Visualization and sports/ physical activity have gone hand in hand for centuries. Since the beginning of recorded athletic events, history tells us that the competitors used what we now called visualization or visual imagery.
In the early days of bodybuilding competitors realized that the mind is greatly responsible for their degree of progress. The famous Mr. Olympia, now Governator of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger has always emphasized that success in bodybuilding begins in the mind.
Concentration, or focused attention, is a key to achieving almost anything in life, and bodybuilding/ weight lifting is no exception. Regardless of how intently you apply yourself physically to the completion of an exercise, you will never meet the high standards that you need to meet in order to gain size and strength, unless your mind it totally focused on the exercise. It is a common flaw of all people that being able to focus 100% on one thing, at one time is almost impossible. There always seem to be other intrusions enter the mind: financial woes, relationship issues, doubt in yourself, lack of time…
These distractions are necessary, but as you continue to progress in your goals to succeed as a bodybuilder, you will become better and better at keeping out and ignoring these distractions.
The following 10 steps will help you hone your skills in order to concentrate on your bodybuilding success.
- Try to block out all negative thoughts. This means ALL negative thoughts.
- Always think about your training in a positive, encouraging manner.
- Keep your mind on the workout. When in the gym, don’t think about anything but success in the gym.
- Plan your workouts so you won’t be interrupted or distracted. This could include not working out next to the classroom during the bikini boot camp.
- Don’t make excuses to miss a workout.
- Make every exercise mental as well as physical.
- Go to the gym to work out. Be nice, but make it clear that you are there to train, not to socialize. Wearing headphones will cut down on chit chat.
- Have a plan. Develop a workout plan for the day’s workout so you will know what you have left to do, and what you have already accomplished.
- Look forward to training. You are doing it for a reason, look forward to the benefits of successful training.
- Use the visual imagery technique. Force your mind and will power to push your muscles.
Use these tips and stay focused.
Filed under Mind And Muscle by on Mar 16th, 2010. Comment. 
Mind and Muscle, Can One Improve the Other?
by Klint Newton
Can your muscularity be improved with a mind over muscle connection? Yes, it sure can.
Can improve your mind with your muscles? Indirectly, yes you can.
This is part 3 of 3. Check out part 1: Mind Over Muscle and part 2: Mind and Muscle. You can also check out Mind and Muscle and the Supplement Placebo Effect.
Ok, let’s get into it.
Your mind, or brain, is in control of all of your bodily functions. Your mind is also what does your thinking. Every idea, thought, or impulse comes to you from your mind. What you think about, your mind brings about, through your brain. Stay with me here.
The Placebo Effect
Where is your mind? That’s a million dollar question. Let’s keep it simple and say that your mind is in your brain and is your brain. When you think about things, e.g. how much fun next Friday will be, what garlic smells like, or lifting a coffee cup, your mind is doing the thinking, and this thinking is affecting your brain. Your brain then sends an electrical impulse to make things happen.
So, if you think about typing, you think about the words you want to type and your brain sends a signal to your fingers to make them move. You don’t have to think about all of the muscles moving and everything involved, you just thought about the letters you wanted to type and your brain made it happen.
Typing is something you do naturally, you don’t even think about it. Typing is not something difficult for your brain to handle. Building muscle is a little more difficult. One reason building muscle is so tough is because your mind and muscle don’t get along. Your brain is always sending a signal saying it doesn’t want any more muscle and everything that occurs in the body can be controlled in the brain. Therefore, if your brain doesn’t want to build more muscle, you’re not gaining more muscle. There’s no big, flashy, half full tub of supplement that will change what your brain thinks is best for your body.
Your brain is naturally hardwired to keep you alive. If we had to think about all of the bodily processes, we’d be dead on day one. The body, through the brain, is always trying to maintain homeostasis, meaning that it wants everything to stay the same. Your body is geared to survive, and building muscle is costly to its survival. If your brain and body had their way, you would never move or burn calories. This is where it gets sad. Your body doesn’t want to build muscle, but it wants to store fat. Fat is just stored energy, your body wants to have this energy storage to guarantee survival. Muscle consumes calories, and your body wants to store fat and calories, not burn them.
Fat (wanted by brain and body) = Less used calories + More energy for emergency Muscle (brain and body doesn’t want too much) = More burned calories + less calories for later use
Fat (wanted by brain and body) = Less used calories + More energy for emergency Muscle (brain and body doesn’t want too much) = More burned calories + less calories for later use
It appears that what your brain and body want and what you want are polar opposites.
What to do?
You’re probably thinking that you can’t control what your brain and body does. You’re probably thinking that your mind and muscle are not connected at all. You can’t stop your body from storing fat and make it build muscle, right? Well, it’s a gray area, and you have more say so than you might think.
