Resolutions Suck…Get the Shit Right this Time

Posted on December 31, 2013 by Mike Lipowski

New Year’s Resolutions Suck

If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight or improve your fitness let me save you the heartache and tell you right now, you’re going to fail. How do I know? Statistics. Only 8% of people achieve their new year’s resolution and few of those that achieve it maintain it. Now if you happen to be a part of the 8% chances are it’s because your resolution is more than a resolution, it’s an absolute must.

For the majority of people a resolution is a “should”. They should lose weight, they should stop smoking, they should exercise, they should eat healthier, they should eat less. You never get shit done when it’s a “should” because there is no urgency. But when it’s a must, you act!

However have there ever been times when you knew you must do something and you still didn’t follow through? Of course you have. We’ve all had those moments. Some of us have them multiple times a day.

The reason why this happens is because we don’t have a compelling enough reason to take action. If the resulting pain (negative consequence) from inaction is not painful enough to get us moving or, the pleasure (perceived gratification) we get from the end result is not great enough, then we tend not to act or act with enough effort.

Trade in your resolution for a Vision

Forget making a resolution, create a vision. Your ultimate vision. To do this you just need to ask yourself some questions: If you could achieve all your fitness goals what would be the outcome? How would you look? How would you feel? What would you think about yourself? How would others see you? What could you do? What type of energy and health would you have?

Without vision, setting goals, taking action, and achieving them is nearly impossible. But vision alone is still not enough. In fact there are a lot of people who have vision but still don’t evolve. They’re called “dreamers.” And dreamers typically live in their parent’s basement while telling others all that they are going to achieve. They have the vision but they’re missing the second critical ingredient, purpose.

Purpose Driven

Purpose is what drives us. It’s the engine that moves us toward our vision while hitting all the milestones along the way that we call goals. With enough purpose anything can be accomplished. Have you ever achieved something that initially seemed out of reach but because your reason for achieving it was so compelling you found a way? How many parents—in the face of hardship—have “found a way” to make sure their children have all that they need? That level of purpose, of meaning, is what you need to find in order to realize your vision.

The questions you need to be asking yourself are: Why am I doing this? What will it mean to achieve my vision? How will it make me feel? How will it affect my relationship; with my spouse/significant other, my children, my friends…myself? How will my life be different? What will happen if I don’t change? What will my health and quality of look like if I don’t do something now?

Outcome with a deadline

Once you have established your vision and purpose now it’s time to start setting some goals—some outcomes with a deadline. Work backwards from your vision. What are all the things you’ll need to achieve to realize your vision? If it at first it seems overwhelming don’t worry. The next thing you’re going to do is to take those big outcomes and break them up into little 90 day outcomes (or quarterly goals). Viewing things from these ninety day increments should make your ultimate goals appear more easily attainable. If you need to take it a step further and break up your 90 day outcomes into weekly results.

You don’t need (nor want) a resolution, you just need a vision and your purpose for achieving it and you’ll be set up for success.

Leading the Fitness Movement

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Mike Lipowski

Who are you? Are you a personal trainer? A nutritionist? A fitness instructor? The owner of a fitness business? A speaker? Consultant? Writer? Educator?

You might be one of these thing or all of these things but in a market that has become saturated with health and fitness professionals of all sorts it’s more important than ever to distinguish yourself from everyone else. Don’t X-out just yet this is not another “Find your USP” article I promise.

I’m not going to preach from a pedestal because I can’t. I’m right there with you; living in relative obscurity—in the big scheme of things. A guy just going about his business training and educating people on fitness (and hopefully entertaining them too) through multiple mediums and on multiple levels. But training and educating is not enough. At least not enough to get me out of bed at the ass crack of dawn in a positive mental state.

What gets me juiced (not in a needle in the butt kind of way) is seeing myself as a leader in a fitness movement. One that has the potential to impact millions of lives. When I think about the fact that only 26% of the population weight trains I’m like, “Shit!…There’s a lot of people out there who need some help finding their way!” and I’m just the overzealous, enthusiastic, encouraging, No BS, weight training aficionado to lead them down the path of kick-ass, result producing, time-effective workouts.

