Plague of Strength

As I mentioned in my first article, not everyone is suited to the insanity I outlined in the second installment. Everything is not for everybody, as they say, and some people lack the disposition for acting unhinged every time they want to pick up a weight. As the idea of placidity in the gym is antithetical to my very being, what follows here is entirely speculative on my part, so there is little point in asking me questions about this methodology. I’ve researched it about as thoroughly as I plan on doing, have absolutely no interest in attempting any of this shit, as it’s truly not within my wheelhouse, and can state unequivocally that every time I’ve tried guided meditation I have fallen asleep harder than if I’d been dropped facefirst off a bridge. In the interest of even-handed treatment of the subject, then, I present to you the alleged utility of entering the gym calm as a Hindu cow and training as such.

“Peace and quiet – tranquility – leads to inner and outer strength, and permits your body to maintain a peaceful equilibrium conducive to growth, maintenance and tissue repair.” – Bradley Steiner

In the magazines in the 1990s, there were two very distinct camps regarding training- there was the brash, in-your-face, day glow spandex clad meathead mentality of Flex, Muscle Media 2000, Musclemag International, and Muscular Development (which is a fucking fantastic magazine to which we should all subscribe), and the serious, silent, and almost religious zeal of the guys who wrote for Iron Man Magazine. Weirdly, the programs and lifters who appealed most were in the latter mag, in spite of the fact that the editorials in the back would advocate bizarre shit like training blindfolded (which is apparently an idea supported by Mel Siff) in utter silence to maximize concentration and the contraction of each muscle. The idea that this monk-like adherence to spartan training would yield massive results, in spite of the fact that it sucked all of the fun out of training and was impossible unless you were a middle aged man who hated his family and just wanted time alone in the basement.

Authors like Bradley Steiner, Stuart McRobert and Brooks Kubik were of that camp, which I guess had its roots in Vince Gironda’s gym. Rather than espousing the training methodology of guys like Eddie Robinson, who were tearing through weights like a psychopath in string tank tops and Zubaz to hit 600+ raw benches, these guys believed that the only way to develop a seriously impressive physique and lifts was to isolate yourself and apply the type of silently fanatical wild-eyed zeal you only see in Opus Dei to the weights.

“Distraction is a physical culturist’s greatest enemy.” – Bradley Steiner

“Steiner…. wanted you to block out the rest of the world – and to go deep inside what Bill Pearl later called “the Inner Universe.”  He wanted you to reach the point where the gym could catch on fire and you wouldn’t notice until you finished your set.  For that reason, Steiner viewed anything that made it difficult to concentrate as a problem. That’s why he believed that distraction was your greatest enemy.

And unfortunately, most gyms are full of distractions:

A loud, blaring radio.

A loud. blaring television.

Loud, blaring music.

Cell phones.

Other gym members – who talk, chatter, hog the equipment, interrupt you in the middle of a set, ask questions, tell you you’re doing something wrong, etc.

It’s a long list. I could go on and on with it.

That’s why so many Dinos prefer to train at home. It’s quiet. There are no distractions.  They can concentrate on their training.  But even Dinos who train in commercial gyms can get a good, productive workout – IF they can concentrate!

Steiner also wrote about how to develop your powers of concentration. It isn’t something you either have or don’t have. The ability to concentrate on your training is an acquired skill. It’s something you learn” (Kubik).

Steiner and Kubik, as I mentioned, seem to have come from the same old school mindset that produced Vince Gironda. When Gironda was coming up, training had to be done in secret-“‘Body builders just weren’t accepted back then,’ Gironda said. ‘It was a secret thing to lift weights. We couldn’t tell people or they’d think we were gay’” (Myer). As such, training was done in the sorts of dungeon basements beloved by Kubik, Steiner, and McRoberts. Whereas the other gyms in Muscle Beach boasted Arthur Jones’ blinged-out chrome Nautilus equipment and blasted whatever music passed for intense workout music at the time, the hardcore, no-frills Vince’s Gym motto was “no pool, no music, no chrome, just iron.” Taking that sort of monkish weirdness to the next level, the gym’s walls were adorned with signs read, “Do not talk during workout” (Myer).

