Bodybuilding Dreams: Working out to be the Best of the Best

We all face situations in which events just don't go our way. Despite our best intentions, something goes wrong with our workouts. Yet with the perspective of time we can often look back and realize that the seeming misfortune was in fact for the best. Let's say you're doing heavy deadlifts. You finish your whole-body warmup and are ready to begin blasting your back when you notice that you left your straps in the car. Disgusted and muttering words that are not printable in this magazine, you walk out of the gym hoping that no one is watching you, grab your straps and head back to the deadlift station. What a waste of time, you think. Am I brain-dead or what? Then, just as you get to the deadlift area, a national-level competitor asks if he can work in. You'd always thought this guy was a complete jerk.

It turns out that he is actually a nice person and not only helps you force out a few more reps with his words of motivation but makes a valuable suggestion that improves your lifting technique. Now, would you have been better off if you hadn't forgotten your straps? Of course not. In a strange way, things did work out for the best.

Never Get Frustrated

This exact situation may not have happened to you, but you can surely look back on some of your own training experiences and see that some 'problems" really did work out for the best, The difficult part is recognizing that these apparently negative circumstances are often opportunities in disguise while they're still happening. They say that hindsight is 20 /20, and that is certainly true.

Yet, if you're open about your feelings when you encounter difficulties and don't give in to negativity you'll likely realize the positive nature of your former problem sooner than you think. This realization will build on itself and help you to keep negativity at bay. The result will be greater muscle growth.

Never give in to frustration, for it's a complete dead end. Natural bodybuilders know all about frustration, of course, In fact, it sometimes seems our unfortunate specialty. It's definite l frustrating to see drug users leap ahead of us in size and poundage increases in the short term. Watching someone on drugs slice up for a show in six weeks while you have to diet for three months is frustrating as hell. Letting frustration take hold is not the answer, however. On the contrary, it can often keep you from finding the answer you seek.

Take a Lang-Term Perspective

You need to take a long-term perspective toward your training and life in general, since both are really part of the whole. Seemingly negative circumstances, such as forgotten straps, can actually set up the timing for positive things to take place. Timing is everything, but since life is complex and not as precise as clockwork you sometimes need to be held hack temporarily for the right timing to occur. Nobody likes to he kept from achieving goals, of course, and we're all eager to get where we want to go-yesterday, if not sooner.

Yet you can't force timing. When the time is right, things will happen, provided, of course, that you follow the correct training and dietary regimens to ensure that all of the other growth-related variables are taken care of. When the timing is not right, though, trying to force it will accomplish nothing.

Things do work out for the best in the long run. So what if some 'roided-out puffball can lift more than you can now? Will he be able to lift more than you next year, or five years from now? Depending on how his liver holds out, quite possibly not. Meanwhile, you wont be punching people out due to 'roid rage, and your long-term health will be assured.

Build Character and Muscle Mass

When you learn to correctly interpret the short-term obstacles and gain confidence through experience that things will work out [although sometimes not quite as you imagined), you'll be well on your way to building a strong character. That will serve you well in your bodybuilding pursuits. Recognizing that mental and physical strength are interlocking components of total muscular strength will let you keep on with your progressive-resistance strategy because you know that the gains will come.

This channeling of mental energies will bring new force to your workouts. You'll be able to replace doubt with the conviction that all good things, including the awesome muscle mass you aspire to, will come in time.

Don't short-circuit the process by focusing on how you're being held back from your dreams by sinister old Father Time. Accept your misfortunes, and recognize that in the long term they may not be as real as they currently seem. Bodybuilding is 90 percent mental. After all, muscles only respond to neural input from the brain. So move forward confidently with your training program. In the end your time will come.