Weight Lifting, seeing your Spirit

One of the things that i have stuck to throughout most of my life, and in particular since i started my spiritual aspect of it.

heavy weight lifting.

What i have found through this, is that spiritual work, although full of bliss full moments and what not, also takes a high pain tolerance and toughness of the mind.

My mentality in training is that, i will willingly put myself in a position of such pain, and push through it, so that when faced with such on my spiritual journey i will have the fortitude.

Likewise the release after having accomplished a session is incredibly satisfying.

but here is the greatest discovery i have made. imagine you are lifting a weight, your pushing with all of your might and it hurts.

your body stops, it quits, your mind begs for you to relent.
This is a precise point in the lift when you are nearing your threshold.

mind and body say stop

but you dont.

that silent witness, that one with the will to push on when mind and body have quit.

that is when you see your Spirit.



thoughts?

Originally Posted by unus supra

One of the things that i have stuck to throughout most of my life, and in particular since i started my spiritual aspect of it.

heavy weight lifting.

What i have found through this, is that spiritual work, although full of bliss full moments and what not, also takes a high pain tolerance and toughness of the mind.

My mentality in training is that, i will willingly put myself in a position of such pain, and push through it, so that when faced with such on my spiritual journey i will have the fortitude.

Likewise the release after having accomplished a session is incredibly satisfying.

but here is the greatest discovery i have made. imagine you are lifting a weight, your pushing with all of your might and it hurts.

your body stops, it quits, your mind begs for you to relent.
This is a precise point in the lift when you are nearing your threshold.

mind and body say stop

but you dont.

that silent witness, that one with the will to push on when mind and body have quit.

that is when you see your Spirit.



thoughts?

Hi,

I love weight lifting - one of the main reasons is because I love the ache of advancement in your muscles afterward.

It is a spiritual thing, even similar to meditation in a sense - as the person to taught me how to do weight lifting (father in love (as opposed to law)) would clearly be completely self aware when he was doing it.

It was amazing to learn after a while that when my body just stopped, you could still push it further. Pain is purely a colour, it has no physical stopping power - that's all in your mind. So I really know what you're talking about here, and so do my teeth.

Are you familliar with 27s?

If anything gets your spirit on it's bike it's doing 27s. Or metabolism conditioning, wow! One of the training types for metabolism conditioning is
5 minutes full speed sprint, jump off the treadmill and instantly do 27s, then jump rope for 5 minutes, then 5 minutes full sprint to a light jog.

tis designed to speed your metabolism up so much that you can almost see the fat falling off of your body but holy **** man, it's like being set on fire for 20 minutes. A real test of everything about you. The inner dialogue during weight lifting sessions and MetCon is amazing to listen to as well. You almost have a full blown screamer argument between your body and mind. Though, I love when you get that break through and your mind just goes completely clear, and your body follows and it's like doing it all in a trance.

Definately a spiritual building session. You don't know your spirit until you pass the limits of your body.

Thats really cool breath!! alright you know exactly what i mean!! haha i love when that happens..

but no, im not sure what 27s are. they sound interesting thought. could you break it down for me? im always looking for new stuff, id appreciate it.

ya, good weight lifting is a very deliberate, very mindful and focused act.

love it

alright buddy until next time

[Spiritlite]

That's why I love yoga people who don't practice yoga thinks it's easy and requires no strength on the other hand it really does require a LOT of strength, but more of a meditative state.
Spiritlite.

Originally Posted by unus supra

Thats really cool breath!! alright you know exactly what i mean!! haha i love when that happens..

but no, im not sure what 27s are. they sound interesting thought. could you break it down for me? im always looking for new stuff, id appreciate it.

ya, good weight lifting is a very deliberate, very mindful and focused act.

love it

alright buddy until next time

27s!

It's where you take the barbell with a moderate weight on it, straight straight forward and start doing bicep curls with it. Except the first 7 you only bend your elbows half way up from the bottom so that your elbows stop at a 90 degree angle. the second set of 7 (with no break) starts at 90 degrees and you move it up to your chin. then last set of 7 are full bicep curls. You do about 3 sets normally, and be careful, most people grind the hell out of their teeth doing this so chew chewing gum to remember to keep your teeth from grinding. Use a mirror too, because it's very hard for us humans to judge the angle of our elbows apparently.

nice to know I've another weight lifter around! lol. Maybe we can go around bullying everyone else. ;) just kidding obviously. lol.

