CategoriesMotivational psychology

Ready. Mindset. Lift: Mindfulness For Optimal Workouts

Today’s post comes courtesy of reader’s favorite, and my wife, Dr. Lisa Lewis. Both Lisa and Artemis Scantalides will be presenting their I Am Not Afraid To Lift (the Power of Mindset Edition) at Dauntless Fitness & Health in Severna Park, Maryland on April 2, 2016.

For more information and to register go HERE.

Ready. Mindset. Lift

Your day is chock full of tasks, distractions, and to-do’s. Between family and friends, your work, and your workouts, all those texts, emails, television, and other technology-based diversions force you to focus on one thing while doing another.

Multi-tasking is currently the norm in our busy western lifestyles, and although many of us feel that we’re highly skilled at attending to multiple chores and responsibilities at one time, research has demonstrated were actually not very good at it (Medina, 2014).

While attention deficits are higher and multi-talking is standard, the most popular intervention in psychology today is mindfulness.

Applied to many medical and mental health concerns, Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI’s) have been used to treat anxiety, depression, insomnia, disordered eating, stress management, (Dimidjian & Segal, 2015) and problems with attention (Zylowska, 2012).

Universally, it seems that regardless of how we struggle, one of the current ways to help ourselves is to get mindful.

But what does being mindful even mean? Good question:

Mindfulness is about being fully aware of whatever is happening in the present moment… mindfulness consists of cultivating awareness of the mind and body and living in the here and now… while mindfulness as a practice is historically rooted in ancient Buddhist meditative disciplines, it’s also a universal practice that anyone can benefit from… some of the greatest benefits of mindfulness come from examining your mental processes in this way, observing them dispassionately, as a scientist would (Stahl & Goldstein, 2010).”

Now, keeping the idea of mindfulness in mind, let’s take a look at your workouts.

Consider the time just before, during, and immediately after your training sessions.

1) What are you doing on the way to your workout? Singing in the car to the 90’s on 9 XM radio (my personal favorite)? Making a to-do list of things to handle tomorrow at work that you forgot about today? Listening to voicemails or catching up on texts? Worrying? Resenting? Inhaling your lunch?

2) When you arrive at the gym, what your the pre-workout routine? Makeup off, hair up, workout clothes on? Is there a special playlist? Magic lifting shoes? A sexy Zoolander look and pec flex all by yourself in the locker room mirrors?

3) And how about during your warm up? Are you focused on the present, noticing how your body responds to stretches, mobility drills, and foam rolling? Are you using positive self-talk to get excited about your deadlifts, or are you still in your inbox, mentally reviewing tasks and to-do’s?

Are you visualizing a perfect RDL, or the content of your refrigerator back at home?

4) Most importantly, how do you feel while all this is going on?

If you are half-awake, hungry, frustrated, or just downright not-feelin’-it, the quality of your workout suffers. More importantly, you miss the opportunity to be ready and present for a highly valued part of your life!

If you’re reading this article and making it to the gym to train regularly, you care. You’re into it. The point is, your values and goals should be on your mind and WITH YOU before, during, and just after your training sessions.

Mentally prepare yourself for your workouts by getting mindful, and practice staying that way before, during, and after your time at the gym.

Let’s review these four phases of your training, and how mindfulness can apply:

Mental Preparation

On your drive, walk, or subway ride to wherever you workout, begin to think about what you’ll be doing, and what you want out of that time and effort. As one of my private clients once taught me, create a space for the workout, with your thoughts.

If you love music, select a song or playlist that will boost your motivation and energy level. Tailor your playlist to your preferred energy level or “vibe” for the best workout for you (this may include Rage against the Machine or Nora Jones).

Remember your fitness or training goals, and connect with whatever affect you have about that (pumped, fired-up, ambitious, and so on). While you drive, change clothes, and otherwise get ready to being training, tune in to the content of your thoughts and feelings. “Weed out” anything unrelated to training, if you can. Make a conscious decision to be present during your workout, and focused on the processes and sensations of your time in the gym, as opposed to people, places, and things outside of the present moment.

Mental Rehearsal During Your Warm-up

Whatever your warm-up routine includes, consider adding a warm-up for your mind. Mental rehearsal, or visualization, enhances performance (Wilson, Peper & Schmid, 2006).

Used by professional athletes and Zen masters alike, rehearsing in your mind can be just as useful as in-the-flesh deliberate practice.

While your mobilizing and foam rolling, create an image in your mind of your “big movement” for the day. Recall an optimal experience you’ve had with this lift, or mentally rehearse all of the technical components of that lift. In my private practice, I routinely create a “script” with my clients so that they have a written narrative for these rehearsals.

Maintain Mindfulness – Be Ready and Present During Your Workout

As you move through your reps and sets, what’s going on up in that noodle of yours?

If you drift away from your pull-ups and into your upcoming work presentation for the finance team, just notice it, recognize that your PowerPoint slides about the TPS report have nothing to contribute to your goal, and return to the present moment.

