The Key to Muscle-Building Success
By Rob Drucker
Desire provides the mental fuel that propels you to take action, endure endless hours of hard work, and stay focused on your goals until they are reached. Without a burning desire, you are doomed to sink into a sea of mediocrity.
Desire is something that you feel deep inside your soul. It provides the POTENTIAL energy for carrying out a game plan and overcoming the many obstacles that await you. Nothing can take the place of desire - not steroids, not winning a lottery, not great genetics, not luck - not anything!
During my early days of weight training, my friends and I used to engage in friendly "weightlifting" contests. We would go to somebody's house and see who could lift the heaviest barbell overhead in any fashion. At the beginning, I was out muscled and out lifted by nearly everybody in the participating group. My skinny frame was no match for the bigger and naturally more powerful fellows.
One day, a guy named Bruce out-lifted me by 60 pounds. Another guy, Gary, out-lifted me by 50 pounds. Both of these guy were natural brutes, as neither had worked hardly at all for their strength. In contrast, I trained hard and regularly, but I finished near last in the "competition". But, I had one weapon that neither Bruce nor Gary had - A STRONG DESIRE. While both of these brutes were complacent with their natural build, I was absolutely determined to become bigger and stronger.
What resulted was a natural study of DESIRE versus COMPLACENCY. Two years after my "defeat", I had gained 40 pounds of body weight and increased my best clean and press by 70 pounds! Bruce and Gary, in contrast, gained almost no new muscle and strength, and no longer could either of these two big guys "out lift" me. So here you have it:
DESIRE + PERSISTENCE = GROWTH;
NATURAL ABILITY + COMPLACENCY = STAGNATION.
Napoleon Hill called desire the starting point of achievement. For without desire, nothing worthwhile can be accomplished. However, desire alone is not enough to achieve success. You can desire to bench press 400 pounds every minute of every day. But, unless you TAKE ACTION to turn your desire into reality, don't expect to win a bench-press competition. While desire provides the potential energy for achievement, only persistent action provides the KINETIC force that transmutes ambition into success.
More often than not, exercise enthusiasts do not realize the power of persistent action. Muscular gains are often too slow to be immediately recognized or appreciated. Nonetheless, given time great things can happen if the iron athlete stays on course. This fact is reflected very well in The Tortoise and the Hare. You know the story. The hare takes a long nap during a race while the tortoise continues to pace himself slowly but steadily. As the hare sleeps, the tortoise keeps going, making slow but steady progress. The tortoise does not quit, nor does he get discouraged. For the tortoise knows that given enough time he will cross the finish line. And cross the finish line he does - in a winning fashion!
The lesson to learn from this story is that slow but steady progress can lead to big results. Another truth revealed by this story is that perseverance is more powerful than natural talent. If you persevere toward your goal to attain stronger and bigger muscles, you can succeed, even if your gains come very slowly. Sadly, relatively few people understand this fact. This is why many individuals give up their muscle-building quest far before their goals are realized. Bombarded by grossly misleading advertisements and articles in the muscle magazines, many an exercise enthusiast end up believing that muscular gains should be profound and rapid. When gains do not come as promised or as expected, disappointment sets in, and the trainee loses drive and focus. This typically ends what may have otherwise been a rewarding training career.
Most people must stick to a proper training and diet program for many months, perhaps years, before changes to their physique and strength will be apparent. Do not let this discourage you. Almost nothing worthwhile in life comes easily or quickly, and this includes the acquisition of large muscles. If you persevere, you can make significant gains in size and strength. Imagine what you could look like if over the next five years you could gain an average of just five pounds of muscle per year. After five years of such progress, you would carry 25 pounds of extra beef on your frame. This is enough muscle to transform a skinny runt into a man of great power. Remember this:SLOW AND STEADY GROWTH + PERSISTENT TRAINING = MASSIVE DEVELOPMENT.
The world is full of people who wish to possess big muscles, but who fail to act to acquire them. You know the type; they talk about bodybuilding all the time, and they constantly bury their face in a muscle magazine. These wannabes can tell us all about the latest happenings in the bodybuilding world, which supplements the last five Mr. Olympia winners take, and how Arnold built his enormous biceps. These guys are good with their mouths, but that's where the action ends. What is lacking here is SELF DISCIPLINE.