Originally Posted by Spiritlite

That's why I love yoga people who don't practice yoga thinks it's easy and requires no strength on the other hand it really does require a LOT of strength, but more of a meditative state.
Spiritlite.

My girlfriend does yoga, the more relaxed kind I guess. But I have heard that after a good yoga session with a teacher you ache all over like you've had a work out and I'd well believe it. When you do some Taoist Gymnastic excersizes, which can consist of simply turning your head in a particular way - your entire body feels different afterward.

ahhh okay okay, i know what you mean. we actually where im from we call them 21's so we break it down into threes. having said that i will have to try it with 27, should rev up the intensity a bit.

ya yoga rocks. i actually had a lot of trouble with it at first, actually sometimes i still do, because im a little stubborn with it, from what ive gathered thus far its more about relaxing your body into the pose, rather than imposing your will upon the musculature. had to learn that the hard way hahah. and still i havnt got it quite down. i do personally prefer the slow relaxed kind, im not naturally very flexible, so i like to use it to really work a stretch in. No doubt though Spiritlite, yoga can kick your ehem.

im actually trying to get my lady into weight lifting, shes got a good body structure for it, naturally athletic and stuff.

well have to see haha.

i got a question for both of you. Ive been trying my damndest to come up with a super excerscise that incorporates the benefits of each. the benefits at least that they are particularly good for...

weight lifting (muscular strength)
tai chi (fine motor unit control)
yoga (flexibility)
running (cardio)

what do you think? lets make a super duper mindbodyspirit practice that takes the cake

il just bet we can to

peace

[Silver]

Yoga may be slow 'n' 'relaxed' as you put it, it's the holding that's the challenge!
But it's worth it, lol.
Example: after becoming experienced yoga person, I got pulled over by a chippie one evening, he had me do the drunk test, (blush) first time and probably last, I stood there with my foot held out and I guess he kept expecting me any second to lose my balance, I just stood there with my foot out and looking up, and I did not bobble or faulter, which come to think of it, is NOT easy for average folks. Eventually I just glanced over at him and he said OK~*, LOL. (I'd only had 1 1/2 beers) a rarity for me, honest~*

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by unus supra

One of the things that i have stuck to throughout most of my life, and in particular since i started my spiritual aspect of it.

heavy weight lifting.

What i have found through this, is that spiritual work, although full of bliss full moments and what not, also takes a high pain tolerance and toughness of the mind.

My mentality in training is that, i will willingly put myself in a position of such pain, and push through it, so that when faced with such on my spiritual journey i will have the fortitude.

Likewise the release after having accomplished a session is incredibly satisfying.

but here is the greatest discovery i have made. imagine you are lifting a weight, your pushing with all of your might and it hurts.

your body stops, it quits, your mind begs for you to relent.
This is a precise point in the lift when you are nearing your threshold.

mind and body say stop

but you dont.

that silent witness, that one with the will to push on when mind and body have quit.

that is when you see your Spirit.



thoughts?

As a fellow weight lifter (althogh not to great extremes) I think you would find Yoga to offer you the same and more, than the heavy weight lifting that you described here.
Overcoming the mind and body when is says stop is one great virtue of Yoga but the other is the strength you gain from it.
It is very non-injury prone as well.

Sorry I didn't read all the posts and i see that this was discussed already...............
James

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Silvergirl

Yoga may be slow 'n' 'relaxed' as you put it, it's the holding that's the challenge!
But it's worth it, lol.
Example: after becoming experienced yoga person, I got pulled over by a chippie one evening, he had me do the drunk test, (blush) first time and probably last, I stood there with my foot held out and I guess he kept expecting me any second to lose my balance, I just stood there with my foot out and looking up, and I did not bobble or faulter, which come to think of it, is NOT easy for average folks. Eventually I just glanced over at him and he said OK~*, LOL. (I'd only had 1 1/2 beers) a rarity for me, honest~*

Thats awesome! I am new to Yoga (12 weeks now) and yesterday I was doing what is called "Plow" where you lie on your back and put your legs and feet over your head while tucking your head into your chest.
Well.... I wondered what this new sensation was that i felt and quickly realized that it was my toes reaching the floor behind me!
That was a first for me.............

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Spiritlite

That's why I love yoga people who don't practice yoga thinks it's easy and requires no strength on the other hand it really does require a LOT of strength, but more of a meditative state.
Spiritlite.

I am in my 12th week of P90X (an intense training program) and there are 12 DVD's with different workouts from weights to kenpo to yoga and I swear that I sweat the most doing this yoga workout than any of the other ones.
It is hard and it is awesome.