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The Tao of Fitness
Brain train with proven psych-up procedures
By Marty Gallagher
"The way of knowing, the Master says, depends on subtle adjustments that occur with constant mindful repetition of form and a consciousness that tells us when rather than how to do something. The intuitive faculty—although innate—must be trained and organized if it is to become reliable."—Neil Claremon, Zen in Motion
Regardless of your level of athletic proficiency, psychological recalibration of your current mental state to one expressly devised for the purpose of performance enhancement will dramatically improve the quality of your fitness training. Brain training is the most overlooked and underutilized aspect of fitness as it relates to the common man and his Sisyphean effort to transform from geek into god. I work with all levels of the athletic strata, and one obvious difference between the athletically ordained and the athletically ordinary is that the elite have an ability to center and focus the mind on the athletic task at hand, whereas the normal person attacks weight training with same approximate level of mental commitment they muster for watering the lawn or brushing their teeth. 
Training to the mortal is a chore, a bore, a bother—manual labor without compensation. For the elite, training is a transcendental experience and mind preparation an indispensable ingredient in the quest to excel. No matter the athletic battleground—ordinary training session or head-to-head competition—the elite effortlessly accesses the mythological Zone, a beatific mental state wherein athletic performance exceeds all realistic expectations. You can do the same.
Zen Masters use specific procedures that establish concentration and focus. There exist specific procedures used by Iron Curtain athletes that peak the psyche immediately before a limit attempt. Our suggestion is to learn each and then link them: use the Zen procedure to achieve a quiet alertness then gently segue into an intense visualization process designed to peak psyche. Together, the twin procedures pre-program you for athletic success and the techniques are simple yet battle-proven. These mental tactics obtain quantifiable results, the kind that separate first place from fifth place. They transform ordinary, mundane training session into a mind-boggling, muscle-expanding, result-producing event.
Some applied mental fire-and-brimstone could make a world of difference for you in terms of results. The path has been blazed by Zen Masters, martial arts monks, elite power men and Iron Curtain Olympic champions. The first order of business, to echo the Zen Archery Master, is to understand when and then how to use Brain Train.
The when of brain training
The optimal time for the serious trainee to fire up the psyche is just prior to performing a limit set. Before becoming maximally fired up, you need to become maximally quiet. Calm the mind, strip away extemporaneous thoughts and eliminate external distractions by taking conscious control of the breathing process. Within two minutes of using this procedure, maximum chill is achieved: we are alert, centered and focused.
When Stage I is done, rip a page from the training logs of top Communist athletes from a by-gone era and get fired up using auto-visualization (AV). The AV technique teaches you to vividly imagine hoisting the poundage with pristine technique and power. In your mind’s eye a movie of you lifting is repeatedly shown with an ever increasing degree of detail. A proper psyche can add 10 percent to your poundage and over time this will prove profoundly beneficial. Hoist bigger poundage and/or squeeze out more reps and reap maximum muscle growth.
The how of brain training
Shikantaza is a specific breathing procedure borrowed from Soto Zen. Deceptively simple, mastery is elusive and requires repeated and systematic practice for a protracted period of time. This simple and straightforward mind-centering technique instills clarity, centeredness and quietude. Avoid somnambulant, sleepy, groggy, dreamy states of mind and seek instead a vibrant, electric alertness. Using Shikantaza, the athlete becomes wordlessly focused, internally and externally silent. Invariably this procedure alone produces superior training results. The Zen concentration technique serves as the perfect launch pad for auto-suggestive (AS) techniques, the type used by elite Communist athletes prior to World record attempts.
The use of AS techniques for athletics was pioneered by Hungarian Olympic fencing coach and mind tactician, Dr. Aladar Kogler. His methodology makes use of detailed mental rehearsal immediately prior to an athletic activity. We link these two classical tactics together. After using the mind-clearing/rehearsal procedures, open your eyes and go lift; turn internal fantasy into external reality.
"The Master’s arrow penetrates deeper than that of the student."
–Li Pak, 18th century Korean Zen Archery Master
Shikantaza checklist
1. Count from one to 10 in a rhythmic fashion, syncopate counting with breathing. Sit on the floor or position yourself on the end of an exercise bench keeping the spine straight with head erect and eyes looking straight ahead. Don’t let your chin drift upward as this denotes a lack of attention. Avoid dreamy, unfocused sleep states and strive for razor-sharp, super-alertness. Eyes may be left open or shut; if open-eyed, fix on a particular spot and don’t let the eyes wander.
2. Inhale lightly through the nose and silently say the word "one." When you have a full breath, mindfully hold the breath for a split second (the turnaround) before exhaling slowly through the nose. At complete exhalation, pause for a split-second at the turnaround. This completes one cycle, or repetition.
3. Continue in this fashion for 10 complete breath reps. A complete breath pattern has four parts: inhale, turnaround, exhale, turnaround. We mindfully pause at each turnaround, where the mind tends to wander.