If you’re anything like me, you’d likely be inclined to tell the owner of a gym like that to “get fucked, little man,” but Gironda wasn’t all that little- even in his 60’s Gironda rocked a 49-inch chest, a 29-inch waist, and a thick set of arms. As such, guys who considered themselves to be “hardgainers” in the latter decades of the 20th century paid attention to what Gironda was all about, and what Gironda was all about was steely eyed rage and silence, apparently.

Nor are they alone- powerlifters like Doug “The Ice Man” Furnas pretty much kept their wild-eyed psychosie bottled up and just used it as an internal fusion reactor that powered his insane lifts. At 5’10” and 275lbs, Furnas the first man in history to total 2,400lbs twice, and had “a steely competitive demeanor” that earned him his nickname (Gallagher 45). Not only that, but the dude looked like a bodybuilder in spite of a spartan training routine that consisted of little more than the big three. In short, this methodology, should it suit your temperament, can definitely work.

This brings us, then, to the topic of meditation. I’ve got about as much use for meditation as Jason Momoa has for those filters on the Gram that blur your features to make you better looking, and as such am not recommending it from personal experience. Additionally, I would caution anyone with a history of mental illness to avoid meditation, as being left alone with your thoughts is likely the last fucking thing you need, and the incidence of meditation-induced psychosis is not negligible.

According to T-Nation author Dr. Lonnie Lowery, whose article on meditation for strength sports is extremely heavy on citations I have no interest in reproducing (but you can click the link in sources if you want to fact-check him), meditation can have significant positive effects on your physique and health, including:

• Lowered risk of overtraining
• Reduced stress hormone concentrations
• Higher DHEA-sulfate, testosterone, and growth hormone response to stress
• Improved kidney function, lower sodium-potassium ratio and reduced urinary loss of calcium and zinc
• Enhanced immune function
• Increased thermogenesis
• Improved focus and sports performance
• Enhanced reaction time
• Improved carbohydrate metabolism
• Reduced evening-time overeating
• Slowed biological aging up to 5-12 years
• Improved antioxidant effects

Frankly, this smacks of hippie bullshit to me, but there are apparently studies upon studies to support this. Biohackers, annoying hipster fuckwits that they are, bleat about the benefits of meditation nearly as much as hippies do, and while they lack the fetid stench of patchouli that accompanies the granola crowd, they’re every bit as pompous and self righteous. One such fuckwit is a guy whose name has got to be a hilarious pseudonym, is Serge Faguet. If his autobiographical bloviations are to be believed, he’s an immensely successful millennial who’d be about as much fun to have around you as airborne and contagious cancer, but he’s pretty fucking successful. According to him,

“I meditate 30–45 minutes every day with a combination of mindfulness and freestyle-notation. Meditate “in life” while doing things from eating to listening to music to sitting on a skilift. My friends and I have a private Slack community where we keep shared meditation journals, and discuss them with a talented meditation coach. My meditation time is unstructured — a habit of meditating when in the back of a car, with a bit of free time, or just when bored. It’s a much better use of time than mindlessly browsing the internet. Meditation gets better with time and coaching— now I’m so good at it that I can dismiss an extremely strong emotion in 5 minutes just by observing its bodily manifestations.
We can be completely non-religious and do not need to believe in any mystical bullshit that meditation is (sadly) surrounded with. There is a large amount of serious scientific evidence that suggests meditation is valuable for everything from neurogenesis to cognition, mood, attention, and disease risk [here is a collection of ~50 studies on this]” (Faguet).

Amusingly, one of the articles I read detailing the fact that meditation is driving millennials insane noted that the people most frequently presenting psychotic traits are using these apps, so take that this advice with a grain of salt, because it’ll either turn you into a born-again yogi superman with a six figure bank account and a baller Instagram account or a dude who gets a daily kicking by the COs in your county jail’s medical block. No matter what, however, it should result in improved concentration, which should result in improved lifts.

