Mindful Muscle

This is the key to becoming the CEO of your body.

There’s me being a mindful chap and on the other scope of my wobbly personality, I’m a muscle meathead.

Would I ever sell myself like that to my target audience? No! Why?

Why indeed? Judgement? My own personal limiting beliefs? Following and believing social norms? My own cognitive biases? Falling prey to unconscious biases? Being straight-up afraid? Or, being so confident in my thought that leans towards the narcissistic side that I know is not true?

So let me explore my own unproven inhibitions and you tell me if my thoughts penetrate your thoughts and there are grounds for empowering truth?

Simply put in my language, mindfulness is paying attention in a particular way — The way is purposeful.

The definition of mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.

By default, I learnt this through my own journey of sculpting the body that I thought would take the spirit of the fat boy out of the mortal body and incinerate him to ashes…Alas, that never worked. Standing on stage with probably 4% body fat I had that gut look up at me when I went for the money shot and say “I told you I wouldn’t leave you”.

Why was I on stage then? That position belongs to visualisation and a belief that was ridiculously disproportionate to the probability of making the position a reality.

This article was not written to explain an inner self-belief, rather I wanted to describe a method and give you a tool that I’m hoping can empower you to create a better you and know you are the CEO of your body.

Please pause and run down this checklist

📝 Do I weight train to attain a goal?

📝 Do I weight train for longevity?

📝 Would I consider weight training if my life could improve cognitively, physically, and emotionally?

📝 Would I or do I weight train for fat loss?

If your answer is yes to any of those pondering questions, then here’s a strategy that could help accelerate productiveness and actions.

Zoom out of this article and put yourself in a place where you can be as one with a barbell. Slide the desired weights at the ends to make you feel excited, nervous, motivated, inspired, ambitious and optimistic all at once.

This technique works anywhere, anyplace, any movement.

• Side note — The smells included in the upcoming narrative are what you would normally be familiar with.
• The set up is what you’re already used to.
• I do not want to take you away from anything you’re used to.

This is practical practice.

You’ve got your barbell all set up. The movement is the Deadlift. You are lifting the dead weight from the ground, hence why it’s called a Deadlift (Historically it was believed to be founded in Ancient Greece as far back as the sixth century BC)

Walk up to the bar, look at the bar as you walk up to it. Say nothing. It doesn’t care. It’s dead. It cannot defeat you because it is dead and you are alive. Just approach it knowing it will move on your command, on your terms.

Place your feet slightly shoulder-width apart under the bar so that your shin has made contact with the cold dead steel. You have now connected to the dead. Look down, scan the bar. If you use chalk, then you’re looking at the spots you’ll rub your chalk on. If you use wraps, straps, hooks, you’re now sizing up the bar and measuring the precise place where your hand will start the wrapping procedure.

You’ll know where the wrapping will end. You can see the one-inch space you’ll leave from the rough knurling of the bar to the smooth steel that runs parallel from both rough ends.

If you use a natural grip, you’re starting to salivate at the mere thought of developing those callouses.

This may sound like an alpha male testosterone-fuelled thought but I don’t like to discriminate, so I’m thinking any gender. All is fair in love, steel and callouses.

You say nothing, but your imagination initiates the mind to shift. You start thinking it’s an unfair match. The bar cannot be dead. It must come alive.

Just like a Zen buddha bows their head for prayer, so do you, but you still have your eyes open. You start feeling undefeatable, the feeling is self-proclaimed confidence. You become tranced.

The surrounding sounds have now been vacuumed away.

The smell in the dead ambient air has become still.

Your shins are now the connecting stimuli to send nerve frequency vibrations that circulate and pulsate at an extremely rapid rate around your primed body.

You are now in a meditative state. It’s quite a paradox to the otherwise feeling of readiness. You are now experiencing unwavering confidence and a high frequency of assurance.

You hip hinge, and your body like a calm sea starts to ripple and uses its autonomic system to control the smooth muscle. The waves start to flow as you make your way down.

The knees soften, the arms are always beside the bent legs reaching out to make contact with the bar. Patience is called upon because you know you must keep a neutral natural spine. You are now connecting to your somatic nervous system. You can feel your legs structural integrity start to feel compromised, so your upper body starts to tilt forward and in that 2-second shift your hands find themselves on the cold hard steel. You are now experiencing a completely different feeling from where you started.

You cannot translate the internal feeling into external words because you’re inner dialogue has no recognisable language, so your vulnerability starts to break through the cracks of your defence.

You’re now at the level of the bar, the bar is no longer dead.

Your sink into the setpoint, otherwise known in athletic terms - in the blocks. For this world’s description/term (world of the weights), you’re now in the hole.

Above I mentioned the bar was no longer dead, I was a tad premature, you still need to wake the bar from the deadness for the battle to be deemed fair by your subconscious.

You make the shift.

There is a shift your body makes which is called “the negotiation”.

No one is at ransom but your integrity won’t allow you to perform with a disadvantage, so you wake up the bar. The method? Release the slack.

When you “release the slack” there is a paradigm shift. That shift is in response to a reset and a feeling. I have no real cited scientific backup but it falls in line with ASMR, otherwise known as an autonomous sensory meridian response. It’s one of the most rewarding sounds.. the “click”

The shift is the “deadweight sound of life” and your body goes into tightness.

Let’s return to the “set point”. Here the slack get’s engaged. Your hips simultaneously shift back and plant the feet into the ground whilst the grip on the bar tightens up with a short sharp shoulder retract. At that time, you will get the tightest body you have ever owned and the “magic” noise of the barbell attaching itself to the iron plates will signify the release of the slack.

You are now locked in place and you have released the slack.

Mindfulness — You are now paying attention in a particular way — The way is purposeful.

Mindset shift — in the words of an astronaut about to launch into space.

You start hearing different noises (these are the noises of your body), this is when you know things are getting ready to happen. Then, it is as if a giant beast is waking up. You hear and feel the thumping and bumping of valves opening and closing as engine systems are pressurized (that is your heart pumping, your breath going in and not allowing any escape). When the first engines light (you experience stillness as your eyelids are either wide open or wide shut) there is a terrific low frequency rumbling and things start to shake (your internal desire of anticipated success). Then the main engine lights and the rumbling and shaking get even louder. Slowly, slowly you begin to move up and away from the launch pad (lifting the bar and seeing your view levitate). Very quickly you build up speed and the g-load, or the force of gravity or acceleration on a body, increases (from mid-shin to full upright extension).

“It is as if a giant beast is waking up”

Success! You now disengage and go again — Here’s where the practice of mindful muscle becomes understood.

Your hips perform an act known as the hip hinge. It’s a temporary hinge. Imagine if you will, all of a sudden you have a wall that has appeared behind you. You’re holding that barbell and the objective is to handle it with care until it returns to the floor back to a coma state.

The act of the hinge is to transfer the weight from the front of your feet to the back to ensure a solid body structure, a scaffold. Your body at this point is posterior chain ready. Your butt has reached the wall. You now make the descend with the bar travelling/sliding/scraping down the thighs, past the knee, down the shins and landed safely on the floor whilst you keep the engagement, whilst you stay in the game, whilst you refrain from the accolade, whilst you’re already seeing the next lift.

Scroll up to This is practical practice, repeat and be mindful.