Meditation for Addiction Recovery

Mind & Meditation | Rest & Healing

Zen Meditation for Addiction and RecoveryAwareness techniques can not only help to free addictive patterns – but in some places have been developed as interventions in their own right. Anastasia Stephens outlines the latest developments and gives practical tips on meditation and psychotherapy, which can be speedily put into practice.

Addiction recovery is looking to the East. Whether it’s through Zen, Mindfulness or other meditative approach, the discipline of watching the mind is fast gaining recognition for its value in helping to free people from addictive patterns.

Once seen as a helpful adjunct to addiction recovery – meditation is listed in the 11th step of the 12-step program – mindful awareness methods taken from Buddhist practices are being developed as addiction interventions in their own right. Read more…

Quality Strength for Human Athletic Performance: A Guide to Speed Strength Training

Strength Training

Speed Strength TrainingAlthough most athletic skills and events depend upon a variety of physical qualities, speed strength (also called power) certainly rates among the most important. Whenever you need to accelerate yourself (as in running, cycling, swimming, skating, or skiing), an external object (such as a ball, a barbell, a javelin, or another person), or both (such as pushing a bobsled or driving through an opposing lineman in football), your ability to generate force with speed will be a primary determinant of your success.

As the duration of the event or skill becomes reduced, the need for speed strength (I’ll abbreviate it as “SS” from this point on) increases. However, even triathletes rely heavily upon explosive strength as they sprint to the finish line. It’s not a matter of whether or not you need to develop SS, but to what degree you need to prioritize it in your training. Read more…

When Exercise Doesn’t Work

Cardio | Food & Nutrition | Muscle Building | Strength Training | Weight Loss

When Exercise Doesn't WorkThis week I’ve got no fancy introduction. I’ve got no “journalistic hook.” You see, I recently had an “ah ha” moment that I’ve simply got to share with you. And here it is…

Exercise doesn’t work.

Now that might sound shocking coming from a guy with big biceps and 8% body fat; from a guy that recommends lots of exercise, at least 5 hours per week. So if this all seems incongruent, I guess I should qualify the statement above. I guess I should have probably said:

Exercise, ALONE, doesn’t work.

My Wake-Up Call
My coming to this realization wasn’t an easy process. I’ve been working with clients for over 15 years now and although I always knew that diet was an important part of the training equation, I also always harbored some subconscious notion that if I worked my clients hard enough, their lack of dietary effort would be overcome by my super-effective training programs. Sure, I wanted them to eat well. But if they didn’t (more like, wouldn’t), somewhere deep inside it seemed ok. I figured in the battle of training vs. diet, training would win. Now, I never said this aloud. However, somewhere I’m sure I felt it. So it wasn’t until I was slapped in the face with some cold, hard, objective data that I realized how wrong I’d been. Read more…

The Benefits of Introducing “Flow” into Workouts, and into Life

Mind & Meditation | Strength Training

Introducing FlowWe often times hear athletes reference being “in the zone” when recalling some of their better performances on the playing field.  Being “in the zone” has become a common explanation for extremely high-level performances in sports, training, and business. But what “the zone” is exactly has been hard to pinpoint. Even more elusive has been figuring out how one gets in it.

What is Flow?

In the field of Sports Psychology, the “zone” is synonymous with the term “flow” coined by world-renowned psychologist Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. “Flow” can be defined as a heightened state of consciousness in which one is completely focused on and absorbed in what one is doing to the point where mind and body seem to function in perfect harmony without conscious effort. As sports psychologist and former USOC committee chair Dr. Shane Murphy notes, this effortless yet completely focused and exceptional performance often leads to a blissful enjoyment of the activity. One of the best basketball players of all time, Boston Celtic legend Bill Russell, once described flow as beyond physical or mental into a magical state of bliss where pain would disappear and performance would be maximized. Read more…

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The Mindful Method: Meditation, Yoga, and Mindful Strength Training

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