Most of us would agree that, that type of outlook and approach would dramatically affect how we operate day to day. Being a personal trainer, nutritionist, fitness professional, etc. is great, but being a Fitness Leader has a reverberating impact. The only difference between a fitness professional and Fitness Leader is that leaders do what they do with a bigger vision and purpose in mind. (No greater example of a leader with tremendous vision and purpose exists than the recently deceased Nelson Mandela.)

Don’t just be, don’t just do…lead.

The Busy Fitness Freak

Posted on December 12, 2013 by Mike Lipowski

Recently I had a conversation with someone at a nutrition convention at which I was speaking. It was lunchtime and we were discussing the new nutrition program released by the company that had hosted the event. This young woman had lost over one-hundred pounds on the program and looked fantastic (kudos to her). She eventually started to ask about me and my wife’s natural bodybuilding and figure competition prep, specifically how we trained. She had no desire to compete she said but wanted clues as to how to push her fat loss further along and achieve a more “toned” look.

To her amazement it was not as complicated or as time consuming as she thought. Everyone assumes that to achieve competition form or your “ideal physique” you need to spend hours in the gym. You don’t. Neither I nor my wife did any more than 100 minutes of training each week during our entire 2012 competition season and both of us achieved our all-time best condition.

Just a Busy Bodybuiler

You see, I’m a busy bodybuilder…a very busy “Fitness Freak”. Just to give some perspective, I own and operate a personal training studio where I carry out 40-50 sessions a week (purposely reduced from 60-70/week), I’m the president of a personal training education and certification company, a co-founder of a natural bodybuilding organization and a show promoter, a coach for other competitors, I write and do speaking engagements, take care of all the marketing for each of my businesses, do fundraising, and networking. And these are only my business related pursuits, I have not even touched on my personal and recreational activities.

This list is not meant to brag, I know that there are plenty of other people who do what I do and more. I use it to demonstrate that even with everything that consumes my day I can still body build at a high level. The key is to determine exactly how much time must be spent training to develop your physique. For me it is 90-100 minutes a week of weight training (I do not do any aerobic exercise). The other major component of course is diet. If you have your diet structured properly and give yourself enough time to lose body-fat slowly there is no reason to perform excessive amounts of aerobic exercise to burn calories.

I understand that for some, working out is their life, their passion, and they enjoy spending hours in the gym. But for those who would like to pursue their ideal physique or compete in bodybuilding/figure in the midst of a busy lifestyle where spare hours are few, you can. The first step is to move past the misconception of how much time is needed. Real science dismisses much of the pseudoscience revolving around muscle development and fat-loss.

Just the Facts

Fact: There is not a specific amount of time that a person needs train for in order to stimulate muscle growth.

Fact: There is not a specific number of reps or sets that need to be performed to stimulate muscle growth.

Fact: Muscle development only occurs under conditions where intensity of effort and/or training demands are high.

If you understand these three facts then you can succeed as a Busy Fitness Freak. As I mentioned I rarely train more than 100 minutes a week and I do not do any aerobic exercise, even during competition prep. My workouts—as well as the workouts of clients I work with—are typically 30 minutes long and normally performed only 2-4 times a week. The reason why is because of the three facts stated above, especially the last one.

The key to developing a time efficient training program is to keep intensity high by performing each set to (or close to) momentary muscular failure and continually finding ways to increase training demands. Without a high degree of effort or a disruption in what the muscles are accustomed to there is no reason for them to become stronger or more resilient. Let me ask, for what reason would muscles develop if they are not challenged?

Most serious trainees place heavy emphasis on weight progression, constantly trying to heave greater poundage’s from one workout to the next. This has always been a focal point of every successful training program but it’s not the only thing that should be focused on. In fact, we know through research that intensity of effort plays as big if not a bigger role than load since it is only when intensity is at or near one-hundred percent that we involve the greatest number of Fast-Twitch (FT) muscle fibers (Henneman’s size principle).

