“I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.”

Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus

The Universal Monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon are Halloween Legends. They have sparked countless sequels and spin-offs. They even inspired one of the few Halloween songs, “The Monster Mash.” It was a graveyard smash.

“I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.”

Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus

The Universal Monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon are Halloween Legends. They have sparked countless sequels and spin-offs. They even inspired one of the few Halloween songs, “The Monster Mash.” It was a graveyard smash.

Out of all of them, Frankenstein is arguably the most beloved, complex, sympathetic, and frightening character. Although some modern incarnations of the nameless creature are mostly grunting and stomping, the original version was intellectual, poetic, and brutal. An incredible fact is that the author, Mary Shelley, was twenty years old when the novel published in 1818.

Running less than 300 pages, Shelly wove together a story of science colliding with God and its terrifying results—guilt, remorse, revenge, and violence. It’s a tale of the limits of science, man’s repercussions for his actions, and fear of the unknown. It is also a parallel story of searching. The creature searches to discover its soul, one it never had upon its creation. Victor Frankenstein searches to recover his soul, one that he lost in his obsession. The story reveals a clue about our own exploration of recovery.

We will leave the deeply philosophical book behind, and focus on the 1931 masterpiece, the movie “Frankenstein.” The movie stands in contrast to its source material but presents a creature that is embedded in our memory. The flat-top head, oversized boots, and gruesome electrodes protruding from its neck are not featured in the novel but are what we now associate with the Monster.

It’s the film that made Boris Karloff famous. Younger people might not recognize the name, but they will recognize the voice. Karloff lent his voice as the narrator and the main character in the famous, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,”

“It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags. Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more.” That’s Karloff. Thirty years before Whoville, Karloff was the creature.

The film introduces us to Henry Frankenstein, a notable departure from the book, where he is known as Victor Frankenstein. He is accompanied by Fritz, the loyal and deformed assistant. He has no such assistant in the novel. The hunchback helper is a recurring motif in classic horror movies, also going by Igor. Dr. Frankenstein wants to recreate a human life by piecing together various body parts from the recently deceased.

He assembles an ominous laboratory for this exact reason. Henry and Fritz scour the cemetery, stealing bodies to add to their “inventory.” All they needed was a brain. Henry commands Fritz to sneak into a medical school to steal a specimen. At the school, we meet Dr. Waldman, Henry’s old medical professor. He lectures to his class on the differences between the two brains on his desk: “normal” and “abnormal.”

After class is dismissed, Fritz breaks into the room. When he turns to exit the classroom with the “normal” brain, he drops it, shattering the jar and ruining the organ. The faithful servant doesn’t want to disappoint his master, and fearing his disapproval and wrath, grabs the “abnormal” and leaves with it, foreshadowing future events.

His beloved fiancee Elizabeth worries about the doctor’s strange behavior, but he refuses to see her—his work must not be interrupted. Dr. Waldman, Elizabeth, and another friend enter the laboratory to save their friend from doing the unthinkable. It’s too late.

The inanimate and unnatural body lays on a table, cloaked in cloth. Lightning and thunder explode overhead. The three spectators look on with grim anticipation as the doctor raises the table towards the sky. The laboratory buzzes with electricity and doom. The body is exposed to a blitzkrieg of fury from the clouds above, then slowly lowered back down. The right hand, as it dangles from the table, begins to move.

Photography by Jeffrey Perez of Oahu, Hawaii

“Look. It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive. It’s alive, it’s moving. It’s alive! Ho ho, it’s alive! IT’S ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE!! IT’S ALIVE!!! In the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God!”

After the creature’s reanimation, things go array. The monster is confused, sprung into the world as an amalgam of parts, with no origin or context of its existence. It is fearful and disoriented. Dr. Frankenstein and Fritz mistake the monster’s bewilderment for aggression and have it locked up. The creature manages to escape captivity, killing Waldman in the process.

The monster wanders into the town, where his most charming and tragic interaction takes place. The monster meets Maria, a young girl from town who is not afraid and treats it with compassion. She gives him flowers and they sit by the lake. She proceeds to fling flower petals into the lake to watch them float, bringing a smile to the monster’s face.

The creature slings the flowers she gave him in as well, bringing him his first experience of happiness since entering the world. When the monster runs out of flowers, he becomes frustrated. The delight he felt from throwing beautiful things into the lake came to an end. What can only be described as disastrous ignorance, the monster reaches for Maria, a beautiful child, and throws her into the lake, drowning her. The monster’s fate was sealed.

Enraged at the murder of a small child, the townspeople quickly turn into a bloodthirsty mob. Torches light and the townspeople track the bewildered monster, carrying his creator in tow, into an old mill. The creature furiously launches Dr. Frankenstein towards the Earth, but fortune smiles upon him as he survives the fall. With the monster trapped inside the mill, the mob sets it ablaze.

The inferno engulfs the structure and everything inside. The monster, that unceremoniously entered the world and shunned by those who were to nurture it, perishes inside the fire. The sounds of his panicked and desperate moans are heartwrenching. The film ends with Frankenstein resting in bed and his father, Baron Frankenstein, toasting to the news that he will have a grandson.

The Link Between Horror and Recovery

It’s no accident Frankenstein is one of the most revered stories of all time. Despite the creative differences between the book and film, the love for the story and the creature remains. Frankenstein and his monster are profoundly complex and layered characters, making the connection to fitness and health, a challenging one.

I’d like to discuss the creature prior to its reanimation. What was it? It was a random combination of parts, cobbled together with an abnormal brain. In the film, the urgency surrounded getting the correct brain and creating life. The flesh was subservient to the mind.

When we think about exercise, we must also consider recovery. In recovery, the same principle holds true—the flesh is subservient to the mind.

You might ask, “why are you talking about recovery?” First, it doesn’t get discussed enough. Secondly, most of us, if not all, want a positive change from our training and diet. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be doing it. For training to be of any benefit, an “overload” must be experienced. I hesitate to use the word “shock,” an overused fitness term, but it does coincide well with the lightning bolts that awakened Frankenstein’s monster.

This overload or “shock” must be slightly beyond your body’s capabilities in order for it to improve. The body’s ability to recuperate to the overload determines the overall likelihood of progress. Research abounds with evidence that higher frequency training improves one’s results. If time was no issue, like work or other responsibilities, your ability to train frequently, depends on your recovery. The formula is simple: train, recover and improve.

Systems of Recovery

Most people that enlist recovery techniques, utilize a “bottom-up recovery.” Similar to Dr. Frankenstein, they cobble together various pieces to address the body. Some of these techniques include cryotherapy, IV therapy, and active release techniques. These systems of recovery are very effective but are stifled by the bottom-up approach.

Systems of Recovery: Cryotherapy

You’re undoubtedly familiar with ice baths. Nordic cultures have used cold-water immersion as a rite of passage and athletes use it to hasten recovery. Cryotherapy is a souped-up version of an ice bath. It reduces inflammation as well as accelerating tissue recovery.

There are also novel findings that it increases the metabolic rate at the onset of immersion and for several minutes afterward. Other effects are improved mood, decreased arthritic pain, and a stronger immune system. It has also been shown to be a valid therapy for osteoporosis. Cryotherapy is certainly not a fad and has a place in anyone’s recovery toolkit.