Self discipline is what allows a WINNER to train hard, to train consistently, and to overcome obstacles in his quest to build bigger and stronger muscles. In contrast, LAZINESS and PROCRASTINATION causes DEFEAT and FAILURE. No amount of natural talent can overcome a lack of self discipline. If you are to succeed in the iron world, you must back up your desire to become big and strong with hard, persistent, and focused training.
I work in the chemical manufacturing business, and I have done so for many years. Throughout my career, I have met NUMEROUS very intelligent and extremely gifted individuals. Some of these gifted men and women exhibit a high level of self discipline, and they have accomplished great things in their line of work. The majority of these gifted workers, however, lack internal fire power, and they usually do just enough "to get by". The result is inevitably the same - a mediocre work performance and a failure to reach their full career potential.
In contrast, many of the most productive people I work with are not "gifted" by nature. These folks didn't graduate at the top of their class from Harvard or from Yale, but their drive and work ethic is second to none. Through desire, hard work, persistence, and self discipline, these folks have made huge contributions in the work force, and they have become among the best and most valued employees in the business.
When applied in the gym, the same forces that lead to success in the work place can allow a lifter, even one surrounded by unfavorable circumstances, to gain great strength and muscle. Many of the most muscular and strongest iron athletes of all time had quite a humble beginning. But through desire, hard work, persistence, and self discipline, they prevailed. Look at George Jowett, for example. When Jowett was just six months old, he was severely injured in an accident. His injury caused him great torment and agony, and the young lad spent eight years on and off undergoing operations and hospitalization. After his last operation, the doctor told Jowett's mother that nothing more could be done for him, and that her son would not make it to adulthood.
After being permanently released from the hospital, Jowett resumed his schooling. Fragile and weak, he had nothing to keep him going except for an iron-clad determination that permeated his soul. One day, just a few weeks after his last operation, George got into a brawl at his school with a older fellow who was much larger and stronger than he. Determined not to take a "licking", Jowett fought the big brute bravely and relentlessly, not backing down for a second. The fight was finally brought to an abrupt end when the two fighters were dragged apart. George protested vehemently as he was held by a group of people, for he wanted nothing more than to continue teaching the large fellow that he would not stand for being bullied.
This fight triggered a desire in George so strong that nothing could stop him from fulfilling it. His unstoppable goal was to become big and strong, and to make sure that nobody would ever push him around again. Jowett started his quest to gain physical power by collecting and studying every thing he could get his hands on about muscle building. For months, the young lad exercised endlessly. He also wrestled with anybody he could, often starting fights just to get some practice. Jowett's persistence and hard work payed off. His fragility was replaced by great health, and his once bony frame became packed with slabs of powerful muscle and thick tendons. He would go on to become a star gymnast by age 15, a professional wrestler by age 16, and a famous weightlifter and strongman soon after. Not bad accomplishments for a guy who wasn't supposed to live long enough to become a grown man.
The stories told above show how powerful the human spirit can be when it is persistently fueled by a burning desire. Whether in the work place, at the gym, on the athletic field, or anywhere else, if you want to accomplish something badly enough, and you are willing to persevere to attain it, you will accomplish great things. The roads you travel on may prove to be rocky. There may be major hurdles in your way. You might have your ego crushed a time or two. But, if you want to succeed, keep going! Nothing will ensure failure faster than quitting.
Each day, hundreds of people who wish to possess bigger muscles give up training because their flames of desire are extinguished by discouragement and false beliefs. They blame their failures on lack of natural talent, or on harsh personal circumstances. In truth, rarely can a person's failure to gain muscle and might be attributed to lack of talent or bad luck. In almost every case, when a person fails in the Iron Game, it is because they give up too soon. Nearly all great accomplishments in physical culture come about only after people persevere for many years and overcome MANY setbacks.
Anybody who has a burning desire to build big and powerful muscles, and who is willing to work very hard to acquire them, can succeed. You do not need to possess natural talent to build an impressive physique or to develop great strength. Persistent training coupled with knowledge, hard work, and plenty of heart will deliver spectacular results. Refuse to give up. Refuse to give in to obstacles and setbacks. Keep going. Here lies the key to muscle-building success.