Awareness

http://www.gymjones.com/schedule.php?date=20080823&GymJonesSess=0e7fca23cf761fa1950c2fb4bc4f3834

Awareness of one’s actual capacities isn’t clear simply on the basis of daily training. The power meter tells an objective tale but it can’t know or predict the level of effort one might produce given adequate stress and motivation. In the gym the weight is the weight and it cannot be deceived – we are quite able, however, to deceive ourselves. But on the day those same plates might feel lighter. They might float upward easier. And how are we going to know if we are limiting ourselves in training or not? How can one have an epiphany by following daily routine? How do you know how you might perform on the day if there never are any of those days? Buy the ticket. Pay the entry fee. Take the test. You will probably surprise yourself.

Strength, Your Reservoir for Love

By Rob McNamara

http://campaign-archive.com/?u=8308d445c626221b2a3e4a866&id=5d9990f0da&e=oa6kLhqhcm

Did you know that Strength Training has much more to do with the very Heart of your Being than your physical muscles? This might seem like an odd question given our cultures relationship to “lifting weights.” Culturally, we love to compartmentalize and strength training is no exception. People exercise for their bodies, people lift weights for their muscles.

People often don’t bring themselves fully into their fitness activities. As a result, they lose the most precious gifts in life. Reducing strength training (or any “fitness” activity) to movement that’s just for the body isn’t just horribly uninformed, it’s a crime committed upon the seat of your soul. To detach that which is the very heart and center of who you are from what you’re doing is to allow something precious to die in each moment this compromise is committed.

Strength training impacts your brain plasticity as much as it does your muscles. It strengthens your immune system just as it does your bone density. It increases your cardiovascular fitness just as it releases the impacts of stress. While strength training works wonders on your body’s physiology as it makes you biologically younger with every workout it’s hidden dimensions develops your mind, evolves your soul and walks you toward a liberation and fullness in life never glimpsed without this rich practice.

To yield the benefits to your mind, heart and soul requires you to bring yourself fully to this practice. You cannot compartmentalize yourself in this activity. Bringing the fullness of who you are always starts with a clear intention. I suggest three to get you started.

My intention is to not re-create past experiences or manufacture future expectations.
My intention is to be fully with what’s already here.
My intention is to bring the fullness of who I am into each movement.

With weights in hand, intentions clear it’s time to explore the some of the depths of strength training. Many people veil themselves from the true vulnerability of this practice by focusing on “getting stronger,’ which is certainly a by-product; however, the very heart of the process of strength training is to explore what it’s like to be weak. It’s through diving deeply into our weakness in which our greatest heartfelt humility is born. So with each set of exercises, push yourself until you’re so weak that you can’t lift the weight even one more time.

Dive into each set with an open heart and the clear intention to be with this process fully without an agenda. Allow your conditioning to avoid pain and attach to pleasure to fall aside in the face of your soul’s unconditioned presence to witness the full dance of your life and your heart’s complete engagement with the weights.

Strength Training is inherently painful if you’re doing it right. The agenda to avoid pain is however one of the best ways to perpetuate more and more suffering in your life. With each set you have the opportunity to cultivate a new conscious relationship with yourself as each set of weights is lifted. As your mind refines in its ability to focus, each repetition will become more intense. As each set explores more intensity and discomfort, you can turn toward these sensations, face them with a welcoming heart and in the process transform our relationship to how you face suffering.

In the process of bringing the fullness of who you are into the simple activity of lifting weights, I guarantee you’ll learn much more about life, love, joy and suffering than the person next to you just “going through the motions”. You’ll grow both your hearts ability to hold both pain and joy in addition to increasing your bone density. You’ll find yourself not only getting stronger muscles, but you’ll also find that the process of being weak awakens your soul’s love and kindness both for yourself and the world.

Perseverance...

http://inthelabrynth.blogspot.com/2008/08/perseverance.html

From a good friend of mine who blogs at a site inthelabrynth.blogspot.com who is not only one of the fittest physical individuals I have ever met also has a maturing spiritual outlook on life and an expression well worth listening to.........

What makes one strive for excellence? As sit and watch the Olympic games at the physical capabilities of some, wonder in amazement at their natural talent, their worked capabilities and their mind of such purity, blankness and strength. As each event passes, some beyond recognition, some leave the rest of the best of the world for dust. But in most events it is very close, and each individual competitor is well aware of this, they have worked years for this one event, to prove to themselves and to the world, to their peers, to their families and loved ones, and to those they hold dear to them, that they are the best in the world, all that compete, believe they can do it, otherwise they wouldn't be there. So what distinguishes Athlete to Athlete? when approaching the line, so close, when running that marathon, with a few kms to go, they all push, they push hard, they are all full of fitness, full of strength, as fatigued as they are, as sore as each joint is, as each of their lower backs scream for softness, for a pain free second, they all push through it, they've been there before, its nothing new.

is it purely physical that gets them over the line, or does something higher drive them to victory? i would like to say it is a combination of bother, as fit and strong and powerful as each individual athlete is, one is always better than the other physically, it is simply how it is, but on the day, it all changes, the past means nothing, now means everything, all the athlete has is NOW! physically the other may be better, but on the day, it can all change...

the mind prepares the body for everyday work, for those grueling training sessions that you don't want to do because your body is burning, it is aching, another 3 years before the Olympics, you can't do it your mind keeps telling you, but then you focus, your mind alters its position within yourself in relation to yourself and your mental state of being. your mind allows you to focus, your mind allows you to persevere, its about setting a mind set and having the single mindedness and commitment to hold that close to your reach, as your body strengthens through focus and intelligent wise training, your mind also strengthens.

