Men, maybe you wish you had that ripped six-pack, bigger arms, huge boulder-like shouders, quads that rub together when you walk from their sheer muscular girth, calves that stretch out your dorky 80′s style striped tube socks,  you know what I’m talking about. Women, perhaps you yearn for a bigger “chest”, toned abs and arms, a tight little round butt that makes men drool and women hate you. Surely there is something you would like to improve. Right?

The obvious, and not so obvious

So what’s the secret to getting the body you want? It’s not this. I guess it could help, but probably won’t do much other than make Suzanne Somers richer. The secret to getting the body you want is hard work, sacrifice, and commitment. (Good genetics doesn’t hurt either.)

“PFFFT! GREG, YOU’RE NOT TELLING ME ANYTHING I DON’T ALREADY KNOW! EVERYONE KNOWS THIS!” I hear you screaming.

Ok, now that we have gotten the obvious requirements out of the way there is another secret, visualization. Dictionary.com defines visualization ”to recall or form mental images or pictures” to which I will add “…of what you want to happen or feel.”

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “What you believe you can achieve,” or the great quote by Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.” They don’t directly speak about visualization per sé, but when you believe in something or think of yourself doing (or not doing) something then you create a mental image in your head, right? You visualize it. You see, it all starts with what’s in your head.

So first you must ask yourself if you believe you can achieve a great body. If you say no then I can promise you that you will never look like natural bodybuilder Jeff Rodriguez, or figure athlete Monica Brant, or anyone else with a physique that looks like theirs.

If you answer ”yes,” then congratulations, you’ve made it pass the first hurdle!

Ok, visualize, now what?

So what now? You’ve got the image in your head of the body you want but “so what,” right? Well, keep that image in your mind. Think about it everyday. When you wake up in the morning, visualize that body. When you brush your teeth, take a shower, drive to work, eat lunch, drive home, cook dinner, talk on the phone to your mother, lie on the couch watching tv, have sex with your partner (maybe not then), get ready for bed, and as you are lying in bed waiting to fall asleep …visualize it.

What will this accomplish? It will program your subconscious mind to find ways to manifest this vision and make it reality. Your mind is incredibly powerful. And by visualizing you are creating a belief system for your brain.

To make this visualization technique more effective, however, be detailed. When you are visualizing your body you desire, associate smell, touch, and emotion to it. In other words, don’t just create an image in your mind and leave it at that. Rather, imagine not only what your body will feel like, but how having this body will feel. What emotion(s) will it will evoke? How will you smell? How will people react to you? Visualize every minor detail. The clearer and more detailed this mental image, the more engrained it becomes into your subconscious, and the faster it will become a reality.

When I first began competing I would visualize myself onstage. I would close my eyes and think about the lights, how I posed, I visualized every vein showing through my paper thin skin. I imagined the crowd’s reaction. Most importantly, I imagined myself being announced as the winner. When it was time to actually get onstage and do my thing it was no big deal because I had done it thousands of times already …in my mind.

Now, I haven’t competed dozens of times or anything, but in my first contest I got 2nd, and in my second, third, and fourth contests I got 1st. I won the overall in my third show, which was held in Houston, Texas. I’d like to believe that visualization helped give me an edge.

I continue to use this visualization technique even to this day before I perform a set of an exercise. Before I lie back on the bench to do a set of dumbell presses, for example, I will sit at the end of the bench holding the two dumbells resting on my knees. I will close my eyes and picture myself performing the whole set. If I did eight reps last time and I want to do nine on this set, then I will visualize myself doing all nine reps. More often than not I will achieve all nine because I’ve mentally rehearsed it already. All I needed to do was execute the set.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, you know that in order to get anything you want in life it takes hard work, sacrifice, and discipline. But don’t discount the power of doing nothing …but visualizing want you want to accomplish. It will still require those other elements, but you may just get there a lot faster if you already ”see” yourself with arms like Arnold or, women, a butt that you can bouce a quarter off of.

So what do you think? Do you use visualization to help you? What has been your experience?