Obviously nutrition and physical activity have a huge role in how much fat is used, and how much muscle growth is stimulated, but there is more to it. Your thinking can actually change your body’s amount of fat and muscle. Its really not so far fetched, if you think about it. Remember, everything that happens in your body, originates in the brain. Your brain is central command. It tells your body what to do. Sometimes you have direct control over what happens. You can move your arms and legs to play sports. You can also train yourself to move your body to play those sports better. Moving your body around is one thing, but you want to know about building muscle with your mind.
How can I build muscle with my mind? My body does it automatically, and I have no control over it!
That is true. Muscle building is an automatic process for your body, as is pumping blood, and breathing.
Mind Controls Body
If you’re like most people, you just had a real “Eureka” moment.
You are either thinking that changing your breathing is no big deal, or you might have just had a Eureka moment.
Is it starting to come together? Let me explain a little deeper. By the way, the best and only thing available about this topic is Klint Newton’s Mental Edge Muscle Building program. It covers all of the physical and mental aspects of gaining muscle.
How you control something like breathing? How do you control something that is automatic?
You just proved that you can change your breathing rate by thinking about it, you have trained yourself, if only by accident, to be able to do this. You can also train your mind, along with your body, to gain muscle. It takes more training and practice, but it can happen, the first step is finding out how to do it.
Obviously, you can change your breathing rate by thinking about it, you have trained yourself to be able to do it. You can also learn and train yourself to grow muscle. It takes more practice and training, but it can happen. The first thing you have to do is learn how to do it.
A few videos to sum it all up:
All you have to do is make your brain want to build muscle, and you do this in a certain way, with your thoughts. Muscle gain isn’t an accident, it can all start with a thought.
If you’re wanting to know the best way to gain muscle, you need to check out Klint Newton’s Mental Edge Muscle Building Program. You can check out his 7 Part muscle building guide for free. You need to know how to use your mind to build muscle, plus The Mental Edge Muscle Building Program will show you just that, plus more.
Filed under Mental Muscle by on Jan 14th, 2010. Comment.
After watching a recent television program with the prominent preacher, Joel Osteen from Lakewood Church in Houston, my thoughts were peaked and turned towards you.
Joel Osteen
Joel said, “I do know our God, and he is all powerful. He has more in store for you. My questions for you are:
1. Can you perceive it?
2. Can you make room for it?
3. Did you know the first place it starts is in your thinking?
If your thinking is limited, then your life is going to be limited.”
Right on Joel! Being the spiritually upright person that I am, I can agree with that statement. I can also see a parallel between you, and The Mental Edge Muscle Building Program. Now, by no means am I claiming that I or my program is God. I want to clear that up right now. But what I am saying is that the program has so much more in store for you.
If you want to build muscle, then do it. The Mental Edge Muscle Building Program is the best way to do it. It doesn’t matter why you want to build more muscle mass, whether it’s to impress the opposite sex by looking and feeling better, to feel more secure in your ability to protect yourself and your loved ones, or even if it’s a deep rooted psychological need. The point is, it’s all here. The program has it all, it has everything you need and more to build more muscle than you ever thought you could. All you have to do is get started. The question is, why haven’t you started yet?
“Can you perceive it?”
Just like blessings from God, sometimes we can’t see the best things in life. Sometimes the best things appear to be the worst things. Sometimes the best things in life are free, and sometimes the things we need have to literally hit us over the head before we realize what’s best for us. Some people have a natural ability to know what direction to take, and they take it. Those are the people that are most successful in life, the people that can perceive what’s best for them and take action.
Are you going to be successful in life? Have you been so far? What about in your muscle building quest, have you been successful at building the body that women go crazy for, and that guys would kill for? Have you? Do you even want that?
If you do want that, have you been able to perceive the best route to take, and have you taken it?
Is the Mental Edge Muscle Building what’s best for you? Is there something in you that’s thinking that this might be the answer? That’s your perception kicking in, and you need to go with it. I guarantee you that you will gain muscle, and lose fat, and get what you want in life, but it’s not up to me, it’s up to you. You have to be able to see what’s staring you in the face and realize that this is it. This is what you have been looking for, and this is what you need. If you can see that, and take action, you will have success.
“Do you have room for it?”
If you are like most guys, you’ve got it all figured out. There is nothing left for you to learn, nothing left for you to find out, because you already know it all. Your cup is full. When your cup is full you leave no room for anything else. You’ve capped your mental capacity and completely closed your mind.
If you are one of these people, obviously I can’t help, because you already know the things that are contained in my program. Maybe you could even teach me a thing or two. If you think you’ve got it all figured out, I’m here to tell you, you don’t, I’ll guarantee it. The Mental Edge Muscle Building Program comes with a 60 day money back guarantee, and I’ll guarantee you that there are several pieces of ground breaking information in the program that you’ve never heard about.
