Focus, Nutrition, Rest... ya know... The Basics!

God bless you all. Lots of things to talk about this week so let’s get started. In the last newsletter we talked about starting a series covering qualities shown by men of greatness. Today we’ll move on to the second quality and then we’ll talk about exciting new stuff happening.

FOCUS

This is the second quality displayed by all men who achieve greatness. It is the ability to concentrate solely on the task at hand, yet there is much more to it than that. There are actually several sides to this issue as well as a few pit falls. Intense internal focus is the most important part of this to develop for your life an strength gains. This involves true internal concentration as well as the ability to block external distractions. Yet to achieve true greatness you need not just momentary focus, you need long term focus. Today we’ll talk about immediate focus and next time we’ll cover long term focus.

This ability to completely concentrate one’s mind and resources behind a particular goal applies to every area of life as well as weight lifting. To be great at physical achievement or strength, you need to develop a high level of intense internal focus. That is the ability to shut off everything inside your mind and all the other outside immediate distractions and direct all of your physical, mental and spiritual resources into a single movement. All the men who I know who have achieved scary strength have this. Dennis Rogers, Pat Povailitis, Slim Farman, etc. This is the key that ignites their physical engine. They have the ability to be solely inside the moment, directing 100% of their immediate energy toward that particular feat of strength. It displays itself in different ways through different levels of outward aggression, but it’s the same dog with different spots. In fact I think the ability to build this type of focus is one of the great hidden benefits of physical exercise. I believe this is also why many of the cultures around the world use physical training as part of their mental and spiritual training because there is almost nothing that I know of that is as effective at building this type of intense concentrated focus.

The Shaolin, Hindus, Japanese, Russians, Africans, Native Americans all have some ritual in their culture or some training in their martial arts or religious disciplines that is built on gaining and displaying this type of focus. Many of the manhood rituals around the world require you to perform some feat that displays this. Had sad is it that we no longer require this of our people, because there is much benefit to be had in the way you live your life once you’ve obtained this immediate conscious focus. Not only does it make you infinitely stronger, it opens the door to harnessing your intellect, your spirit, and your emotions and it makes you better as a man, as a person, husband, father, lover, friend and creative being. It opens the door to allow you to tap into the depth of your own being and changes your life and your perspective.

Here are some ways to help develop this focus:

Heavy Training. Nothing focuses your mind like having to exert every ounce of strength you have into a single moment. This is kind of development by fire so to speak, but the more you practice the better you get at it. Essentially your mind begins to adapt the same way your body does.

Regular Conscious Practice. Even your warm ups and those things that don’t matter should be focused on. You should constantly be practicing your ability to turn on and off your intense focus. You will find that by doing this physically you gain the power to use it in non-physical situations as well.

Endurance Training. The sustained physical effort necessary for endurance training has a similar mental focusing effect that heavy training does it’s just brought about in a different manner. It’s a longer term of focus that’s just not quite as short term intense. Also high repetition rhythmic movement has a focusing effect on the mind, body and breath. Sustaining a movement for a longer period of time adds an extra dimension to your focus.

Creating a Pavlovian Ritual. If you watch the great lifters you notice they do the same things exactly the same way over and over again. What they are doing is setting their nerve patterns, but at the same time they are creating a mental switch that flips the “on” when they reproduce certain physical movements. Your body and mind will subconsciously work together to increase your focus by using this trick. Every time you approach the bar exactly the same way, set up the same way, grab the bar the same way, etc., you are mentally turning on your concentration because your body will associate with the need for it.

Mental Practice. This comes out many different ways and training styles. Visualization, mental games, bio-feedback, meditation, etc. The previous tips talked about ways to use the body to help focus the mind, this making the mind run on its own fuel to help focus the body. Visualizing a lift before you do it can be extremely helpful. Concentration games and mental acuity games can be great as well. For instance counting backward from 100 while focusing strictly on the counting. The moment anything else catches your attention or another thought comes into your head you have to start over. Try it, it’s harder than it sounds.

Prayer. Prayer has special ability to help us focus. Not only is in itself an activity that lends itself to a focused mind, but getting in touch with God in itself has a soothing and energizing effect on the whole being. It’s something we were meant to do. It’s also a channel to unload problems that block your focus. Things you worry or feel guilty about and questions can all stop you from being able to harness your total being. These can only be answered by a relationship with Christ and communication with God.

Qi Gong. I realize that this may be confusing or controversial to some people because of my Christian beliefs. So I’ll explain why I don’t see this as a conflict. For me, Qi Gong is a set of movement, visualization and breathing patterns that are not connected to a particular religion. For me it’s combined with prayer to God, not any other deity. I believe that the emphasis on breath control and visualization focuses your mind and opens your ability to effect and unify your mind and spirit. It’s a simple set of exercises that can be very powerful with the right mindset.

