Expectations On Returning To The Gym

FINALLY! After what seems like an eternity, the gyms are going to reopen soon and some have already. We have been anxiously waiting for this moment. Perhaps there is a gleam in your eye, a spring in your step, an eager I-want-to-kill-it-in-the-gym snarl on your face. Regardless, we are ready!

But we need to adjust our expectations. There will be a new norm because of COVID-19: being extra diligent with cleaning the equipment before and/or after use, washing hands, not touching your face, and potentially booking training times to reduce the number of members training at the same time to give everyone space to name just a few considerations. Booking a training time may be a challenge especially if you train more than an hour. Yet what’s a bodybuilder to do when they only have a one hour training window? Does that mean if you can’t train the way you want, don’t train at all? Not at all but it does require you to adjust what you expect, given the circumstances, to accomplish when you’re in the gym. You may need to plan which exercises you do at the gym and which exercises you do afterwards, i.e., in the parking lot, at home, in your backyard, etc. Not ideal but it’s better than nothing. Learning to mentally accept, not like, this fact will help you be in a positive head space when training. The alternative is to focus on what you can’t do in the gym and this negative mindset can affect your performance both physiologically and mentally.

Another adjustment to our expectations involves returning to the gym but not returning to the weights we lifted prior to COVID-19. Unless you had access to a good gym during the lockdown period, it is not realistic to resume with the same weights. If you choose to do so, injury is a high probability because your ligaments and tendons haven’t been exposed to that training load in awhile. Remember it has been a good 2 months so start slow and gradually increase the weight over the coming weeks. In fact, ensure the first set or two is a ‘doable’ weight before increasing it. Focus on that mind muscle connection. Your body doesn’t know what you’re lifting/pushing/pulling; it only knows the degree of resistance. Other suggestions would involve doing more warm-up sets to better assess your current training tolerance, avoid training to failure for the first week or so as the purpose right now is to get reacquainted with the weights so use variety, i.e., dumbbells, barbells, cables, machines, and stretch! Stretching should be done after every training session and it would be reasonable to assume you may be tighter in certain areas (for me it is my hip flexors) over the lockdown.

Check your ego at the door, manage your expectations, train smart and be safe!

Don’t Waste Your Pain

Pain is part of life. You don’t have to like it but you can benefit from it. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the following: “pain makes me grow; growing is what I want; therefore, for me pain is pleasure.” While this can be true with physical training it can also be applied to our mental interpretation of pain. Michael Jordan stated “failure gave me strength; pain was my motivation.” Losing a game or not performing as expected on game/show day can defeat you or it can catapult you to an even grittier level of focus and determination. At the time though, the pain may overtake your ability to see through it. The idea that you might one day be grateful for your hurt and disappointment seems unthinkable.

Think of a puzzle. We cannot see the big picture for our lives.  On the front of the puzzle box, we can see what the overall puzzle picture is supposed to look like. But when you look at one piece, you may be at a loss figuring out where it goes, how it fits. As in life, when something negative happens, we often ask ourselves “why?” “Why did this have to happen?” The painful situation/event doesn’t make sense, i.e., you trained hard, stuck to your diet, tried to get as much rest as possible, stayed hydrated and so on but despite your best efforts, your efforts were not rewarded.

Now how do you define “rewarded”? Does “rewarded” mean winning your category, scoring the winning shot or the most shots in the game, or running the fastest time, i.e., being rewarded is correlated with your end results? That is one definition but if that is your only definition, you are setting yourself up for pain without the gain. The gain is what did you learn from that experience? In order to grow from a painful experience, you need to focus your mind on looking for the lesson, as this will enable you to take your power back. The next step is to take action! What can you fine tune and/or do differently next time to obtain more optimal results? By learning and doing things differently, you can transform your pain into motivation, drive, unrelenting focus, and ultimately breakthroughs.

Throughout our lives, we may not understand when negative things happen to us. What we do know is how we feel about it: sad, angry, disappointed, frustrated, pain. Yet we always have a choice. Even in our pain we have a choice to make. We get to decide whether we will take the opportunity and grow or whether we will let it consume us.

Pain changes us. How the pain changes you is up to you. You can come out bitter or defeated or come out better, stronger, and more confident. That difficulty is an opportunity to get stronger, to develop character, to gain new confidence. Anybody can give up but that pain isn’t there to stop you; it’s an opportunity to learn, do things differently and make breakthroughs.

All of us go through pain. Don’t just go through it, grow through it!

Feeling Like a Failure?

These types of feelings suck! And the problem is the negative self-talk we have with ourselves multiplies faster than rabbits. Now what? How do we stop feeling this way? We don’t want to but when we don’t feel motivated, compare our current lack of accomplishments with our past accomplishments, compare ourselves to others, feel like we can’t do anything right, and so on, we can feel like a failure and hopeless about our situation. Can that change?