The point is, there is always something to be learned. So make room for the program. Make room and time to see dramatic results within 4 weeks, even within days. Make room for finally knowing the absolute key to weight training. Make room for knowing exactly what supplements to take and when to take them, in order to save the most money and maximize your body’s natural muscle building reaction to them.
Make room for The Mental Edge Muscle Building Program.
“Did you know the first place it starts is in your thinking?”
Do you have room for it? Do you think that you’ve got it all figured out? Are you 100% sure that you are on the right track to gain tons of muscle, without the shadow of a doubt? You know you have room, but can you perceive it? Can you perceive all that The Mental Edge Muscle Building Program has in store? Do you believe it will help you gain 10lbs of muscle in 4 weeks? It will, and more, if you let it. Can you perceive that The Mental Edge Muscle Building Program is the best thing for you? If you can, and you take action, you will be successful.
It all starts with your thinking. “If your thinking is limited, then your life is going to be limited.” This is so true, and guess who puts your limits up. You do. The only person limiting you from building the body that all women want, is you. Take a look in the mirror, you make your life how you want it to be. It’s not up to me, your friends, or your family, it’s up to you. It’s your life, what are you going to do? Are you going to keep limiting yourself, or are you going to throw your limits out of the window? Are you going to realize that no one will give you what you want? You have to perceive it, and take action.
Are you going to make this year your best ever? Are you going to get serious about gaining muscle? Then you need the right tools, can you perceive what is best? Can you feel what the right path is?
Is The Mental Edge Muscle Building Program right for you, I think it is. What do you think? Do you feel that it is? Do you perceive that it is? Then be successful, take action.
Do you believe you can be successful? Do you want to be successful and finally gain muscle the best, easiest, and most efficient way possible? If you do, then there’s nothing left to do but get The Mental Edge Muscle Building Program.
You are just minutes away from a lifetime of success, a new you. Can you feel it? Then take action!
Click here to instantly download The Mental Edge Muscle Building Program.
The Mental Edge Muscle Building Program
Filed under Mental Muscle, Mind And Muscle by on Jan 13th, 2010. Comment.
Mind and Muscle: Can Doubt Hinder Muscle Growth?
By now, we are all familiar with the Placebo Effect and what it is can do for mind and muscle. If not, you can find a great post about the subject on the Mind and Muscle Placebo Effect.
Also, this is Part 2 of a 3 part series. You can view part 1: Mind Over Muscle right here.
The placebo is usually used in the medical practice when a patient is in need of medicine and gets a placebo, or a substance with no active ingredients. After the “drug” is taken, the patient feels real, positive results. The patient knew the drug healed people and believed he would be healed, and sure enough, he was healed.
The Placebo Effect
Obviously it wasn’t some random non medicine that healed the person, so the question remains, what healed him?
The answer is, he healed himself.
The power of the human brain is absolutely amazing. It made your body and can heal it. The thing that really healed the person was his strong belief that he would indeed be healed. It didn’t matter that he thought it was the “medicine” that healed him, it was his belief that healed him.
The Placebo Effect heals people because they believe they will be healed, but there is also an opposite reaction, the Nocebo Effect. This is when a person totally believes that they won’t be healed, so they don’t get healed.
What Does This Have To Do With Muscle Building?
The placebo and nocebo effect can also be found when trying to gain muscle. People do or don’t become healed based upon their beliefs, and people can gain or not gain muscle based on their beliefs.
This is really a problem in the fitness industry and it’s more prevalent with guys trying to gain muscle. I’m not exactly talking about the placebo effect being prevalent, but in a person’s faith in their physical abilities. So many people get on an exercise kick expecting immediate and mind blowing results, but once those results don’t occur overnight, the person’s faith in what they were doing will plummet and doubt will set in.
Just as in the Placebo or Nocebo Effect, a person can often receive physically what they believe to be totally true mentally. This can include sickness, health, fat, or muscle. The ability to change your body can be the same way. When you really believe that you will gain muscle and do the things you should, you probably will gain muscle. It can also work against you, if you don’t think you can gain muscle, you probably won’t, and you are working against yourself.
When you start believing something with all you have, you set the gears of progress in motion in your mind. This activates your brain to do what it needs to do to get you what you want. The bad part is, it also works in reverse, when you lose your faith and let doubt come in, those same wheels screech to a halt and will usually shift into reverse. It’s like having a lot of basketballs in your hands and right before you get where you want, you start to doubt that you’ll make it and all of the basketballs fall out of your hands and go bouncing away.
