Mental Focus for 1 REP MAX
As I sit and think back to my younger days as a gym rat, it amazes me all the supplements that I bought not knowing what they really did or how they worked. What always kills me and makes me laugh at the same time is all the money I spent on the infamous 1850 calorie weight gainer. That was some expensive chocolate milk! As a kid, it didn’t do much for me as my metabolism seemed to handle just about anything I threw towards it. Now days it would make me fat!
There were a few supplements that I think back on that stood out back then. Smilax (it wasn’t the smilax root, it was the ephedrine that gave it the kick), Cybergenics, a box with a ton of pills and a workout that over-trained you so much you had to lose weight), and gingko biloba.
What comes to mind when I think of the smilax and the gingko biloba is that when buying these products (as sad as it is to admit this) I had no idea what they were supposed to do – I just heard they were good so I bought them.
In 1999-2000 I really LOVED American Bodybuilding’s “
"Ripped Force,” as I’m sure you did if you were in the gym at that time. It was a fantastic drink, and still to this day I don’t believe anything compares to it. Please realize if you aren’t familiar with it that it’s not sold anymore, or if it is sold – it’s ephedra free. The later versions were not as good but still decent. Anyways, I always drank a Ripped Force before my workouts and sometimes slammed a ABB Carbo Force down as well (for some reason when cycling with d$@*&% what worked well for me was a ten min warm-up on the treadmill while drinking a Carbo Force before a heavy workout... could have been just in my head but it worked great!) At that point in time, I was going for numbers in my bench, squat, and dead-lift. When it came to my 1RP days, I seemed to be a little too wired to focus on driving the weight up. I began skipping out on the Ripped Force on the days I intended to hit my 1 REP MAX on my bench and it seemed to help.
I can’t go too far into detail about all this without b-s'ing you because it did happen ten years ago, but shortly after I began taking stimulants out of my pre workout plan, I had picked up some
Gingko Biloba. I had no idea what it was supposed to do, as I was young and ignorant and bought anything anyone said was good. I will tell you this though – after a few weeks of taking it I noticed while bench pressing on a 3X3 day or a 3X1 day that I was much more focused and I couldn’t figure out why. This increase in focus continued to be like that until after I discontinued the Gingko Biloba. I didn’t put two and two together and had no idea why I began to lose focus again but I know I did and it was extremely noticeable.
Some months or years later, I don’t remember which, I saw an article on Gingko Biloba and realized that it was most definitely worked as it’s claims were right in line with what it had done when I used it.
It’s been about 9-10 years since I’ve tried it and I think it’s time to pick up a bottle again! This time it won’t be to focus on a 1 REP MAX though, it’ll be to help me through my workday.
