Whether or not you want to gain strength, lose weight, gain weight or look like the guy in the picture on the right it is going to take a journey. Contrary to popular belief, 4 weeks to six-pack abs will not give you six-pack abs. And no, following 8 weeks to a big chest will not make you look like the next Mr. Olympia, but it will probably make you look like this kid
http://www.cjlopez.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/skinny-guy.jpg. With that said
not all hope is lost. Fortunately for us, some of the world's strongest men and athletes have been kind enough to share there 'secrets of success.' I say this somewhat jokingly because the formula for most of these top athletes seems to be the same: Hard Work + Smart Work + Time = Success. Instead of looking for the quick fix, how about you start taking what works and trying to apply it to your life. Hard Work is first in the equation so lets examine it first. Hard work does not mean working out for 6 hours one day and then not doing anything for the next 8 months. So be smart and plan 3 workouts a week and then focus on hard work during each workout. You see hard work and smart work are connected, in order for hard work to be effective it must also be smart work. If your goal is to run a marathon in the next year, then bench pressing maximal weights for the next year is not smart work. Although training the bench press is hard work, it is not smart work because it does not connect with your goal; therefore your efforts should be focused on something else. Another misunderstood factor of success is time. Believe it or not-- it does take time to build the body of your dreams and to achieve the goals that you are chasing. There is no way you can cheat time, if you missed your workout last week and you say to yourself, "It's okay I will just work out twice as long today" then you will not achieve optimal gains. Instead you will most likely end up training once a month, or even worse never. So how does time factor in to your success? Well, in my opinion, time is doing the hard work and smart work for weeks, then months, and eventually years all leading to success. I guess you could say time is what the journey is all about.
Thanks for reading. JG
