Motivation For Muscle Building

When starting a new muscle building program motivation will be high, as you will be quite keen to put some new slabs of muscle on your physique. But what happens five or six weeks later when you are tired, unmotivated, and have to work late? Will you still have the discipline to make it to the gym?

For most people the answer to this question will be no. Staying consistently motivated to push your body to its limits day after day in the gym can be quite the challenge. As humans, we are most excited about things when they are new. I like to call this the “honeymoon phenomenon”. Novelty and motivation seem to go hand in hand for us, and as novelty fades, motivation takes the trip along with it.

Okay, So What Can I Do About It?

The trick to getting around this lies in the fact that novelty can be manufactured as well as discovered. In other words, it will be up to you to create novelty when it appears to have waned.

When couples get in a rut with their intimate lives, they tend to mix things up a bit to add something fresh to the relationship. They may take a trip, get involved with a new pastime, or spice things up in the bedroom with a new toy or two. You have to apply this same philosophy to your workouts.

Keep it Challenging

One of the best ways to achieve this is to set small performance goals in your workouts. Let us suppose that in your last chest workout you bench pressed 225 pounds for 6 reps. When your next chest workout comes around you could go for 7 reps. This does not only work with increasing reps or weight you could add an extra set and attempt to hit your target repetitions again. If you use a bit of creative thinking I am sure you can think of a lot of ways to add these little mini-challenges to your workouts.

Change Exercise Variations

If you have been performing back squats for the last few months, switch to front squats or Zercher squats and set some new performance goals for yourself. When you master new exercises you will promote more growth as well as improve the performance of your nervous system in response to a variety of stimuli.

Make a Motivational Mural

Go through every muscle magazine and website you can think of and pick out a bunch of images that inspire you. Cut or print them out and make a mural out of them, and put it somewhere you can look at it often. If you feel like slacking off and missing the gym take a good long look at your mural and remind yourself of what your goals are, and how badly you want to achieve them.

You may have to work at it a bit to keep yourself motivated, but the tips above will make the job a little easier, and keep you steadily moving toward your ultimate goals.

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