Find your (new) motivation: What gets you out of bed in the morning? What do you want to improve about your physique? Write it down on paper, don’t just think about it. Find what motivates you, write it down and read it every single day. This will affirm your purpose and feed your drive building your confidence little by little.
Realistic evaluation and goal setting: Evaluate where you are currently with your physique goals. Give yourself an honest assessment and, again, write it down, take pictures if you want and set some realistic, specific goals. Define those goals with detail. Lose 20 pounds in 6 months, gain 10 pounds of muscle in 4 months and increase conditioning by completing a certain complex of skill in a determined amount of time are clearly defined.
What you are capable of: Be realistic but firm with yourself about scheduling a time and committing to that on a daily and weekly basis. Do you need to wake up early to get to the gym before work? Do you have time during lunch for a lifting session? Can you brown-bag your lunch for work? Do what you can with what you have but also don’t be too easy on yourself.
Build a solid, realistic plan: Piggybacking off of the above, be sure your plan is one that is comprehensive and doable. A two hour leg blitz is probably not that realistic for most. Burn-out, overtraining and a decreased motivation will most likely creep in and shut down your greatest efforts. Build a program around the basic lifts with moderate volume and some prehab and core work.
Filter out the unnecessary: Single-arm high cable curls will do little for your overall physique. Cut out the little fluff exercises and focus on the big, compound, multi-joint lifts that work numerous muscles in one shot. Bench presses, squats and pulls will do more regarding reshaping your body in less time than countless isolation exercises.
Warming up, stretching and flexibility: Be sure to perform a dynamic warm-up prior to each session. This can include burpees, prisoner squats and push-ups just to name a few. Also, be sure to stretch after every session including important areas such as hip flexors, hamstrings, glutes and lumbar. Increasing your flexibility will have a huge impact on your long term success.
Stay flexible: Here I am talking of staying flexible with your training and diet. Don’t be so strict that you beat yourself up over missing one day of training or screwing up a meal or two. Just get back on track and move forward. Life will happen and you need to be prepared to adjust your training and eating plan to compensate for those challenging times.
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