Reduced body fat.
Improved athletic performance.
Increased muscle mass and strength.
Steroids are powerful:
Studies show that on steroids, you can build muscle faster even without exercising, compared to a person who lifts without taking them.
On the flip side, their side effects are so destructive that they are not an option for anyone who wants optimized health.
However, something different exists that may give you the same benefits, without any of the downsides!
And you’ve probably never heard of it.
It’s not a pharmaceutical.
It’s not a diet or supplement.
And it's not a special workout.
In this article, you'll read about a medical sensation that can seriously affect your fitness goals.
Continue reading to learn more!
Physically stronger just through conviction?
Let’s start with a piece of research that will blow your mind:
In one study, a group of 15 advanced male lifters went through 11 weeks of strength training.
The participants were told that the 6 best lifters in the first 7 weeks would get steroids for the final 4 weeks.
During the first 7 weeks, the top 6 athletes increased their bench press by an average of 5kg, and their squat by 3kg.
After they got steroids, they increase their bench press by 13kg and their squat by 19kg.
They made four times the progress in half the time!
However, here’s the catch:
They weren’t given real steroids.
They received a placebo:
A pretend medicine that doesn't actually have any medical effect.
Just by believing and expecting that they were on steroids, the athletes made four times the progress in half the time!
A different study was done with a group of national-level powerlifters:
They received a placebo but were told that it was a steroid.
Every single participant reached personal bests within two weeks.
After that, half of the lifters were told the steroid was a placebo.
ALL regressed in strength to their previous levels, despite hitting PRs beforehand!
The other group that wasn’t told that it was a placebo continued to reach personal bests.
So what does this mean for your goals to build a healthy, strong, and lean body?
You already know that your beliefs and expectations affect how hard (or easy) it will be for you to install a new habit or reach a goal.
That’s why if you fail a certain diet approach, the chance is higher for the next diet to not work either.
But these studies have further implications:
They suggest that your beliefs and expectations directly impact the body on the physiological level.
You’ve likely heard about the Placebo effect, which is a well-documented medical phenomenon.
The placebo effect occurs when your mind thinks you are getting better from a pill, even if it’s not real medicine.
Your brain has the power to make you feel better just by thinking that you are getting better!
Less known is the Nocebo effect.
The nocebo effect happens when you think a treatment or medicine will harm you.
Even if it's not harmful, you might still experience negative effects.
This happens because you believe it will be harmful based on what you've heard or read.
It's like your brain convinces your body that something is bad for you, even if it's not.
The Nocebo effect was visible in the second study:
Once they heard the steroids weren't real, the powerlifters regressed to their old levels.
We scientifically know that your thoughts impact your body.
Science refers to this as neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity is a phenomenon where habits and repetitive thoughts are shown to change the structure of the brain.
This goes further than strength training though:
Joe Dispenza's book "You Are The Placebo" shares stories of people who got better or worse without explanation.
He suggests that many cases of spontaneous healing, for example with cancer patients, happened through the power of the mind.
So what does this mean for your fitness goals?
The conviction that a diet or training plan will give you better results, will be easier to take action and stick to it.
But it can even affect your body directly.
If you can convince yourself that you’re on steroids, you might get results as if you were on steroids.
But it also works the other way around:
Imagine what the impact would be if you repeatedly told yourself that you can’t lose weight because of your slow metabolism.
Or you convinced yourself that you can't build muscle because you’re a “hard gainer”.
Unfortunately, this is what those who struggle to reach their goals tell themselves.
In reality, the only thing that makes it that hard for you is the conviction that you can’t do it.
The studies mentioned above showcase the importance of holding beliefs, emotions, and actions on track with your goal.
There are many factors that go into this, but one of the most important is learning to get rid of your limiting beliefs.
To do so, you first have to identify these beliefs.
Your limiting beliefs are the difference between where you are right now and where you want to be, so you can identify them by asking yourself:
“What is stopping me from reaching my goals?”
Once you have identified them, you need to replace them with a resourceful belief that has the same intention (I wrote more about this in THIS article).
For example, the belief “No matter what I do, it's so hard to lose weight” may have the intention to push you to work harder on your goal.
But it also has the downside of making the process much more difficult than necessary.
A more resourceful belief that has the same intention would be something like:
“I will drop that weight, no matter how challenging it might be.”
When you manage to change your beliefs, you will change your emotions as well.
This is because your emotions are a consequence of your interpretations.
Changing your beliefs is a process that takes time and repetition, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t see the effects immediately.
There are more ways that help you to do so that I won’t cover in this article because it would be too overwhelming.
If you want a complete guide on how to get rid of the limiting beliefs that stop you from reaching your goals and finally get in shape sustainably, click HERE to hop on a 30-minute breakthrough call with me.