Using our Minds to Maximise the Quality of our Workouts

Here are a couple of quick tips on how you can improve the quality of your workouts using the incredible power of our minds. Today the tips are based around the topic of visualisation...


Firstly, just before you go to the gym, take a minute or so to visualise your workout... See yourself going through the motions and see it going as well as it possibly could. Bring to mind what you will see, hear, feel, taste and smell. Building a vivid experience within you mind will help you prepare both mentally and physically on both a conscious and unconscious level. I would also suggest listening to your favourite gym song whilst doing this visualisation. This way the song will become an effective anchor that can be utilised in the future (more on anchors and NLP to come in the future). Don't worry if you're not sure about what anchors are or do, luckily you do not need this knowledge in order for them to work.

Next, before each weight or resistance exercise, try focusing directly on the muscles you are about to use and with this, "ignite" them in your mind. I like to visualise my muscles fuelling or flooding with red energy, preparing them for imminent action! Do the same during the exercise or set. Visualise your muscles working rep by rep, squeezing, contracting, see them pumping up, see them growing. Alternatively, if it is indeed not muscle growth you are after, visualise the muscles working again, but this time see them burning the fat surrounding them. Like a lit wick burning the wax of a candle, see your muscles melt away the fat.

A similar mind exercise can be used to help our bodies during cardiovascular exercise. Again, focus on the muscles you are using to perform the exercise, but this time imagine a matrix of colour running through your muscles. This matrix of colourful energy will provide you with the energy to continue with ease and eradicate any pain that you might have been experiencing. For those of you not familiar with what a matrix looks like, think of a huge noughts and crosses grid!

Personally I've found these "mind exercises" to be incredibly effective tools for maximising both my cardio and resistance workouts and i honestly believe they can help you too! Go on, give them a go and let me know how you get on.

Yours in MindBody Fitness,

Will