The Psychology Of Fitness

In part one of this post, I talked about the first three steps in being able to achieve the body you want.  This post will talk about the last 6 steps you would need to take to Get the Body You Want.

# 4 – Utilize Smart Workout Techniques – Many people get lost in the minutia of details when it comes to working out, negating the sound principles of hard, consistent work and smarter nutritional habits.  After you have those three aspects down, then you can start to break down those other details further.  To try to utilize “smart workout techniques” before you know your body well enough to see its weaknesses and strengths and before you truly know your likes and dislikes, is like trying to prevent a fire by spraying the whole house with a fire extinguisher before there’s an actual fire – It may help when there’s a fire, but there are much better ways at preventing one.

The bottom line is that most people will go into working out with a “goal” in mind.  They either want to lose weight or feel better, but they rarely know what they truly want.  They say they want to “lose weight” but in actuality, they want to lose weight, get toned and feel confident.  Or they say they want to “feel better” but that really means that they want to sleep better, make better food choices and have more energy throughout the day.

The bottom line with this step is that for the most part, they only have an inkling of what they truly want to see from their workouts.  They don’t know how to express it and although they may see progress towards one of their original goals, they don’t really have the complete picture of their “goals” until after they’ve worked the first three steps.

With that said, smart workout techniques (this step) is really about Rehab/Prehab movements to prevent an injury, smart stretching and exercise techniques that will actually lead them to what their “real goals” are – after they’ve discovered them through hard, consistent work and better eating habits.

# 5 – Smart Programming – I talked about working hard in spurts and “maintaining” in spurts.  Utilizing Smart Exercise Techniques (previous step) is all about figuring out what you want, what your weaknesses are and aligning your exercise techniques around those goals.  Smart Programming moves beyond that into either sticking with the basic movements of putting on muscle, sport specific movements or muscle confusion for fat loss.

For example, once you’ve started the smart exercise techniques, you can start a longer term program that will allow you to cycle between different programs, such as a gain and leaning out phase for those looking to do bodybuilding, or a phase where you actively try to lose fat and then simply maintain that fat loss with easy to sustain habits, thereby making it a lifestyle change.

The key with this step is to allow yourself to go hard and then maintain those benefits that you’ve rightfully earned, without burning yourself out in the long-run.

#6 – Smart Relationship Building – Up until this point, you may have been able to do all of this by yourself, but if you are to take your body to an even higher level, you need to build relationships with other like-minded individuals who’s company you enjoy.  This could be simply shooting the shit with some of the other guys at the gym, finding a workout partner who helps push you to higher levels or hiring a good personal trainer.  This step done correctly (ie., pushing each other to new heights, getting valuable feedback, etc.) is what will separate the top 10% from the rest.

# 7 – Better Nutrition – Better Nutrition when you are first starting out is easy, since most people eat like crap and wouldn’t know what good nutrition is.  At this point you should still be seeing progress from these 7 steps, but if you are to continue to see progress towards your “real goals,” then you must get your nutrition refined either further.  This step will typically require more discipline and definitely separates you from most of the people that you will interact with on a daily basis.  This is why, the previous step (smart relationship building) is so important.  You need to know that there’s someone else out there whose company you enjoy that will see things as you see them when it comes to a commitment to get the “Body You Want,” so that you don’t feel like a social outcast.

# 8 – Supplements – After those previous 7 steps, this is really where supplements should come into play (although I think that they could also come into play after the third step, for the “basics”).  After the first 7 steps though, if you notice you need an extra hand, that is where individualized supplements can come into play.

For supplements, there are basics that I think most people should take most of the time, and then there are individualized supplements that people should take based on their individual needs.  In a future post, I will talk about the basics.  The individual ones are really only for those that want to see results much faster, have specific health issues, have trouble obtaining and absorbing certain vitamins and minerals from their diet and/or are training for a bodybuilding show.

# 9 – Smart, Hard, Consistent Work – Just in case you started to get lost in coming up with the “smartest workout program EVER” or relied completely on supplements, or start to think that you can continue to see gains by manipulating your diet only, I don’t want you to get dis-illusioned.  Smart, Hard, Consistent Work will yield better results in 90% of the people than all of that other non-sense and “best” methods – and that’s the bottom line.

Now that you know the steps, ask yourself if you’ve done the first three steps before trying to incorporate these final six steps?

Start with the basics and progress from there.

If you have any questions on any of these steps, please feel free to comment below.