There are a lot of reasons for people to quit at anything they do in the world of fitness. They work out with bad form and get frustrated when results don’t come, or they read a good article on How to Build Muscle, follow it correctly but then quit when results don’t come quickly enough. Or they do it right but end up quitting and stop building muscle because they get bored or lazy.
These patterns are actually true for many endeavors, but they happen especially often in the realm of physical fitness. There are many reasons for this: Maintaining physical health takes constant effort and self-restraint; American culture doesn’t commercially support physical health, even if it socially supports it; and It takes less time to be unhealthy than it does to be healthy.
Think about how much easier it is to find convenient food if you don’t care about your health. Or how much easier it is to sit in front of a television for two hours each night than it is to train for and run a marathon. These are some of the choices you’re faced with as you embark on your journey to physical fitness and personal health.
When it comes to building muscle mass for a strongman competition, for modeling, or simply to look tough, it’s necessary to prepare yourself two main mental hurdles that you’ll have to jump. These hurdles will tempt you to quit several times before working out becomes a second nature for you, so if you want to make it you’ll have to steel your nerves against them.
These mental hurdles are: A) Frustration – quitting from a lack of results; and B) Getting overwhelmed with what to do and how to do it. Just knowing that these challenges will be in your way should help to prepare you, but a more specific piece of advice is to set yourself up for success with a clear plan before you jump in.
Write down where you’re at and where you’d like to be, and keep track of your progress to keep you motivated and avoid frustration. To avoid overwhelm, start simple with some good calisthenic exercises and go from there. There are many free guides available online with good body-weight exercises to get you started, so you have no excuse not to start right away. Now get to it and start building muscle!