Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Mind Games

Want to learn how to take your body further than you ever thought possible? Your mind is the real key to achieving unbelievable results.

Peak performance is a state of mind. No matter how prepared your body is, if your mind is not functioning at the top of its game, your performance will suffer.

This is true of any sport and extremely true in weight training. Your muscles may do the actual work, but what is sending the message to do that work? Your mind!

There are many techniques you can use to help your mind push your body far beyond what you may believe you're capable of. These mental tricks can help you get more results out of every single set you do.

1. Rewards
Say you're finishing the last few reps of a set. It's starting to hurt and you're ready to quit. Imagine someone just offered you a million dollars to get one more rep. You would find a way to get that rep. Use other offers that would motivate you to keep going, e.g. pizza if you're on a diet.

2. Ghost Spotters and Lighter Weight
Imagine someone spotting you. Imagine this ghost spotter helping you finish that rep. You can always try imagining the weight is less than it actually is, too.

3. Magnetic Force
If you're doing dumbell presses, imagine they are two powerful magnets that are irresistibly drawn to each other. If you're curling, imagine your eyes as magnets attracting the bar towards them. If you're benching, imagine the bar being repelled by your chest. This technique is especially useful on that last, slow rep. It will help you squeeze a little extra out to finish the rep.

4. Chopped-Up Sets
Here is a trick you can use to get the most out of high rep sets. When the going gets tough, start doing consecutive small sets of five reps. When you can't get five reps, do sets of three reps. When three reps seems impossible, convince yourself to do just two more reps. When you can't do sets of two, tell yourself just one more rep. Keep trying to get just one more rep until you can't move.
Breaking it up like this will allow you to get many more reps than counting straight through one big set. You can do this right from the start as well. If you are doing a set of fifteen reps, do a set of five, another set of five, a set of three, then a set of two.

5. Pain Management
Pain tolerance is a big factor in weight training intensity. The more pain you can take, the harder and longer you can push. A good way to fight pain is to tell yourself that it is not your pain; it is somebody else's. It sounds crazy but it works.

You can also try the Corsican Twin technique. Imagine the pain you are going through is being felt by someone you don't like. The more you put yourself through, the more punishment they take.

It also helps if you're a little masochistic. Really hard trainers learn to love the pain (remember, we're not talking injury pain but hard work pain).DOWNLOAD COMPLETE

ARTICLE: http://teamroehlig.com/recommends/mindgames.zip

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