As a naive, desperate-for-muscle (and validation) 16-year-old walking into the gym for the first time, I began sniffing for what made people successful (absolutely massive).
Whether you like it or not, whether it’s disgusting or weirdly attractive, giant muscles make you stand up and take note, especially when you’re a teenage lad. I wasn’t arsed about the lean, ripped guys doing bicep curls in the corner, I wanted the mountainous shoulders and pecs that hung out of an unnecessarily small vest.
The minute I saw the biggest bloke in there drinking a protein shake, I’d made an association that would live with me for the next decade. Protein shake = big muscles.
We make these associations every single day regardless of whether they’re based on evidence or not. Take a want for something + a lack of education around the subject + a person who has what you want displaying a particular behaviour and you’re more than likely to start adopting that particular behaviour.
Mo Farah eats Quorn (supposedly), so that’ll make me run fast. Arnold Schwarzenegger drinks protein shakes, so that’ll make me more muscular.
The above are pretty harmless and there is some loose association there. But over time I’ll soon learn that despite my ritualistic consumption of protein powder after training, I may not be getting any more muscular. And despite eating Quorn every day, I’m still crap at running.
I take a Masters degree in Exercise Physiology and a nutrition course on the side and learn that muscle growth is determined by a variety of factors, one important one being a calorie surplus must be enforced to build new tissue. Therefore consuming a protein shake in a calorie deficit actually has very little effect on my muscle growth.
I learn that Quorn, while high in protein and low in calories, is only one small part of a diet that could potentially help me to run a little faster. Good genetics, hard-work and a hell of a lot of endurance training helps too. Quorn and protein shakes become irrelevant in the grand scope of things.
But you know what? That belief clings on. Despite the amount of knowledge I’ve now accumulated, there it stays. I still walk past giant bags of protein in supermarkets and question whether that could be the difference between a good and a great physique. I know it’s not, but I believe it could be.
Belief and actual knowledge are weirdly separate entities. Beliefs are often the reason why overweight people struggle so much from a psychological standpoint to change their bodies. They know they can scientifically lose weight, but they don’t really believe they can based on past failures, negative views of themselves and things people have told them.
Grabbing hold of a self-limiting belief and chucking it down the toilet is an incredibly difficult thing to do. It’s often something that’s been conditioned and reinforced over time. The science PROVES you can do it, but that little belief inside your head stops you from ever achieving it.
There is a remedy. I think. And that’s to achieve an incredibly satisfying result while simultaneously disproving your belief. To achieve an incredible amount of muscular growth without the input of a protein shake, to win a race without eating Quorn, or to lose weight whilst eating carbohydrates daily.
That’s a very difficult thing to do without the help of someone you place so much trust in that you can shelve those particular beliefs for a moment. Finding a coach or friend who has a wealth of knowledge and an ability to inspire and motivate you can help you to conquer your self-limiting beliefs and achieve a result that owes no gratitude to any of them.
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