I believe in a positive approach to weight training. This simply means that your mind and body should be in a positive state when you work out. Pain is not positive. Pushing yourself into an exhausted state through strain and struggle is not positive. Having a negative attitude towards exercise is not positive. Telling yourself that the exercise you are about to do is not going to be enjoyable, but is going to hurt and be miserably hard is not positive. In the long run, positive is better.
Two Types of Motivation
There are two basic ways that you can motivate people:
One is to threaten them with a painful consequence.
The second is to offer them a benefit or reward.
Which one do you prefer? I am guessing that most people prefer being motivated by a reward or benefit, which is a positive approach to motivation. Do you think your body is any different?
When faced with life circumstances, how well do you respond to being threatened or punished because you didn’t do good enough? What if pain or punishment come your way every time you try your hardest to do your best, and this keeps happening on a regular basis?
When Negative Motivation Stops Working
Does pain and consequence motivate people? In most cases it does, at least for a while. However, when people try their hardest to accomplish something in order to avoid pain and consequences, but it backfires with an increase in pain and consequences, then the pain and consequences will eventually stop acting as a motivator. In contrast, if you do something that leads to a positive outcome, you might repeat the same action again with the hope that it will lead to a positive outcome again. As long as the positive outcome keeps occurring as a result of a certain action, you are likely to keep repeating that action.
Exercise Should Feel Good
Hopefully you can understand how this may apply to weight training. Learn to do exercises in a way that feels good to both your mind and body. If exercise feels good, your body will like it. If your body likes the exercise you are doing, it is going to respond in a positive manner.
We can look at it from the opposite view point and imagine how your body will react to negative experiences when weight training. Negative experiences include:
Pushing yourself to the point of experiencing a severe burn in your muscles from training.
Extreme struggle, strain, or fatigue as a result of pushing too hard on your exercises.
Is your body going to improve and allow you to do more when what you are already doing is too much? Is your body going to gain strength and allow you to lift more weight and do more reps if it’s already overwhelmed by the amount of weight and reps you have been lifting? Maybe it will respond for a while, but probably not over a long period of time.
Positive Thoughts = Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin
Think about how to train in a positive way. Start with a positive attitude. A positive perspective will signal your body to release positive chemicals in your body in the form of dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin. Negative thoughts release unhealthy levels of cortisol and adrenalin. It is the over stimulation of these hormones that have a negative effect on your body. Positive is better. The following video will help you understand this.
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Just as positive thoughts will send a positive message to your body, exercise that feels good will send positive signals to your brain. Learn how to do your exercises in a manner that feels good. The exercise motion should feel good, and the amount of effort should feel good. The right amount of effort is based on using the right amount of weight and doing the right amount of reps; it should all feel good. Likewise, the amount of sets that you perform should feel good. You should also feel good on your recovery days. If you feel wiped out after a workout, you are sending a negative signal to your body and your brain. Habitual negative stimuli will cause your body to resist what you are doing rather than to enhance what you are doing.
Positive exercise is the kind that you can keep building on which is why I recommend precision point training. If you terminate a set right before your rep speed starts to slow down, you will tend to stay in a positive state. If you repeat sets for a muscle group as long as that muscle group is at full strength, you will tend to stay in a positive state. If you allow yourself to fully recover your strength and energy between workouts, you will tend to stay in a positive state. A positive training state is one of the keys to success and long-term progress. Stay positive. Best of training to you.