You see here a domino effect is created between mind and body, the two are separate, yet the two are one in the same, they are integrated, they are one, and rely on each other.

What get them over the line before the other, focus, dedication, physical attributions, but primarily it's a purity of mind, this purity is so pure and clean that no other thought penetrates you or exists... It is all that you know, and the athlete is self absorbed and attentive inwardly...

Episode 25: Rob McNamera Pt 2: Mind/Body Nutrition and Exercise

From the New Man podcast.....

How much exercise is required to build strength and feel great? In part two of our conversation, Rob lays out a simple and straightforward plan to build high-performance strength. The good news: it's not Olympic level marathon training, Rob says we can do it in under 3 hours a week.

Rob highly recommends Shawn Phillips new book, Strength for Life as a great resource for getting started on a program like this.

Rob goes on to talk with us about Full Strength, a meal replacement product developed by Shawn Phillips that has been clinically shown to produce positive results in muscle building and fat and cholesterol reduction. A recent clinical study at the University of Oklahoma confirmed the wisdom that went into the production of Full Strength and documented surprisingly positive health benefits to the participants.

Listen as Rob gives rounds out our discussions on the role of Strength for The New Man.

Episode 24: Shawn Phillips: Pt 2 Hitting the Wall vs. Balanced Recovery

http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/238-the-new-man/episodes/6531-shawn-phillips-pt-2-hitting-wall-vs

Are you noticing instability in your life as you push closer to your limits of performance? Operating at "full-bore" may not be the best way to get where we want to go.

Shawn Phillips advises that for optimum performance, rest can be just as important as exertion. This applies to our physical bodies as well as our profession, our personal relationships and our purpose in life.

"Recovery is like the silence between the notes, that makes the music." Says Shawn.

For many of us, our lives are driven by our attachment to our goals. Shawn and Tripp also explore the possibility that there is a difference between commitment and attachment. Attachment is our dependence on an outcome. Commitment is our willingness to "play" regardless of the outcome. When we get too far into attachment we lose focus, lose our power, and lose our ability to remain present in the moment.

"I'm committed to the game without attachment to the outcome" Shawn says.

Listen as Tripp continues his dialogue with Shawn Phillips, Author and Human Performance expert.

more.

TC from T-Nation on T-Man Defined, 2008

Of all the philosophers/writers out there on the subject of strength training and its deeper context, TC from T-Nation is one of the rawest, honest and most passionate. I’m a big fan of his work on T-Nation and recommend others to go have a look at this article and some of his previous articles.

Now T-Nation may not appeal to all in its confronting style and intent – but see through the advertising, images and the focus on getting massive (for massive sake) and there is a quality of information and depth on this subject that is well worth embracing.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sex_news_sports_funny_social/atomic_dog_tman_defined_2008

All of us who come to this place lift weights for some purpose, whether it be for sport, the artistic pursuit of an aesthetic body, to gain strength, or to look better naked so that bedding women is a little less daunting. But there are other places you can go to gather info about lifting weights and eating better and turning yourself into a badass mofo. Granted, I don't think any of them come close to us in quality and depth, but that may a biased opinion.

None that I've seen have an underlying life philosophy. Most have the intellectual depth of a toilet seat. They have function, but no life lessons to teach or share. They are as soulless as the Tupperware site.

Likewise, those who visit Bodybuilding.com remind me pretty much of a group of wandering village idiots who gathered around a dim light bulb because they couldn't figure out how to build a fire. While they feature the occasional quality article, their core members generally represent every meathead stereotype that makes most of us want to lie about the fact we lift weights.

A bodybuilder? Who, me? I laugh! The truth is, I do a lot of gardening. Push around heavy wheelbarrows filled with sod and stuff.

But I think we're different. We not only want to build your body, but we want to build your mind, and at the risk of sounding pretty lofty and presumptuous, we want to make you (along with ourselves) better all-around men, too. Of course, we have our own fairly unique idea of what the modern man is and is not.

Maybe you've heard the term "T-Man" bandied about on the site. It doesn't just refer to the members of the site. Instead, it refers to men who've adopted the T-man philosophy.

And get this straight: just having muscles or just being a bad ass doesn't automatically make you a card-carrying member. You have to be equally committed to building your mind — spending as much time building it as you do your body — and you've got to have integrity.

