"Meditation" and "Lifting"

                                                                                                                                                                                               Source: bodybuilding.com

On the face of it there couldn’t be two more different past times than meditation and resistance training. One involves quiet contemplation whilst the other involves highly charged, highly intense physical exercise, but could resistance training benefit from meditation?

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF MEDITATION?

Meditation has been shown to improve attention, focus, self-regulation, and the ability to relax .                                                                        
This can lead to an improvement in performance during sports and exercise. For example, a 1996 study found that meditation helped improve shooting performance .

This may not seem to relevant to gym-goers but improving precision, accuracy, and lowering stress could help you perform a brand new 1 rep max, or complete a difficult Clean & Jerk.
It is small gains such as this that Sports Psychologists look for to improve athletic performance.

A lot of athletes use imagery to help them perform a complex action. Such as a long jumper will imagine themselves completing the jump before they do it.
This is a form of meditation, and has been proven to be effective .

Using imagery could also help you to improve your one rep max in exercises such as the bench press, squat, or deadlift to name a few. Just spend your rest period visualising yourself lifting the weight and it can actually help prepare your nervous system – which can translate into an improved performance.

HOW TO APPLY MEDITATION TO LIFTING:

Let’s be clear, you are not expected to sit cross legged on the floor in between each set. What you can do is try to use some techniques to improve your performance. Firstly you can concentrate on your breathing, this will lower your heart rate, lower stress (all exercise increases stress in the short term),
and help improve recovery between sets.

You can also use the breathing technique when performing the exercises themselves, whilst squatting you are supposed to hold your breath whilst lowering yourself and then release your breath whilst rising back up.
If you have been focusing on your breathing through meditation this will be a lot easier to perform correctly.

Secondly, you can use the time between sets to utilise imagery. This means that just before performing 10 reps of barbell squats you should visualise yourself doing the reps – as mentioned earlier this can help you perform the exercise.

You can also use a technique known as self-talk, this is where you motivate yourself with words and phrases. For example saying “Come On! You can do this, just one rep” before attempting a one rep max.
Self talk has been shown to enhance performance , and is another form of meditation.

CONCLUSION:

At the end of the day, meditation can only be as successful as the practitioner allows it to be, if you are spending your time between sets meditating on the sentence “This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid” you may find that the results are poor.
If however you fully commit to following these techniques you could see some real results.

It’s interesting that meditation and sports psychology have so much in common, and that whilst one is seen as a crazy eastern philosophy by many gym goers, the other is highly respected.
Yet meditation and sports psychology are two sides of the same coin.

They both promote self-belief, relaxation, and a mind-muscle connection that will help you lift heavy weights well. Next time you’re in the gym and trying to raise your one rep max, give these techniques a go and see what happens.