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Weight Lifting Tip # 3 - Visualize Success
The ability to visualize success is one of the most effective tools of high-achievers. Use imagery to help you stick to your programme. Have a clear mental picture of how you will look or how you will perform at the end. Role models can help to motivate you. Pick one with a similar natural body type, shape and size as you - that way, you know you can achieve your goals and won't lose heart if you don't look similar to or perform like them after a period of training. You may find it helpful to cut out pictures from a magazine and keep these with your training log.
If you are finding it difficult to motivate yourself for a workout, visualize yourself successfully completing it. Use as many senses as possible - the sight of the gym, the sounds around you. See yourself loading the weights on the bar, see yourself completing each repetition and hear the sound of voices or music in the gym.
Weight Lifting Tip # 4 - Create a Motivating Environment
Training should give you a buzz and make you feel good about yourself. If you have to force yourself to work out when your heart is not willing to work out, you will not train hard enough to make sufficient gains, and you are more likely to give up in between your workouts. So make sure you choose the right training environment like if gym suits you better you can train at a gym or if home suits you better then your can train at home (click here to know the advantages and disadvantages of training at home or at a gym) and consider enlisting the help of a training partner (see below). That way, training will become a satisfying and empowering experience that you look forward to rather than dread.
Weight Lifting Tip # 5 - Work out with a Partner
Training with someone else will increase your motivation, make training more enjoyable, allow you to train harder, decrease the chances of you skipping workouts, and help you to stick to your weight lifting programme. Choose someone with similar goals to your own but not necessarily the same ability. The important thing is that you can motivate each other.
Weight Lifting Tip # 6 - Monitor your Progress
It is very important that you write everything down. Keep a training and nutrition diary to record your progress. By keeping track of your progress you are keeping yourself honest and motivated. By evaluating and monitoring your weight lifting program, you can decide wheather your program needs to be updated or wheather it needs some adjustments that may be needed to fine tune your program.
Remember, achieving your goals will not happen overnight. It comes after weeks or months of committed effort. Monitor your progress on a regular basis so you can check that your actions are producing the results you want. If they are not, you need to take the necessary steps to get you back on track. Training and nutrition diaries can be great motivators during workouts. Look back over your notes at the end of each week. If your performance matches your goals, reward yourself.
Buy a notebook so that you can record the following details:
- Details of each exercise, sets, reps and how much weight you used (see table above).
- How you felt before and after each workout.
- What and how much you ate each day.
- Details of any other exercise you took.
- Your body measurements, e.g. percentage body fat(click to measure your body fat percentage), waist, chest, hip, leg and arm circumference measurements; or just how snugly your clothes fit.
Photographs taken before you start your new weight lifting programme and then at intervals throughout your training will help to give you feedback on your progress. This is more objective than simply looking in the mirror.
Weight Lifting Tip # 7 - Measuring Body Fat Percentage
Two men of the same height can both weigh 190 pounds, yet one of them can look flabby, while the other can look lean and athletic. The difference is in their percentage of lean tissue vs. fatty tissue.
It is important to measure your body fat percentage with skinfold testing or bioelectric impedance, because a simple scale cannot reveal this information. If you gain five pounds of muscle and lose five pounds of fat, your weight machine will say your weight hasn't changed, and you may feel as though you are getting no where and lose motivation, while this is clearly not the case. So, try having your body fat measured about once a month, and you'll see your true results.
Skinfold testing and bioelectric impedance are the easiest and most accessible methods of estimating body fat.
- Skinfold Callipers: Calibrated callipers measure the layer of fat beneath the skin at a number of specific sites on the body, usually the biceps, triceps, below the shoulder blades and above the hip bone. The sum of the skinfolds is used in a simple equation to estimate your body-fat percentage. The accuracy of this method depends almost entirely on the skill of the tester, as well as the precision of the callipers.
- Bioelectrical Impedance: An electrode is placed on two specific points on the body - usually on one hand and the opposite foot - and an electric current is passed through them. Body fat creates an impedance, or resistance, to the current while fat-free mass permits a greater current flow. Thus the impedance is used to measure the percentage of fat-free mass and the percentage of body fat. The accuracy depends on hydration, skin temperature and alcohol and food consumption. It is less accurate for very lean or obese individuals.
Weight Lifting Tip # 8 - Drink a lot of water.
If you really want to build muscle then you will have to drink a lot of fluid. You should be drinking at least 12 to 15 glass of water every day. Water is very much essential for good health and is the key to weight lifting.
Remember this weight lifting tip, in order to make muscle, you need water. Our body consists of 60% of water only. If your body is dehydrated, then you cannot have good muscles. So, if you are a true weight lifter and want to build muscle, than you must drink a lot of water and keep your body hydrated.
Drinking a lot of water is an important weight lifting tip and shouldn't be neglected.
For more information on fluids and water then go to our fluids section.
Weight Lifting Tip # 9 - Maintain variety
Weight Lifting only gets boring if you allow it to. I suspect many people don't lift weights because they think it will be boring. Just remember to change your routine periodically so that you don't lose motivation and keep things fresh and your body responding to your training resulting in more chances of continual of the programme.
When you start a weight lifting programme, gains are rapid but get slow down as they progress. If you follow the same workout week after week, you will soon lose interest, your workout intensity will drop, training gains will slow down and you will ultimately give up. Instead you could change the following aspects:
- The exercises for each body part.
- The split of your programme.
- The order of exercises.
- Change the reps.
- The number of sets
- The rest period
- The weights used.
Also take a complete rest from weight training every few months and spend a week or two doing a completely different activity.
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