We have learned through the study of neurology that the more we perform certain movements (exercises) in the same manner the more we adapt to those movements and the more proficient we become at performing them. In the IART’s publication Fitness Science Annual 2008, Brian Johnston explains the negative implications of neuromuscular adaptation for the intermediate and advanced bodybuilder, in the quest to develop more muscle:

In strength training and bodybuilding, a greater focus has been placed on neurological adaptation, or the skill factor and its effect. It has been suggested that neurological/skill factors are a consideration only during the beginning stages of exercise, with less impact or influence on advanced trainees…However, this is not the entire story. Although the extent of neural factors may diminish, the nature of its role alters and becomes more finely tuned. To explain, the more muscle and strength a person develops, the more reluctant the body is to add more muscle and strength; and the more a person repeats the same exercises in the same way, the more skilled they become at those movements

Keeping the above in mind, as well as the importance of intensity, it should be apparent that a productive training regimen consists of varied, high-intensity exercise. The, high-intensity + variation formula, is a dependable stimulus for muscle development but by no means is it the only factor. We need to also consider recovery time and tolerance to exercise stress. It’s the application and balance of intensity, volume, variation and frequency, relative to individual needs that determines a person’s ability to develop a strong muscular physique while living a busy lifestyle. …And earning the title of Busy Fitness Freak.

3 Rules to Get Fit & Stay Fit

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Mike Lipowski

It’s not what you think. Typically articles like this lay out a bunch of crappy no-brainer generalized suggestion disguised as “rules” and either you follow them already or never will. I couldn’t do that to you because I can’t stand when a writer does it to me. Instead I’m just going to give you the low down on the “rules for using rules to get fit and stay that way.” How does that sound? I only have three of them which means you should get through this quickly so can get back to Facebook and Twitter.

Rule #1 – YOU Write the Rules

Here’s the deal. Generally speaking everyone knows what it takes to get fit. It’s a widely known fact that eating healthy foods, drinking plenty of water, exercising, and rest can result in a body that looks just as good as it functions. Where things get murky is in the details. There are no steadfast “rules” for how much or how little of everything we need so it’s up to us to write our own rules.

Rule #2 – The Rules Must Be Clear

People who are on the exceptional side of the fitness scale are not lucky. At least–they are no more lucky than those that are on the piss poor side of the scale are unlucky. The difference is their rules.

I can’t feel sorry for those that have horrible health and are out of shape because they don’t give a shit about holding themselves to any sort of standard. Not those that are born with disease or a defect, those who control their destiny…like the other 96% of us. Who I do feel sorry for are those who desperately want to have greater health and fitness but can’t seem to get out of their own way. They exercise, they eat “healthy”, they sip on their water throughout the day and they even manage to get some sleep each night. I feel sorry for them because they haven’t yet “got it”.

The differentiating factor between the group that wishes to have it and the group that has it or on their way to getting it, is how specific their rules are. Here’s an example of “the rules” as explained by an individual from each of the two groups.

The “I can’t seem to get myself fit no matter what I try” individual:

Eat healthy most of the time.
Do some exercise every day.
Avoid drinking too much alcohol.
I should snack less and eat smaller meals.
I need to drink more water.

The “I have (or I’m on my way to having) a strong and healthy body” individual:

I must eat 4-5 times a day.
Every time I eat I must have at least 20 g. of protein, 20-30 g. of carbs, and 5-8 g. of fat.
I must keep my calories at or under 1,600 a day 5 out of 7 days a week.
Only 2 cheat meals a week.
I must weight train for 30 minutes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
If I go out with friends I only have 2 alcoholic drinks and then I drink water the rest of the time.
Never get less than 6 hours of sleep a night.
Drink no less than 64 oz. of water a day.

Don’t we all know two people like this! One whose rules are vague and bendable and one who sticks to a specific set of measurable rules or guidelines. It’s not by luck or chance that some people are fit while others are fat. It’s the rules by which each person lives his/her life that determines the direction they move in.

Rule #3 – If You Don’t Know What Your Rules Should Be, GET HELP

It’s not easy these days to separate the bullshit from the rational diet, exercise and lifestyle advice. There are certain things which are obvious and backed by years of research, like smoking cigarettes increases your risk for Cancer. Other things such as the ideal diet or exercise program are not so obvious because there are so many of them. And the truth is, just as many work as those that don’t work, and some require a lot of time and effort and others are efficient and easy to follow.

Get help from people who follow a specific set of rules themselves and are successful. What they do may or may not be the perfect fit but at least you can glean from their approach what rules work for you and which ones might need to be replaced or adjusted for your objectives. Not everyone can comply with all the rules or enjoy the foods on a Paleo Diet thus they will not be successful with it long-term. Finding a nutrition and exercise approach that will achieve your health and fitness objectives and make long-term compliance with your rules agreeable should be the goal.

