weird mental trick

Table of Contents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Visualization 101 Mapping Across the Senses in Reality and Imagination Visualization of Colors Inside and Outside Your Body Angles and Size The Story Behind the #1 Mental Trick for Increasing Strength Brightness Additional Resources About the Author

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DISCLAIMER The exercises and advice contained within this book may be too strenuous or dangerous for some people, and the reader should consult with a physician before engaging in them. The author and publisher of this book are not responsible in any manner whatsoever for the use, misuse or dis-use of the information presented here. All images, unless otherwise noted, are from my private collection. They are reproduced here under the professional practice of fair use for the purposes of historical discussion and scholarly interpretation. All characters and images remain the property of their respective copyright holders.

Copyright 2016, Legendary Strength LLC.

www.LegendaryStrength.com

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Visualization 101 Welcome to Visualization 101. When I introduce people to how mental training can make them stronger, more fit, and achieve the body they want, I’ll often hear one of two things: “I can’t visualize.”

…or… “I suck at visualizing.”

If you think you’re in either of the above cases, then this series of posts will be a big help to you. Let’s tackle the first statement. It’s simply not true, but instead a mental block o f a belief, that will only serve to keep you from visualizing. Short of being born blind, or perhaps brain damage to the visual cortex, EVERYONE visualizes. And I’ll prove it to you. First though, it is important to note that some people are naturally better at visualizing than others. And by this I mean seeing things visually. If that’s not you, that means you’re better at listening (the auditory sense), movement and/or feelings (both lumped into the kinesthetic sense), or even smelling and tasting (olfactory and gustatory sense). Here’s the second important thing. Visualization is a SKILL As a skill it can be improved whether you’re starting off strong or you suck at it. Now here’s the third important thing. Many people assume that if they can’t see something with HD-TV full three dimensional completely realistic vision inside their head than they’re not visualizing. The fact is I don’t know anyone that visualizes like that. I certainly don’t.



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Your visuals might be a still picture that flashes by super quickly. It might be a small movie that is quite dim and hard to see. That’s still visualizing! Now that we’ve covered those three important points, let’s prove that you can visualize. Think about your mother (if you don’t know your mother, substitute a mother figure). What color is her hair? In order to answer that question, you have to be able to SEE her. Color cannot be sorted by sound, touch, smell or taste. (Unless you have a synesthesia going on or are on LSD, but that’s beside the point.) What is her body shape? What length is her hair? What color are her eyes? What expression does she have on her face? Seeing is the best way to answer all of these. Once again, it could be a picture or a movie. It might be from a memory or it might be imagination. Either way you are visualizing! Here’s another question. What does it look like when you set foot into your childhood home? What sort of room are you in? Great! So now you know that you can visualize, we’ll move onto some drills that can help you become better. These include:    

Mapping Across the Senses Colors Inside and Outside Your Body Angles and Size

Mapping Across the Senses in Reality and Imagination Here is a useful drill that really helps you get started in visualizing. Last time, I mentioned that if you’re not a “visual” person you’d have your other senses being more dominant. So in this drill we utilize that to help us. Pick up a small object like a pen. Go ahead and hold that in your hand. Feel it’s texture and weight. Move it around so that your tactile sense is awakened as you focus on it.



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Now, as you continue to feel it, look at it. Notice that you can feel the texture and you can also see it. You can feel its size and you can also see it. You can also notice other things like its colors and writing, or the lack of it, that is printed on. Good. Now set the pen down. And close your eyes. Recreate the feeling of that pen in your hand. Vividly imagine those sensations.

Don't see and feel this pen in your hand right now!

As you do so, see the pen as well. Notice the colors once again. Does light reflect off of it? Notice the texture, feeling it as well. Go ahead and do that now… How well did that go? Even if the imagination wasn’t strong, chances are you got SOMETHING while doing this. Remember, few people are going to have it feel and look as real as in real life, but you might have “felt” it briefly and “saw” flashes of it too. That’s a good start and that’s why we’re practicing. Copyright 2016, Legendary Strength LLC.


