Use Your Mind To Command Those Muscles To Grow

In this blog post, I would like to share with you what I believe to be the most powerful training methods there are to build muscle fast.

Believe it or not, your mind plays a big role in your training regime and how your body grows the way you want it to.

The truth is, most people are concerned with all the specific aspects of their training.

You know the usual thought process:

• How many days per week should I train?
• How many reps and sets should I perform?
• Which exercises do I need to do?
• How long should I rest between sets?
• How much protein should I consume?

Yes, these are definitely important questions you should be asking but you should not abide by these rules alone when structuring your workout and diet plan.

Let me tell you, all of those principles are absolute useless if you do not apply the most basic method for building muscle fast.

Applying the power of visualization

I have been doing this for years and it’s one of the main reasons that has kept me going to the gym for over 15 years now.

Before and during a workout, I would visualize in my mind’s eye my muscles forming and taking shape exactly how I want them to look. We all have that end goal in sight, the perfect body if you will so picture it as you exercise.

The amazing Albert Einstein once said “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” This applies to many things in life including body building!

I would picture myself training at high intensity and concentrating on every single rep of every set I do.

Focus the mind

Whatever muscle group I’m training, I will focus the mind fully on this. So if I’m training biceps and I’m doing preacher curls, I will remind myself why I am doing this and what my goals are so that it will eventually become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is something I have been doing for years. What it really comes down to is your determination to succeed.

For years I’ve been holding onto the image of how I wanted my body to look, so I made sure I’d go to the gym 4-5 days per week, train hard, try to eat clean and made sure my vision became a reality.

During my early days in the gym, I didn’t even know what the law of attraction was but when I think about it today, I’ve have been applying the principles of the law of attraction for years.

Power of your mind to build muscle

If I want my biceps to grow faster I will allow my mind to get inside the muscle and force my physical biceps to do what I want it to do.

Cut out all distractions

I won’t let any distractions get in my way. That means no mobile phone, no staring at women’s booty’s, no hogging the machines, nothing. Just me, myself and Iron 🙂

If the music is shit, it won’t distract me. Doesn’t matter if they play Justin Bieber, my ear buds get snatched out of my head, or the equipment is being used by somebody else….

I will always stay focused despite distractions at the gym. You should too if you want to dominate every session – it’s all about training your mind and body to do what you want it to.

Many people see professional bodybuilders as arrogant and “full of themselves” because they can always seem so serious.

This is probably not arrogance, it is more than likely that they are in the zone and totally focused on what they want to achieve. Inward focus gives them amazing results on the outside.

Insufficient training intensity

One of the biggest mistakes made in bodybuilding is that people don’t train with enough intensity. In any sport that sets such high limits but push their body to failure is because they are working their BODY too hard but the mind not enough.

How to apply the principles of visualization to each exercise

While you are working on a set and your are lifting the weight and pushing to muscle failure, start imagining yourself pushing past that point of failure.

You want to put every bit of energy into that exercise, to force with your mind your muscle to work harder than it ever has.

This is exactly what many sports professionals do, they understand how to connect with their minds to force the muscle to work harder and go further that what their body is used to.

This is when serious growth occurs.

Arnold Schwarzenegger once said “In my mind I saw my biceps as mountains, enormously huge, and I pictured myself lifting tremendous amounts of weight with these superhuman masses of muscle!”

Arnold credits visualization as a lot to do with his physique because he also was once quoted to say “The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent”.

Condition Your Subconscious Mind

It’s time to stop thinking that body building is all about how much you can lift or how many reps you can do, put your subconscious into action and THEN you will see results.

If you think negative thoughts about your workout and don’t believe in yourself, it’s unlikely that you will achieve much at all.

A body builders motto should be “Never think or speak negative about myself”. Whether you are training professionally or just as a hobby, positivity is the way forward.

You should practice positive affirmation on a daily basis, it will make you happier in everyday life in addition to the bodybuilding world.

Some examples of positive affirmations that you should say to yourself on a daily basis include the following!

Why not print of these quotes and hang them somewhere in your home, so you can see them on a daily basis?

These can be changed slightly of course, use words that motivate you as an individual.

“My muscles are growing”

“My muscles are well defined”

“I will work hard so I can show off my muscles confidently” 

“I am consistent in my workout routine”

“I always push through the pain”

“I am highly motivated to bulk up”

“I always work my ab muscles with intensity”

“My abdominals are well defined”

Positivity and envisioning yourself reaching a certain point makes it MUCH more likely that you will actually achieve it.

My Thoughts

I’m a huge believer in the law of attraction and I always try my best to apply it in everything I do in life.

There are literally tons of books on the subject but the ones I like the most are  “The power of your subconscious mind by Joseph Murphy” and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

These books will help you create the life you want. It shows you how you can use the power of your mind to attracts great things into your life.

Conclusion

I hope you can now see how important visualization and focus is to training your muscles and staying motivated.

So whether you want to lose weight, gain muscle or get ripped abs, put these mindful techniques into practice and they will keep you motivated in your training and bring you closer to achieving your ideal physique.

Question: What’s your take on the importance of visualisation in bodybuilding? Leave your answers in the comment section below.