Let’s look at the definition of failure. Do you define failure as not accomplishing a goal/task or is it more not even attempting to accomplish that goal/task? This author advocates the latter definition: giving up. While it’s common not to complete a goal, the issue lies with the person feeling like a failure because they interpret their action/inaction as their identity. Take for instance a bodybuilder competing and not winning the overall to get their Pro card. Are they as a person a failure?  Many may believe so but I respectfully disagree. That bodybuilder failed at their goal of earning their Pro card but that does not make them, as a person, a failure.

Consider the scenario of a bodybuilder who wins their category yet still feels like they are “not good enough” or downplay their success. Likewise, there are bodybuilders who don’t earn their Pro card or don’t win at the higher level Pro shows but are very successful individuals.

So how should you feel when you don’t achieve your goal? You can feel disappointed, frustrated, confused, and perhaps even angry as you have a right to your feelings but avoid taking it personally. Not achieving your goals is simply that; not achieving your goals. Nothing more; nothing less. Now you may need to re-examine your goal and make appropriate adjustments but keep in mind the purpose of your goal. Is your purpose extrinsic, i.e., to get sponsored, or intrinsic, i.e., to challenge yourself on how you can change your body over a set period of time? Intrinsic motivation is healthier because it’s about your self-growth; it’s for you. Often people fall into the trap of doing things to please others and that becomes their main source of motivation. These “people pleasers” struggle with feeling successful as it’s determined too much on what other people think. Do these types of people have any recourse? Absolutely!

There is a concept called self acceptance and forgiveness. Often, we suck at this too but it can be done. A first step is rewiring our brains about what failure means. I can’t quote where I read this but it’s very fitting: “I will have temporary defeats in my life but I will never have permanent failure.” This statement alone gives us an “out” in that we don’t have to be perfect; we don’t have to win all the time. We just need to know how to pivot our goal, our mindset, our assumptions, our definitions, our methods as we always have the power of choice. Don’t give up! If you need help, reach out to a professional. They can help you develop a healthier mindset, one that will lead you to more actionable success and feelings of accomplishment.

Difficult situations can define us, diminish us, or develop us but we ultimately decide so choose well.

Post-Traumatic Growth: The New Norm after COVID-19

COVID-19 has shaken our ways of knowing and doing things to the core. Feelings can range from helplessness, shock, denial and disbelief. Our behaviours can be affected as well, i.e., getting easily confused, having difficulty focussing, and experiencing insomnia. Coping reactions can range from identifying with various possible negative outcomes to feeling detached. The question most often asked is “What is wrong with me?” Be aware that reaction is normal given the circumstances of an abnormal situation created by this pandemic but there are ways to transcend the negativity and feelings of helplessness.

We’re living through a collective trauma, but we don’t have to bow under its weight. Think of an earthquake. Do you live beneath the debris or do you build something that is better? Trauma’s power comes from rendering us powerless. It’s time to retake our power. How? The answer is reframing! By reframing your negative experiences as ways to achieve greater self-awareness and heightened compassion and deeper/more meaningful relationships both with others as well as with yourself. Post-traumatic growth is finding new meaning in your life. This could include changing how you conduct your business, changing your career, having a renewed appreciation for life and developing a plan on how you will try various opportunities, reconnecting with people after years of not communicating, learning a new skill or hobby, re-evaluating your short and/or long term goals, giving back to society in some way, and so on.

There is the expression to make lemonade out of lemons. Despite the sacrifices and/or suffering we endure, we can ask ourselves how can we emerge from this pandemic stronger and kinder than before?

I will end with a quote by Robert Leahy, PhD., New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center: “‘view this pandemic as a chapter in a book you are writing - chapters always end and if this is your book then how it plays out is totally up to you.”

Happy writing!

Lagging body part = your mind

People in general can be their own worst enemy and bodybuilders are no exception. We tend to be very aware of our flaws but do we do everything we can to address these flaws? Let’s examine that.

If I were to ask a bodybuilder what’s their weakest/lagging body part, they could name it immediately. If I were to ask a bodybuilder whether or not they have been eating on plan, they could answer that quickly too. If I conducted a poll among bodybuilders about what they struggle with the most during their competition prep, many reply that the mental piece is tougher than the physical piece. The physical piece of what to eat, how much & when as well as their training regiment is more ‘black or white’ in that it’s more clear cut; however, the mental piece holds a lot of grey.

Mentally preparing for a show has many challenges in the best of circumstances but add lower carbs & calories and feeling depleted into the mix and the ability to think clearly and rationally tends to decrease and we tend to gravitate towards ‘emotional logic’. The problem is that logic is usually missing from ‘emotional logic’, which can consist of listening to people who are not your coach (assuming they are knowledgeable & competent), following what other athletes are doing based on what you see on social media, comparing your current progress to others who post on social media, etc. Emotional logic focuses on where you’re not and being open to ‘doing whatever it takes’ to get the result you want. That desperation can lead to making choices that hinder more than help.