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Okay, pick up the pen again, physically now in real life. See it. Feel it. Now tap it against something like a table and listen to the noise it makes. Tap harder and hear how that changes. Tap lighter. Tap in a rhythm. Tap with different parts of the pen. Once again notice what you see as you do so. Notice the feeling in your hand as well. Great. Set the pen down and do the same thing with your eyes closed. In your imagination pick up the pen. See it in your hand. Now feel it as you move it to hit that table. Imagine, once again, the sound you just previously heard. Continue to do so in a few different ways. Do that right now… How was that? Of the three senses which do you find easiest? Feeling? Seeing? Hearing? There’s a good chance that whichever one it was, that that is your dominant sense. For your continued practice do this with a number of objects. To take it to the next level do it with objects without first interacting with them in “reality” and doing it simply in your imagination. For instance, you could see, feel and hear and apple right now. An aspect that some people have issues with is colors, and that will be our next drill. For now, imagine that pen once again but see it in a different color…

Visualization of Colors This drill is even simpler than the last one, whe re we are focused on one and only one thing, colors. A lot of people find that when they visualize everything is darker than in regular life. This is actually quite normal. Do you know why? I’ll tell you at the end of this if you do the drill. Some people even see in black and white (which can be useful in some instances). Go ahead and read through the instructions, then try the drill. Or if you have someone that can help you they can read this to you. Close your eyes and you’ll see black. Imagine it’s like a blank black screen in front of you but now make it entirely blue. Now turn that to red. Orange. Purple. Copyright 2016, Legendary Strength LLC.


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Yellow. Green. Open your eyes. How was that? Easy? Were some colors harder than others? Okay, let’s do it a little differently. Close your eyes and see black. Can you make the black even blacker? Now lighten it up. Turn it to a medium gray. Now a light gray. Keep turning it up until you see pure white. Can you make it so bright its almost blinding? Awesome. Did you actually start squinting and moving away a little bit? If so, that’s a good sign that your body is responding to your imagination. Once more, close your eyes and see black. Now put a rainbow in front of you. Can you see all seven colors?

Open your eyes. Now see the rainbow in front of you with eyes open. Great job! You see, practicing visualization can be this simple, and you’ll get better over time. This then means your visualization become more “real” to your nervous system and thus you’ll be able to gain real life results with it.



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So why are things darker for most people when they visualize? Simply because when they close their eyes things go black, or close to it. This background tends to make things darker, at least until you realize that you can internally “turn up the lights.” I’ve found just doing that can often add more “juice” to doing exercises. Our next piece covers something VERY important for visualization, and it’s something great to know about yourself.

Inside and Outside Your Body Close your eyes and in your imagination do a pushup. You can do a few reps. Do this now. … Good. Were you watching yourself from the outside, as if you were seeing yourself on a TV screen? Or were you in your body, so that you saw the floor move closer to your face as you did the pushup? In NLP terms this is often called associated and dissociated. However, these may not be the best terms because in psychiatry circles if someone is dissociated it’s a real big problem. So these days I tend to stick to simpler terms like outside and inside your body or third p erson and first person, respectively.



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Some people more naturally visualize from inside their body. Other people more naturally see themselves from outside. (In case, you are wondering, I am the latter.) This speaks to the fact that neurologically peo ple are different to a degree. Whichever one you did, go ahead and do the opposite now. Do this now. … Good. Let me ask was this harder? Easier? The same? For whatever reason you’ll likely find one of these two is more natural for you than the other. But this varies from person to person.

Which one is better? Neither. Instead, they both have their uses. Being inside your body tends to make it easier to have a “realistic” visualization, because that is how you actually are in real life. It is typically also easier to FEEL the exercise, as you are inside your body. From the outside you can see yourself from another perspective. This is helpful to critique your form, for example. Once again, they are both useful. Though for each person you’ll often find one can make an exercise “easier” for you, when you do it. For our purposes here we want to build our ability to do both . We want to practice both 1st and 3rd person. So go ahead and do this with several different exercises in your mind’s eye. That’s your practice for now.

Angles and Size In the last visualization practice we went from inside the bod y to outside, back and forth. In this practice we’ll extend that further…as you’ll see actually literally too. Cast your mind back to the previous drill. When you were outside your body what angle did you see yourself from? Were you behind you, to the side, in front, or over the shoulder? Perhaps you were even above or below! All these angles give you a different perspective on what you’re doing. Greg Louganis, the Olympic diver, was a huge proponent of visualization. What he did was imagine himself from everywhere. From where the judges sat.



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From different spots in the crowd. From below the diving board. From above it. And on and on. Why did he do this? Because each angle provided new information with which he could see him flaws and how he could improve. See yourself doing an exercise from the outside perspective now. And change your viewpoint all around. Go ahead and do this now… How was it? Were some easier or harder than others? Now here is a second piece related to this. How big are you when you’re picturing yourself? Are you life-size as if you were right in front o f yourself? Or is it smaller, as if it was on a screen somewhere in front of you? One way of looking at this (pun intended) is that the size is bigger. The other way is that the distance is further away. Go ahead and see it closer and further away. Do this now… How was it? This submodality shift can be extremely powerful in how it changes the feeling of your visualization. This is just a few of the things that can be done, but more than enough to get started. If you’ve been following along you’ve lik ely already seen increases in the control you have over your visualizations. And this is just the beginning. Once again, more work on this helps you to get better at visualizing. And using visualization can help you get better results in the many things that you do.