If this feels difficult, mentally rehearse the exercise, and use self-talk to consciously think your way through the movement.

For example, you could use one of my favorite coaching cues from Arteims, “Get tight to Get light!, and focus on those words during the execution of your pull up. Remember that mindfulness is a practice – not a perfect state at which to arrive and never leave.

Review the Data

Upon finishing your workout, you may quickly move on to the next task, begin to think about a pressing errand, or free fall into worries and stressors outside of the gym.

As you grab your bag, jump in your car or on the train, and move on with your day, try to take at least 60 seconds to evaluate what just happened.

How did it go? Just like a scientist reviewing the data, you have a fresh set of experiences to observe.

Anything ouchie or awesome today?

Did you increase your weight or reps on an exercise?

If it was a tougher workout than usual, or just no fun, what could have been contributing factors?

These observations can help to acknowledge elements that help and harm your workout quality, and to identify new goals for future performances.

Many of us go elsewhere during our day.

Focusing on the future and worrying about what may happen brings anxiety; reciprocally, thoughts stuck in the past bring us regret, disappointment, and feelings of depression. The present moment is where it’s at!

When you are at work – be at work. When you are with your loved ones – be in the room and tuned into the conversation. When you are at the gym, keep your mind in your body, on your weights, and aligned with your goals and the process of achieving them.

You may be reading this and thinking, “easier said than done!!”

Remember that we are what we practice doing, and so your mind is currently automated to go and do wherever it is going, and whatever it is doing; to change that pattern requires deliberate practice and conscious effort on your part – just like changing a hip hinge pattern.

If you decide to practice mindfulness before, during and/or after your workouts, remember that you are developing your mental muscles. It will take time.

On stressful days, or days when you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired (HALT), you may return to your automated thoughts and foci. Try not to judge that. It’s just data. You can notice it, let it go, and come back to your present moment and the task-at-hand.

Remember that your workout belongs to you – not your boss, your significant other, your kids, or the other important relationships that often hijack our thoughts. Compartmentalize your thoughts so that you can think about your body, your health, and your fitness while you are actively working on that part of your life. And always, always, remember to enjoy!

Dimidjian, S. & Segal, Z (2015). Prospects for a clinical science of mindfulness-based intervention. American Psychologist, 70, 7, 593-620.

Medina, J. (2014). Brain Rules. Pear Press, Seattle.

Stahl, B. & Goldstein, E. (2010). A mindfulness-based stress reduction workbook. New Harbinger Publications, Inc. Oakland, CA.

Wilson, V., Peper, E., & Schmid, A. (2006). Strategies for training concentration. Book Chapter from Applied Sport Psychology, Williams, J. ED. McGraw-Hill, NY.

Zylowska, L. (2012). The mindfulness prescription for adult ADHD: an 8-step program for strengthening attention, managing emotions, and achieving your goals. Trumpeter Books, Boston.

CategoriesMotivational psychology

Find Your Flow With Metacognition

My wife, Lisa, is taking the reigns today. She’s teaming with Artemis Scantalides for the I Am Not Afraid To Lift workshop at Iron Body Studios this November, and will speak to more of the psychological barriers that exist which often stagnate people’s progress in the gym.

We’re often our own worst enemy, and our inner dialogue can play tricky – sometimes harmful – games with our mind(s).

Lisa’s a psychologist (pretty much the best one in the world)1, leads an active lifestyle (she lifts heavy things and teaches several spin classes a week. So, you could say she’s a doctor who actually lifts), and sees a ton of value in combining both the power of the mind and the power of the barbell and using them in a synergistic manner.

In today’s post she discusses the concept of Metacognition, which sounds like an X-Men character but it’s not. It’s still cool though. You should totes read about it below.

Enjoy,.

Find Your “Flow” With Metacognition

Think about your thinking. Right at this moment.

What’s running through your mind right now? In that last minute? In the last hour? Sure, you’re reading these sentences, and maybe thinking about them, but you’re probably also thinking about one, or two, or seven other things, right now.

Before you continue reading, take a minute to observe your thoughts. If that’s too long, shoot for 30 seconds – you can set a timer. Don’t change them, just notice. Eyes open or closed, being still or moving… listen to your inner monologue…

What did you notice? Positive thoughts? Negative thoughts? Worries? Day dreams? Shoulds? To-Do’s? Hopes? Judgments?

Your thoughts are layered.

Your thoughts are constant.

Your thoughts influence your feelings and shape your behavior.

The exciting part is, you can control your very own thoughts and use them to improve every aspect of your life: work, relationships, and your training. You can learn what thoughts are helpful, and which aren’t, and then you can use them, shape them, change and augment them, to enhance your performance and your passion for your goals.

Thinking about thinking, or metacognition, is one of the nifty skills that set us humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Not only can we be aware of our thoughts and reflect on them, but we can consciously change them.