***

Rules Can Change

Is it possible to have a different sets of rules depending upon external circumstances? Absolutely! My rules for how I eat on vacation are different from my every day rules and those rules are different from my rules during bodybuilding competition prep. However what’s important to note is how much the rules change based on you circumstances and how often does it happen.

I know people who are excellent when they are home and on a predictable schedule but they also go away every 6-8 weeks for one or more weeks at a time and during such time they are completely erratic with their eating, exercise, and rest. When they get back home they begin the process of being excellent again but it only gets them back to where they were before they left. Their condition never improves beyond a certain point and so they remain frustrated. If they are to make a permanent shift in their condition then they need to adjust their “away rules”.

What Are Your Rules?

If you came here to get some specific answers, some direction on what you need to do differently to get fit and fabulous then you’re probably pissed off at me. You’re probably saying, “WTF Lipowski, couldn’t you just tell me what the ______ I need to do instead of this pansy ass cryptic shit that makes me have to think?” The truth is yes I could’ve given you a list of rules but those would have been MY rules, based on what I believe to be ideal for ME. You need to come up with your own…but if it makes you feel better I’ll leave you with a few of mine.

I must consume a minimum of 1 g. of protein and 1.5–2 g. of carbs per pound of body weight each day (off-season).
I must take in 25+ g. of fiber every day.
I must drink at least 100 ounces of water each day (125-250 ounces during competition prep).
I must weight train three times per week.
I must log my workouts so I can measure my progress from week to week.
I must get at least 6 hours of sleep each night Mon-Fri, and 8 hours a night on the weekend.
I can have 2 heavy cheat meals a week in the off-season but none during competition prep (I will have 1-2 re-feed meals instead).
I must stay within 10-15 lbs. of my competition weight during the off-season.
If I lose my way or overindulge on vacation or during the holidays then I must get back on my diet as long as needed to return to “normal”.
I must take my vitamins and supplements every day.
I must read food labels and make myself aware of what is in the foods I consume.
I must avoid consuming artificial sweeteners or using products containing toxic chemicals.

Although these are not all my rules I think you get the idea and I hope that adopting one or two of them as your own can prove beneficial for you.

Change!

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Mike Lipowski

Change is inevitable. No matter how much you try to resist it or run from it, you can’t. Even if you hold your ground and stand still the world around you is changing. If you’re not evolving you’re regressing.

It’s a fact, with each birthday we celebrate we’re getting older. With that comes the natural depletion of the resources that keep us fit, energetic, and strong. Of course we’re able to counteract or slow this regression through exercise, nutrition, supplementation, rest, and managing our stress. However, as our bodies are changing, as those resources are dwindling, we need to change or “revise” our lifestyle choices and actions to stay ahead of the curve.

Change is not always easy but almost always necessary if the objective is growth. We all have room to grow. No matter where we are in our lives, in our work, in our health and fitness, there’s always a next level. The question is, how willing are you to go after it? Do you just talk about it or do you take action? Do you make excuses or make it happen? Do you let fear paralyze you or does your “why” help you to make the necessary changes?

Choose change.

Defining Your “Why”

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Mike Lipowski

Beth Colucci, IART Fitness Clinician

If you have ever set a goal, or at least thought about it, you’ve probably heard or read about setting SMART goals. I personally believe setting SMARTER goals is a bit more effective when the focus is on your fitness. I’ll explain what the “ER” stands for in just a moment but first for those that need a refresher let’s take a quick look at what a SMARTER goal is.

S – Specific – what exactly is it that you want to achieve?

M – Measurable – how will you measure your progress?

A – Attainable – are you being realistic about the goal you’ve set for yourself?

R – Relevant – how will reaching this goal affect your life?

T – Time Bound– when would you like to achieve your results by?

E – Energy Driven – how many calories (energy) will you eat, and how much physical energy (exercise) will you put in?

R – Results – did you achieve your goal? Why or why not? [Obviously, evaluating this step comes at the end of your time frame.]

When you set a SMARTER goal, you know where you want to go…but do you know why? I’m not talking about a simple reaction such as, “I want to look better.” I challenge you to dig deeper than that. Really ask yourself WHY you are working so hard and taking steps toward a healthier life. Are you working for a better you to…

Set an example for your children?
Feel better physically and mentally?
Extend your life to be around for your grandchildren?
Get off medication?
Give yourself more happiness and confidence?
Diminish or even erase any ailments you suffer from?