Systems of Recovery: IV Therapy

Intravenous fluid drips deliver essential vitamins, electrolytes, and antioxidants. What was solely a method to nourish people in hospitals, IVs have become vogue for athletes, students, and business people.

Why IV? Oral or topical delivery have reduced absorption, whereas the body absorbs 100% of an IV. Certain nutrients, like vitamin C or magnesium, when dosed to their optimal levels, can trigger gastric discomfort when taken orally. Since IVs bypass the digestive system, this problem is avoided. The efficacy of the IV bag comes down to what is inside the bag and why.

Therefore, I don’t recommend someone to get hooked up to a Betty Crocker, garden-variety IV bag without customization based on your physiological needs and goals. While this can be an issue for places that provide “drive-thru bags,” there are facilities that take great care and caution when delivering these valuable treatments.

Systems of Recovery: Active Release Techniques

When Michael Leahy began performing active release techniques (ART), he changed the industry. ART is a patented method used worldwide to treat a multitude of dysfunctions from carpal tunnel, nerve entrapments, reduced flexibility, strains, as well as improvements in performance.

Active release is the official soft tissue massage partner for the Ironman Triathlon. The organization, world-renown for excellence in athletic ability, considers ART “The most effective treatment protocol for soft tissue injury.” Active release works to restore the natural function and resiliency the soft tissues—muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, and nerves.

Considering all of your exercises, from spinning to weights, involve these tissues, ART is crucial to progress. There are “MacGyver” ways of self-administering active release, but its best, and safest, way is with a qualified professional.

Your Brain Limits Recovery

The problem these recovery tools run into is the same problem Dr. Frankenstein and Fritz had with the monster—the brain. The best illustration of this is in Mel Brooks’ 1974 side-splitter, Young Frankenstein. In a hysterical scene, Dr. Fredereick Frankenstein, played by the incomparable Gene Wilder, is dumbfounded as to why his creature is so “imperfect.” He asks his trusted assistant Igor (Eye Gore) what brain is in his creation.

DF: Now, that brain that you gave me. Was it Hans Delbruck’s?
IGOR: No.
DF: Ah. Would you mind telling me, whose brain I did put in?
IGOR: And you won’t be angry?
DF: I will not be angry!
IGOR: Abbie Someone.
DF: Abbie Someone. Abbie Who?
IGOR: Abbie Normal.
DF: Abbie. Normal.
IGOR: I’m almost sure that was the name.
DF: Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven-and-a-half foot long, 54-inch wide GORILLA?! IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE TELLING ME?!

Even a fully-recovered and animated body is of no use with an abnormal brain. In this context, abnormal means a lack of attention paid to mindfulness. The “top-down recovery” approach focuses on mindfulness first and foremost, then the bodily systems.

Since there are many ways to categorize it, I will limit them to gratitude and meditation–or prayer. Each one has a myriad of benefits that go beyond mere “recovery.” A researcher for John’s Hopkins said of mindfulness, “if we could put mindfulness into a pill, it would be the best-selling supplement in the world.”

It’s that good. The practice of meditation, worshipful prayer, and gratitude reduce aches and pains, toxic emotions and thoughts, improves sleep, self-esteem, and courage. What the “train, recover, improve” formula doesn’t take into account, are the things that prevent the first two from occurring.

Practice Gratitude

Imagine what sort of training, if any, takes place with low self-worth, self-defeating thoughts, and fear? How does your diet advance when the will is weak and discipline lacks? How can you objectively judge progress when you always feel less-than?

Recent data shows more people suffer from a lack of purpose, meaning, and an opaque sense of responsibility. It is a sentiment shared throughout time among statesmen, philosophers, and people of God: though the body may weaken, the mind and spirit remain strong.

Weekly cryo sessions, ART treatments, and IVs reconstitute the flesh, but without a daily dose of gratitude, meditation, or prayer, we are merely lost creations, wandering, in fear of our own shadow, destined to be driven from joy.

The post Top Down Recovery appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor’s cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. “It’s full! No more will go in!” the professor blurted. “This is you,” the master replied, “How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup.”

Erase Your Preconceived Notions

Are you ever in a situation during a class or seminar where your drill partner says, “Sensei said we need to do it this way, but I like to do it this way.” Or while doing a solo drill do you ever think “I don’t know about this. This is way different than what I’m accustomed to.”

It doesn’t matter what you’re training toward or the particular sport or art—it may be time to empty our cups.

The Zen message above is simple: if you’re already full of preconceived notions and your own thoughts about how things should be, there isn’t much room to take in new perspectives or teachings. Besides that, if everything you are told or shown is met with your own critique and analysis, you won’t get much from it. It’s ok to process what you’re learning, but you have to do so with an open mind.

Be the Sponge

Karate methods and teaching styles have been engrained in our psyche for generations and it isn’t always easy to open up to fresh perspectives or to new ideas. But if we don’t, we will miss out.

My most personal experience with this is Bunkai. I thought I knew a few sound applications for some Kata and I was reluctant to stray from those. After all, Karate is pretty much keep low, block, kick, and punch, right?

Wrong. I was very wrong.

I read Karate Kata Applications by Aidan Trimble and Vince Morris; I asked questions on Bunkai to Sensei Power; I watched demonstrations by Sensei Toru Shimoji and videos by David Gimberline. What did I learn? I learned to be open-minded and to study Kata by using my own head. I now look at Kata with new eyes and ears–and it has rejuvenated my Karate.

My motto is to be the sponge: take it all in and keep what is useful and practical.

The many effective variations in Bunkai are just a sample of how deep Karate goes. There is much to learn that isn’t openly apparent and that can’t come through if your cup is full.

In my humble opinion, I think that we sometimes take what we think of as traditional Karate and cage it. Then, if we’re asked to make a slight variation in our techniques, or if someone suggests a variant for a drill or sequence, we shut down. Incoming information can’t find a foothold if we process it with what we think we already know or were already taught.

If we take a moment to give our minds the “all clear” signal, we are doing a better justice to ourselves and our karate—we’re making room for learning.

You Have to Empty Your Cup

I was fishing a salmon pool one time on the beautiful Exploits River and was having very little luck despite my passion for salmon fishing and years of experience. There were salmon showing in the pool but they simply were taking the bait. I was about to give up for the day when a buddy pulled in next to me in his boat.

“Take the hitch off your fly and try it. It’s hot, salmon are lazy.”

I was reluctant and told him so, and as I was protesting I cast back into the pool (without a hitch over the end of my fly) and a large Atlantic salmon made a swirl after it.

“You’re never too old to learn, ya know,” he grinned as he went on his way. “You may be too stubborn, but you’re never too old!”

I’m glad I emptied my cup.

The post Empty Your Cup, You’re Not That Good Yet appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

My greatest strength, a desire to learn and experience everything, can also be my greatest weakness. I profess the wisdom of essentialism while prioritizing ten things at once. If nothing else, I am constantly humbled by the limits of my time and energy.

My latest revelation came from a lifelong quest to improve my movement quality, specifically my over-extended lower back compensation that the Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) calls a “posterior extension chain archetype.” I finally saw a PRI specialist after years of back pain and mobility restrictions. My prescribed exercises yielded amazingly rapid progress.

