5 tips to get stronger faster

Here are five tips out of my one and a half years of lifting so far which will keep you on track to make more gains faster and become the stronger version of yourself you want to be. If you have any questions, reach out to me in the comments or via social media and I will come back to you. At the core of success are commitment, attention to detail and staying curious.

#1 Leave your ego at home

If you are training to impress the ladies, to look yourself at yourself in the mirror or copy some model out of a muscle magazine you will be motivated by exterior events. Once these do not drive you any more, you will cease to progress or if you do not get the approval ratings you wished for. Yes, progress towards a certain defined goal is at the heart of good training but not at any cost. Listen to your body, find an intrinsic motivator like being the best version of yourself that you can possibly and do something that none before you has done to keep you motivated. According to that goal leave pride and ego behind and make the necessary adjustments in your training, even if it is means to take a step back and be really critical about how good or bad your performance against these goals really is.

#2 Form before gains

If you want to get stronger faster in the long run, pay attention to proper form. Of course you can cut corners to being ripped and pumped by starving yourself and injecting testosterone in every part of your body which a needle can reach. Usually what happens when this is done is that you will suffer an injury in the long run or even death because you take that one more exciting new pill from overseas which will poison the overall cocktail and send you straight into bodybuilding heaven after a proper nose bleed.

Stay humble and focus on perfect execution on each repetition to make the most use of your time. With this you will train effective and efficient whilst exerting the least amount of wear and tear on your joints to stay in the game of getting stronger for the long run. So in the end looking at decades of training where others bomb out you will on average have progressed farther per year on average than the ones who cut corners. Another benefit is that getting stringer does not necessarily mean becoming bigger. Keep that in mind before ordering those supplements.

I felt cool doing a quarter squat with 140kg on my back. I felt even stronger and more bad ass when I dished out ass to grass squats with 120kg on my back. Do the latter, not the former.

#3 Stick with your program

As long as your program makes you stronger, why change it ? There will always be some magazine with the coolest new pump your iron fist in 10 days sort of nonsense trying to convince you that it is the best and newest hype to gain muscle fast. If you do some research, you will see that profound lifters will generally recommend programs which are decades old. There is almost no new trick in the book when it comes to moving plates in the gym. Barbells remain barbells, kilos remain kilos, muscles remain muscles. As long as you are progressing and not hitting a wall do not change the program.

All of these magazines are trying to spin you a message so that you buy their subscription, their next installment or the newest hyped up product. That is what they life off. If his industry would tell you "just keep doing what you are doing and eat a lot" there would be no money to be made from this. Keep that in mind when you surfing the internet or buying muscle and fitness at your local kiosk.

#4 Listen to your body and stay curious

Nobody knows your body better than yourself. Your brain is connected to your muscles and to all of your senses. So you are the best advocate for what works and what does not for you and will be reflected in your performance towards your goals. If your body shows signs of fatigue, do not over strain, if your body is bursting with energy, go after that last rep or set with all you got. Adjust your rest times according to how you feel and how pumped up you feel. Keep the big picture in mind, choose your battles wisely on the road to it.

Once you hit a wall and you do not progress any further, stay curious. Learn form others and seek information proactively. Try things out. Abandon inefficient and ineffective tactics and keep the good ones which yield the most results for you. This is a never ending process which can be rewarding enough in itself as the endless pursuit for improvement.

Share you thoughts and stories, so that others can learn from them and tread your body, mind and others with respect. You will get rewarded for it.

#5 Make your training part of a healthy lifestyle

Take care that your lifestyle is balanced overall. It is no use to train like a beast and than pump your veins full of sugar or fat. Also enjoy family life and work to balance out the slumps you will have in your training career. This will enable you to come back and draw power from other sources which will keep you going longer and harder.