Meditation and Training: 3 Ways meditation can optimize your workouts
In recent years there has been a major shift towards acceptance of meditation in the fitness community and I wanted to break down a few ways that it has helped me personally with my training. Meditation can most definitely have carry over effects to all aspects of life, I simply want to point out some direct way a basic mindfulness practice can influence results from a physical training program. There are many ways to define meditation, for the purpose of this post I'm referring to a basic seated meditation where you sit still and focus on your breath for 5-20mins, This has been part of my daily routine for the last 6 years and I feel the benefits are extremely high compared to the effort/time invested.
#1 Work Harder/Smarter
A consistent meditative practice will allow you to push harder during training and also be more aware of when you may be pushing too hard and risking injury. Being able to push yourself harder in the context of your own training program will always lead to better result, this could mean more output, higher intensity, better form, fluidity of movement, etc.. There are a variety of possible mechanisms as to why meditation allows one to push past limits that may have previously felt impassible, In my opinion it most likely comes down to the ability to calm the mind, eliminate distractions(internal or external), and focus on task at hand. Meditation allows you to optimize the mental side of training.
#2 Food Choices
Practicing mindfulness is very conducive in making decisions that align with your true purpose and this can have major effect of food selection. Simply put meditation over time leads to better self control through increased awareness of why you are making decisions. This will inevitably lead to better choices regarding nutrition, the decisions made in the kitchen can often make or break a training program, and can definitely optimize the results.
#3 Recovery
Meditation has been consistently shown to improve sleep quality. In general a consistent meditation practice will lead to decreased time to fall asleep, deeper sleep, and an easier time waking up. Quality sleep cannot and should not be overlooked in any well designed training program and meditation is one way to optimize rest, and better recovery often=better gains.
Meditation is very similar to physical training in that it needs to be done consistently to achieve results. My recommendation is to start with 5mins of seated meditation in the morning where you simply sit, relax, and focus on your breath. Nothing should be forced(posture or breath) and when your mind wanders simply refocus on your breath. Increase one minute each week until you have reached 20mins of daily meditation and enjoy those gains in training and life!
Cheers
Luke
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Ya, meditation has some amazing benefits for our bodies. I've had some personal experiences when I'm in a great state where I can push waaaaaay past what I thought were my normal limits.
Nice vid man, keep em up and you'll gain traction, if you're ever on discord hit me up
Thanks fam, things get real interesting when you dive into meditation and flow states. Not familiar with discord but if I get with it will do.
Ahhh flow states, what's your method for entering flow? So far my most notable were from pscilocybin or running or even better combining the two. Been working on finding consistent flow in life with just meditation.
Discord is a chat app that most people use here, it's a must for networking even though I don't use it enough
I've had the best success with Steven Kotler's prescription of coffee, running, and cannabis but I can't claim I've been able to hack flow consistently yet. I'm on the same level trying to meditate my way to spontaneous moments of flow throughout life. Thanks for the discord tip, still very new to all things Steem, good looking out.
Completely agree! Actually I just wrote a post on meditation and gave you a follow :)
Great post, read and resteemed.
Thanks for a unique take on meditation. I also think very practically meditation would make an athlete’s posture and form more intentional. Feel free to check out my blog for meditation techniques, and my followed list contains many great meditation writers here on Steemit. Enjoy!