Now there is an element of logic in seeing what you need to do to improve. A lagging body part can be addressed with adjusting your training and likewise a diet can be adjusted based on your current macros and putting them in line with your goals. If you need help with either scenario, you can and should consult with your coach. Similarly, I recommend you work with a mental game coach to help you if you struggle with the mental aspects of prep. This can include but is not limited to doubting your prep, coach, and/or exercise/diet plan, doubting your progress and worrying that you won’t be ready on show day, fearing that you won’t be “good enough” especially if you know you’ll be competing against someone who has beaten you in the past or even just comparing yourself to the pics on social media, overtraining, training after an injury, difficulty dealing with distractions (e.g., relationship issues, Covid-19), overanalysing everything, fearing letting others down, and the list goes on.

Like preparing for a competition, mental prep does not begin during peak week. It’s a process in that it takes time to learn how to exercise the mind properly. To get what you’ve always gotten, keep doing what you’re doing. If you want to improve your mental game, work with someone who has expertise in this area to guide you on proven strategies to elevate your performance and results.

Crisis: What’s Your Move?

What is a crisis? The dictionary cites a crisis as “a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger.” That does not sound good. The pandemic is one such example but there are many others. We don’t want to feel stressed; it doesn’t feel good and can be debilitating. We often ask ourselves why this (crisis/issue) had to happen? We assume no good can come from it. Or can it?

Do we choose difficulty? No. Can we grow from difficulties? Yes. Our experiences, both positive and negative, help shape who we are, our thoughts, how we view the world, our choices, etc. Problems make us grow; they mold us into who we are today.

We have a choice: are we a victim or a victor? Despite the crisis and the associated fallouts, do we allow ourselves to become buried or do we slowly push the rubble aside to make a new path? In this respect, a crisis can be viewed as an opportunity. Without the problem, there would be no need to change what we’re doing and sometimes we settle for where we are rather than push ourselves to achieve our potential. Thus, the problem is a gift, an opportunity to do something different and thereby experience different results.

Our entire life can change in one moment. Do you know how to pivot towards positive change? Ask yourself what is one area in your life that needs improvement? What do you need to do or change to make that happen? Are you committed to going outside of your comfort zone, what you are used to doing? If you keep doing what you have been doing, can you get to where you want to go? If not, what are your obstacles? How can you begin to address these obstacles? What is one thing you can do right now to take one step closer to where you want to be? Make a decision to take action now. It doesn’t have to be a big step. The action could be drafting a concrete plan of action.

Life involves many hardships, and while we may not choose them, we can choose how we respond to them. Life isn’t about what happens to us; life is about what happens for us. No change? No breakthroughs.

Now get out of your head and comfort zone and make lemonade out of lemons. The choice and opportunity awaits you so take it!

How To Cope With Plateaus During COVID-19?

Have you hit a plateau? Do you lack motivation? Are you eating out of boredom? Guess what? You’re not alone but that doesn’t mean you can’t change that. How? Recall what you did pre-pandemic. What did you do to overcome a plateau or get motivated? Much of the time it helps to be accountable to someone. This could include connecting with a coach online, a friend, someone in your household but basically you’re looking for an accountability partner.

Do you ever feel like your goals/intentions are crashing? When my computer crashes, I do a reboot and similarly when we feel like we’re crashing we need to reboot, specifically reboot our mind. We do this by changing things up, i.e., if you’ve set goals and haven’t been able to follow them, change the goal and make it smaller, more attainable. For example, if you haven’t worked out or even walked due to a lack of energy and/or motivation, mentally gear yourself up to do a 4 minute tabata, which consists of 20 seconds of ‘work’, i.e., burpees followed by 10 seconds of marching in place. Repeat that for a total of 4 minutes and remember to stretch afterwards. This doesn’t seem as daunting because it’s only 4 minutes and you don’t need any equipment as the ‘work’ is based on high intensity body exercises. Another example could be slowly increasing your daily water intake. One small achievement can lead to more achievements which can increase your motivation.

They say positivity breeds positivity so if you’re feeling down, surround yourself with positive, motivating people. This can be following someone you respect through their podcasts, posts, and the like. We are not too old to learn; it’s more a matter of if we’re willing to try something new. Often, we feel ‘stuck’ as we keep repeating what we have been doing expecting a different result; yes that’s the definition of insanity. Even at home, we have social media to selectively choose positive individuals or even groups, i.e., Facebook, to read their experiences and how they actioned solutions for their struggles. We are not islands. We are on a planet called Earth so feel free to seek out positive fellow human beings for inspiration.

As humans, we are social creatures. Not all the time mind you but we value interactions and without the social interactions given COVID-19, this is a missing piece to our well being. A temporary solution is to reach out to others on a regular basis, i.e., to check on them and to have some form of connection with people outside of your home. For people outside of our home, this could be through calling them, text, email, social media chats, videoconferencing, and so on. If you are not alone at home, it can be irritating to be together all the time but try a bit harder to be thoughtful and patient. This is a trying time for most people if not everyone to some degree. Nerves will fray which is to be expected given the circumstances. Keep in mind the bigger picture: we are not alone.

In coping with plateaus, consider getting an accountability partner, reboot with smaller goals, surround yourself / connect with positive people, reach out and connect with others, adjust your expectations of those living in your household, and be kind whenever you can.