Tricking the mind

HardCory · #1 01-10-2009, 02:49 AM

There's nothing worse than approaching a set and realizing how many reps you have ahead of you. I developed a technique back in the day when I was picking orders to make quantities seem less, not only did it carry over to the gym, but it has helped me significantly. I count in pairs, so instead of counting 1-10, I count 1,1,2,2... and so on. The mind has to be one of the biggest obstacles in the gym, and hinders people from achieving what they're capable of. Try it out, may not work for all, but it's another tool to overcome that roadblock.

ormand · #2 01-15-2009, 03:47 PM

Excellent suggestion - thanks!

And yes, you are absolutely correct...the mind is the biggest obstacle to acheiving your goals. That's why there are sports psychologists out there training athlete's minds how to go beyond there competition.

joneser3eb · #3 01-19-2009, 12:32 AM

I set my mind to a number higher than I could do before. that way I do not have my mind set on a lesser number and fail even before that. has seemed to work well for me.

eclipse23 · #4 02-04-2009, 05:43 PM

I do the same joneser, if last week I did 12, this week I'm gonna do 15. If I only make 13 who cares it's better than 12!

Sometimes if I'm getting frutrated because I'm not making the reps I've done before for some reason I just stop counting and just go for it till I can't anymore. Going for the feeling rather than the number.

MslAdct83 · #5 03-04-2009, 05:38 PM

One thing I do is take the weight I am planning on doing for the day and do a single of it. Then I wait for another minute or so before doing my set. This primes the nervous system for the stimulus. Another benefit is that since my body is already used to the stimulus the weight feels much lighter. This is a great psychological boost and I've found it to be a great way to exceed the number of reps I may have thought I would get with the weight.

DaveLin · #6 06-05-2009, 12:24 AM

it'd b interesting if you "tricked" your training partner.

say the previous week he did 225 for 12, and this week he is going to hit that again before moving up.

wonder what would happen if you snuck on 2x2.5s on each side without him knowning, I'd think chances are he would still get 230 for 12 since in his mind, he already did 225 for 12 last week and he has no idea you just snuck on 5 lbs.

it has alwasy made me curious if instead of the 45lb plates, gyms had 50lb plates. wouldn't everyone be 10lbs stronger on bench? we tend to just throw on the 45s for "convenience". if 50s were convenience, I think we'd all be a bit stronger.

what if our numbering system was hexadecimal instead of decimal?

we'd count 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,a,b,c,d,e,f

meaning we'd have 16 iterations for the base of our numbering system. Maybe we'd be doing sets of 16 for "convenience". after all, so many people do sets of 10 because it's the base of our number system.

HardCory · #7 06-05-2009, 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveLin

it'd b interesting if you "tricked" your training partner.

say the previous week he did 225 for 12, and this week he is going to hit that again before moving up.

wonder what would happen if you snuck on 2x2.5s on each side without him knowning, I'd think chances are he would still get 230 for 12 since in his mind, he already did 225 for 12 last week and he has no idea you just snuck on 5 lbs.

it has alwasy made me curious if instead of the 45lb plates, gyms had 50lb plates. wouldn't everyone be 10lbs stronger on bench? we tend to just throw on the 45s for "convenience". if 50s were convenience, I think we'd all be a bit stronger.

what if our numbering system was hexadecimal instead of decimal?

we'd count 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,a,b,c,d,e,f

meaning we'd have 16 iterations for the base of our numbering system. Maybe we'd be doing sets of 16 for "convenience". after all, so many people do sets of 10 because it's the base of our number system.

I definitely believe you could trick your partner by slipping on the extra weight. Mentally he knows he's already accomplished that weight so I doubt he would even feel the 5lb difference. I'm gonna start walking around the gym slipping on extra weight while people aren't looking to see if they notice the difference.

DaveLin · #8 06-05-2009, 01:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HardCory

I definitely believe you could trick your partner by slipping on the extra weight. Mentally he knows he's already accomplished that weight so I doubt he would even feel the 5lb difference. I'm gonna start walking around the gym slipping on extra weight while people aren't looking to see if they notice the difference.

too bad u can't get someone doing that for u

Commander · #9 06-05-2009, 02:45 PM

this happened to me a few weeks ago, I was planning on doing about 123 for 2 sets of 20 on the bench press. I had the bar loaded to 173 from my DE bench. I forgot to deload the bar, so in my mind I really thought the bar was 123. I got 17 reps with 173. Nothing spectacular, but I really think if I knew there was 50 extra pounds on the bar, I wouldn't have gotten that many reps.

HardCory · #10 06-05-2009, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveLin

too bad u can't get someone doing that for u

One of the many reasons I wish I had a training partner.