Setting goals, both short term and long term, are one of the most important aspects for creating a great looking body. For without goals, we have no direction and you must know where you want to go before you set out on your journey. If you begin your decent without a destination in mind, it will take you forever to get no where.

Saying to yourself, that you simply want to get into shape is not nearly enough. Your intentions must be precise and by precise I mean written out in great detail. Writing out a well thought out description of what you want to ultimately look like, will bring your desired goal much closer to fruition.

Here is a technique that will surely put you in the right frame of mind. I call it “Picture Perfect”. It is a technique that involves taking pictures of your bare physique. Your goal here is to get acquainted with your body as much as possible. As humans, we have a unique way of hiding the truth. Yes, we might know we aren’t in great shape, but we don’t fully get the gist of what’s really going on.

In other words, we will hide from the reality of how bad something usually is. Think about the last time you really took the time to look at your body. I’m not talking about just a quick glance as you were getting out of the shower. I mean a stop and stare session, where you really stopped and starred. It may have never happened.

Let’s paraphrase that question now. Were you ever in great shape? Did you ever have a stop and stare session then? Chances are you had them quite often. Why? What changed? Everything you say? Of course it did! Your confidence was through the roof. You got pleasure from observing the results of your hard earned efforts, right? When we aren’t feeling good about ourselves, we want to crawl into a cave and hide from the reality of it all.

The worst thing you can do is hide from yourself when you’re feeling down and out. You must face the reality head on and make some immediate changes for yourself.

If you didn’t know defeat, you couldn’t fully appreciate victory!

-James Villepigue

So here we go:  

Get yourself a digital camera and begin by taking many pictures of your body. Have someone take pictures of your front, back, side and every view you think will bring out every nook and cranny of your physique. Now print them out.

Don’t even think about procrastinating, putting off tomorrow what you can do right now!

Once you have your pictures printed out, you’ll want to review them with someone you trust. Critique your physique and ask that person you trust to help describe what they’re seeing, in great detail. This could momentarily hurt your feelings at first, but you want to bring honesty and reality into this session, for ultimately you will look back and pay homage for this moment in time.

Now paste the pictures on a piece of oak tag or construction paper and space them appropriately enough, so that you have enough room to make notes. Both of you should examine the pictures together, choosing specific body parts to describe. Make a line from the photo of a specific body part to a space for writing and write out what you like, dislike and how you’d like to improve upon specific areas. For example:

Upper Back:

Like = I see some good muscle and decent symmetry between both sides of my body.

Dislike = There is too much body fat covering the muscle.

Improve = Work on losing overall body fat and concentrate on working both sides of the upper back for muscle balance.

Triceps:       

Like = I can see a little muscle tone in all three triceps heads.

Dislike = Arms still look too bulky and there is a lot of fat on the back of 

the upper arms.

Improve = Add more muscle to my upper body.

Work on fully developing all 3 heads of the triceps. Slim down a bit, get cut      

up.

Now, go grab your camera and start your homework!

Keep Going!

James Villepigue CSCS