The mirror can be your best coach or your worst critic. Sometimes both, before you've brushed your teeth.
The short version
- Arnold fixed his weak calves by putting them on show, every day.
- Use the mirror to check how you move and to see honest progress.
- If it starts running your life, that isn't motivation. It's worth getting help for, and help works.
Arnold's trousers
Arnold Schwarzenegger, seven times Mr Olympia, had a weak spot early on: his calves. His fix was not subtle. He cut the bottoms off his training trousers so his calves were on show all the time, to everyone, including himself.1 Nowhere to hide. So he trained them until there was nothing to hide.
That's the good version of the mirror. Look honestly. Spot the weak link. Work on it. Get on with your day.
The mirror is also where you check how you're moving. Is your back straight? Are your knees going the same way as your toes? A mirror answers that faster than any app.
Even Arnold
Here's the other side. In 2023, in his seventies, Arnold told Howard Stern that every day he looks in the mirror and tells himself he looks bad.2 The man has statues. Several. And he still has that conversation with his reflection every morning.
Which tells you something useful. The mirror is never finished with you. If you wait until you like what you see before you're allowed to feel good, you'll wait forever, statue or no statue.
When the mirror turns on you
For some people the mirror stops being a tool and becomes a trap. Body dysmorphic disorder, or BDD, is a mental health condition where you spend a lot of time worrying about flaws in how you look that other people can't see, or barely notice.3 In gyms there's a version called muscle dysmorphia, sometimes nicknamed "bigorexia", where people see themselves as small or weak however big they really are.4
It isn't vanity and it isn't rare. It's linked to training through injury, very strict eating, and often to steroid misuse.5
Signs worth noticing
- Spending hours a day thinking about how you look.
- Checking mirrors constantly, or avoiding them completely.
- Comparing yourself with other people all the time.
- Training through pain or injury because missing a session feels unbearable.
- Hiding your body under baggy layers.
- Cancelling on friends, family or work to train or prepare food.
If that sounds like you, it's worth talking to someone, and it does get better with the right help. You can see your GP, or refer yourself to NHS talking therapies without a GP referral.6
The BDD Foundation is a UK charity that supports people with BDD, including muscle dysmorphia. Visit bddfoundation.org or email support@bddfoundation.org.5
If you're struggling to cope, Samaritans are there day or night on 116 123.7
Using the mirror well
- Use it to check how you move, not to pass a verdict on yourself.
- Look at the whole picture: how you sleep, how you feel, how the stairs feel.
- If progress photos make you feel worse, stop taking them. The next chapter has better ways to measure.
- Be as fair to yourself as you would be to a mate.
Your rep for this chapter
Next time you pass a mirror, check one thing about your posture, then walk away. One look. One job. Done.
All 18 chapters of Basic Training
Sources
1. Schwarzenegger A, Dobbins B. The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. Simon and Schuster; 1998. The calf story is also retold by BarBend.
2. Best Life. Arnold Schwarzenegger on looking in the mirror, from The Howard Stern Show. 11 October 2023.
3. NHS. Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD).
4. Pope HG Jr, Gruber AJ, Choi P, Olivardia R, Phillips KA. Muscle dysmorphia: an underrecognized form of body dysmorphic disorder. Psychosomatics. 1997;38(6):548-557.
5. BDD Foundation (UK charity 1153753). Muscle dysmorphia. bddfoundation.org.
6. NHS. NHS talking therapies.
7. Samaritans: call 116 123, free, day or night.