaps just dropping the whole program until the beginning of the New Year when things begin to normalize for him. However, I advised against doing this for the following reasons:

1. Stopping to train would lower his metabolism which in turn would lower his energy levels and thus make him less productive at work.

2. Though he cannot get in the gym as often, getting his workout in and following the diet as much as possible will prevent him from losing valuable muscle gains while making undesirable fat gains. This in turn prevents him from getting further depressed as he sees his body deteriorate.

3. Once January comes and he can start hitting the gym more often and following the meal schedule to the “T”, he will be in good shape and his body will respond very quickly to the more aggressive schedule. This is a very different scenario than the one he would have encountered if he would have stopped training and dieting altogether, as in this case, he would have needed to use at least a week to get his body conditioned for the weights again and it would have taken him an extra week, or maybe even two, to get rid of any body fat that he might have gained depending on how bad the diet was.


Be Flexible, Be Consistent, Be Prepared
Therefore, in order to be successful in bodybuilding you need to have the right mindset. Bodybuilding is both a physical and extremely psychological endeavor. Of course, we all get frustrated when our schedules are affected by work, or any other life circumstance that may be thrown our way. Life is full of monkey wrenches in case you haven’t noticed and it does not make it easy for us to get our workouts and meals in. Therefore, we have to fight aggressively and plan ahead if we want to get our workouts and meals in.

As bodybuilders we must keep our eyes on the ultimate goal, which is always more muscle mass with less body fat. In order to accomplish that one must be consistent with the training and diet. If for whatever reason the program that the bodybuilder has mapped out is too much of a time commitment at a certain period in life, then the solution is to modify the bodybuilding program to one that does fit the time schedule…be flexible. For instance, back in my engineering days there were periods when I had to work 60-70 hours a week, I modified my training to where I would hit the gym 5 days a week for 40-45 minutes of weight training. Since I had no time to do cardiovascular exercise, I would superset antagonistic muscles in order to get some sort of cardiovascular effect (refer to my abbreviated bodybuilding plan at the end of this article). That is all I could afford to do at the time. I always tried to get my training in before work, but if for some reason I would miss it in the morning, then I always had lunchtime to make it up or later in the evening after work. Worst case, there was always the weekend for makeup sessions. Regarding meals, I always brought in all of my meals with me pre-prepared and also enough Meal Replacement Powders for those times that I was really on the run.

Some of you for whatever reason may not even be able to do more than three sessions a week. If this is the case, then no issue; make the most out of the time that you do have available to train. The key to making lasting bodybuilding gains at the end of the day is that you have a realistic plan that can be executed consistently, not trying to follow one that looks really good in paper but cannot be executed. You will get to where you want to go, it may just take a little bit longer depending on how much time you can dedicate to reaching your goals.

http://bodybuilding.about.com/od/howtoachieveresults/a/mindset.htm