From the category archives:

Psychology

Killing the Resistance: How to Overcome the Forces Destroying Your Chances of Building Strength and Muscle

May 17, 2010

Lifting weights isn’t the enemy. Eating more food isn’t the enemy. Getting enough sleep isn’t the enemy.
Resistance is the enemy.
But what is resistance?
As Steven Pressfield in explains his book, The War of Art (which is mostly related to creative work, but is relevant in all aspects of living), resistance is all the junk that stops [...]

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How to Avoid Killing Your Motivation as You Build Muscle

April 26, 2010

I’ve written plenty of about how to be motivated when building muscle in the past, but there’s an important aspect of motivation that I have overlooked: it can go both ways.
There may be 2 great ways to be motivated, but if 3 other things are killing your motivation then you’re in a losing battle.

Form habits [...]

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What Would Make Your Strength Training Goals Inevitable?

April 16, 2010

Getting from A to B (in this case, from skinny to big) involves the huge hindrance of uncertainty. When you’re uncertain of something it leads to ineffectual action, self-doubt preventing your from progress and a sporadic tendency to act through ignorance.
And that’s where “inevitability statements” come in. All you have to do is answer the [...]

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How to Get out of a Muscle Building Rut

April 9, 2010

A few days ago I arrived home from a 10 day vacation on the other site of the country. While I spent plenty of time swimming I didn’t dedicated any energy towards strength training because I felt it would give my body a nice rest. In the past I’ve come back better then ever, but [...]

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Skinny Guy Positivity: How To Avoid Feeling Down in the Dumps

March 24, 2010

One of the most prominent traits of the average ectomorph is oversensitivity. This means that when you judge a situation to be negative it’ll seem more devastating than other body/personality types may interpret it.
Sacrificing realism isn’t the way to go – if you’re doing something wrong then that’s a negative point that you should [...]

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Do You Believe You Can Build Muscle, Gain Weight and Defy Your Ectomorph Genes?

March 8, 2010

Belief is a huge part of sustainable strength. If you don’t believe you can achieve your goals or that the approach your taking is reliable then failure is imminent. Sheer determination to get from A to B may get you most of the way, but it’ll be a long, hard road, compared to the mentally [...]

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The Top of Mind Approach

February 16, 2010

I’ve shared my disdain for will power in the past, and I thought it was worth sharing this quick strategy that is fairly obvious but easy to overlook at the same time. I missed my most recent training session and I was just thinking “why did this happen?” The answer was dastardly simple.
It just slipped [...]

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Don’t Worry About It: 7 Strategies to Never Stress About Strength Building Ever Again

February 3, 2010

I have a million miles to walk (figuratively of course) until I reach the strength, muscle and weight goals I’ve set for myself, but over the past few weeks I’ve been feeling an increased sense of effortlessness come over me, and truthfully, I feel no clingy desire to be absolutely ripped.
That doesn’t mean I’ve given [...]

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You Can’t Handle Short Term Thinking

January 22, 2010

I’ve written previously about the long term mindset and how it pertains to building muscle as an ectomorph, but because this is such an important topic, and I know how stubborn most people are (I include myself in that too), I thought I’d continue to beat this dead horse by sharing some reasons why short [...]

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15 Motivation Hacks for Skinny Guys

January 20, 2010

Motivation is a key component in sustainable strength building and for that reason I thought it worthy to dive into some so-called “new age” motivation tricks, as well as more grounded, practical ideas that any skinny guy can use to not give up.

Visualize. What will you look like when you’re not skinny? What will it [...]

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