And just to be clear, the brains and integrity part are even more important to the notion of a T-man than the physical part because with brains, you can build brawn, and that's what this company has invested heavily in.

But I sure can't diminish the iron. We all come to T-Nation because of a mutual love of iron. Maybe we all share in common a specific genomic sequence on some lonely chromosome. I've read that most of the world's population can be traced back to any one of probably five or six conquerors throughout history, so it's possible we're all related to Genghis Khan's weightlifting cousin, Manny "Big Guns" Khan.

There's just something about the iron, maybe it's the feel of the bar, or maybe the sound; talk about the music of the spheres, what sounds better than 45-pound plates jangling against one another? Maybe it's the feel of hoisting something overhead that most people can't budge. Maybe it's the ache that indicates a workout well done, or maybe it's the looks of muscle and sinew that's synonymous with some ancient and fleeting definition of heroism.

That trait might not be essential in defining a man, but it's sure a hell essential in defining a T-Man.

Then there's the question of demeanor. Gone, hopefully, are the days of swaggering around in cut-off shirtsleeves. Have you ever seen a well-pedigreed pit bull walk down the street? The other dogs bark or yap ceaselessly, but the pit bull is generally indifferent. It knows its power and is confident in it.

Similarly, a "well-pedigreed" T-Man displays the same type of quiet confidence. Unprovoked displays of machismo or violence aren't cool and only denote weak character.

Of course there are times when you need to use the muscles you've cultivated. Sometimes there isn't a way out; sometimes somebody needs help. That's when you cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

T-Man is Batman, not Superman. He didn't just show up with powers, he had to train his brain and his body and his skills. He gets dirty along the way. His character might be a little less sunny but it's bulletproof.

It's a funny thing, being a man. Women are born women, but men have to be made. Blame it on culture, biology, or endocrinology, but a man is expected to be much more than his anatomy. There are, or at least there used to be, great expectations placed on the brow of a male. These are the things I'm writing about; the old, maybe antiquated notions of maleness.

I don't know why I care if men aspire to these same ideals, but I do. I don't know why I want to improve myself in every way, but I do. It's probably pretty sad that I even have to talk about such things, but these masculine ideals sure as hell seem to be in decline.

Maybe this whole column comes off as cornball to some, but I hope not too many. I need to think that this mindset is shared or appreciated by at least a few; I need it for my sanity.

Shawn Phillips: Health is Killing You!

Link

Is settling for mere "health" actually sending you to an early grave? We all think health is something we should be happy with when we have or something to get back to when our health fails us.

Shawn Phillips will not settle for mere "health."

Shawn calls us to enter a life of Strength, a place where our abundant health can serve us in all aspects of our lives and allow us to put ourselves out there in the world.

We've all taken up a workout routine, trying to get "back in shape" because we think we should. Shawn invites us to get past the should's, and find our true strength, the source of our potential greatness.

From this place, the weight room becomes an expression of the abundance of our lives, and our bodies will show the results.

Listen to Shawn and Tripp talk about how to stop "doing fitness" and start being fit.

more.

What is Strength? - Link to Podcast by Rob McNamara

Rob McNamara: What is Strength?

http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/238-the-new-man

Are you feeling at your best physically? Are you looking for that edge to keep you sharp at the workplace and help you handle the intensity of life's challenges? If you are like the average man, chances are you have not felt that great since you were in your teens. Not only is our poor physical condition slowing down our bodies, but its slowing down our minds as well.

This week we are talking with Rob McNamara about strength. Strength is the abundance of power. This abundance is true for our muscles as well as our brains, and affects our performance across the board. We can increase this abundance with regular strength training.

Listen as Rob breaks down the secrets of strength and shares with us the dire importance of taking care of our bodies.

Strength Training as an "Authentic Practice"

The principle aim for me of strength training is to find the pure motivation to engage in the the discipline of strength training completely, to exit these peak experiences through training and leave the attention of my physical practice where it was, with an increased awareness of where I am at now. This is my test of engaging in this practice as an "authentic practice" as opposed to a purely conventional one.

Ive been going through a reflection for a while now on the motivation to engage in the practice of strength training based on conventional benefits (strength, power, vitality) at odds with the motivation to pursue as an intense focus of awareness and towards a deeper practice. I have to recognise that have conventional goals based on what seems to be gross physical and superficial basis, however I am at the same time still seeking to experience different depths of a strength practice in partnership with this conventional intent.

My perspective in going through this dichotomy is to recognise that when my motivation is purely superficial, the practice oscillates depending on my physical and emotional states. When this is the case I can engage in a deep practice but its not a given. If I wake and I'm tired, busy with work and family and with a superficial motivation for practice, these influences will block the natural flow of experience to practice and ultimately influences my capacity to be fully in the moment. Its when I recognise between those moments that the practice of strength training has capacity beyond the superficial, I can engage in it and experience depth, regardless of the reality of my external influences and internal reactions.