Eventually, life interrupted as my wife and I decided to adopt a child. We deemed PRI appointments a luxury that we could no longer afford. After all, better movement and exercise is part of my job. PRI gave me a large library of corrective exercises with thorough explanation of the system’s guiding principles. I was in the driver’s seat with the keys to success, I just needed to drive the car.

After steady improvement, my focus drifted to other goals. Only two PRI exercises remained in my daily program, both on auto-pilot. Progress halted for three months until I finally decided to revisit PRI’s foundational principles.

When Autopilot Drifts Off Course

Re-reading the literature exposed a common theme in my life. These exercises had become ineffective, and the reason the progress ceased was simple. I had been doing them wrong. I was coasting through the motions, ignoring the breathing patterns and specific muscle activation sequences that the entire system is built upon. I was pretending to do the work, even convincing myself I had done it. By prioritizing the principles, I quickly saw progress return.

Sadly, I know this story well. I have spent weeks convinced that I am meditating until the truth dawns on me. I have just been laying and thinking. I have been planning articles, daydreaming about past conversations, and worrying about CEU’s not due for three years.

I see the same trend in my athletes’ training. Many kids eliminate the negative and isometric phases of both push ups and pull ups. Correction and a few weeks of focused attention invariably bring massive improvement.

Nowhere is this more obvious than with high school boys and the bench press. They understand tempo, percentages, and movement cues in every other exercise. With the bench press, they would rather kick their feet, bounce the bar off their chest, and squirm wildly, while their partner cheers them on.

Doing It Right

We become less effective and intentional as we stray further from a plan and its original principles. To continually progress, we need to combat this tendency. I recommend these concepts to plan any goal, especially when you feel stuck.

First Principles

When beginning, make a thorough investigation into the first principles—the foundational building blocks we use to construct beliefs and methods. We can easily lose sight of what made a system work. My lower back exercises turned ineffective when I forgot that PRI approaches mobility on the neurological level. Breath is essential to this approach, and I was breathing as an afterthought. Returning to these first principles brought back steady progress.

Beginner’s Mind

Approach challenges with what the Zen Buddhists call the “beginner’s mind.” Teaching a group of five-year-olds to play soccer is effortless; they are little sponges. They listen, have no ego, and work like mad scientists trying to crack the code. When first exposed to a new skill or subject, our minds are open. As we gain experience, we narrow our vision and believe our own method represents the best path. Focus on the task, without allowing your ego to demand being proven right. Beginners learn best.

Set Your Intention

With repetition, we can fall into mindless action. Approach each task without expectation, but set your intention for each action. On the micro-level, focus on small details, such as pressing big toes, pinky toes, and heels down as you drive from the bottom of a squat. For the macro-level, I give athletes the acronym “#FFTA” to set intention for each lift. I outline their performance cues by:

• Numbers (#): Weights, percentages, etc.
• Form: Specific exercise cues
• Flow: Are the exercises paired? Does the order matter?
• Tempo: The expected negative, isometric, and concentric speed for each phase
• Attitude: Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” Consistent enthusiasm creates strong habits and purpose.

We must purposefully maintain vigilance, knowing that we can drift toward comfort and autopilot. We all experience failure and feel humbled by our insights. When we understand this cycle and how to break it, we stay on the path to exploring solutions and prevent ourselves from succumbing to a victim mentality. With a positive mindset, we can solve nearly every problem.

The post Stuck? Try Doing It Right appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Being in the present moment is a very powerful thing and can help us on so many levels. Aside from dealing with trauma or divorce, being in the present moment can help us deal with the hectic pace of our current lifestyles were we can often feel stressed, over-worked, and overwhelmed. Sometimes it feels like there is just not enough time in the day to get everything done. And today with social media and the internet, people expect answers right away. In this day and age it can be very hard to switch off. The constant stress can make us unhappy, frustrated, and can even make us sick.

There are ways to help deal with the stress and being in the present moment is one of the best ways. One way to get there is via meditation.

The Power of Meditation

Meditation is an extremely effective method of training the mind. It calms the mind, allowing it to become more focused. Our brain operates on various different frequencies depending what state we are in. When we are awake, our brains are usually operate in beta waves, and while sleeping low-frequency delta waves are produced.

While we meditate our brains are in a state of predominantly alpha waves and also in theta waves. Studies have shown that alpha and theta brain wave states achieved during meditation make a person more relaxed but also very aware and alert.

How to Meditate

Meditation allows us to to clear our mind by eliminating all the mental chatter, the unnecessary worry, and the stress and to reach a state of stillness and deep peace. There are many different methods of meditation, but the simplest way to reach this peaceful state is to focus entirely on the body and the breath in the present moment which is known as “mindful meditation” (or “focused attention”). Our breath is one of the only things that is autonomous that we can actually control.

1. Start by finding a comfortable place to sit or lie down without being distracted.
2. Close your eyes and inhale slowly for a count of 6-8 and exhale slowly for a count of 6-8.
3. When you inhale imagine that you are breathing in clean, light air/energy and when you are exhaling, you are releasing dark air/energy that your body needs to clear itself of.
4. Keep breathing, focusing on only your breath while trying to relax every part of your body. Visualize moving down your body from the top of your head down to the tips of your toes. As you move through each part of your body, allow for the relaxation to set in.
5. Enjoy the stillness. If a stray thought comes into your mind push it out again and re-focus on your breath.

Benefits of Meditation

Deep, calm, and purposeful breathing has been shown to relax our bodies by slowing down your central nervous systems (which are usually hyper charged from all the stimuli), which reduces stress. Meditation has been shown to repair the central nervous system just like a good, deep night’s sleep. Reduced stress also means lowered cortisol levels and lower blood pressure. By concentrating on your breath, observing each inhalation and exhalation, and without consideration to other thoughts, your mind can become calm. When a stray thought arises be quick to recognize it and then turn your attention back to your breathing.

At the lifestyle camp I recently taught in Sarasota, Florida—all the ladies who attended enjoyed sunrise yoga at the beach.

Discipline Your Mind and Reap the Benefits

Meditation is hard work and it takes a lot of practice to get better, just like training the body. The more you do it, the easier it becomes to stay focused. Progress can be measured by how long a single thought can be focused upon without straying. The benefits of finding time to meditate, even only for 15 minutes a day, are astounding for both the body and the mind. Meditation can assist in feeling peaceful, happy, and healthy, and can train the mind to stay focused, resilient, and strong. Meditation is helpful when dealing with trauma or when you an are athlete and need to push yourself to your physical limit.

There are active forms of meditation that puts your minds into that ‘zen’ state where you are clear of mental chatter, completely focused on the task at hand, and in the present moment.
Yoga is a great example of active meditation. Breathing while moving your body through the poses connects your mind and your body while you are in the present moment.

Some other forms of active meditation are:

• martial arts
• swimming laps
• jogging or walking
• surfing
• tai chi
• weightlifting

You Must Make Time

What is important is that you take time out from your busy schedules and fast paced lives to dedicate some time just for yourself and focus on your mental state. Whether you prefer a still, quiet form of mediation or an active form of meditation through yoga or an intense roll at jiu jitsu class, the aim is to be focused on the present moment, to quiet the mind of all inconsequential mental chatter, and be in a state of peace.

