Head Games

I've been wanting to touch on how important I feel the "mental aspect" to success in strength gains.
It's a pretty broad topic so to keep this from becoming 7 volumes long, lets focus on desire and mental toughness.

Developing a successful attitude in the gym is paramount to improving your strength, fitness level, appearance, just about everything. If you're walking into a gym, at least you had enough motivation to get off the couch. But is there enough drive there to do more than take up space at the gym? You must believe that your efforts will lead to achieving your goals.

I cannot explain exactly what drives me. It's somewhere between pride and greed. I always demand more from myself and I always want to be better than the next guy. This attitude or desire to constantly be better is the driving force behind many succesful training sessions.

I see many different levels of drive or desire everyday. I work with people who have so much drive that they wear themselves out. I also work with people that seem like they are one notch above suicide. Obviously the ones with massive desire for change in their appearanc or strength levels get the best results and they get them as quickly as possible.

Once you've developed the desire to work hard, you need the mental toughness to ride through the storm of hard training. My favourite example of mental toughness is from an unlikely source. 30-50 year old women that want to get their 20 year old body back. I've got clients that bust ass through some very challenging training sessions week in and week out and never complain, and never give up. Have you ever seen a guy at the gym load up a bar and do a set of squats to 20 reps or above? There are thousands of great examples of mental toughness, the key is to be one of those examples.

No summary here kids. Just get your brain in gear and don't be a wanker at the gym today. Train till the sweat is dripping and your muscles are burning.

Tastes Like Kevin Bacon

The title comes from the last song I heard on the radio on my way to work this morning.

How important is having a good sound track to fuel your training?

I didn't think it was too important. As long as it wasn't the talking of lame ass DJ's on regular radio when I was about to attempt a heavy set or a sweet slow song about love or sadness, I was usually okay.

I make it a habbit to keep my training playlist stocked with the likes of Sabbath and Slayer. Hatebreed is also good back ground noise when trying to train your ass into a pulp.
But I never really rely on having "the" perfect song playing at any given time. I try to keep focused on the lifts and the music is just background noise.

It is common to hear guys whining about having to train with really shitty music playing and how it ruins their session. I guess everyone is different but c'mon, how dependant can one be on the music?
I definately agree that a good playlist helps, but the lack of good riffs should not be reason to throw the session down the toilet and act like a spoiled Trust Fund Boy.

Now when performing cardio music is becomes a very integral part of my ability to work hard.
I hate doing cardio on any of the typical gym machines. (treadmill, bike, stair climber) My "Hard as Fuck" playlist is a staple of my cardio sessions. And the other night I found out just how important it is. My ipod ran out of battery power.
WOW!
My speed dropped instantly and even my best efforts to speed back up seemed helpless.

I guess to conclude here I will just have to say don't be a baby if the radio is sucking when you are lifting iron, and make sure your ipod is charged up with good muzzak and battery power before you climb onto that bike for some intervals.

Oh No, Here Comes The Snow

Well, the snow has started to fly in Renfrew County (Canada) and I'm already worried I'm gonna miss pushing the prowler.

For most of us in Canada and the northern U.S. prowler season is pretty much over. So here's my alternatives to pushing the lambo (our gym prowler is Lambo Orange so I call it the lambo):

-Rower sprints, we usually run 500m and 250m sprints with 2-4 minutes rests in between sets and work up to 3 sets of 500m when we are really pushing the conditioning and fatburn.

-Barbell, Dumbbell or Kettlebell complexes, the variety that's possible here is vast. You can blast your conditioning and work any weak points at the same time. I like to pick about 5-6 movements and blast out 5-10 reps per exercise as one giant set, usually completeing 3-5 rounds of the complex.

-The Ulitmate BootCamp WOD, when I'm in a hurry or looking for a change I'll throw down the WOD. Why not? I've usually pushed our campers through it twice during the day so it's fresh in my mind. It also gives me more arguing power in bootcamp if I do the work-outs too.