The Winning Team

Many people believe that Bodybuilding is a solo sport, you are in at alone, and there is no team. Well I can safely say that there is, yes it is up to you to put in the hours of training however there are generally many people behind the scenes crucial to your success and progress. These people may include your coach / trainer; it could be your immediate family, your partner and friends as well as work colleagues. 

The people around you can have either a positive or negative influence over you, those that are like myself choose to only deal with and communicate with positive people, more often than not we sometimes find we distance ourselves from negative people and negative influences’ in our life. To build the mind of a winner and to focus on winning and reaching your goals this is often crucial.

James Smith

positive influences are important for many reasons but often we find negative comments or communications consist of brining others down, gossip, discussing the lives of others, and distracting us from the task at hand. Make sure you select who you spend your time with wisely, your time is valuable and precious and if you are like me you have things to go out and do and goals to achieve.

My whole sporting life I have been lucky to have very supportive parents. When I did my first Weightlifting competition at age 11 my dad was there taking photos and recording the event and this was the case until I gave up the sport 7 years later. When I chose to compete in Bodybuilding the support was still there. I was also lucky to have very supportive friends although the biggest test would be my relationship, and yes my girlfriend Hayley was also very supportive of what I wanted to achieve in fact she was a great motivator and would motivate me daily during my prep by sending a simple SMS or a phone call, during this time I didn’t see her at all, I was all about the competition and she understood this however she was always there motivating me and supporting me! As you can see  I had a great recipe to work with and I found motivation from every angel. 

During my prep phase I also enlisted the help of a now great friend. Michael Johnson from Ultimate Achiever. I met Michael at the gym one day when he asked me to spot him. Michael is a performance coach and Michael has taught me how to control my mind for optimal levels of focus and results. 

Michael Johnson - www.ultimateachiever.net

Michael has also performed several sessions with me using hypnotherapy which although skeptical in the beginning I have proved myself wrong and the results showed!! at the time in 2010 my best Bench Press was 120kg for 10 reps, after my session with Michael I went to the gym and warmed up as usual but ended up Bench Pressing 140kg for 8 reps, a huge personal best, I remember not being nervous of the jump in weight and I remember a fearless sensation and I almost couldn’t feel the weight in my hands.

I now continue to see Michael on a regular basis and I am always looking for ways to make my training more intense and deliver better results.

to find out more about Michael and Ultimate Acheiver check out their web page!

http://www.ultimateachiever.net/video1.html