Whatever your reason, find it! Without this intrinsic motivator, it’s easy to forget why you started your health journey in the first place. Trust me when I say that I too have set goals for myself and let them fall to the wayside because they didn’t actually mean anything to me. However, any goal I have ever set that really meant something to my present and future I have been sure to attack it. Why the difference? When I know why I am pushing myself, I can continually remind myself what I want and why it’s important to me. That connection is key.

Every single person on this planet has a goal for themselves, whether emotional, physical, monetary, relationship-wise, etc. Take the time to define a SMARTER goal you have for yourself, and then take some extra time to figure out why you want to achieve that goal. This may take minutes, hours, or even days. Don’t rush the process, or you’ll only end up faking it. Once you’ve discovered what’s driving you, try writing down both your goal(s) and your “why(s)” and post it somewhere where you will see it every day. The visual will spark your intrinsic motivation over and over. Watch and see how your WHY will drive your actions, and your goals will seem all that much easier to conquer.

The Questions You Ask

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Mike Lipowski

“Don’t like the results you’re getting…ask better questions.” I first heard this when I attended Tony Robbins’ ‘Unleash the Power Within’ back in 2004 and it stuck with me till this very day, and will forever. Up until that point I never really gave much thought about the questions I asked myself, or more importantly, the questions I was not asking. It was after the event that the impact of this ‘question asking concept’ really showed it strength.

As part of my UPW entry fee I received a thirty-minute coaching session with a Tony Robbins Certified Life Coach, which literally changed my life. Thirty minutes is all it took to realize something I had dreamed of doing since I was kid; which was to write a book.

It all happened because of the questions the coach asked and the honest answers I had to give. Here they are in succession:

Coach: What is something that you’ve wanted to achieve, or have been working on, but haven’t yet accomplished?

Me: Write a book.

Coach: Why haven’t you done it already?

Me: Uh, what?

Coach: If you really wanted to write this book then why haven’t you? What have you been doing?

Me: Well I’ve written some of it. I’ve got the first two chapters just about done.

Coach: That’s good but you didn’t answer my question, why hasn’t this book been written? What do you think is hold you back?

Me: I’m busy and don’t have as much of time to work on it as I’d like.

Coach: How many hour do you sleep each night?

Me: About 7 or 8.

Coach: If you got up an hour earlier each day or went to bed an hour later that would give you 7 extra hours a week to work your book. At that rate do you would be able to finish at least a chapter a week and have the book completed in a few weeks?

Me: Definitely.

Coach: Great, but let’s face it, unless you really want to write this book you’re not going to schedule the time needed to work on it. So why do you want to write this book? What will it do for you? Howe will it change your life? What will your life look like when it’s done? How will it affect others?

I answered all of the coach’s questions; it was hard to accept that I was not the driven, achiever I thought myself to be. I wasn’t doing everything I could do, I wasn’t living up to my potential. All this time I was kidding myself. It was a humbling realization.

The coach left me with a list of resources that would help me get the book done quickly but she made it very clear that it was up to me to take action. And I did…immediately.

I wound up hiring Tony Robbins’ creative assistant, flying her out from California, putting her up in a nearby hotel for three days, and paying her to help me gather and organize the book. All with money I didn’t have.

After I completed the manuscript I moved onto the next resource my coach gave me, which was a self-publishing company that would design, format, and help distribute the book to Amazon.com, B&N, and other retailers. Once again spending money I didn’t have. (The book was picked up by Price World Publishing in 2010)

When all was said and done I had spent close to $9K to make a dream a reality and I don’t regret a single penny spent. The fact is, you can always make more money or spend less somewhere else, but you don’t get to write your first book every day.

The point of this story is not to boast about my accomplishment but demonstrate the importance of asking the right kinds of questions. Too often we ask ourselves self-limiting questions and wonder why we have so much trouble getting ahead; Why does this always happen to me? Why can’t I ever do this? Why does it have to be so hard? Isn’t there an easier way? Will this ever get better? When will it happen for me? When will I have the time? When will I have the money?