The best way to keep the forward progress going is the stay full of positive thoughts and not let doubt set in. Below are a few easy, basic steps to keep the muscle building success going:
- Positivity: This is as necessary as it is obvious and simple. If you are constantly thinking positively about your muscle gains, then you leave no room for doubt. I don’t want to turn this into a therapy session, just keep it simple. With all of your thoughts about supplements, nutrition, and training, think about how they are positively creating muscle building results.
- Reinforcement Visualization- You should not only think positively about your efforts to gain muscle, but you should also visualize your success. Imagine yourself looking how you want to look, lifting how you want to lift, or dating the person you want to date. Don’t just imagine this, interact with it. Make it a mental movie that you are the star of and feel how great it feels to accomplish your goal. Where you go in your mind, you’ll go in the body.
- Believe in Your Abilities: You must always believe that you can and will accomplish your goal. Never doubt that you can gain strength and size. If you don’t believe you can build muscle, you will quit way before you actually do.
Winning the muscle building mind game is just one part of success. You have to have a solid training, nutrition, and rest and recovery plan in place to really take full advantage of your mind and muscle connection. Your mind can control your brain, and your brain controls your body. Use your mind and muscle connection and use your positive thoughts for your advantage.
A few vidoes to sum it all up:
Filed under Mind And Muscle by on Jan 11th, 2010. 3 Comments.
The Mind and Muscle Connection, Supplements and the Placebo Effect
The Placebo Effect has dated back for years, it really became popular in World War II. Supplies ran short due to the lack of supply and the demand on them. They would often run out of medicine, especially painkillers, and had to give the individual peace of mind, they gave the placebo effect.
You can watch a quick and dirty version of this post on this video:
Soldiers would be shot in the butt with what they thought was morphine. What they weren’t told was that their morphine was just a good dose of saltwater. The amazing thing is that when injected with this saltwater, the soldier’s pain would fade, at least for a short time.
The Placebo Effect
The medics weren’t exactly tricking the soldiers; they were activating a placebo effect. The placebo effect is basically a series of reactions in the brain that can change its psychological or physiological functioning. Like in the example of the soldiers, they thought they were getting morphine, which they know dulls the pain immediately, but they were given saltwater. The reaction was the same; it cancelled out the pain, at least temporarily. The reason for this is because your brain controls your body, and your mind can subconsciously control your brain.
Supplements and the Placebo Effect
The placebo effect is relied upon by the supplement industry. The fact is, most of the supplements lining the shelves today are just highly marketed, flashy tubs of non working placebo effect in a can. Most don’t have any active ingredients, or have very few that would actually help you gain muscle. Most supplements work because of the supplement placebo effect.
I took this picture at GNC 
Most people buying supplements do so after they get “educated” on the subject. They usually get expert advice from their friends or supplement, I mean Bodybuilding, magazines. In all cases, someone takes a supplement because it supposedly worked for someone else and they genuinely believe that it will work for them.
The belief is key here. When you believe something completely, and back it with emotion, you can accomplish things that once seemed impossible. This includes physiological changes, or changes to the body. By thinking and believing that the supplement that was just consumed will cause muscle growth, the brain takes it as instructions. Basically, because of the individual’s strong conviction, the person’s brain will actually get to work and start the muscle building process. It will do this because it was told to do it.
Mind Changes Body
When someone starts taking a new supplement, they believe it will work, otherwise they wouldn’t take it. Now, with everything staying the same, your belief that the supplement will do what it is supposed to is enough to spark muscle growth. How many people actually don’t change anything when they start a new supplement? Almost all trainees will actually ramp up their training and change their outlook on what is possible when they start a new supplement.
Time To Take Credit
Think about this, if you didn’t take the supplement, but ramped up the training, would you gain muscle? Yes you would, so supplements aren’t necessary for building muscle. Too many people give all of the credit to the supplement, its time to take the credit. The supplement didn’t lift the weight, you did. The chances are high that the supplement didn’t really do anything, except for the placebo effect. Some supplements are worth taking, but if you don’t have the proper foundation, they won’t do you any good.
These are a few examples of what you can do to start easing off of the supplements:
1. Reduce your dosage slowly and finally quit the supplement. Stay positive that your results will improve and not fall off.
2. Realize that it’s you doing the hard work, not the supplement. Give yourself the credit.
3. Believe in yourself and your muscle building abilities. A belief in your supplements to build muscle does it, believing in yourself will work even better.
Its your turn to keep your money away from the supplement giants and turn the table by using the mind muscle connection, the placebo effect, to your advantage.
You really need to get the Mental Edge in Muscle Building, check out http://www.MentalEdgeMuscleBuilding.com right now to learn how to build muscle with your mind.
Filed under Supplements by on Jan 5th, 2010. 1 Comment.
