Harry Pointon is an expert personal trainer
Lifting weights is the best way to sculpt a truly awesome looking body. Many gym trainees know the basics of contracting the working muscle, controlling the weight and performing reps until technical failure. Often when we are reaching technical failure, our mind can kick in and tell us to stop. It sends us a pain signal and 9 times out of 10 it wins and we stop the exercise.
I have written this article to teach you how to overpower your mind and get that extra rep or two that are going to dramatically speed up your lean muscle building, strength gains and fat loss.
So let’s begin, let’s remove the demon that stops you from being your best.
Let’s imagine you are doing a leg press, you are have just reached the point where it’s getting hard, your legs are burning and you’re ready to give up, but what if you could now do 5 more reps, do you think you could get better results in the gym?
Those extra 5 reps will increase your strength, allowing you to lift more and gain more muscle. The benefit of having more muscle is your metabolic rate will increase making fat loss easier. Result a stronger, leaner you, not bad eh?
So how do we get those extra 5 reps, well that’s easy we build a new pain threshold.
Before reading on ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A SPOTTER FOR THIS, USE CORRECT TECHNIQUE AND A CONTROLLED TEMPO I don’t want you getting crushed. ( if you don’t fully understand correct technique and tempos ask a fitness professional for help)
So building a new pain threshold?
You need to give your self an ultimatum, you need to use the power of pain and pleasure.
I came across this technique through Tony Robbins, the guys a legend.
So when you get to that point where the pains kicking in you ask your self the following questions.
Is this pain that bad really?
Is it worth going through to look amazing, attract more people towards me and feel truly happy about my self?
Is it bad enough to keep me in my current position?
By having a clear, precise goal, pushing those extra reps out is easier.
So think about what you want for example to look amazing on Holiday so you have more confidence in your swim suit and also what you don’t want ie looking fat on the beach, use these emotions to go through your pain barriers.
On top of this use positive reinforcement and con your mind.
Say stuff like this is easy, not a problem, it’s not uncommon for me to shout EASY during my sets at the gym as it helps me lift more.
The mind can trick you into thinking you can’t do stuff, but you are allowed to question the mind and push it passed its current limitations.
Only we can create our limitations by inventing them in our minds. Reinvent your mind and get faster better results in less time.