Weight Training and Mindfulness

The mind is far more involved in exercise than just the neural innervation of a muscle unit. To optimize effectiveness in training one needs to be mindful of what you are attempting to do and what you need to do to meet your objectives. We live in a multi-stimulatory environment with constantly changing requirements. To be mindful one must drain the cup before you can fill it. A cluttered mind is like a closet with too many coats, you start squishing them all together and now you can’t find what you need, when you need it. In order to have functional cognitive processing there is the necessity to clear the mind, to have a meditative moment. Let all thoughts pass. Don’t try to get rid of them, just pay them no attention and they will disperse with no concerted effort from you. When your thoughts are unburdened, you will be attentionally free to focus on the task at hand, this particular repetition of this particular exercise. When the link between mind and movement is in sync the implicit abilities of the athlete (That’s You!) will be heightened to tax the systems so adequate stimuli will result in muscular and neural adaptation. You contract the muscles feeling the muscles shorten. Fully aware of your personal experience. Feeling the blood rushing in, engorging your musculature creating a “pump”. You are the only one in the room, though you are surrounded by others. Every repetition is a personal success, moving past compacity going where others fear the pain. Pain is not your enemy; he is your friend. You more than accept pain, you revel in it. There are no threats, only challenges. Repeat the clearing of the mind and the subsequential refocus before each set. The collective fatigue from multiple sets will be lessened for there is only the set that you are presently working on. Previous sets are in the past not in the present, using mindfulness. Next Article I will discuss visualization techniques to improve performance

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