The post Discipline Your Mind and Reap the Benefits appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Until you do, those tensions will be working against you, sabotaging you with stress, and making you work twice as hard with half the energy. Sure, almost everyone is equally afflicted by this full-body armor of unnecessary tension, but that’s no excuse not to take action. In fact, given the payoff, it should be at the top of the list of priorities.

As someone who’s experimented with countless methods of mind-body training, I can attest that Neuromuscular Release Work (NRW) is the most powerful technique for releasing that tension and recycling vast amounts of primal energy back through the nervous system. The result is high energy and low tension.

High dominance and low stress. Those are the two ingredients for a holistic, mind-body transformation. It’s mind and body combined, because you never have one without the other.

The whole system of NRW is as vast as any other exercise repertoire. But to give you a sense of what it’s all about, and to point you in the direction of some low-hanging fruit for getting started,

I’m going to give you an introduction through one of the bread-and-butter NRW exercises: face stretching. And though I’ll be focusing on just that one part of the body, pay attention, because if you get this, you’ll hold the thread that can unweave a whole lifetime’s worth of primal tension.

Why the Face?

If you’re like most folks, you probably don’t pay much attention to your face throughout the day. After all, you never see it, except in the mirror, and unless you accidentally wandered into an acting class and politely stayed a few minutes before slowly backing toward the door, you’ve probably never done any exercises with your face.

In all my days, I’ve never seen anyone in the gym working out their face, and when it comes to building muscle, it’s absurd to even think of it. But when it comes to releasing neuromuscular tension, the face is a veritable gold mine.

NRW works, and like everything that works, it works in a particular way. Understanding a little bit about the nuts and bolts, we can leverage that knowledge for bigger results with less effort. As always, we want to think in terms of the 80/20 rule, and in the case of deep tension release, that leads us right to the face.

There’s a hugely disproportionate amount of brain tissue dedicated to sensing and feeling the face compared to the rest of the body, and when you think about it, that makes perfect sense: If you couldn’t feel your face, especially your mouth, how long do you think you’d survive? That means tension in the face has a lot more impact on the overall felt sense of tension in the body than anywhere else. It also means that releasing tension there has a lot more impact—hence, low-hanging fruit. So, if you want to start sending your brain messages that the whole system can chill out, the face is the logical place to start.

Beyond that, there are a whopping 43 muscles in the face, and if you’re like most people, each one of them is charged up with layers of neuromuscular tension. But here’s something to keep in mind about how tension develops (and this applies to the whole body): those muscles are fused together with tension from years of habitual postures, reflexes, and expressions. For example, it may be hard for you to move the eyebrows without also moving the cheeks, or to move the jaw without also moving the shoulders.

Everyone’s patterns are different, but the result is essentially the same: layer upon layer chronically held physical and emotional attitudes, anchored by tension and stress. It also means that a little bit of tension anywhere easily becomes a lot of tension everywhere. The muscle fusion acts like a domino effect on the overall system. With its 43 muscles, the face makes for the perfect battlefield to start dismantling that fusion.

The Technique: Face Stretching

So here is a simple exercise to start switching the gears in the brain and defusing the muscles: face stretching. I’ll often have clients do it to warm up for a full NRW workout, but it also stands alone. Remember, if you want to really know what the work is about, you have to try it for yourself. The instructions may even seem deceptively simple, but if done correctly, the impact can be very dramatic.

You can sit or stand for this, but either way, make sure your whole body is as relaxed as possible. Take some time to feel your body, and try to anchor your awareness in your senses, rather than in your thoughts. Make sure the breath is deep, clam, and rhythmic. This is important; if you hold your breath, or breathe in a rapid or shallow manner, the technique will not work.

Now begin stretching the muscles of the face slowly and with tension. As you do this, make sure you’re mobilizing all the facial muscles: the forehead, the eyebrows, the eyes, the cheeks, the jaw, the lips, the tongue—everything. It doesn’t matter how you move these muscles, just that you’re moving them all, continuously, slowly, and with lots of tension. It should feel like you’re moving them and trying to stop yourself from moving them at the same time. It should feel difficult. If it’s doesn’t, add more tension to your movements until it does.

Continue the exercise for at least five minutes. It’s important to keep it up for that long to give your system time to react and adjust. As you go, make sure the breath stays deep, loose, and rhythmic, and that the rest of the body stays relaxed. Tension has a way of hiding in parts of the body you’re not paying attention to. At the end of five minutes, relax the face, take some deep breaths, and take a minute to sense and feel the face and the whole body, paying special attention to any new sensations that might arise.

What to Look For

You just spent five minutes sending messages to the most primal part of your nervous system; now it’s time to listen. Tuning in and receiving new sensations is just as important as the exercise itself for building new pathways between the parts of the brain.

Everyone responds to NRW differently, especially early on in their practice. With the face stretching, some people just feel discomfort at first, having come into conscious contact with the depth of tension in their face possibly for the first time. That in itself is a good sign that the muscles are “waking up,” even though it may not feel so great at first. Others may feel stronger results right away—a “reset” of the system, a sense of calm and balance, an energized relaxation.

Others still may feel more dramatic releases of energy, which could take the form of buzzing, tingling, or prickling on the skin; light tremors and shaking throughout the body; or big yawns and spontaneous vocalizations. You may even feel some spontaneous mental and emotional housecleaning happening, during or after the exercise.

None of these is “right” or “wrong.” Just pay attention to what you feel, and remember, you’re doing something real, in the same way that swinging a kettlebell is doing something real. If you do it right, your body will respond, so don’t be surprised if and when it does. But also like other types of workouts, NRW takes time and consistency to deliver its greater rewards, so if you choose to experiment with this technique, do it a couple times a day for at least a week, and see where that lands you.

Get Your Game Face On

When the face relaxes, everything relaxes, because everything takes its cue from the face—not just inside you, but around you, too. Ever wonder why people were treating you odd, and then realized you were scowling without realizing it? Maybe you were just squinting in the sun, or thinking deep thoughts, but either way, people take those cues seriously, and so does your own nervous system. So take advantage of that to encourage relaxation. When you’re relaxed, you’re powerful.

You’re loose, you’re confident, you’re not getting in your own way, and you can react spontaneously and creatively to whatever is going on around you. Everything works better, and everything feels better, and the face stretching will start pushing you down that path.

But while simple face stretching is a great place to start your NRW journey, there’s much more to explore, and far deeper to go. There are countless more NRW techniques for the face alone, and many more potent practices for detonating tension and releasing primal, powerful energy throughout the nervous system.

And it takes strong techniques to achieve a true mind-body transformation. That neuromuscular tension we all carry around is no joke. It’s tough. But so is NRW, and if you’re on this site, chances are, so are you.

If you can’t get control of your thoughts, what else can you expect to control?

Get Out of Your Head and Into the Zone

The post The Shortest Path To Release Your Tension appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Our nervous system loves three things more than anything else: safety, function, and variety.

If we want to optimize our performance, we must first establish safety in the nervous system so that it will allow us to do what we want. We must then allow our bodies to move with efficiency and efficacy. And then we need to get a little crazy and introduce some new variables to keep ourselves challenged and dynamic.

When we do all that, we’ll be able to find a new level of performance and joy in our practice.

