The Mind and Body Connection for Optimal Health and Fitness

Today during Taiji class my Shifu, Grandmaster Shi Deru, talked about health and why we do what we do. He regularly sees people who are sick recover and get well again naturally. This is a huge topic of interest to me as it is the direction my personal training as well as the focus of my business has taken in the past year or so.

The founding fathers of Physical Culture-like George Hackenschmidt-knew the importance of developing the mind as well as the body.

I've always found it interesting that the fitness industry has become so far removed from health. It has become all about cosmetics, drugs, pills-look good at any cost. Unfortunately, in the fitness industry (I refuse to call it the health and fitness industry until things change) those who often look the healthiest are in fact very unhealthy. I fell victim to this myself. Supplements, pills, anabolics, fat burners, you name it; I tried it all in the name of (health) and fitness.

Then I had a realization. We have everything we need to be fit AND healthy. If we are not producing something, if we are getting sick, if we are not recovering-it does not mean we need to take a pill, potion or powder. It means we need to fix something within ourselves. I believe for most people this means developing the mind as well as the body. This is not just an eastern concept-it's a theme that is quite obvious in George Hackenschmidt's excellent book "The Way to Live in Health and Physical Fitness".

Shifu's comments about health today led me to ask him a question about why he thought that people who eat well and exercise still get sick. His answer was very simple but incredibly brilliant and insightful. He said they fail to do the internal work, to develop their minds. They succumb to negative energy and negative thoughts that ultimately manifest in unhealthy ways in the body.

Make no mistake, pumping your body full of chemicals and non-natural substances in an effort to "get fit" will result in anything but. Sure, you might look like Hercules for a little while, but there will be a price to pay for chemical and physical abuse. Many will argue this, and I would have to as little as a couple years ago.

Shifu told me we need to bring the mind back into training and focus on internal development as well as external development. Working hard is good. Training hard is good. However we cannot neglect the development of our mind. Strong healthy minds and positive thoughts will produce good energy and strong health bodies.

Meditation is one way to strengthen the mind, but don't let it end in the lotus position. Meditate in everything you do. Why is this important? When you meditate, when you truly quiet your monkey mind, when your mind becomes blank and allows thoughts to pass without attachment, you are now present. You embody your true nature which is pure being. Why not be present in all you do?

Shifu teaching us about the importance of mediation.

Think about how much of your time-your life-is lost to regretting past events and fearing future events. When your mind is living in the past and future it is preventing your from being here, in the now. And guess what? Now is all there is. The past is nothing more than a previous series of now moments and the future is a series of now moments that have yet to occur-so why let them rule you?

Instead, try to be present in everything you do-whether it is sport, exercise, study, driving, talking with friends and family, etc. Be present and give the present moment your full attention. I believe this is why people become addicted to adventure sports such as rock climbing-it's hard to be terrorized by the past or worry about the future when you are hanging off the side of a cliff by your fingers and toes!

When we bring our mind into training, we encourage internal development in addition to external physical development. If we truly want to be fit AND healthy we must connect the mind and the body.

I believe when good health is achieved, and all aspects of physical and mental development are in line, our potential is limitless!

"Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." -Lao Tzu

Stay Strong AND Healthy!

-Scott

Training-what it's all about...

Man with all the food talk lately I felt like it was time to get back to what's important-training!

Last year my training was kind of up and down with the shift to running my gym full-time, plus all the other business deals, projects and products we had rolling this past year training took a bit of a backseat as did competing.

I managed to keep a fairly regular training schedule, but bounced around too much programming-wise which led me to do a lot of reflecting on the important qualities of training at this point in my life.

Right now my training business and the other ventures I have going on are the most important things, if I am focused on this I can't focus on training for competition - so a strict kettlebell sport or strict powerlifting program is out.

Since cleaning up my nutrition my weight is down tremendously - 35 lbs - and I began studying Qigong and Taiji, so I wanted to improve my flexibility and mobility as well as make sure I am practicing Qigong / Taiji and meditating daily.

Now for the weights. I gotta' say, I miss powerlifting competition-the intensity, training and focus plus there is NOTHING like a powerlifting meet! It's awesome. However I'm not into being fat, bloated and out of shape just to lift heavy weights anymore. On the flipside, I don't thing I need to pack up my barbells just yet. I have to keep the squat, bench, deadlift, overhead press, chins and rows-the basic lifts-in my training but balance it out with some non-linear forms of strength and conditioning - my favorites? Kettlebells and Indian clubs. I'm pretty convinced that the clubs and kettlebells are my favorite forms of training and sometime down the road I can see me doing my daily sessions with these two exclusively - my body feels like a million bucks after them; healthy and full of energy, not run into the ground. It's great for restoration too.

What's left? Conditioning. No treadmills. No ellipticals. Running, pushing the prowler and dragging the sled is where it's at-and will probably throw in some heavy bag and jump rope work in there too.

At the end of 2011 this is where I was at with my decision - no competitions, just a well rounded balance of strength, conditioning and energy work - bringing balance back to over all physical development-not just developing the body-but developing the body AND mind and spirit.

So end of December I tested my maxes on my main lifts to set my training %'s, set my training goals and got rolling! As of this week the first 4 week cycle is in the bag and I'm starting the 2nd - so far so good!

Here's the outline of the plan:

Every morning - Qigong, Taiji and meditation (works out to be 3-5 days a week)

Taiji class at the Shaolin school I belong to (Shi Deru Shaolin Institute): M & W nights and Sa mornings

Daily - LOTS of stretching and mobility work -- I have already seen HUGE improvements in my flexibility (but being down 35 lbs helps considerably too!)

Tu/Th/Su - running and / or other conditioning, about 20:00 - 45:00 total.

M/W/F - strength training; indian club swinging, primary barbell lift(s), accessory work, kettlebell conditioning and more club swinging. Monday is squat and accessory work, Wednesday is bench and accessory work, and Friday is deadlift + overhead press and accessory work. Starts out with 5:00 or so of club swinging; barbell work is Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 program; kettlebell work is lighter weights-higher reps and generally not setting the bell down (usually 5:00-15:00 of work) and finish with another 5:00 or so of club swinging -- total training time is about 45:00.

That's it - simple, sweet and well-balanced; nothing extreme just some type of daily work, just as real physical culture should be.

Stay Strong AND Healthy!

-Scott