ARE YOU LIFTING WITH YOUR HEART OR BRAIN?

When you need to f*** sh1t up, pushing yourself mentally to places which are extremely challenging, that is your heart. However, you must always ensure your "head" is present because this ensures you're doing things correctly.

Some people naturally train more with their heart, others with their head.

You need a balance of the two. Some people are too far one way or the other. Allow me to elaborate on why getting this balance is essential... Those who are visceral trainers, allowing their heart to lead the way usually let their form get too sloppy and they use too much instinct. Whilst they are pushing themselves hard in all likelihood, individuals with this psychology won't always execute repetitions as they should, track rest periods, tempo and even working sets. Ultimately, it becomes too unstructured for optimal results!

In contrast, individuals who train too much with their head tend to be very analytical and don't bring enough "heart" to their working sets. They are almost counting the rep tempo too much, not allowing that animalistic part of their brain to f***ing kick in.

Both mind-sets in their extremes are suppressive to an optimal outcome; you need to find some balance between the two.

You need to be controlled enough to apply your program correctly, BUT, you also need to f***ing let go and do what you must to truly reach that point of failure and then beyond with rest-pause.

You cannot do that in a subdued mood, you need to find that place where you're able to release your inner demon. Different people will have different ways to do this. For some it's shouting at themselves during the set, others will be swearing like f***, others will be listening to a certain type of music.

The important point to take home here is that you must know how to unleash a controlled aggression within if you're quite a reserved person. Equally, if you're very emotive and aggressive with your training, don't forget about applying enough control.