Mental Training Tactics For Health And Fitness Success

Understanding the mind's role in motivation and
behavior is one of the most critical elements in fitness success. If
you struggle with changing habits and behaviors or if you can’t get
motivated, then even the best training and nutrition program is not
much help.

A fascinating fact about your subconscious mind is
that it's completely deductive in nature. In other words, it’s fully
capable of working backwards from the end to the means. You don't need
to know how to reach a goal at the time you set the goal. If you
"program" only the desired outcome successfully into your "mental
computer," then your subconscious will take over and help you find the
information and means and carry out the actions necessary to reach it.

Many people are familiar with affirmations and
goal-setting as ways to give instructions to your subconscious mind.
But perhaps the ultimate mental training” technique is visualization.
In one respect, affirmation and visualization are the same, because
when you speak or think an affirmation first, that triggers a mental
image, being as the human brain "thinks" in pictures.

You can use visualization to plant goals into your
subconscious mind. You simply close your eyes, use your imagination and
mentally create pictures and run movies of your desired results. For
example, in your mind's eye, you can see the "body of your dreams".
If repeated consistently with emotion, mental images are accepted by
your subconscious as commands and this helps with changing habits,
behavior and performance.

Although there are some new and creative ways to use
visualization, (which you are about to learn), this is not a new
technique. Visualization has been used formally in the fields of sports
psychology and personal development for decades and philosophers have
discussed it for centuries:

“If you want to reach your goal, you must 'see the reaching' in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.”

- Zig Ziglar

“The use of mental imagery is one of the strongest and most effective strategies for making something happen for you.”

- Dr. Wayne Dyer

“Creative visualization is the technique of using your imagination to create what you want in your life.”

- Shakti Gawain

“Perhaps the most effective method of bringing
the subconscious into practical action is through the process of making
mental pictures - using the imagination.”

- Claude Bristol

"There is a law in psychology that if you form a
picture in your mind of what you would like to be, and you keep and
hold that picture there long enough, you will soon become exactly as
you have been thinking."

- William James, 1842-1910, Psychologist and Author

Despite these glowing endorsements and a long track
record, some people can’t get past feeling that this is just a "hokey"
self-help technique. Rest assured, however, that visualization is an
effective and time-tested method for increasing personal success that
has been used by some of the highest achievers the world.

The Soviets started to popularize visualization in
sports psychology back in the 1970's, as detailed in Charles Garfield's
landmark book, "Peak Performance." They dominated in many sports during
that period, which validated visualization anecdotally.

In the last 10-15 years, there has been some
groundbreaking new brain research which has validated visualization
scientifically. Here's something that was written recently by Dr.
Richard Restak, a neuroscientist and author of 12 books about the human
brain:

"The process of imagining yourself going through the motions of a
complex musical or athletic performance activates brain areas that
improve your performance. Brain scans have placed such intuitions on a
firm neurological basis. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans
reveal that the mental rehearsal of an action activates the prefontal
areas of the brain responsible for the formulation of the appropriate
motor programs. In practical terms, this means you can benefit from the
use of mental imagery."

So much for visualization being a "cheesy" self-help technique.

Although visualization is widely used today, even
people who are familiar with it often don't realize its many
applications. Arguably the most common use of visualization is by
athletes, musicians and other performers as a form of “mental
rehearsal.” Research shows that "practicing in your mind" is almost as
effective as practicing physically, and that doing both is more
effective than either one alone.

A common use of visualization in the fitness context
is “goal visualization.” In your mind’s eye, you can see yourself
having already achieved your physique goal or your ideal goal weight.
You can also visualize a specific performance goal such as completing a
difficult workout or a heavy lift like a squat or bench press.

