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How to Win With Meal Planning

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How to Win With Meal Planning

Meal planning seems to be one of those things that people are afraid of. I often wonder why anyone is afraid of planning their meals. To me, not planning ahead on the meals is a recipe for failure. In this article I give you x tips on how to win with meal planning.

  • Planning meals handles calorie counting. When you are trying to diet for a show or a photo shoot, you need to keep track of your calories. Planning your meals ahead of time takes care of that for you. Calorie counting is not about tracking calories as you eat, it is about planning a menu and counting the calories during the planning process.
  • Planning meals gives you strength. Each of us has been in the situation where we forgot to bring a meal with us to an event. Planning your meals ahead of time will remove this issue. You will have your food prepared in advance so all you will need to do is bring the food along with you wherever you are going.
  • Planning meals keeps you on plan. By planning and cooking your meals ahead of time you will stick to your plan. You are less likely to cheat on your diet if you have planned ahead. I personally find this works with everything, including cardio exercise.
  • Planning meals gets you lean. As mentioned, by avoiding cheating on your diet you are bound to get leaner and leaner. Meal planning assists with this process. 
  • Planning meals gives you success. The focus that you get from planning your meals is going to bleed over into other areas. This is going to bring about success for you.

Meal planning is not something to be afraid of. It is something you should embrace because of the good things that happen when you plan ahead. Tell us your strategies for planning meals by leaving a comment below.

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How to Stay Motivated Long-Term

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How to Stay Motivated Long-term

The question of how to stay motivated long-term is one I hear quite often. It is something that is 100% mental and while there are tips that can help you stay motivated, it is entirely up to you and how you execute mentally. I have recorded a video on the topic as well as attached some simple tips below.

  • Bite-sized goals are key. We get motivated by achieving goals that are set. Most people forget that small goals are good at first. I personally have set 1 hour goals like “I will drink 2 glasses of water in the next hour” to help with motivation. Try it and when you start stringing together a bunch of accomplished goals, watch your motivation soar.
  • Slowly increase goal length. As you accomplish your bite-sized goals, slowly increase goals to be 1 day in length, then 2 days, then a week. You will continue to see your motivation soar as you accomplish these goals.
  • Enter a transformation contest. The desire to win will be motivation enough for you. You will stay highly motivated by the prize package that awaits your victory.
  • Start an accountability blog. This is a blog where you tell people everything you've done. If you are honest, this is a great way to stay motivated. Who wants to admit that they failed at the plan? You will write about your plan and then keep people updated. They will encourage you and hold you accountable. It is how I got started and it works.

Motivation is something we all deal with, but it is not something that is difficult to beat in the end. Just adjust a few small mental issues and you will be well on your way to success. Please watch the video below and then leave us a comment on how you maintain motivation for the long-term.

[pro-player width='420′ height='315′ type='video']http://www.youtube.com/embed/b4sQBPxTDt4[/pro-player]

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How to Overcome Your Excuses

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How to Overcome Excuses

Everyone who trains for competition has had to deal with how to overcome excuses at one time or another. This is really a mental attitude topic and one that can be very difficult to deal with. I have 5 tips for dealing with and overcoming excuses.

  • Schedule workouts like an appointment. Working out should not be an option, it should be something you do just like any other important appointment. I am sure you would not flake out on a date with your wife or husband, so why flake out on an appointment with yourself? Put your training plan in your calendar and then stick to it. Don't change the appointment for anyone or anything.
  • Plan your training in advance. Always head into the gym with a plan in mind. It is best to take your training journal (you do keep one, right?) and write your workout plan down before even going to the gym. This gives you something that you need to do/accomplish while at the gym and mentally that will give you more motivation to get it completed.
  • Do your training at a time when nothing else can get in the way. I workout in the early morning because nothing else can get in my way. My only challenge is getting up. Once that is handled the rest is easy. I can then avoid issues in life that cause roadblocks on the way to my training sessions.
  • Get a training partner. It is rare that two people will flake on the same workout. Just get a workout partner and you will know someone is waiting for you at the gym and you will complete the workout. It is harder to disappoint someone else than it is to disappoint yourself.
  • Get your rest! Many times we make excuses because our body is exhausted. Be sure you are getting sufficient rest. Training for a competition can be grueling, but you still need adequate rest.