When your thoughts are connected to the present moment, your emotions and behaviors will be as well. When your thoughts align with your goals, you are at your best; in your Zone! In other words, 100% percent of your thoughts are focused on your training. What do you do, or what can you do, to get yourself 100% present and focused on your workout?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of my favorite psychologists, studied being in the zone, or what he calls “Flow” (1990). I’ve heard athletes and clients call it their “vibe”, or “space”, but whatever you call it, that’s the place you want to be when you train. Being in flow means that your mindset contains only constructive thoughts about the present moment. It means you and your thoughts are fully engaged in a goal-directed activity. Csikszentmihalyi explains:

“The optimal state of inner experience is one in which there is order in consciousness. This happens when psychic energy – or attention – is invested in realistic goals, and when skills match the opportunities for action. The pursuit of a goal brings order in awareness because a person must concentrate attention on the task at hand and momentarily forget everything else… By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual” (p. 6).

When you train, what is the content of your thoughts?

One way I ask clients about this is by asking them to visualize their own mental pie chart.

If you can imagine a pie chart that represents all the various thoughts and appraisals you have during your training sessions, what are the slices inside the pie? How much space does each slice take up?

Are your thoughts unified and present, or are they splintered and disconnected from your workout?

Are you squatting while wondering about your email?

Swinging a kettlebell and taking an inventory of what’s in the fridge to whip up for dinner later on?

Thinking of some moron who never texted you back, or that tricky situation with your boss, and feeling angry or badly about yourself while trying to bench press?

Being one place in your mind and another with your body can impair performance and suck all the fun out of your training. When you are in the present moment, and your thoughts, feelings, and actions are lined up, fired up, and rolling along in your zone, you love it! It helps you, it changes you. It creates an opportunity for you to become better than you are.

The benefits to being in the zone, or flow, are both physical and psychological.

Your performance is maximized when you are present and focused on your training, which means you can train harder and progress more efficiently toward your goal. In addition, being in flow while training improves well-being, enjoyment of a goal directed activity, and leads to happiness, both in and out of the gym.

So, how about thinking about your thinking, and making some changes, in the name of better workouts?

Increased happiness? Bigger lifts?

To do this, you want to:

1. Minimize unrelated and distracting thoughts during your workout (those would be about errands, emails, relationships, and on and on) and,

2. Negative thoughts about your self, or negative self talk (“What if I can’t do the pull up and people at the gym see me look ridiculous?” or “I’ll never be able to deadlift 2x body weight.”).

Instead, your mental pie chart should be comprised of:

1. Task oriented thoughts and goals (“Inhale, hinge, sit back, drive, follow through!”), and

2. Positive self talk (“I can push myself and progress my training to do a pull up… I love to deadlift and know I can keep working hard and improve my PR!”)

Your prefrontal cortex is a highly evolved, super-fast, multitasking mammajamma, that communicates with your body, your awareness, and your emotions, to push you, drive you, and propel you toward your goals.

You may not be able to control your feelings, but you can control your thoughts. Then thoughts shape feelings. And feelings shape behavior. Your behavior will then impact your thoughts, and the cycle can either be facilitative or detrimental to your performance, your goals, and your enjoyment of your pursuits.

You can improve your training by honing your mental skills.

You can progress your mental fitness, or mental toughness, by creating a mindset that is 100% focused on your goals and fully present during your workout.

I hope thinking about your thinking can help you with your very next workout!

Just begin by noticing the content of your thoughts.

Visualize your mental pie chart, and take a look at what’s inside.

Then identify useful cues and positive statements about yourself and your training to facilitate your goals. Finally, practice! The same way you practice your physical skills, being 100% present and mentally tough means that you practice positive self talk over, and over, and over again. Thank you for reading.

I Am Not Afraid to Lift Workshop

Still interested in learning more?

I’ll be joining Artemis on November 7th  at Iron Body Studios just outside of Boston to provide psychological consultation at the I Am Not Afraid To Lift workshop!

Mental skills including positive self talk and goal setting techniques will be reviewed in conjunction with physical skills. If you’re interested, hope to see you there!

Learn more and register for I Am Not Afraid To Lift below…

Early bird ends on October 11, 2015.

Learn more about the workshop HERE.

Register for the workshop HERE under the “Events” tab.

About the Author

Dr. Lisa Lewis is a licensed psychologist with a passion for wellness and fitness. She earned her doctorate in counseling psychology with a specialization in sport psychology at Boston University, and her doctoral research focused on exercise motivation. She uses a strength-based, solution-focused approach and most enjoys working with athletes and athletically-minded clients who are working toward a specific goal or achievement.

Lisa is also a certified drug and alcohol counselor, and has taught undergraduate courses as an adjunct professor at Salem University, Wheelock College, and Northeastern University in courses including exercise psychology, developmental psychology, and abnormal psychology. Lisa currently works as the assistant director of a college counseling center in Boston, MA, and she has a small private practice in the nearby town of Brookline.

As a new addition to the “I Am Not Afraid To Lift” workshop, Lisa will integrate mental skills into the physical skills training of the day. Mental skills can enhance performance, maximize motivation and prevent barriers like negative thinking, fear, and self-doubt from interfering with goals.