Many bodybuilders who spent the colder months 'bulking up' are also now on a dieting cycle to remove the fat and uncover the new muscle that they spent months trying to build. Learn the benefits of staying lean and muscular year round!

The subject of training partnerships has been extensively written about in all muscle magazines and web articles, along with great success that can be achieved through teaming up with another highly motivated bodybuilder to push each other to the limit. There is no doubt that there are some huge benefits to having a training partner, just look at the great pairing of Arnold and Franco, each making the other reach new heights in their training.

I'm not writing this article to criticize training partnerships, rather to answer the flip side of the coin. What if you don't have a training partner? Can you still achieve fantastic progress? Can you still train as intense? You're damn right you can! This article is going to be focusing on strategies to get the absolute most out of your training when hitting the weights alone, as well as some advantages of 'Lone Wolf' training.

Through the years, I have trained with different people, but due to college and shift-work I have had to train at non-consistent times making a training partner was not feasible. By training alone for long periods of time, I have learnt ways to push myself to the limit each workout, without needing anyone else for motivation.

SETTING YOURSELF TRAINING GOALS EVERY WORKOUT

When training with a partner you are competing against them in a friendly battle to see who can lift more weight, do more reps, and be the most intense. To replicate this type of competition when training alone, you have to compete against yourself each and every workout. The previous workout you did is now your target to beat, never settling for just equaling previous records you go out to break them week after week.

The methods in which I achieve this victory effectively over my former self is by keeping an accurate training journal showing exactly how much weight I used and for how many reps. This is common practice, but to make the 'competition' exciting for myself I set myself bi-monthly and monthly goals. I have these written down for each exercise and have them attached alongside the previous weeks training in my diary. So that before attempting to reach new levels in strength on the next exercise, I refer back to the last session reinforcing what I have to do.