. Hard Work—the Biggest
Test of Training Character
. Once you are in the new ground stretch of a cycle you will find out whether
you really want bigger muscles or only think you want them. You will find
out how much control you have over a protesting body, how much willpower
and self-discipline you have, how much tolerance of exercise-induced dis-
comfort you possess, how much you enjoy post-workout muscle soreness,
and how much hard-gainer grit and character you have.. You have got to want muscle and might so much that you cannot live with-
out them. You must relish driving yourself to deliver what it takes. You have
to be a hard-training junkie.. When you are battling into new ground you will discover one of the princi-
pal reasons why there are so few well-built hard gainers around—because
intensive training is such hard work, and so few people deliver it on a consis-
tent basis.. No matter how good your program design is, and no matter how well you
attend to recovery factors, it will all go waste if you do not have the ferocious
passion needed to train hard on a consistent basis.. Delivering effort demands guts, will power and determination in abundance.
It is about pushing your body to go further, then a bit further still, and a bit
further again, always done safely and with good exercise form. It is the slow
but steady accumulation of the “bit more” that adds up to substantial gains.. It demands enormous determination to keep pushing yourself hard time
after time. No supplement, routine, gym, equipment, diet, writer, personal-
ity, course, book, seminar, video or whatever else exists to get you to drive