Should that not be compelling enough evidence, the use of meditation is pretty ubiquitous- nearly every culture has their form. Native American tribes had various forms of the practice that ranged from sweat lodges to vision quests, Sufi mystics utilized chillas, and the various Buddhist and Hindu belief systems incorporated varying degrees of meditation. Likewise, the Germanic Odin was said to have “sacrificed himself to himself” by hanging himself on a gallows known as the tree of knowledge, and from this he discovered the magic and utility of the runes (Mirabello). And if that’s not enough, the coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Pete Carroll, credits his insistence on mindfulness meditation with the Seahawks’ utter domination of the Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII (Puff).

“Offensive tackle, Russell Okung, said, ‘Meditation is as important as lifting weights and being out here on the field for practice. It’s about quieting your mind and getting into certain states where everything outside of you doesn’t matter in that moment. There are so many things telling you that you can’t do something, but you take those thoughts captive, take power over them, and change them’” (Puff).

By this point, you might be wondering how one goes about meditating. Or you’re just looking forward to an end to this series so I will get back to writing about training, because if there’s one thing the world needs it is yet another goddamned training article. The aforementioned Dr. Lonnie Lowery, who’s a competitive light heavyweight bodybuilder in addition to doctor of Exercise Physiology, wrote an excellent article that I’m just going to essentially paraphrase because as I said, I don’t meditate. According to Lowery, there are three main ways to meditate:

• Use of a mantra, repeated sound, or breathing style.
• Use of guided meditation or music to focus your attention.
• Purposefully focusing on the present moment.

Mantras, Vocalizations and Focused Breathing

Of the methods Lowery outlines, this is the only one with which I have any real experience. Focused breathing is mostly fun for me in that it’s a great way to fuck with doctors and nurses because you can game the shit out of them taking your resting heart rate and blood pressure. Beyond that, it’s a good way to get yourself to fall asleep if you’re out of Hypnos and are feeling impatient. My personal breathing method is to start at a four count- breath in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for four, repeat. You gradually increase the duration of each, and by the time you’re at 12 your resting heart rate should be in the 40s.

Lowery is a big fan of mantras and the stereotypical meditation sounds of “ahh” and “ohmmm.” Though I’ve never experimented with these, I’m certain that the resonance of these sounds has a very specific biological effect. I’m not going to go down the rabbit hole of harmonics, but there is certainly enough archaeological evidence supporting the use of harmonics that it bears some investigation. Given that the “science based” dipshits of the strength world have all of the imagination of a potted plant, we’ll never see a study on it, but it’s something you might want to investigate on your own.

One repetitive meditation I’ve done with varying degrees of success is to use the Luciferian words of power detailed by Michael W. Ford in a couple of his books. Basically, I just sit quietly and repeat the words to myself over and over to hold my focus and shrink that focus down to a laser-like pinpoint.

Zazas, Zazas, Nasatanada Zazas
Zrozo Zoas Nanomiala Hekau Zrazza
Sabai infernum

As Lowery explains, the words themselves don’t matter nearly as much as the effect they generate. “Even the charismatic but controversial Deepak Chopra, who’s an MD, refers to mantras as analogous to a taxi. It’s not the vehicle that matters, it’s the destination. Repeated meditative sounds simply hold your focus until, after a while, you get to a state of clear mindedness” (Lowery).

Guided Meditations

Frankly, I find the forced calm in the voices of people who do guided meditations so aggravating I can’t do them. Maybe you’re one of those goofs who jerks off to that broad whispering at you and clicking her fingernails on a bottle. If so, I look forward to reading your obituary, but in the meantime, this shit is likely right up your weird little whispery alley. There are plenty of these things on Youtube that promise everything from turning you into the greatest Lothario on Earth to achieving buddhahood, so just google around and find something your speed. And if you’re into that whispering shit, I truly hope you shuffle off your mortal coil forthwith, because thinking about it has me so aggravated I can hardly type and I could straight up stab you over that stupid soda commercial.

