Working Out to Build Muscle Safely
How many people have you known to start working out or bodybuilding and then quit prematurely? Whether they had plans of reaching a certain weight and didn’t quite make it, or thought they would stick to a strict workout regimen for a full year but only exercised regularly for a couple of months, you’ve probably had many friends who didn’t quite reach or maintain their fitness goals.
In fact, you might have a similar story yourself. If you have tried to get and stay fit but haven’t quite made it there yet, or if you haven’t started yet but want to avoid the pitfalls and mistakes you’ve seen other people make, this article will help you understand what causes people to miss their fitness goals and how you can achieve yours instead of failing.
Building muscle and getting fit are difficult at times. The last few reps of any workout are the hardest, and also the most difficult to overcome. Maintaining a healthy diet with enough protein to build muscle but not so much that it overloads your kidneys can also be a difficult line to walk. And having the discipline to schedule times to work out is perhaps the hardest of all, or the hardest to stay motivated enough to do long-term. Not only that, but if you’re too motivated, you’ll likely overextend yourself by using too much weight right away and sustain an injury.
If that sounds foreboding, you’re right: serious fitness plans are challenging and at times intimidating. But the thing all of the obstacles above (as well as most others that we haven’t named) have in common is that they are chiefly mental. So how do you conquer these mental obstacles? The strategy to use involves only two steps:
1. Start Small
Starting small means using less weight in your early workouts than you need to. You don’t have anything to prove, and working out with more weight than you can handle will lead to injury or discomfort, which will in turn force or encourage you to stop early. Starting small will also allow you to add weight consistently, which will help keep you motivated by seeing progress as you build muscle. Which brings us to…
2. Track Your Progress and Habits
Studies have shown that with any kind of work, and any kind of goal-based plan, measuring your efforts will almost always increase those efforts. In other words, you’ll work out more if you keep track of when you do. Tracking your progress will also allow you to see what gains or losses you’ve made, which will help you understand how much muscle you’ve built, thereby motivating you in a huge way and allowing you to quantify how effective the way you’ve been working out has been.
If you utilize these two simple tools in your journey toward a muscular physique, you’ll have much better chances than most of succeeding without giving up or getting injured. So get started but be patient — good luck and happy tracking!
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