The post Shift Your Perspective on Your Body appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Remember that squat PR you reached at age 35, or when you finally mastered the front lever and planche? How about that college class you pulled up from a C to an A? Or that first car you saved for all summer?

What all these events have in common is they are great life successes made possible by the discipline of delaying self-gratification. Millions of tiny impulses had to be overridden or ignored as you committed to habits and invested in working toward big goals. So many people struggle all their lives, because they aren’t able to conjure up that same strength and impulse control.

If you had to choose only one value instill in our youth to ensure success, none could rival delayed gratification. It’s at the root of every effort toward positive change, every goal realized, every dream.

The most rewarding experiences in your life came about because you created a vision that stirred you to live differently, and because that vision demanded sacrifice and persistence. The willpower of delaying gratification is a skill we can and should intentionally practice. There is no better arena to practice and develop this life-changing skill than physical training and personal health.

Marshmallows and Future Success

In the 1960’s, Professor Walter Mischel of Stanford University conducted an elaborate study of hundreds of four- and five-year-old children. Each was taken to a room, individually, and seated with one marshmallow in front of them.

The rules were explained that the youth could eat their one marshmallow now and that would be all, or refrain from eating until the researchers returned, and they’d be awarded a second marshmallow. I’m sure the subsequent videotape is priceless, as kids did everything in their power to resist the hypnotic draw of the marshmallow.

The few children who abstained for the entire 15 minutes were categorized as high-discipline, and the whole group was tracked for the next four decades. Forty years later, the difference between low-discipline marshmallow eaters and high-discipline delayers was stark.

Those who’d waited for the researcher to return had far fewer behavior problems, excelled in stressful situations, had lower body mass indexes, lower divorce rates, and far higher SAT scores.

The difference in those who waited the entire 15 minutes and those who ate the first marshmallow within 30 seconds was an average difference of 210 points in the SAT. The findings were clear.

By every metric, those who delayed gratification were more successful, had better relationships, better health, and greater emotional intelligence. This seemingly amusing and non-consequential scenario had grand ramifications.

Delayed Gratification and the Gym

Delayed gratification is part of the daily fabric of anyone who trains. We all have felt that inner angst of wanting to skip today’s workout, and yet we persevered. We battle all day with whether to go or not, and find showing up to be the hardest part.

But after the workout is over, the application of willpower that got us there is rewarded with a feeling of gratitude and sense of health and vitality that would have escaped us had we listened to our wimp instinct.

Those feelings create a positive feedback loop that we begin to crave, and that drives us to persist. We delay the gratification of sitting idle in the pursuit of a greater goal. It’s the root of physical toughness. We’ve all battled the devil on our shoulder—that inner wimp—during an intense workout, as he tells us “that’s good enough. Just stop.”

How good it would feel to quit and call it a day! Maybe we learned it in athletics, or from great mentors, or just an innate desire to be as great as we can be. But we know that to quit is to begin the habit of accepting excuses that would insidiously infect the rest of our lives. We finish.

Delayed gratification is part of the maturity it takes to train intelligently or learn any new skill. Every group of 14-year-olds I bring into the weight room wants to throw as much weight as possible on the bar to show me and their friends how strong they are. It’s the job of the coach to temper their egos, and insist upon execution of form before increasing weight.

These young men are shocked at the level of focus and understanding expected of them. But resistance training, like any skill, requires an investment in the fundamentals. Coaches who skip this are doomed to see their athletes fail on the playing field, and ensure injury and stagnation in the weight room.

The athletes who buy into this solid foundation have immensely higher long-term potential. Their training will suffer far fewer interruptions from injury than those in other programs, who get hurt in the weight room or move poorly.

We delay the gratification of pushing and yanking on bars like it’s a game, and instead create a mature understanding of basic training principles and philosophy, and a mindset that optimizes long-term growth.

It’s Time to Get Tough Again

Phrases like “inner wimp” and my praise for physical toughness are probably off-putting to many. Our culture is obsessed by physical toughness when displayed by others, from the exploits of our military, to the performances of elite athletes, to the next-door neighbor’s marathon training.

But we are simultaneously uncomfortable identifying toughness as a value worth teaching. Something about it seems overly harsh. To create tough people requires less self-pity, and to respond somewhat callously to other’s discomfort.

The reality is we’ve never lived in a wimpier time. Indoor air temperatures are always perfect, every hint of fever elicits a rush for antibiotics, the solution for anxiety is medication, in the place of understanding and mental training. Millions of people are in declining health simply because exercise “sounds so painful.”

Delayed gratification and toughness are intimately linked. Are we willing to persist through temporary discomfort in order to realize a goal? Those who have mastered their fear of physical pain and developed more tolerance for discomfort will live better lives.

Physical pain is going to be a part of everyone’s life. When we accept and embrace this, we can find happiness in the strength born of our trials, rather than feel we are the victim of some affliction.

Physical toughness is an ability created by environmental stimulation. Before air conditioning and smartphones, we were all subjected to harsh environmental elements. Survival required tough labor, in the form of hunting or farming. Houses were built, not bought.

Possibly the greatest gift of training is the reconnection with what is natural. It is perhaps the most important tenant of physical and mental health. To become successful as individuals or as a society, we must give some credence to the values of willpower and discipline.

Delayed Gratification and Body Composition

Delayed gratification and toughness are at the root of every effort toward healthy change. For long-term weight loss, people must find the strength to delay gratification repeatedly.

To do so requires a vision, a plan, and to some degree, just raw discipline. Many try to cheat the system by counting calories and still indulging in a diet of mostly sweets. Their lack of commitment to eat more quality foods means they’ll face the tyranny of calorie counting, with none of the rewards of better health and vitality.

Their perception that life without daily treats is deprivation ensures that they will have to severely limit calories and nutrients to lose weight. Eventually they fail, as this is no way to live. The root of their failure is an unwillingness to delay their constant desire for sweets.

The true route to better nutrition is a commitment not to a fad diet, but to change daily nutritional habits for a lifetime. One must set limits, like ice cream only one day a week, and be willing to follow through with them. Those who can’t delay gratification inevitably have soda and cake every time it’s offered at the staff meeting, and fast-food whenever their buddy says he’s going out to get some.

Mental Training Versus Big Pharma

Toughness and discipline rely heavily on training the mind. The essence of many forms of mental training is the ability to delay gratification. More people than ever are having trouble focusing and de-stimulating.

Our world offers constant distraction, with cell phones chiming away about the 12 social media outlets that demand our constant attention. We’ve found ourselves dealing with unheard of disorders, like FOMO (fear of missing out) and “distraction sickness.”

It’s unconscionable to allow a generation to grow up in this environment and never give them a framework to manage its hazards. Rather than use these tools for the better, a lot of kids live at the whim of these devices and the cravings they create.

Enter a college library, and you’ll see hundreds of distracted young adults studying with their phones out, earbuds playing the latest pop song, and five social media accounts open on their browser. They’ve never been taught to practice the discipline of focus.

They conclude that there must be something wrong with them, something that is inhibiting their focus, and then they start taking their friend’s Adderall. It’s really no big deal, right?

ADHD medication is abused with startling regularity while, ironically, the social-media-crazed world actually trains the mind towards ADHD’s vague and inclusive symptoms. Not surprisingly, ADHD diagnoses continue to climb.