The Story Behind the #1 Mental Trick for Increasing Strength We covered all that Visualization 101 stuff in order to prove to you that you can visualize and that you have control over it. When you realize the truth there, then you can begin to bring about some phenomenal results. In the Introduction of my book Mental Muscle I share the following story: At another seminar in Phoenix, Arizona during one of the breaks I was with a friend back in her hotel room. She was asking about exercises she could do. After discussing the



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pushup I showed her how to do a pike press, which is halfway between a pushup and a handstand pushup. She couldn ’ t do it at all. Perhaps I could have told her some physical technical changes she could have made that would have helped her to do that. But I didn ’ t. Instead I told her to make a single easy change in how her mind perceived the exercise. I told her to turn her mental movie BRIGHTER. After that she accomplished the exercise with ease.

Jedd Johnson, one strong dude who holds the world record in the two hands pinch, read this and sent the following email to me. I wanted to let you know that I imagined the room being extremely bright during the One Hand Pinch this past Saturday, and ended up breaking my PR in training by 10-lbs, lifting 119 and change. I'm going to go through this book in detail and keep implementing things. So far, the only thing I've implemented is that tidbit from the introduction bro. If you and your methods can get me back to World Record weight on the 2HP and help me become the 1st 300lb pincher, believe me, you'll have the biggest walking testimonial you can possibly have bro. I also told one of my adult lifters this morning to shut their eyes, imagine the room was so bright he had to squint and then he opened them and went from 6 assisted pull-ups to 9, using a black mini band. Dude.

And that’s what this mental trick is about. Everyone is different so I can’t guarantee it will work for you. But in my experience it works for most people almost all of the time, as long as you do it right. And it really is simple. Even simpler than most of the drills we just covered. For these purposes it doesn’t matter if you’re inside your body or outside. Or what angle you’re looking from. All that matters is…

Brightness Simply turn up the lights in your visualization. Make it brighter. And then see what happens. Why does this work? My theory is that brighter eq uals more nervous system activation, which in turns means more strength and/or better movement quality and control. To put it into image form: Copyright 2016, Legendary Strength LLC.


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Turns into…

Go ahead and try this now with any exercise. Try it with a number of exercises. See what happens. When you set a new PR based off of this alone, please let me know at [email protected] Of course, there is so much more to visualization than this. You can see a few more pieces in the previous drills and all of these can have an impact.



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But truthfully we’ve only scratched the surface. Most of these are just “visual” qualities. What you do with your feeling sense and your auditory sense can have less, equal or more profound of a difference on what you can accomplish. Plus, there are more things to do with visualization than becoming stronger. How about finding about your beliefs that hold you back in hitting your goals or achieving the body you desire? This is why mental training is important. And why havin g step by step processes similar to those above is important too. My aim here was to give you a usable taste of the power of mental training, one that can bring about tangible results in a quick amount of time. And with this taste I hope you’ll want to go further. On the next couple pages you’ll see some further resources to take you deeper. And I hope you’ll continue to read my email newsletter for the latest and greatest articles, videos and more that I share. In strength, Logan Christopher



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About the Author Born without genetic gifts, a weak and scrawny Logan Christopher sought out the best training information in his pursuit of super strength, mind power and radiant h ealth. Nowadays, he’s known for his famous feats of pulling an 8,8 00 lb. firetruck by his hair, juggling flaming kettlebells, and supporting half a ton in the wrestler’s bridge. Called the “Physical Culture Renaissance Man” his typical workouts might include backflips, freestanding handstand pushups, tearing phonebooks in half, bending steel, deadlifting a heavy barbell, or lifting rocks overhead. Far from being all brawn and no brain Logan has sought optimal performance with mental training and sports psychology which he has explored in depth, becoming an NLP Trainer, certified hypnotist, EFT practitioner and more. That’s also how he got started in the field of health and nutrition which inevitably led to Chinese, Ayurvedic and Western herbalism. His personal philosophy is to bring together the best mov ement skill, health information, and mental training to achieve peak performance. He is the author of many books and video programs to help people increase their strength, skills, health and mental performance. Discover how you too can become super strong, both mentally and physically, at www.LegendaryStrength.com and find the superior herbs to support all asp ects of your performance at www.LostEmpireHerbs.com.



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weird mental trick

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