Is bodybuilding messing with your mind? Are you one of those wise folks who believe that working out is truly as much about mind as matter? Maybe you're searching for the key to unleash inner, natural powers?

But who these days is writing much about the holistic approach to bodybuilding? And who, if anyone, is writing about developing the mental aspects of the practice. Other than Frank Zane's articles written after his reign as Mr. Olympia, next to nothing seems to have been published on the subject. Rather, it seems that the bodybuilding industry is content to focus on providing bodybuilders with a voice of authority that encourages them to remain blissfully ignorant and in a position of dormancy with regard to some of the greatest powers and capabilities with which they were born. Detrimental reliance on bodybuilding's magazines as that voice of authority does little other than help them to exploit a faithful customer base!

Body/Mind training

We Call it Bodhibuilding by Ken O'Neill

 

 

This article challenges the authority and dominance of the status quo. Its intent is to wake bodybuilders up to the fact that, unlike the beasts of burden who mindlessly obey others who would load them up with all sorts of nonsense, bodybuilders have minds of their own, as well as great capacities for independence and success.

 

 

 

Traditionally, we have seen that much education underscores competitive values and turns every participant into either a winner or a loser. We grow up learning that life is a battle and that the only way to win is to end up on top. Winning can take on another meaning, however, when it comes to bodybuilding -- and it doesn't have anything to do with taking home one of the few trophies awarded each year or buying into a multimillion-dollar business supported by infomercials in monthly catalogues posing as magazines aimed at making a buck or instituting a fad. What it does have to do with is self-actualization, empowerment, and the belief that bodybuilders are more than just matter.

Self-actualization is a pretty heavy term and not one to be used by dumbbells. In the 1930's it was an important word for Abraham Maslow, who was a graduate student in psychology, ready to move on to earning his Ph.D., but aghast at the opportunities offered in the field. Maslow knew that there were people in the world who were creative and successful, who were self-actualizers whose behavior could be explained in better terms than those Freud had made popular. Maslow studied these people and consequently founded two new schools of psychology: the Humanistic and the Transpersonal, both aimed at understanding dormant powers innate within us all but unrecognized, hence undeveloped, by our culture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As children we are taught to accept certain ways of thinking and living and not to question them in order to become socialized. Becoming a mature, autonomous, interdependent adult, however, requires something different in the form of a transpersonal journey. Being adults means becoming self-actualized, taking the driver's seat, and becoming all that we can be.

 

( Frank Zane)

 

 

 

 

 

In bodybuilding, this means exposing ourselves to new ways of thinking and applying what we learn to the things that we do. It means questioning what the "authorities" tell us and opening ourselves to new ways of training, natural depths of power, and re-embodying ourselves. Transpersonal psychologies of success are based on practice. In other words, they are workout-centered. Life is one big gymnasium, and introducing some non-robotic exercises into our workout plan means incorporating some new mind sets. One such set has to do with breathing.

All of us breathe on a regular basis, but do we do it consciously? The answer to this, I believe, is "no." Rather, I contend, we try to work out daily while half asleep. What I propose is that we learn to breathe consciously and learn to work out the same way. Doing so helps us with consistency in our training, as well as with gaining control of our thoughts and feelings so we're not reacting in a knee-jerk fashion to whatever is going on around us. We become mindful of how we are lifting, and our breathing keeps us conscious of it.

What I'm proposing is a simple breathing technique that brings our attention back to ourselves, allows us to reclaim our focus, and improve our training. The rep count for this new set is minimal, and it doesn't take long. To do this exercise, apply the following directions:

First, find a comfortable place to sit upright and relaxed for five or ten minutes. You can keep your eyes open or shut -- it doesn't really matter. What does matter is sitting upright and relaxed. Now, let your breathing drop down to the area under your belly button. As you breathe in (inhale) you find that navel area filling and full. Then you exhale, and as you do, just count "one". Do the same thing again (inhale, then exhale), counting the second exhale as "two". Go on and do a third set (inhale, exhale) as "three". Then repeat the cycle so that you inhale and exhale, "one," "two," three." All you are to do is to count out breaths from one to three.

During this exercise, you'll find that you're just like everybody else, i.e. your counting/mind will be hijacked by all sorts of thoughts, images, sounds, feelings, etc. That's good. What you'll learn from this is how you lose yourself, how your mind gets stolen away, how discontinuity is a fact of life -- for now.

Now move onto the rest of your workout, remaining conscious of your breathing. Between reps, start filling that same sub-navel place. Counting reps is counting breaths. Notice how as you breathe deeply and count, your energy seems to become greater. Your mind becomes clear and focused; you feel relaxed, even happy. Greater energy makes for a greater workout. Carry these feelings into the gym for more focused workouts. I can tell you from experience that every workout will be fresh, seemingly your best one ever.

This is just the beginning of your transpersonal journey. You're waking up to bodymind! Actually, I call this kind of working out "bodhibuilding" because "bodhi" means awake. In other words, working out becomes waking up. The journey is from deep asleep to deeper and deeper awake.

Clearly, bodybuilding is an uphill battle. But it's one that can be won by discovering the truth about our own voice of authority, creating successful training plans for ourselves, becoming self-actualized, wholesome people. Truth in self-actualization includes intellectual and emotional maturity as a solid foundation for opening dormant capabilities far stronger than any drug or supplement - redefining "natural bodybuilding" as a vehicle for awakening natural depths of ourselves.

Work in psychoneuroimmunology and its implications for bodhibuilding for peak performance; trance work resulting in elevated GH levels; irreversible changes in brain-hormonal functioning with "awake" meditative masters; and mapping of meta-normal performance for various transpersonal traditions are also subjects to be explored. There are many connections to life-long excellence. Mindfully working out can certainly be one of them.