Dr. Keith Connors, the man who first created the ADHD diagnosis, calls this “a national disaster of record proportions.” ADHD has historically been seen as a disorder that afflicts 5% or less of the population, and that fades with aging.

But big pharma saw a goldmine. Adderall, Concerta, and other drugs have seen demand skyrocket. Intense advertising campaigns use everything from retroactive diagnoses of Ben Franklin, to hardly-related and common symptoms like forgetfulness in doing chores.

Adam Levine encourages you to take an online test that will all but guarantee you start believing you have ADHD. There is even the development of new kinds of ADHD, like adult-onset Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder without the hyperactivity.

Dr. Connors remains indignant: “The numbers make it look like an epidemic. Well it’s not. It’s preposterous.” The real epidemic appears to be abuse of ADHD medication.

That these medications are overprescribed and abused is a symptom of our instant gratification society. We assume every kid should be formed to fit our industrial model of education. When they don’t, rather than give them the tools to learn how to focus and train the mind, we opt for a pill.

The same is done for anxiety, weight loss, and a myriad of other problems. We don’t see challenges as opportunities for self-development, and instead opt for pharmaceutical “band-aids” that require no growth and leave us limited and shallow.

Meditation and Distraction Management

Mental training and self-learning are vital to growth and development. My own mental training for focus, anxiety reduction, and self-discovery has mostly occurred through meditation.

This is not the only option, just the method I have most experience with. In meditation, you follow your breath for a period of time. Distracting thoughts come and go, but the practice is to return focus to your breathing. In watching your thoughts pass, there is great education.

You learn the relationship between your thoughts, emotions, and body, while becoming far more mindful of patterns that have been in control of you. It is a continual process of stripping down your assumptions to find truth.

Through daily practice, I’ve found that I need not be swept away by thoughts or emotions. I am able to catch myself before dramatizing a situation or letting one challenge bleed into the next. How I perceive and explain situations has changed as I’ve developed more patience, greater focus, and more ability to delay gratification.

In meditation, there is a constant desire to chase after thoughts or distract yourself. You will face boredom and the tension of a world that does not value sitting and doing nothing. This has taught me a level of mental resilience, discipline, and confidence I’d have never thought possible five years ago.

In a world where distraction abounds, having the discipline to meditate may be the best gift you can give yourself. At its core this is delaying the gratification of following each passing thought and opting to root yourself in each breath.

If we return to the marshmallow test, the experimenters found that the children who could wait out the 15 minutes were those that could best bring their attention to something else. They were able to sing songs or play games with themselves to move their mind elsewhere.

It is unique for a 4-year-old to have this impulse control. This is the same way that meditation allows people to escape anxiety and depression. They learn not to attach themselves to an emotion and allow thoughts and feelings to pass.

Develop Mental Depth for Limitless Growth

The other essential lesson of meditation is appreciation and love for the moment, with an understanding that nothing in the future is guaranteed. How do we reconcile all this delaying of gratification with that? On the surface, it might appear that all these “successful” delayed gratifiers were just stuffy, color-between-the-lines types.

The reality is quite the opposite. What you find in people who’ve learned to delay gratification is a mastery of their emotions that allows greater happiness, positive perception, and presence in each moment. They’ve learned what is really important in life.

They prioritize their thoughts and emotions, rather than be at the whim of their “inner wimp” and their impulses. They’ve learned to love the process of growth so much that delayed gratification is a habit that is in no way perceived as deprivation.

They savor garlic rolls and pasta at an Italian dinner, then wake up the next day and return to their habits with gratitude. It gives them great pleasure to live healthy and be on the hunt for something they believe in. Because they crave growth, they’ve found purpose in what they do and a love for the daily processes.

The weight room is the refreshing antidote to a world intent upon lowering standards and inflating scores to ensure a false sense of self-esteem. The purity and truth offered in training is what makes it such an excellent vehicle for teaching life lessons.

As you prepare to train others or dedicate yourself to new training- or health-related goals, I hope you will consider intentionally focusing on delayed gratification. There is great empowerment in realizing the deep ramifications of this skill.

More essential mental attitudes for success:

Get a Samurai Mindset: Unshakable and Invincible

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Certain workouts reveal these qualities more than others, like a descending ladder of thrusters and burpees. These workouts are like a freight train en route to the pain cave, and unless you’re Superman, there’s nothing you can do to slow it down.

The athletes who choose grace are mesmerizing to watch, with their stone-cold composure and trance-like movements. The chaotic athletes are also fun to watch, but mostly to enjoy the show as they flop on the mat after the final rep in a dramatic display of defeat. So why do some athletes stay cool, calm, and collected for the entirety of the workout, while others freak out two reps in? Their mind. The difference lies in the ability to shut out extraneous noise and focus solely on the task at hand.

If you think mindfulness is a bunch of hippy-yoga-nonsense, think again. Learning how to control your mind in stressful situations will harness untapped strength that you never knew existed.

When conditions are less than ideal, can you ignore the distractions and focus on the task at hand?

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a cognitive behavioral treatment designed to teach people how to change the pattern of unhelpful thoughts. Originally formulated to treat individuals with impulsivity, self-injury, substance abuse, and personality disorders, DBT has expanded into the sports arena as a way for athletes to build positive mental capacity while under pressure or in uncomfortable situations. It’s the difference between having the mental composure to nail a buzzer-beating shot or choking under pressure.

There are four main components to DBT:

• Mindfulness: The ability to take pay attention, non-judgmentally, to the present moment. Mindfulness is the ability to control your mind instead of having your mind control you.
• Interpersonal Effectiveness: The ability to express your needs without damaging your self-respect.
• Emotion Regulation: The ability to regulate your emotions by understanding the relationship between thoughts, feelings, and actions.
• Distress Tolerance: The ability to get through a tough situation without making it worse.

How many times have you been deep in a workout and the burning sensation in your legs from a monster set of wall balls becomes almost too much to handle? The negative self-talk creeps in, and instead of facing the workout with vigor and mental toughness, you let unhelpful emotions get the best of you. In the end, you leave the gym disappointed with your performance.

The Teflon Mind

One component of DBT used by many athletes is to develop a “Teflon mind.” In this state, you allow thoughts and feelings to come into your mind in a non-judgmental way. Then you let them slip right out, without allowing yourself to react and get stuck to them. This mindset helps people cope with intense feelings and remain in the present moment without losing perspective.

With a Teflon mind, you have the ability to stand up to the mental challenge that lies within each grueling workout without breaking down emotionally, and subsequently, physically.

Creating a Teflon mind requires more than positive thinking. It takes practice, just like getting a bigger back squat requires continued training. But that doesn’t mean it has to be overwhelming. Like all aspects of training, it’s about the quality of your effort. The next time you are at the gym (or in your living room), give this DBT mindfulness exercise a shot.

1. Find a quiet spot and sit in the rock bottom of your squat.
2. Set a timer for 10 minutes.
3. Let your arms fall over your knees and close your eyes.
4. Focus your attention on your breathing.
5. Pay attention to what it feels like in your body as you breathe slowly in and out.
6. Become aware of whatever thoughts enter your mind. Notice how they enter your consciousness, develop, and then let them float away.
7. If you get immersed in a thought, notice what took you away from your previous state of calm observation, and try to shift your attention back to that state.
8. Stand up at the end of 10 minutes and shake out your legs.