One creative way you can use mental imagery is
called “process visualization.” Once you've set your goals, it's easy
to come up with a list of the daily habits, behaviors and action steps
necessary to reach your goal. So write down the action steps and
visualize them - the entire process, not just the end result. See
yourself food shopping and grabbing fruits, vegetables and lean
proteins, ordering healthy foods from restaurant menus, saying no to
sodas and drinking water instead, and going to the gym consistently and
having killer workouts. Some people visualize their entire “perfect
day” as they would want it to unfold. When you do this as vividly,
emotionally and in as much detail as you can, you will be
neurologically priming your brain to carry out those behaviors.

The least known of all mental imagery techniques is
called “physiology visualization.” An example would be picturing the
fat burning process in your body or seeing the muscle fibers growing
larger and larger. Using this technique, could it be possible that you
might be giving subconscious instructions to your body's cells, organs
and tissues?

Well, consider the work of Dr. Carl Simonton, a
physician and cancer researcher who taught his patients (as one part of
a comprehensive program), how to visualize powerful immune cells
devouring the cancer cells. I’m not suggesting that you can cure cancer
or materialize a lean and muscular body just by visualizing, (there's a
step in between thought and manifestation - it's called action - a step
that many self help ‘experts’ forget to mention). However, thoughts and
mental images are the precursors to action and the fact that a
mind-body connection definitely exists makes this an exciting prospect.

Scientists have established the mind-body link in
many contexts, and not just by the existence of a placebo effect.
There’s also direct evidence as in the way emotional stress can
contribute to physical disease. The mind does influence the body! The
mere fact that a branch of science has been devoted to this area is
proof that it deserves critical investigation and is not just the
domain of infomercial self help gurus. The science is called
psychoneuroimmunology.

Using “physiology visualization,” you could, even in
the middle of a workout, imagine the fat burning process taking place,
and visualize fat being released from adipose tissue storage in your
abdominal region or elsewhere. You could see the free fatty acids
entering your bloodstream, being carried to the working muscles and
being burned for energy in the muscle cells. You could also visualize
the physiology of muscle growth.

To make your imagery as accurate and detailed as
possible, my best suggestion is to refer to an anatomy & physiology
textbook that shows pictures of fat cells, blood vessels, myofibrils,
motor units, sarcomeres, and cell organelles like the mitochondria, so
you know what the structures look like. You could also get more details
about the processes by looking up lipolysis, hypertrophy or beta
oxidation.

Even if you had no idea what the internal structure
and workings of the body were like, you could still use this method.
Your body responds to mental imagery even if it isn't anatomically
correct. We know from the field of hypnosis that the subconscious mind
responds well to metaphor – maybe even better than literal suggestions.
Facts and logic are the domain of the conscious mind, while emotion and
metaphor can slip right past the conscious and into the subconscious.
Dr. Simonton often wrote about his young patients who created
(metaphorical) mental images of immune system cells as "knights in
shining armor", slaying "the dragon" of cancer cells.

One of your greatest mental powers is imagination.
You can visualize anything you want and you can embellish and
exaggerate your imagery as much as you want. For example, you could
imagine the free fatty acids being burned for energy in the "cellular
powerhouse" - the mitochondria - and you could imagine the mitochondria
as a fiery furnace... "incinerating" the fat! I think it’s a pretty
cool idea to "see" your fat cells shrinking and visualize your body as
a "fat burning furnace.”

Should you not believe that there's anything to the
physiology visualization technique, that's ok, because we know that the
subconscious is deductive. Just give it a goal, tell it what you want
and it will get you there automatically by altering your attention and
behavior. Therefore, we can be confident that physiology visualization
will be effective even if only as a subconscious directive about your
desired goal. If science someday provides us with conclusive evidence
that visualization actually does cause cellular - physiological changes
in the body, well, that's just all the better.

Your friend and coach,

Tom Venuto

www.BurnTheFat.com

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified
personal trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning
specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle"
Tom has written more than 200 articles and has been featured in print
magazines such as IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding,
Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men’s Exercise, as well as
on hundreds of websites worldwide.

For information on Tom's Fat Loss
program, visit: www.BurnTheFat.com