1. Introduction: The Importance of Motivation in Fitness Training
Motivation is an internal psychological factor that drives you to do things. When it comes to fitness training, such a factor is necessary. Motivation will help you to adhere to your exercise routine and will give you that push toward your workout goals. Although bodybuilders and weight trainers appreciate the significance of motivation in a single session, they hardly consider it as essential for the long haul of exercising and working out. Such a perspective often leads to short periods of frenetic exercising, which brings mixed results at best. Unfortunately, discontinuity, particularly resulting from a training schedule that is perceived as too challenging, meets a person not ready for difficult exercises, who abandons the program.
A reason for this is that a great number of bodybuilders and weight trainers do not include a psychological grooming strategy, such as motivational skill, into their workout plans. They just follow their physical training with no action such as the priming of their minds, which enables them to confront the daily motivational hurdles that lead to their training success. Hence, less attention is paid to motivation among bodybuilders and weight trainers due to the growing inexistence of dedicated gym-talks on the issue of motivation, which is a strong motivation to write this chapter in order to provide such ignored gym audiences with practical suggestions on how to sustain the motivational drive needed in order to continue with their workout training and to continue adhering to it.
2. Understanding Motivation: Key Psychological Factors
Deeply rooted in psychological research, motivation refers to the internal processes that enhance or decrease the frequency of the behavior. Theories of motivation are numerous, and a common distinction is made between intrinsic motivation (a natural consequence of performing the activity) and extrinsic motivation (i.e. the behavior is instrumental in order to earn the reward or to avoid the punishment). Several studies suggest that weight trainers and bodybuilders engage in their activities both because of their intrinsic interest in this type of physical activity (i.e., they like to lift weights and/or to monitor physical gains) and because of their extrinsic motives.
Some of the extrinsic motives are based on the behaviors' instrumental outcomes (e.g., healthy living, better social life, being/having a successful body) or the appreciation of others (a component of social interest). In the world of bodybuilding and weight lifting, the "beauty" of the body is operationalized via defined muscles (i.e., these physical characteristics are the representations of the ideal form of the body). Indeed, in bodybuilding competitions, physical excellence is rewarded. Social comparison theory suggests that comparisons with superior others can demotivate or motivate the individuals. Overall, however, there is no theory or confluence of theories which could guide us how to increase or sustain motivated behaviors in these individuals. What we know is that the motivation to maintain bodily activities such as bodybuilding is now stronger than ever before, at least in some groups of individuals, and it is our wish to aid these individuals by providing a set of strategies that can be integrated into the motivation-relevant psychological framework.
3. Effective Strategies for Maintaining High Motivation Levels
The literature on the maintenance of motivation is rather scant. Nevertheless, several strategies may prove effective in aligning the negative experiences, thoughts, and emotions expressed above with a positive outlook that allows an individual to continue with his or her bodybuilding program. First and foremost, as many coaches have long remarked, lifters might want to avoid focusing too exclusively on the attainment of records with heavy poundages. It would be better for them to concentrate on such personal factors as improved baselines, general physical preparedness, muscle size, confidence, a feeling of self-satisfaction, and just feeling good about oneself. In other words, it may be beneficial to substitute a series of intrinsic motivators for the extrinsic reward often attributed to the experience of surpassing a previous best.
In any case, a series of desirable objectives must be envisaged, and both short- and long-term goals must be set. Proper setting of goals is of the essence since it can improve performance on muscular strength, but only if these goals are regarded, from the response of self-efficacy theory, as being difficult to reach. Highly difficult goals can also lead to a feeling of self-satisfaction once they have been attained. Among possible strategies that might lead to a step-by-step improvement of motivation, emotional involvement (i.e., the conscious generation of large amounts of enthusiasm before a training session) and operant conditioning procedures (i.e., positive reinforcement for doing well) spring to mind. In a series of five incremental training studies currently being conducted at our university on teams of adults, a training regimen that follows the last one is carefully described. In the context of this regimen, a lot of enthusiasm is generated, and a lot of attention and praise is given after each exercise to encourage the patient to progress and do better. These grades, and the feedback given to the subjects, have to be contingent upon doing better: the better the performance, the more verbal praise the person gets. Currently, motivation for work is at an all-time high, and the dropout ratio of this behaviorally based training program is practically zero.
4. Overcoming Plateaus and Setting New Goals
One of the most challenging aspects of bodybuilding and weight training is adapting to long periods when little or no progress is seen, despite all efforts to further increase training performance and increase muscle mass and strength. Goals usually disappear for most coachees when they show a loss of interest, especially if they are not achieving the results or performance level they desire. Coachees can often become disillusioned, especially if goals are not being reached due to plateaus in workout performance. Setting new goals when plateaus occur can also assist in keeping coachees more interested in continuing to train while they are in their present state.
Consider selecting targets that are within the control of the client, such as working harder, more intensively, or focusing more on a good quality diet. Changing body composition targets may add to overtraining, excessive dieting, and what can be seen as feeling like failure if goals are not met. Stagnation in one's workout performance is a likely cause for reduced motivation to continue to undertake a weight training program, though it contributes to a decrease in training intensity (heavy training loads). Coachees can look at attending round-robin style competitions or entering into a team of four or more for a fun day to create a more relaxed lifting environment where new personal bests can also be attempted. Being in a different environment and doing something that is considered fun by the coachee is also likely to bring back some of the enjoyment and strength gains lost from heavy powerlifting.
5. Conclusion: Building a Lasting Foundation of Motivation
"Nothing is more gratifying than waking up everyday knowing that you are a little stronger, a little better, and a little more in control of your destiny than you were the day before." - Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The purpose of this paper has been to describe just how bodybuilders and weight trainers build the foundations of their success, rather than what success means in this context. In particular, I have sought to consider the strategies and techniques that elite athletes employ to keep themselves motivated and committed to their bodybuilding and weight training regimes. The co-authors have identified a number of key themes, such as the importance of setting right goals or of thinking, developing, and training with attitude.
In addition, they have highlighted the strategies used by bodybuilders and weight trainers to sustain their motivation in the face of training setbacks and a range of other difficulties. All of this has led me to a number of important insights. Firstly, the success of such athletes always depends on being willing to plan, prepare, and pay the price of success in advance, and to believe that anything worthwhile comes at some real cost or risk. It also depends on understanding that motivation ultimately comes from keeping the end in mind, and from understanding that the world, in general, tends to mirror our self-expectations and not our self-potentials. The best champions of the gym world also understand that performance is a separate issue from beingness or their basic human and great-ape nature. Killers in the wider competitive world, including this one, make a firm distinction between what they do or produce and what they are. In this context, how often we perform well or poorly is usually irrelevant.
Ben Clarke
Co-owner, GymPin