Focus is literally worth pounds or reps on your lifts, but it is much more and it can be a much deeper benefit to your whole life. You can’t be great without it.


TRAINING TIP

We’re going to cover some basic stuff on these training tips as well, because you never get past the basics and you can’t emphasize them enough. Let’s talk about food.

First off, I’m not a nutritionist so legally you have to take whatever I say with a grain of salt, but I don’t think being a nutritionist qualifies you anymore the average person. There are so many schools of thought within the nutritional world that it’s impossible to weed your way through them all and all of them will tell you that they are right and everybody else is wrong. Let’s put this in perspective a little. Nutrition is important, but I think more for your body composition and long term health than your immediate performance. I personally do believe that it has significant performance enhancing factors, but I also personally know people who eat what I consider to be crap and still perform world class. I think it is the extra bit of difference and for those who are trying to gain muscle, can be a major amount of difference.

I think most people are barely conscious of where they stand nutritionally. They’re either so confused they don’t know which thing to do or they’re oblivious to it completely or they’re constantly switching methods or they’re trying to stick to methods that are unfeasible for their amount of desire or their lifestyle. I also know people who get great results and are careful about their nutrition and are on complete polar opposites of the spectrum.

Consider my friends Mike Mahler and Steve Maxwell. Both powerful, muscular experienced athletic guys, yet total nutritional opposites. Mike is a vegetarian and I believe for the most part eats multiple times per day, probably around five. Steve is a low carb, almost completely meat eater, whom I understand only eats about twice a day. You couldn’t get more disparate in approaches, yet they both have the real world results to prove they’re right.

You could also consider me. That may sound odd to many people, because a lot of people consider me fat. That’s okay. I personally think fat is sort of irrelevant. If I were training purely to look a certain way it might matter, but I’m training for health and performance and I think those two speak for themselves. I think we were supposed to be many different shapes and sizes as humans and I don’t think that regardless of what you hear about anthropological studies, that the average human living a few thousand years ago was “ripped.” And if carrying some body fat were the absolute horror that the fitness industry tries to make us believe then how come I’m able to do what I’m able to do. Don’t say I’m just a genetic freak who can do those things because I’ve worked my butt off to develop high levels of strength and endurance. I did the same work that leaner guys have to do to develop strength and endurance, but I didn’t take the drugs (not saying everybody or anyone specifically does), and I just didn’t get that much leaner. So what? My physical performance is superior. I guess what I’m saying here is that unless you really concentrate on food to get specifically lean it may not make as big of a difference as you’re told it will. I definitely think it makes a difference in your long-term health and in your endurance.

Strength is not as affected by food (I watched a couple of 700lb bench pressers go to McDonalds during a contest and Louie Simmons told me he has a guy whose big and squats about 900lbs and basically eats nothing but grits. Go figure). I do think it will make a difference long term in your ultimate strength and you ability to maintain your strength into your later years.

In one of his books Bob Hoffman said as long as you’re eating wholesome foods there’s not a lot of point in worrying about nutrition, because every culture around the world produces and has produced big, strong, virile, enduring, muscular men. Men who eat their traditional diets of their native lands regardless of what they are.

So what are the important points to think about food? What are my thoughts here? Well here we go:

The only real agreement between the wide variety of nutrition schools is on natural food. The least processing and the most organic is going to be the best for you regardless of whether it’s a carb protein or fat. If you’re going to eat carbs, eat whole grain, but it’s probably best not to go crazy. It’s going to be very hard to maintain high level training and adapting to building simultaneous strength and endurance while eating reduced calories. You probably don’t eat as much as you think especially of the things that are good for you and you probably eat much more than you think of the things that are bad. If you’re trying to add size or reduce, you need to write down what you’re eating. Chemicals in your food and junk food WILL make a difference long term in your health. Processed sugar just isn’t good for you. No way around it. I personally don’t notice much if any difference in my performance if I do or don’t eat carbs. Maybe a little better with a small amount of carbs. However a major difference if I’m deficient of protein or natural fats.

Digestion and assimilation is more important than pure amount of food. Chew your food well and make sure you’re staying regular (if you know what I mean). Be a grown up and eat your freakin’ vegetables. I fully believe that one of the reasons I’ve been able to get physically big and strong is that I grew up with a great deal of home grown meat and vegetables. When you think about food, think long term. What you can maintain for long periods is going to have a huge effect, much more than what you do once in a while. Think realistically. I like salad, but I’m not going to eat it without dressing, but on the other hand the dressing doesn’t need to be chemically enhanced crap either.

Develop a healthy mindset about yourself, because the truth is whether you diet yourself up or down and get huge or ripped or whatever you might want to get, if you’re not happy with yourself in the first place you’re not going to be happy when you achieve that physical state. Eat as naturally as you can, get plenty of protein and stop worrying about it. We’ll deal with this more later in further newsletters, because I’m running a little experiment and I’ll let you know how it turns out.