Using "Psych-Traps" to Help You Make a New Memory For Fitness and Weight Loss

When you start to think about the reasons why people don't make the time to exercise, everything begins to sound like one excuse after another. But, if you take a closer look into the true psychology behind what is keeping people from getting their fitness in full swing; excuses are not the problem.

As a matter of fact it's gone beyond the ideas of inconvenience. It's gone past the point of laziness. It's gone past the point of excuses. It's gone past the point of not having built a habit or having built a habit of not exercising. It has progressed beyond any and all of those stages. The concept of exercise and healthy habits has declined so much (an actual retrogression) that people have legitimately hard-wired their minds to avoid exercise.

And this situation creates a significantly bigger and almost insurmountable obstacle to overcome, because the typical "motivational" or "convenience" approaches or solutions used by the fitness industry lack the finesse to overpower the human mind. Hence why most every exercise program fails and the individuals that purchase them never receive the intended results.

The programs do in fact fail the people that buy them.

It is not a simple matter of 'motivating" people or making the workouts "convenient" to do based on time or location. It is so much bigger and deeper than that. The standard fitness program is designed from it's inception to cause failure on behalf of the majority of people who buy them.

Why? Because the mind is no longer wired to receive that type of stimulus. It is not ready to fire off all of those connectors or sustain the mindset of exercise and healthy eating and a wellness lifestyle.

This is a problem that cannot be solved with "mind over matter" or cognitive thought or forced discipline. The type of memory needed to reinforce a repetitive lifestyle, has either never existed or the memory that has been built when it comes to fitness and health is bad or negative and counter productive.

The solution? You need to rebuild, replace or install a new memory.

You need to install a memory of exercise and health. This way when the time comes during the day for you to exercise, you won't find yourself trying to work your way out of your workout.

By installing this new memory of health and fitness you will be propelled to continue to workout and eat correctly because this new memory dictates, "this is who you are... working out is what you do."

The problem is that this memory has to be created instantly. This new memory has to be created with the same process that creates every memory you have. And this is the reason why most people that buy exercise and workout programs, equipment, gym memberships, DVD's and weight loss pills and potions; end up quickly quitting and returning to their "old ways" of wellness, regardless of how much money they've spent or how advanced the breakthrough being branded.

The approach of the entire fitness world is "physical" in nature, with the idea of "psychology" as a simple emotional effect to motivate you.

This approach doesn't help to correct the main problem that I have previously described.

The entire purpose of the industry is to create an environment that is conducive to people exercising and becoming fit. The "physical" only approach can't correct the real deep down "psych" problem.

These products and programs not only leave their buyer deflated and disinterested in their products and exercise, but it leaves them feeling negative about fitness in general. It also actually reinforces their current mental state because these so-called solutions are perceived as yet "another thing" they bought, that got their hopes up only to find it quickly end in failure.

This "physical" only approach is perceived mainly as a way for these "celebrity instructors" to aggrandize themselves in the media and marketplace. The true benefit to the marketplace is never a central consideration when creating these programs.

Michael Banks with his Body By Banks program stands apart from the entire industry and corrects this inaccurate dynamic that has been perpetuated for years.

The Michael Banks method is different. He approaches fitness and wellness "first" from the psychological side and builds what I call "psych-traps" into the actual workouts in the form of verbal expressions, exercise movements, and the way he structures and schedules the actual workout.

Since a person who doesn't exercise either has no memory or a bad associative memory when it comes to exercise, health or fitness, Michael Bank's unique approach (which you would never notice conscientiously, but the results prove it to be true) instantly builds or re-builds those neuro-connections and gets all of them firing within seconds of turning on his DVDs. In short, his "fitness therapy" approach instantly builds a memory that says, "I love to exercise, this is fun, I can do this! This is who I am."

This allows the mind to desire and want to repeat this feeling, thereby repetitively doing the workout, weight is lost and the person's life changes forever.

*All of this happens in 10 minutes... in the first DVD, which is during the most critical memory building stage of the mind called "the Chalkboard Phase" which is where we are installing hard and permanent memory into the hippocampus, which is the hard drive of the mind.

Listed below are a series of "psych traps" that Michael uses during the first workout DVD called Total Body Transformation. Read them, then do the workout and see if you recognize them. Better yet, pay attention to how you feel from the beginning of the workout to the end and see if you too don't get caught in his "trap".

Before I explain the actual "Psych Traps" Michael uses during his workouts, let me first explain your brains actual process for building a memory. This is important to understand because it will easily illustrate why Michaels programs create the type of results I have describe in the before mentioned text.

Your Brains Process of Building a Memory

0.2 seconds: Attention

Attention causes the neurons that register the event to fire more frequently. Such activity makes the experience more intense; it also increases the likelihood that the event will be encoded as a memory.