Change the questions you ask and you can change any situation. Self empowering questions move you towards your dreams, desires and the accomplishment of your goals. What are some self empowering questions? Well, asking that is a self empowering question!!! But I digress. The types of questions you need to ask are: What can I do today to improve my circumstances? What do I need to work on in order to grow as a person? Who can help me grow? Who can help me reach my goal? Who or what is taking away from time and ability to achieve? What can I do to improve the lives of others? Why is accomplishing ‘x’ so important to me? How will my life be better by accomplishing ‘x’? What do I want my life look like 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years from now?

There is no end to the list of self empowering questions we can ask ourselves and the more you ask the more you will receive.

[Poof!] My Shape…Gone in an Instant

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Mike Lipowski

You create your fitness plan, you stick to it for 3 months, and then you piss it all away in two weeks. That’s my story and I’m not ashamed of it. It’s a story that will deliver a massive dose of reality and teach you a lesson if you’re willing to sit here and read it for the next 4 minutes. As I sit here typing away on my laptop I have to laugh at how quickly I was able to reverse three months of hard work. Seriously, three months of tracking my food intake and gradually getting my body near competition form, GONE after just 2 weeks of indulgence.

The two weeks were comprised of my wedding and honeymoon so by no means do I kick myself over all the eating and drinking I did. Heck, Corrie-Beth and I spent 7 of our 10 day honeymoon in Napa Valley and Sonoma so you better believe we were drank a lot of wine! And the meals were pretty damn good too.

So what was the damage? A nine pound increase in body weight and all the definition in my abs and arms had disappeared. Granted at least 3 of the 9 lbs. is retained water which can be eliminated within a week by pushing my water intake up to around a gallon per day but unfortunately the rest of the weight (fat) will take a lot longer to get back off.

I can already hear some of you saying, “But you’re already in good shape it’s not that big of a deal”. To which I say, “It’s all relative”. I have certain expectations and standards which if not met or maintained have the same emotional impact as anyone else who looks at them self and is disgusted with how out of shape they’ve become.

I knew it would happen, I’ve been here before. In the early years of my bodybuilding career I would spend six months prepping for a show only to binge my way out of competition shape in less than a week. Over more recent years I’ve learned that if I (as well as most people) can keep from letting one day of binging or cheat meals turn into 2, 3, 4, 5 days or more then maintaining that ideal condition that I worked long and hard to achieve is easy and doesn’t require being on point all the time. But once you start rolling downhill it’s very difficult to stop and the unfortunate consequence is having to start all over.

The idea of starting over can be a little demoralizing if you don’t have the proper mindset. As I said, I would never give up all the great breakfast, lunch, dinners, wine, beer, and spirits I indulged in over the two week wedding/honeymoon period. In fact I had planned for it. All the dieting I had done over those three prior months was in anticipation of all I would do and was a way of mitigating the damage. I knew from the very beginning that at some point I was going to have to “start over”. Since it is exactly what I expected it eliminates the pain of feeling like “I blew it”.

The situation—and the emotions that accompany it—is similar to saving thousands of dollars over the course of several months or a year for a vacation you’ve always wanted to go on. When the time comes to actually pay for the vacation the money suddenly disappears from your account, or the envelope of cash you’ve been saving it in. You knew it was going to happen, and you would never give up the vacation just to hang onto the cash, but you’re still left with that slight bit of sadness that all you saved is gone in an instant. It doesn’t make the vacation any less enjoyable it’s just an unavoidable feeling…just like putting weight back on that you worked hard to lose. But the great thing is, if you’ve done it once you can do it again and if you’re committed, the next time should be much easier since you already know what to expect.

7 Lessons Learned from the Bodybuilding Stage

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Mike Lipowski

When I started my career as a personal trainer at the ripe young age of twenty-two (I really can’t believe I’ll be thirty-six this month. Look ma’ I made it! J) one of the very first actions I took was to enter myself into a natural bodybuilding contest. I had wanted to bodybuild ever since I watched Lou Ferrigno as the Incredible Hulk in the mid-eighties television series. Then of course there were the professional wrestlers in the WWF like Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior who became another source of motivation before I started “investing” what little money I earned at thirteen years old on muscle magazines. But I digress.

