The Importance of Mindset – Part 2

In our previous article, we discussed the barriers faced by people in keeping to training and a nutrition programme.

Through my own challenges and experience, I have learnt how the mind plays an important role in transforming your health and building the body’s strength and agility.

The mind and muscle connection

Through the mistakes in my earlier years of training, I learned about the mind and muscle connection.

The principle is that whichever body part you are training, that muscle needs to be worked through its range of motion with intensity. I passionately believe even training without the maximum weight you can lift, that you can achieve good results from developing muscles by focusing on contracting the muscle you are working on.

What I learned from training at Goe’s gym in Southall was this mind and muscle connection. There were many times I was corrected on my exercise technique and the lessons there have helped me throughout my training. A good example is training the back. In my early to mid-20s, I developed width in the back and thickness, but I lacked the sweep in the lower lats. This was mainly due to not isolating the lower lats and thus it came down to me not having the right mind and muscle connection.

In my training sessions with clients, I often use metaphors to help them develop this connection. For example, while instructing them on back exercises, I always refer to the arms as a hook while the back does the rowing and most of the work. Similarly, in training chest, during a dumbbell fly movement, I ask the trainee to visualise they have a barrel on their chest, and they are hugging it while they do the dumbbell fly movement.

Using visualisation and metaphors are some of the ways for having the mind and muscle connection.

I also believe in flexing the muscle parts and practising bodybuilding mandatory competition poses to develop the connection with the body. This practice of flexing a muscle and holding it makes the difference to bringing out the full potential of the physique.

Visualisation for building muscle and having the physique you want:

Visualising your goals and seeing the physique you want to develop will keep you moving forward. This process helps you store images in your mind and deep in your subconscious. There will be times on the road to success when you will be challenged consistently with unforeseen obstacles on the way. By keeping the image in front of you of how you want to transform your body will keep you going.

I recall when I was working in a senior sales role at a Business Intelligence and Analytics provider, I was asked to do a lunch and learn session on training and diet. One of the questions I got asked was: ‘How can someone keep to a strict diet and a training programme?’

The answer is keeping your vision in front of you and remembering your purpose. I also joked – ‘Whenever you want to eat something which will slow your progress, remember to pinch the bodyfat on your stomach! That will remind you of your goals and what you must achieve’.

You probably have an athlete you admire or someone at a local gym whose physique you respect. This all helps with keeping your goals visual. I had always been inspired by professional wrestlers, bodybuilders, and my martial arts teacher Sensei Gurmit Singh Ji. By visualising in my teenage years that I would become athletic and strong led to pursuing this path.

Learning from failure:

Pain and failure are temporary and so is happiness and success.

Failure is part of life and provides an experience to learn and grow from. I often failed many times in trying to lift weights I could not but eventually with practise I developed strength and was able to execute the movement with the desired weight. 

One of the fond examples that comes to my mind is during barbell bench press movements. I have been stronger in my dumbbell press movements than barbell and have never had the strongest bench press in the gym. However, the failure each week over months of trying to get to a certain weight in the bench press is what motivated me and eventually led to lifting increasing weight on this exercise.

Negative thought patterns such as the ‘what if’ thinking is what I experienced whenever I had a fear of failure. For example, before I did specific training and dieting in May 2019 for the July fitness and bodybuilding competition, I had mentally prepared myself and did daily affirmations. There were thoughts in my mind about the competition prior to getting on stage and these were:

‘At age 42, how will I compete against younger competitors?’

‘What happens if I do not get a placing in the categories?’

‘What will happen to my career options after the competition?’

I had the opportunity to compete in 2003, 2007 when I had my photo shoots and many years later, I strongly believed it was not too late to compete.

Visualising your goals and doing daily affirmations can help you work towards achieving your goals. The affirmations I did daily leading up to the July 2019 fitness competition were about winning the competition and gaining professional status. It was a technique I used to deal with the fear of failure.

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What’s the conclusion?

There is no magic pill or shortcut to success. It takes hard work, discipline, courage and trusting yourself throughout the journey.

Ready to make the change? Find out how I can help you achieve your New Year goals.