0.25 seconds: Emotion

The emotional information increases attention. The emotional information from a stimulus is processed initially along an unconscious pathway that leads to the amygdala; this can produce an emotional response even before the person knows what they are reacting to, as in the "fight or flight" response. Pre-cognitive decision making.

0.2-0.5 seconds: Sensation

Most memories derive from events that included sights, sounds and other sensory experiences. The more intense the sensations, the more likely it is that the experience is remembered.

0.5 seconds -10 minutes: Working Memory - "Chalkboard Phase"

Short-term or "working" memory is like text on a blackboard that is constantly refreshed. Working memory is thought to involve two neural circuits around which the information is kept alive for as long as it is needed. One circuit is for visual and spatial information, and the other for sound.

10 minutes-2 years: Hippocampal processing

Particularly striking experiences cause neural activity that loops around coiled layers of tissue; the hippocampal neurons start to encode this information permanently by a process called long-term potentiation. The strongest information "plays back" to the parts of the brain that first registered it.

2 years onward: Consolidation

It takes up to two years for a memory to become firmly consolidated in the brain; the neural firing patterns that encode an experience are played back and forth between the hippocampus and the cortex. This prolonged, repetitive "dialogue" causes the patterns to be shifted from the hippocampus to the cortex. The dialogue takes place largely during sleep.

The Body By Banks Psych-Traps

Here are some of the things you might notice during a workout with Michael banks. I will explain the significance of each of these "Psych Traps."

"Only 10 minutes!" - Michael keeps repeating this phrase throughout the workout. The result is that your mind remembers that the workout is short and sweet and can be fit anywhere into your day. Many times when people are just watching the workout the response is, "Hey... I could have already been halfway through!" They then immediately get up and start doing the workout.

In addition, the number 10 has certain symbolism. It is one of 4 perfect numbers (3,7, 10, 12) It also is symbolic of completeness and order and that they cycle is complete. It is the same number as the number of fingers and toes. Since the beginning we have grown up using our fingers to count. This is our simple math. Being able to use that kind of associative memory is a great "psych trap" for helping us feel that working out and being fit is childlike simple and easy.

10 repetitions per exercise - Based on the same symbolism, which repetitively reinforces the ease and simplicity of the program.

"Fun and simple" - Michael mentions the word fun and or simple at least 17 times in the first DVD workout. This is more than one repetition per minute. He keeps verbally repetitively reinforcing that this IS fun and simple. You are starting to see that Michael is using all of the senses to get all of your neuro-connections firing at the same time. This more easily reinforces and builds a new memory of fitness success or replaces a bad one.

"Relax!" - The word relax doesn't seem to fit into a workout program. As a matter of fact most programs are doing the exact opposite. Yelling at you to "get off your butt!" These typical instructors are similar to an old school, hard-nosed Marine drill sergeant. Not effective at all for the majority of the marketplace. By telling you to "relax" your mind has hard wired memories attached to the word "relax", and it instantly brings up the feelings of relaxation, which allows you to not feel like you are working hard when you actually are. It's a more advance version of reverse psychology plus distractionary technique.

"You and I, everyday" - This is so personable of an approach that it helps people feel that Michael is there for them... there with them, supporting them everyday. He is talking to you saying, "I am here with you. It's you and I... every day!"

"Wait! Stay there!" - This is a great technique that keeps you off balance psychologically and creates a push and pull situation in the mind. Several times during the workout right when Michael's got you excited and you are ready to move to the next exercise... Michael tells you "Stop! Wait! I know you're excited..." This verbal "psych-trap" reinforces the concept of relax and take your time, don't push yourself and at the same time, makes you even more, want to push on. It's brilliant!

"Take a seat!" - This is one of the biggest "psych-traps" used in Michaels programs. He uses this 6 times in his first DVD workout. From our earliest days we have heard the words, "Take a seat." From our teachers, to any meeting or one-on-one situation where we are being instructed, we have heard the words, "Take a seat." And every time we heard those words, we took a seat and we heard our minds say, "great... time to relax."

Our minds are hard wired and our long- term memory that send chemicals to the brain that makes you feel like it's over it's time to chill or relax. An even more advanced version of reverse psychology and a distractionary technique. It makes the workout go by extremely quick and make you feel like you didn't really workout at all. Then a little later that day, or the next morning... you start to realize, "Hey! I did workout! Let's do that again!"

This is just a few of the "psych-traps" that Michael Banks uses in his fitness programs. His background in psychology really shows when you start to understand the breakdown of his unnoticeable approach to helping you create the kind of healthy life you desire. He truly is the best in the business.

Edward A. Earle

You can join the Body By Banks Wellness Program free of charge. It includes his Top Selling DVD, "Total Body Transformation" (as seen in Walmart store) and his weekly live coaching calls and bi-monthly health newsletter. Go to http://www.bodybybanks.com and register free.