This exercise should open your eyes to how you react when your body is placed in an uncomfortable situation. How does your body feel when your ankles and legs start to get tired? What thoughts enter your mind? How do those thoughts impact your feelings?

Were you able to let thoughts float in and out of your mind when your body began to fatigue, or did you feel overwhelmed, unable to stay calm and present in the moment?

Either way, if you want to develop a Teflon mind, you have to train yourself to notice the discomfort that comes with working out, without reacting to it. You want to achieve a state where that monster set of wall balls doesn’t phase you. Commit to practicing these skills every time you train. Start small, perhaps during your warm up, and progress to longer and more involved workouts over time.

Worrying about grip strength won’t do anything to help you hang on.

Attitude Is Everything

So much emphasis is put on building physical strength, but spending three months on a Russian squat program won’t do you any good if you fall apart emotionally every time you go for a personal record attempt. Winning the mental game is what separates the good athletes from the great ones. It’s rare to see someone like Rich Froning crack.

Learn to recognize when your mind is wandering, and quickly shift back to the present. Dwelling on the negative will break your confidence. Manage mental chaos by concentrating on one rep at a time, and block out everything else. When you dial in your brain, your body will follow.

More on Mindfulness:

• See It, Do It, Win It: Charge Up Your Visualisation
• The 6 Steps to Building Mental Toughness
• Meditation 101: Why and How to Start a Meditation Practice
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Headline photo courtesy of J. Perez Imagery.

Photos courtesy of Jorge Huerta Photography.

The post How Tough Is Your Mind? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Having done shooting video games, I assured myself I would naturally start knocking down clays. I was in for a rude awakening and a good dose of humility.

Separate “Hard” From “Impossible”

Shooting at something doesn’t seem like it would be that hard. See target, aim at target, pull trigger. How hard can it be? Answer: pretty darn hard.

At the first station, it quickly became apparent that shot-gunning clays was not going to be easy. Hitting just one clay seemed hard enough. Two in the air at the same time seemed impossible. Still, I did manage to hit several clays and have fun in the process. As I humbly struggled to shoot, I was reminded of life lessons I have learned in sport and fitness over the years.

At one stressful point in my life, I sought out the advice of a close friend who had been a sergeant in the Marines. He shared with me an analogy of what he learned when it comes to shooting. There’s a saying the Marines use that states, “Never anticipate the bullet.” The point being to not focus on outcome, but to be wholly present.

RELATED: Mindfulness – What It Is and How to Achieve It

This piece of wisdom was spot on in terms of me trusting my gut to make an important life decision. Expanding on the bullet metaphor, my friend explained how the Marines breakdown shooting into steps. How you learn to shoot can also apply to how you throw a punch, kick, or baseball.

“Tension is your enemy when it comes to sport and fitness, and it is why your biggest opponent will ultimately be you. Whether you’re shooting a shotgun or swinging a kettlebell, first learn to breathe, then learn to relax.” 

Here’s how the Marines learn to shoot and how it can apply to your workout, sport, or next task in life. They call it BRASS. That is breathe, relax, aim, squeeze, and shoot.

LEARN MORE: What the Marines Can Teach Us About Discipline

Breathe

Every physical movement originates with breath. Breathing is our literal life source, but is also the critical element to control our physicality. Whether the actual act of shooting is a sport or skill is debatable, but like any sport, shooting comes down to the intersection of the physical juxtaposed with the mental.

Finding that balance of being mentally present and physically relaxed is a function of breath. In any sport, breathing comes first. When you can control your breath, you can control your body and better your outcomes in fitness, sport, and life.

RELATED: The Lost Art of Breathing

Relax

Having taught in boxing and the martial arts for years, I can tell you the hardest concept to teach (and grasp) in fitness and sport is that of relaxation. The more violent, intense, and higher the stakes, the seemingly more difficult it is to relax.

“When multiple objects come from different directions, the task of aiming gets more difficult, as football players well know. The key is to empty your thoughts and to see only the target and nothing else.”

But that is exactly what the best performers do. Think of the professional surfer in a violent twenty-foot swell, a boxer in a championship fight, or an Olympic downhill skier. They appear graceful, elegant, and effortless in what are potentially life-and-death situations.

Tension is your enemy when it comes to sport and fitness, and it is why your biggest opponent will ultimately be you. Whether you’re shooting a shotgun or swinging a kettlebell, first learn to breathe, then learn to relax.

RELATED: Learning to Rest

Aim

Ask Shaquille O’Neal how hard hitting a free throw can be. Ask any golfer how difficult hitting a little white ball towards a hole can be. Ask a major league baseball player how tough it is to hit a 97mph fastball.

“There’s a saying the Marines use that states, ‘Never anticipate the bullet.’ The point being to not focus on outcome, but to be wholly present.”

For some of us, shooting a free throw seems pretty easy, while hitting even a 50mph fastball seems challenging to many. Either way, aiming is a difficult task. It’s because our mind plays tricks on us. Magicians know the human eye is not quick enough to grasp many magic tricks. Similarly, hitting fastballs, shooting clays, and dodging punches can be almost impossible tasks for our eyes to pick up.

Aim comes down to quieting your mind and following your target from its point of initiation. Easier said than done. When I shot the shotgun last week, my coach told me to “squirt” at the target as I was following at it and then pull the trigger at the crest of the movement. Determining eye dominance is also something that can help you to aim. You can start with shutting one eye at a time while observing a given target. You’ll see the disparity between your eyes.

RELATED: Meditation Increases Performance in Elite Shooters

When multiple objects come from different directions, the task of aiming gets more difficult, as football players well know. The key is to empty your thoughts and to see only the target and nothing else. Athletes call this state the zone.

Squeeze

Squeezing is the moment you start your motion. Squeezing the trigger on a shotgun is the equivalent of starting your backswing in golf or your throwing motion in other sports. This is the moment of truth where you must begin correctly in order to end correctly.

The challenge is not to think ahead to that outcome. If you “anticipate the bullet,” your shot will miss its mark. This means being confident and relaxed. Achieving this is accomplished through one thing above all else – repetition. Every movement has a set up. That is a checklist and practice of getting your feet right, your hands ready, and body relaxed. So learn that checklist and practice it.

“Every physical movement originates with breath. Breathing is our literal life source, but is also the critical element to control our physicality.”

My shotgun coach told me there are no naturals when it comes to shooting. He said, “It takes practice and repetition for your mind to connect with you body.”

Shoot

The shot is the culmination of all of your preparatory work. Taking a “shot” might be going for that big job interview. Taking a shot might be the literal act of throwing, lifting, or punching in sport or fitness. Whatever the case may be, the aspect of shooting comes down to instinct, feel, and the willingness to shoot.

Hall of Fame basketball player Oscar Robertson said, “If you’re a basketball player, you’ve got to shoot.” Really, if you’re a participant in life, you’ve got to take shots sometimes. And that ability to shoot comes down to learning and practicing how to breath, relax, aim, squeeze, and take that shot.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Lessons While Shooting: How to Take Aim in Life and Sport appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

As much as I struggled with these questions on the whole, the last question has a simple answer. Yes, there are abundant benefits in teaching yoga and mindfulness practices at a young age. 