Present Moment Focus

This category is the one that’s the furthest out there, and while I could easily espouse suspensions for this, I realize that not everyone shares my penchant for BDSM. As such, there is no need to engage in an Mandan suspension ritual to engage in present moment focus-style meditation. Ekhart Tolle had a method that involved rubbing your fingers together, but I have a sense that he just happened upon some early formula of Ecstasy before he dropped that theory on the world. I’ve used progressive relaxation in the past to fall asleep, and that seems to be the most popular method in this category of meditation. Here’s Lowery’s take on this method:

“But topical sensory input or even a focus on something external like a candle flame isn’t the only way to get into the present moment and become calm. Others recommend progressive relaxation, which basically involves sequential tensing and full relaxing of muscles while keeping the eyes closed and maintaining a comfortable seated or lying position.

An example progression involves five to ten second contractions each of:

– Arm extension with tight fists (then fully relax arms)
– Forehead/brow tensing and grimacing (then relax completely)
– Neck flexion – isometric not forward movement (relax)
– Shoulder shrugging (relax)
– Upper back contraction (then relax)
– Lower back tensing (then relax)
– Chest contraction (then relax)
– Abdominal tensing (relax)
– Quad and hamstring contraction (relax)
– Calf and tibialis anterior (shins) contraction (then relax)
– Feet and toe tensing (relax)… followed by a heavy and warm but aware whole-body relaxed state for about three minutes.
– Concentrating on sensory input, stimulated externally or internally, is an almost anti-Rene Decartes-like method (that is, depending on rather than distrusting your senses) but the latter seems to meld with a bodybuilder’s mind-in-the-muscle ability very well. And purposeful attention on your muscles is a great way to both systemically relax and to stay in the ‘now’” (Lowery).

And thus, this series is at a close. As with anything else, it’s up to you people to determine what method works best for you- nothing will work exactly the same for any two people, and frankly, no two methods will likely work exactly the same for you twice- there are just too many variables at play to expect the same results every time. So just jam this shit into the ol’ toolbox and grab something when you need it.

Sources:

Faguet, Serge. How to biohack your intelligence — with everything from sex to modafinil to MDMA. Hackernoon. 25 Jan 2018. Web. 8 Feb 2019. https://hackernoon.com/biohack-your-intelligence-now-or-become-obsolete-97cdd15e395f?fbclid=IwAR0eKo32YI9IKErP0w890ZX9XUAFfnkzmNVXyxK411oxFTs4CRsQ_hf4rA8

Ford, Michael W. Luciferian Witchcraft. Houston: Succubus Productions, 2009.

Kubik, Brooks.  A physical culturist’s greatest enemy.  Dinosaur Training.  28 Apr 2016.  Web.  4 Jun 2018.  http://dinosaurtraining.blogspot.com/2016/04/

Lowery, Lonnie.  Meditation for muscle.  T-Nation.  24 Nov 2004.  Web.  21 Jun 2018.  https://www.t-nation.com/living/meditation-for-muscle

Mirabello, Mark. The Odin Brotherhood. Oxford: Mandrake of Oxford, 1992.

Myer, Jeff.  A tale of two gyms: on Ventura Blvd in Studio City you have a choice: work out with the iron guru- or at a place that sells a “strawberry sensation protein pickup.”  Reprinted from print article dated 4 Oct 1985.  Web. 19 Jun 2018.  http://www.ironguru.com/a-tale-of-two-gyms-on-ventura-boulevard-in-studio-city-you-have-a-choice-work-out-with-the-iron-guru-or-at-a-place-that-sells-a-strawberry-sensation-protein-pickup

Puff, Robert. How meditation won the Super Bowl. Psychology Today. 6 Feb 2014. Web. 11 Feb 2019. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/meditation-modern-life/201402/how-meditation-won-the-super-bowl

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