THE POWER OF BELIEF

I have spoken to this concept a bunch of times, but it’s worth just writing about specifically.  Belief is key when it comes to success, and I’m of course writing on the topic of getting bigger and stronger, but it’s true across all domains.  The only people who don’t accept this fact are, consequently enough, the people in MOST need of accepting this fact.  The “forever skeptics” hamstring themselves by refusing to ever belief in anything, as they refuse to allow themselves the ability to have stupid, unyielding, illogical, reality defying faith in something, which is basically playing life on hard mode.  If one is willing to allow themselves to believe in something despite the fact that all logic and reason dictates that it can’t possibly be the case, they are able to transcend MANY limitations and achieve, in turn, unbelievable results.  Let’s discuss…

I mean, if you're going to believe in nothing, believe in it with everything you have

 

The big one to hone in on, as far as getting bigger and stronger goes, is belief in the program you are running.  I encounter a LOT of faithless when it comes to programs, and it doesn’t matter WHAT the program is.  People contact me directly about programs I have run, had success with, and wrote full reviews on and ask “Is there enough benching in Building The Monolith?” “Can you really get big and strong using 70% of your 10rm in Deep Water?” “Is 1 set of squats in Super Squats really enough to grow?”  Dude, I DID it.  It clearly works.  How are you still doubting it?  Because you’ve convinced yourself, through something you read or heard somewhere, that the program can’t work.  And guess what: you’re right.  That program isn’t going to work: for YOU.  Because you have no faith in it.  And a program you have no faith in is a program you will not invest yourself in, which, in turn, means it will NOT WORK.  Meanwhile, one you’re willing to actually believe in will surpass all those “superior programs”, because, for you, you’ll actually do the things necessary to make yourself grow.

 

A great personal example is my experience with “Westside Barbell training”, which I put in quotes because, of course, I wasn’t training AT Westside, and also because I was doing things so completely wrong that it was Westside in name only.  I was using the competition lifts in my max effort work, my dynamic effort work was too light, I couldn’t figure out the difference between supplemental and accessory work, my GPP work was haphazard, etc etc.  And I got the biggest and strongest I’d ever gotten in my life following it.  In 9 months, I went from a 405 deadlift to 540 (without a belt), not being able to hit depth on a 405 squat to a 475 squat, benching 335 to 365, and hit a 235lb strict press.  I also upped my bodyweight from 190 to 217.  And it’s because, in my mind, I was “doing Westside Barbell training”, and at that time (the mid 2000s), that was THE way to train if you wanted to get strong.  And I believed it, because everything I read said as such.  And hey, wanna know why I got to 217lbs?  Because at 5’9, I saw fellow 5’9 lifter Kroc was jacked as hell as a 220lb competitor, so I believed that, if I got to 220, I’d be jacked as hell.  I was wrong, of course, because I didn’t have near the years of training under my belt to turn all that weight into muscle, but eating in such a way to support growing that big was getting me strong as hell.  Once again: the power of belief.

 
Much like how I believed I could eat like Tate to look like Kroc...

Here's another story: Super Squats.  I already wrote my “Ode to Super Squats”, and I encourage reading it if you haven’t, but as a quick summary, I ran the program in college, drank a gallon of milk a day and ate everything I could in our dinning hall.  I put on 12lbs in 6 weeks running the program.  Why?  Because I believed I could gain THIRTY pounds in 6 weeks.  Because it’s what the book said and, if you read the book, you know that Randall Strossen employs all the tricks his PhD in psychology allowed to convince the reader that this was true.  And as long as you didn’t approach this as a “too smart for the world” skeptic, you bought into it, ran the program, and grew.  “But you can’t gain muscle that fast!  It was all fat!”  Hey: look at you with your big brain.  Shame that’s the only thing that’s big.  Because yeah, I didn’t get 12lbs of muscle in 6 weeks, and I’m sure most of it was water, foodmass and glycogen, but know what I got from the experience?  THE EXPERIENCE!  I learned how to train harder than I ever thought possible and eat more than I knew I could ever eat.  I got a 6 week brutal/intense crash course in training AND recovery intensity, and I got to take those lessons with me on all programs I ran in the future, which was huge for my success.  And I even got a little bit of muscle on top of it, because after I ran the program I set a 10lb PR on my bench.   WITHOUT benching for the entire 6 weeks I ran the program.

 

And THIS is the critical element to look for when evaluating programs: is it something you can believe in?  Does something about the program grab you and assure you that it’s going to work?  That it HAS to work?  Absent that, it WILL not work.  As long as a seed of doubt exists in your mind, you will not be able to succeed on a program, no matter how well it is laid out.  Your mind will work against your body, and the perfect rep and set scheme will fail you.  Lack of belief is just as powerful as belief, and you sabotage yourself by your unwillingness to have faith in SOMETHING.  Which is why, when you go down the exercise science rabbit hole and keep finding studies that contradict other studies, the conclusion you NEED to draw is that EVERYTHING works: not that nothing works.  With the former, you give yourself permission to go find the program you like the most that you are willing to believe in and let the power of that belief carry you to success.  With the latter, you doom yourself to simply questioning everything and making no progress, because you’re unwilling to take the chance in believing in something, no matter how stupid it may be.

No 

Go find something to believe in and get strong.