I believe it is possible to overcome your excuses, but you have to exercise some discipline in order to do so. What ideas do you have for overcoming excuses? Share them in the comments below.

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How Hard Do You Train?

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trainhard

How hard to you train when you are in the gym? How hard are you pushing yourself? Have you ever stopped to really think about this issue?

I am a big believer that the harder you train the better your results. I honestly think that most of us don’t train anywhere near as hard as we think we do. In fact, I’m willing to bet that most people train about half as hard as they really should/could. We tend to stop sets too early. We “fail” before actual failure of the muscle group. We don’t push through the discomfort. After all of that, we wonder why we are not getting the results we want as fast as we want.

I was one who trained hard. I pushed myself harder and harder every session. Even now, as I think back about it, I can honestly say that I left it on the gym floor. However, I now know that there are ways to train even harder and I was missing that point. I would have seen better results and sooner had I used certain techniques that I am now aware of. You should examine your own training for these common deficiencies.

  • Ending sets too quickly. We quit while we still have some reps left in us. If the bar is moving we have not failed yet, so why are we quitting?
  • Not using heavy enough weights. When an exercise is planned for 10 repetitions, the final set of 10 should be close to impossible to complete. It should be a real stretch. If it isn’t, you are not training hard enough.
  • Not having a plan when entering the gym. I know this may not seem to have anything to do with training hard, but it really does. When you don’t have a plan you tend to rest more in between sets. This lowers the intensity tremendously.
  • Skipping items on the plan. We get into the gym and start to feel the intensity. It is uncomfortable. As a result, we make the decision to skip certain exercises or we lower the number of sets. If we want to train as hard as possible we have to stick to the well thought out plan we came in with.
  • Not training in the full range of motion. When we begin to feel discomfort it is a naturally tendency to shorten the range of motion on an exercise. This means we are not working as hard as possible. Don’t shorten up that bicep curl just to get it done.

Have a listen to the video below and then leave a comment about how hard you are really training. We all want to hear!

[pro-player width='420′ height='315′ type='video']http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT4kZbM_F7w[/pro-player]

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Everyone Loves the Posedown

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posedown

The posedown is one of the key moments in every bodybuilding competition. It is a time when the competitors get to show their best stuff. They move around the stage and flex their muscles for the judges. It looks easy to some extent—that is until you try it.

As you know, I am in the middle of Mission Grand Prix. Part of this process is learning to pose properly. I take posing lessons once a week from a coach (Ken Turchek). He has taught me all of the mandatory poses. I have learned a lot during the past month and through my own practice posing sessions. As I have gone through the process I have come up with the following thoughts on posing:

  • Posing is not easy. In order to show the muscles properly you must flex tightly. Even if you are flexing your chest, your legs need to be flexed as well. It is hard work!
  • Posing is not intuitive. There are things about posing that just don’t make a lot of sense until you actually do them. The chest, for instance, pops out differently than you’d expect.
  • Posing can be helped by training. You can improve certain poses by doing certain exercises during your training sessions. To work on the most muscular “crab” pose you can do cable crossovers at the end of a chest training. It will help tremendously.
  • Posing takes practice. You can’t just learn to pose in a short amount of time. My advice to any aspiring bodybuilder is spend time with a coach and then spend even more time practicing on your own.
  • Posing is different for everyone. There are small amounts of leeway when posing that you can use to emphasize strengths and hide weaknesses. You have to know where that leeway is in order to take advantage.
  • Posing reveals your conditioning. When you pose your conditioning is totally exposed. If you have done a good job of conditioning the judges won’t notice much during your posing. At the same time, if you have not conditioned yourself well, the judges will see it in an instant.
  • Posing is tiring. I once did a posing session prior to a shoulder session. I was exhausted and the training session was that much more difficult as a result. I learned to never pose before training.

The takeaway here is that posing is essential to your success as a bodybuilder. Get on it early so that you have time to master it.

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