Benefit: Self Regulating Behavior

If a child goes to a behavioral therapist or counselor over the course of his or her youth, one of the first things the therapist will address is self regulation. In fact, many parents work to establish good self-regulating behaviors as early as infancy. 

Self regulation includes good sleep habits, proper eating and personal hygiene, and self-soothing behavior for challenging emotions. Mindfulness experiences help a young person become more aware of why he or she feels a certain way. This awareness can be paired with techniques to regulate feelings to create a better outcome.

Exercise: Self-Regulation Techniques in Youth

1. Ask the group or individual to name things that cause stress in life. Make a list of the things named.
2. Have the group or individual come to a seated position with the eyes closed or lightly open looking at the floor. Some children will not be comfortable with eyes closed.
3. In round one, give instructions to think about the word you say as completely as possible. Have the group or individual think of memories, feelings, experiences, or images associated with the word. Read through the list, pausing for about thirty seconds at each word.
4. In round two, give the same instructions, but also tell the group or individual to take a full, deep breath after you say each word. Pause to allow a full breath at each word as you read through the list.
5. Ask the group or individual about the experience after the exercise is complete. Most will report feeling more relaxed, calmer, or less anxious in round two. Ask how this may apply to other situations.¹

Benefit: Increased Attention Span or Ability to Focus

Young people often become easily distracted by surroundings and interruptions. If you ever present to a group of young people, you will notice the varying array of attention through the group. Some will focus intermittently, some not at all. Mindfulness can help a young person learn to be aware of distractions without actually becoming distracted by them. 

Exercise: Teaching Youth to Focus

1. Have the group or individual stand up. This is a great thing to do if you need to bring the attention back to the presentation at any point.
2. Teach tree pose. This is a simple, straightforward balancing pose. With children, allow them to interpret the pose as they would like.
3. Instruct the group or individual to hold the pose on one side for thirty seconds to a minute. Have them count the number of times they fall out of the pose.
4. Pause in between rounds and offer a simple mindfulness practice. Have the student(s) stand tall with the feet apart and knees slightly bent. Allow them to close or half close their eyes, but turn their other senses outward. Help them seek out distractions such as sounds, smells, the feel of the air on their skin, or other outward experiences. Bring them into awareness of as many different elements as possible in a soothing, simple way, without focusing too much on any one element.
5. Instruct the group to repeat the tree pose once again, holding for the same amount of time, and counting the number of times they fall.
6. Ask which round was more successful. Typically, students can balance for a much longer time after the simple meditation. Ask how they may incorporate this into their lives.

Benefit: Greater Embodiment Experience

Embodiment should be talked about far more when it comes to self-esteem, body image, and general sense of self. Embodiment is the awareness of what it is like to exist in your own body with a strong acknowledgment that you are made up of more than your body.

Embodiment has many benefits, a key benefit being less risk of injury when participating in physical activity. I have students come to my class who will be unable to follow instructions like “lift your left leg” or “straighten your right elbow.” This is not a judgment on their yoga skills, just a commentary on how disembodied our experience can be when we spend all day at work or school.

A second primary benefit of embodiment exists in the brain. The embodiment circuitry of the brain, i.e. the part of the brain responsible for moving and experiencing the body, acts like a damper on other areas of the brain. Namely, it quiets the default processes of repeated past experiences, and it calms the seeking behavior that may lead to pattern behaviors in youth. These behaviors vary from acting out to overeating, using drugs or alcohol, or even self-harm. When a person regularly engages in awareness of the body, he or she experiences a greater sense of satisfaction and a lower sense of need.¹

Exercise: Teaching Embodiment to Youth

1. Pause before beginning this exercise. Just give the instruction to come to standing and stand still.
2. Stand at the front of the group and give the simple instruction, “Mirror my movements.” You may need to explain what mirroring is, but give as little instruction as possible.
3. Start to move your body in a simple way: bend the torso, lift one or both arms, stand on one foot. Move slowly and explore easy ways you can move around.
4. After a minute or so, ask if anyone in the group would like to lead the exercise.
5. Give no real instruction. Simply allow the individual to take a role in deciding how the body can move. Many students will repeat the actions you presented. Some will create new movements you had not thought of.
6. Encourage all who would like a turn to step up and lead the movements.
7. Pause at the end of the exercise. Give the “stand still” instruction again, and notice the difference in behavior, stillness, and quiet.
8. At the end of the exercise, tell the students, “You all just became yoga teachers.” Explain how moving the body allows you to become still and quiet after the movement is complete. Give some benefits of moving the body without mentioning weight. Talk about making the body stronger, more flexible, better balanced, and more resistant to injury. If you feel it is appropriate for the age group, you may mention that moving the body helps to quiet the brain.

References:

1. Moore, D. and Hopper, J., “Neuroscience, Mindfulness and Modern Yoga for Transforming Trauma.” Professional training, Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. Lenox, MA, June 1-6, 2014.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Perhaps one reason we are not as versed in how to make ourselves happier is that it turns out happiness, according to author Dan Buettner, is a fairly complicated concept, affected by numerous influences that have an impact on our subjective experience of it. In his book Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, Buettner pursued an understanding of what makes people happy using the methodology he employed in previous work to identify influences on longevity. In this other work, he discovered geographic locations that seemed to enhance the length and quality of the residents’ lives, locations he described as “blue zones.” In Thrive, Buettner applies a similar methodology to the study of happiness, asking “Are there places around the globe that nurture happiness the same way that the Blue Zones nurture longevity? If there are, what can we learn from these places to increase our own happiness in the same way that we’ve learned lessons about long life from the world’s centenarians?”

Buettner’s investigation takes him to four locations throughout the world: the Jutland Peninsula of Denmark, Singapore, Nuevo Leon in Mexico, and San Luis Obispo, California, which researchers have identified as “leaders in happiness.” In an attempt to unlock the secrets to happiness each of these distinctly different geographic locations holds, he interviews with national officials, “ordinary” citizens, and notable figures in each location, focusing on “the remarkable people who rank themselves as very happy…and who also believe that they will be happier in the next five years – an optimistic condition that researchers describe as thriving.”

After his extensive investigations, Buettner abstracts some general takeaways from each geographic region. These include, but are not limited to, things like the importance of an environment of trust, caring for family and social connectedness, economic and status equality, and a sense of freedom. For individuals looking for guidance about how to make changes in their own lives, the prognosis is positive. Buettner claims, “Genuinely happy people do not just sit around being content. They make things happen. They pursue new understandings, seek new achievements, and control their thoughts and feelings. We can also learn from others. If an unhappy person wants to experience interest, enthusiasm, contentment, peace, and joy, he or she can make it happen by learning the habits of a happy person.”

Ultimately, then, perhaps happiness is not so complex after all. Perhaps with effort, assistance, and just a bit of research data, we can channel our efforts more effectively and realize our legacy.

“Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way” is available for $10.17 at Amazon.com.

What makes YOU happy? Do you know? Has the answer changed over time, or does it surprise you at all? Post your observations to comments.

The post Book Review: “Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way” by Dan Buettner appeared first on Breaking Muscle.