My reasoning for entering the contest was two-fold. First, I always wanted to look like a bodybuilder so it only made sense to do what bodybuilders do…compete. Second, and the stronger of the two reasons, was to gain experience and knowledge. I reasoned that if people were going to come to me with the expectation of achieving six-pack abs, defined muscles, or to simply get lean and muscular, then I better know and understand all that goes into the process.

After 14 years of competing it is impossible for me to place a value on the lessons I’ve learned from getting up on stage. What I have gained through those experiences cannot be learned in a book or in a classroom. The lessons can be categorized two ways; physique development and self-development. While my initial interest was regarding physique development I quickly learned that self-development works in tandem with physique development—sometime preceding it, sometimes resulting from it, and sometimes working side by side with it.

Here are my top 7 lessons learned from the bodybuilding stage:

Fat loss takes time but needs to be approached with a sense of urgency. While losing weight slowly is necessary for maintaining a healthy metabolism and ensuring that the weight you shed is fat and not muscle, don’t use this as a reason to get complacent or justify poor decisions about eating or exercise. With few exceptions the metabolism is very slow to get started, often taking 4 or more weeks just to build enough momentum result in consistent weekly fat loss. And that’s if you’re doing everything right!
Track everything. As the old adage goes, you can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been. While keeping a food log and keeping track of your calories, carbs, protein and fats might seem like a royal pain in the ass, it is the only way to figure out exactly how much you can or can’t eat without disrupting your fat loss efforts. Don’t try to guess…it doesn’t work.
Until you change your mind you cannot change your body. The body has a funny way of following what your subconscious believes to be true which is why I can’t stress enough the importance of developing self-belief and having a positive self-image. I have never had a competition season in which I didn’t improve upon my condition from the previous season. I attribute this to first seeing myself better than I once was the previous season and then taking actions on achieving it.
Have a strong “why”. It’s easy to stay the course and do whatever is necessary to achieve your goal when you have a clear-cut reason for doing so. Getting up in front of a bunch of strangers with less fabric covering you than what you would wear to the beach was, and continues to be, a very big reason “why” I’m so intent on not screwing up my diet or missing workouts. Just wanting to “look better” or “get a little leaner” is not incentive, it’s a wish. Attach it to something bigger that will keep you doing the not so fun stuff and now you have a why.
This s#%t is hard! Make no mistake about it, you have to work your butt off and be disciplined to make even minimal gains. Showing up is not half the battle it’s about 1/10^th of it. You need to constantly outwork yourself in order to make forward progress. Accepting this reality will help minimize frustration when you’re not achieving results at the rate you think you should.
You are always IN-season. One of the most common traits amongst top competitors is that they focus just as hard on their diet and training in the off-season as they do 3 months before stepping on stage. By living the lifestyle year round it makes getting into competition shape much easier and faster and makes the damage done by an occasional night out on the town or going out to eat almost non-existent.
Support systems are a necessity. As stated in lesson #5 this stuff is hard, but it can made much easier, and your likelihood of success is greatly increased by having one or more people working towards similar goals alongside you. Conversely nothing can thwart your efforts faster than resistance or ridicule from family members or friends. Be sure that the people surrounding you understand how important your fitness goals are to you and to respect your decisions about the way you eat and how you spend your time.

The Foundation of Muscle Growth

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Mike Lipowski

There are many different ways to build muscle. People have achieved success on high volume programs and low volume programs, high reps and low reps, training frequently and training infrequently, utilizing slow reps and fast. But regardless of the different components that garner greater attention or are regarded as being ‘most important’ none of these routines or programs speak to what is truly at the heart of muscle growth.

The secret to building muscle lies in the relationship between total demands (stress) placed on the muscle through resistance training and the time between, and frequency of these bouts of stress (recovery time). In simple terms, muscle hypertrophy (growth) is dependent on the effectiveness of a workout or program in stimulating a growth response and the time given to recover from the workout or program. Muscles require a stimulus which is strong enough to induce an adaptive response (viz. a change in size or functional ability) and ample time to recover and reap the full benefits of the stimulus. If either the stimulus is not strong enough or the recovery time not long enough or both, then muscle development cannot and will not occur.

Many trainees will train and train…and train some more, without giving consideration to how much time they allow themselves to recover systemically from all that training. As if a day here and a day there is enough for the body and muscles to not only recover from the workout but also from the numerous other stresses that are imposed upon them from daily living.

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