4. Two types of thought arise during four-part Shikantaza breathing: passing thoughts and clinging thoughts. Passing thoughts are just that, unrelated mind-snippets that pop into your head and vanish as quickly as they arise. Ignored, the passing thought passes and does not interrupt or disrupt our breath counting. A passing thought appears and disappears without taking root. It doesn’t "cling" in Zen lingo.
5. A clinging thought "takes root" and leads to further internal dialogue. The initial thought clings and hatches a whole succession of subsequent thoughts known as "nens." Nens compound and you lose count as concentration is broken and the breath pattern is disrupted. When this occurs go back to "one" and start all over again.
6. The idea is maintain an electric alertness without any internal commentary, without any internal dialogue. Just count the breaths, observe the mini-pause at the turnaround, go from one to 10 and don’t turn passing thoughts into clinging thoughts.
7. Optional: The Cosmic Mudra. Zen practitioners hold the two hands in a specific pattern: palms placed face up in the lap of the sitting practitioner, left fingers on top of the right fingers, the two thumb tips are held aloft and touch ever so lightly. If the thumbs drift apart or mash together, you’ve lost concentration. The two lightly touching thumb tips serve as a Zen biofeedback device.
8. Inhalation starts in the pit of the stomach and expands the waist before lower lungs and finally upper lungs fill at breath’s conclusion. Exhale using the exact opposite procedure. Deflate sequentially the upper chest, lungs, waist and navel.
9. Rinzai Zen adherents will breathe so subtly that they make no sound inhaling or exhaling. Try it; this is a lot tougher then it sounds.
10. Shoot for two or three uninterrupted, successful Shikantaza rounds. Then without moving or changing position or the breath pattern (cease breath counting) shift wordlessly into the Iron Curtain auto-visualization procedure.
Segue: Shikantaza leaves you are alert, centered and focused. The mind is extremely susceptible to autogenic techniques using imagery, self-visualization and auto-suggestion. The Shikantaza breath control procedure provides the perfect foundation for Phase II.
"A centered, focused mind allows a man to exceed the sum of his psychological parts."—Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training
Auto-visualization checklist
1. With eyes closed imagine the gym interior. Detail and accuracy are critical. The more accurate your visualization the more effective the result. View the scene as if you were looking at yourself through a movie camera. Picture yourself sitting and visualize your posture and surroundings. What color are your clothes? Mentally zoom in on the exercise equipment. Set the mental landscape.
2. Assume you are doing bench presses and have already completed two to three warm-up sets and are about to attempt a new personal rep record. Picture the loaded bar, the bench and the plates.
3. Imagine standing up and moving to the bench. Crisp detail counts: place your imaginary body on the bench. Feel the knurling dig into your hands as you un-rack the barbell. Take a huge breath and lower the bar to commence the first rep. Feel how incredibly light the imaginary poundage seems.
4. Imagine yourself as you begin pushing up, repping the barbell, each successive rep feeling stronger than the previous. Imagine the exhortations of your training partners.
5. Visualize yourself utilizing perfect technique with incredible control. Imagine firing the weight to lockout over and over without hesitation. Imagine each repetition vividly and pay particular attention to the speed and propulsion of the final rep.
6. If the auto-visualization is detailed and realistic, there should be some sort of physical manifestation upon opening your eyes: increased heart rate or increased breathing, perhaps goose bumps. Mentally you should feel fired up.
7.Try for one or at most two visualizations prior to a top set of an exercise. As with anything else in life practice improves performance. Once you’ve completed the visualization open your eyes and recreate your waking dream; turn vision into reality.
8. Pitfalls: if you are interrupted during the psych-up procedure, the process will be demolished. The delicate mental image you construct will be smashed to bits. Many champion athletes listen to music as they go through the psyche-up procedure. The audio stimulation of music actually amplifies psyche-up efforts and wearing headphones makes it near impossible to be interrupted or distracted.
9. Don’t overplay your hand. This is nothing holy or sacred about this exercise and don’t load it down with extemporaneous, superfluous philosophic or religious baggage. No visions, hallucinations, gods or demons will appear. This is a mind exercise, pure Brain Train. This is a "no bull" approach, free of touchy-feely New Age-ism.
10. A smart person can perform the Shikantaza procedure and follow up with a few rounds of auto-visualization without a single other person in the immediate vicinity being aware of the incredible internal transformation taking place.
"The cessation of thought is the awakening of intelligence."
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Save the Shikantaza/auto-visualization procedure for the big sets of the day. The body has a limited amount of adrenaline and every time you get fired up using our one-two Brain Train procedure the body will dump precious adrenaline reserves into the blood stream. With a finite amount of adrenaline available, don’t fire your hormonal guns off on meaningless warm-up sets.
Practice makes perfect. Make a commitment to use the procedure for at least two weeks on the top set of the key core exercises. Any less and you’re really not giving the system a fair chance. The more you practice the quicker you’ll be able to rid yourself of clinging thoughts and the more vivid your visualizations will become. When that happens poundage soars, reps increase and muscles begin to expand strictly through the use of applied brain power. The old cliché remains as true today as when first uttered; "In fitness the hardest muscle to develop is the brain of the athlete."
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