No matter what you are doing, your mind is the most powerful tool at your disposal.

No longer seeing improvements in the mirror?

Been stuck at 120lbs on the bench press?

Don't feel like working out anymore?

The mind is often a forgotten piece of the workout puzzle. It's easy to forget about concentrating and mentally preparing yourself for a workout.  All fitness goals are both physically and mentally demanding. You may not realize it but it could be your mind that causing any of the above mentioned problems.

In fact, mental preparation is so important that in his book, The Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, Arnold Schwartzenegger dedicated an entire chapter to it, Mind over Matter: Mind, the Most Powerful Tool. In it, Arnold emphasizes the point with a story about Franco Columbu, his one time training partner and close friend, who was performing squats at a local gym:

Franco got under 500 pounds, squatted down, and couldn't get back up. We grabbed the bar and helped him get it back on the rack... Just then four or five Italian-American kids from New York came in. "Wow," they said, "there's Franco! Hey, Franco!" They were great fans, and were looking forward to watching him work out...I took Franco aside and told him, "Franco, these guys think you're the king. You can't get under five hundred pounds again and fail." All of a sudden his face changed. He looked at me with big eyes, realizing he was on the spot. Then he went out onto the street and spent a while psyching himself up, taking deep breaths and concentrating on the lift.

He stalked back into the gym, grabbed the bar, and, instead of the six reps he was supposed to do with 500 pounds, he did eight!

This story demonstrates the importance of the mind to fitness.  A lack of concentration and mental preparation can affect anyone, even professional bodybuilders.  Below are three strategies to overcome a slumping mind and get your fitness goals back on track.

Deep and Concentrated Breathing

Before starting any workout, whether running or weight lifting, take 2 to 3 minutes to breath properly and get your mind focused.  To do so, go to a quiet area like the gym stretching room/area.  Sit on the ground, bench or chair and relax.  Straighten your back and sit upright with you shoulders back, chin slightly tilted forward, as if someone was picking you up by the crown of your head.  Now close your eyes.

Clear your mind and take a deep breath in through your nose.  You should be inhaling into your stomach so that it expands to the fullest extend possible.  Hold that breath for 1 second and breath out through your mouth. This is extremely important, your chest should NOT rise and fall with this type of breathing. Instead, it should feel like you're pushing your stomach out as far as possible.  Continue this for 2 to 3 minutes ensuring your mind is kept clear of all distracting thoughts and images.

The purpose of this breathing exercise is to relax your muscles and focus your mind.  If you concentrate properly, you should be able to forget all external stressors and focus entirely on your upcoming workout.  This will help you be more in tuned with your body and identify your true muscle failure point, the point where you've fully fatigued your muscles.  Without mental preparation, it's easier to quit well in advance of true failure.  In other words, you won't push yourself to your fullest, instead deferring to your comfort zone - much like sitting on the couch.  Going through the motions of a workout is one step away from true laziness!

Visualization

Visualization is an extremely powerful tool. It involves using your imagination to picture yourself achieving your goals and exercise targets.  The process is so effective because it focuses your mind on your ability to achieve a goal while eliminating any negative thoughts that may be holding you back. Subconsciously, you trick your mind into believing you've already achieved your fitness goal or exercise.

Supporting the power of visualization is a famous study by Dr. Blasotto at the University of Chicago. Dr. Blasotto's goal was to determine the effect of visualization. As such, he took a group of basketball players, assessed their free throw percentages and then randomly placed them in one of three groups for 30 days:

Group 1 didn't do anything, they were told to forget about basketball. At the end of the study, this group showed no improvement in their free throw abilities.

Group 2 practiced free throw shooting everyday for one hour. At the end of the study, this group improved their free throw abilities by 24%.

Group 3 didn't physically practice free throw shooting but did spend 1 hour each day visualizing themselves shooting successful free throws. At the end of the study, this group improved their free throw abilities by 23%!

Incorporating visualization into your workout is easy.

While you prepare your breathing as described above, concentrate on your upcoming goals. If you are hoping to bench press 180 pounds, picture yourself loading the plates on the bar.  Imagine a camera is positioned above your body and you are watching yourself lift the weight for 8 repetitions.  Concentrate on how your muscles will feel and what the bar looks like as you raise it and lower it.  How will you feel during the exercise and what will you think once you rack the bar again. Once you stand up, how will your chest look with the extra blood rushing into it?

Take a minute before every exercise to visualize yourself performing that exercise.  Focus intently on achieving your goal or exercise target (i.e. performing 10 reps or running for an extra minute) and visualize every aspect of that upcoming action.  This works for every type of goal and target; if you're running, imagine how your legs will feel as you approach your target time, what will you look like after running for a long period of time, what will you be thinking after you've achieved the target, etc.

Its important to visualize every aspect of your goal or target. By doing so, you make the visualization more vivid, realistic and compelling for your subconscious.

Positive Thinking

Though positive thinking alone won't always result in you achieving your fitness goal, without it you will always fail to achieve that goal.  In other words, if you don't believe you can do something, 100% of the time, you won't be able to do it.  If I don't believe I can make it to the NHL, I will never make it to the NHL, plain and simple. If you don't believe you can lose 20 pounds, you will never lose 20 pounds.  This isn't to say that believing you can lose the weight is the only factor to success, but it is the most important.

Positive thinking is closely related to visualization. Both involve believing in yourself though with visualization, you don't necessarily have to believe you can achieve a goal to visualize yourself doing so.

I can not stress enough how important positive thinking is to any fitness goal.  You absolutely have to believe in yourself or you'll never be successful.  While it seems so simple, its easy to let negative thinking consume you.  There's a comfort in negative thinking.  You never have to push yourself to achieve something new.  Other people who've failed at a fitness goal, for whatever reason, will be the first to remind you how hard it is to get in shape.  Unconsciously or consciously, these people want you to fail because if you succeed, it leaves them behind in the world of failure - there's comfort in numbers.

So how do you incorporate positive thinking into your fitness regime?

Inundate yourself with positive reaffirmations. Write a goal statement, like the following, on a piece of paper and put it somewhere you can read it aloud every morning and night (like the bathroom mirror):

I can lose 5 pounds of fat within the 6 weeks. It may not be easy but I am dedicated to losing 5 pounds of fat and will do everything in my power to achieve my goal. Nothing can hold me back from losing 5 pounds of fat.

Reading the statement aloud incorporates two different modes of input, your sight and your hearing.  This technique has proven effective in learning and reinforcing a concept in your mind.  By reiterating the goal repeatedly, you'll be sure to reinforce your ability to achieve the goal and again, subconsciously build a mental foundation for success.

You can either develop your own statement or use the following template:

I can [insert goal here] within the next [insert time limit here]. It may not be easy but I am dedicated to [insert goal here] and will do everything in my power to achieve my goal. Nothing can hold me back from [insert goal here].

Summary

• The mind is a fundamental component to any fitness goal
• It's easy to over look the mind while trying to achieve a fitness goal but doing so could be sabotaging your results
• There are 3 very effective strategies for overcoming a slumping mind to get your fitness goals back on track:
  1. Deep and concentrated breathing to relax your muscles and focus your mind
  2. Visualization to imagine yourself achieving your goals and exercise targets
  3. Positive thinking to believe in yourself and overcome negative thoughts