“We suffer more in the imagination than in reality.” - Seneca
In the modern world of virtual relationships, reductionist education, and bias comparisons, void of context, the general population’s global view of meditation and weight lifting couldn’t be more different. People generally picture meditators as placid, motion-less beings who sit cross-legged on pillows trying to “quiet the mind” and achieve Nirvana. Although their opinions may hold some accuracy, it is short sighted and ignorant. In contrast, when people form a picture in their mind of someone exercising, it is typically of a person in a high energy environment, performing various dynamic strengthening movements, coupled with bright lights and thumping music, with an end goal of looking better naked. In a society flooded with social media, that picture may also include a gym selfie-taker, bent on glamorizing their efforts for egotistical self-promotion. Again, there may be some accuracies in such pictures, inaccuracies as well, yet these two general thoughts paint the pictures of two very different individuals, and two extremely different activities. As a veteran weightlifter and rookie meditator, I have come to learn that meditation and weight lifting share more commonalities than differences, and I’d like to explain why.
What is the Subtractive Method?
During the summer of 2017, I started meditating at Brooklyn Meditation in Park Slope, Brooklyn. This venture began after many gratifying meditation sessions with the Headspace and Insight Timer apps, as well as encouragement from my wife, Krista, who, at that point, had been a member for almost a year. I was enjoying some short-lived benefits from use of the apps and wanted an even greater experience, so I made the decision to work with experienced meditation guides. Brooklyn Meditation teaches the Subtractive Method of meditation. The goal of the Subtractive Method is similar to that of Buddhist ideology; to subtract or eliminate one's “self” also known as the “ego” so that life can be lived in the present moment and not cluttered with preconceived notions, thoughts and emotions that cloud judgement, stimulate reactions and manifest in the body as physical symptoms. The ego is built on desires and cravings that are dictated by personal experiences, cultural and ideological norms. Humans want permanent happiness, and we are always on a mission to identify the cause of our happiness and do everything in our power to maintain and heighten the experience. We want new material possessions but once we get them, our eyes are fixed on the next ones. We want to earn 1 million dollars, but once we get that first million, we are already looking to earn the next million. We expect an effortless and clear commute to and from work, but when it is disrupted by traffic, we become annoyed and frustrated with our bad fortune. Buddhists teach that these cravings, good or bad, are the cause of unhappiness. When a person attains something they desire, they will never be permanently satisfied and will always look for more. When one cannot fulfill a craving, it results in sadness and frustration. Both situations, although opposites, lead to displeasure and dissatisfaction. These unnecessary “minds” can manifest physically as well as emotionally. It is well documented that chronic stress is a major risk factor for disorders and diseases associated with the digestive, neurological and cardiovascular systems, among others. The chronic stress referred to in academia is identical to the cravings identified by Buddha in the 5th century. Same problem, different terminology. Acute symptoms associated with it include non-specific lower-back pain, headaches, abdominal pain, and increased muscle tension, heart rate and blood pressure. Think about it, when stressed, do your muscles tighten up? When fantasizing about a pleasurable encounter, does your heart beat faster? These stressors and fantasies are a creation of the imagination and do not truly exist, however, they have a physical effect on the systems of the human body. When you are able to destroy this non-existent self or ego, you will no longer have cravings which lead to unhappiness, frustration, and disease. You will no longer have the need for objects and experiences to make you happy, and your body will no longer respond physically to creations of the mind, for those minds cease to exist.
When practiced consistently, the elimination of one’s self allows the meditator to be permanently “in the moment” and experience pure happiness without the need for any external sources. This ultimate goal is extremely similar to other methods of meditation, such as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Transcendental Meditation (TM). With TM and MBSR, instead of purposefully eliminating unnecessary pictures and emotions from the mind, MBSR and TM meditators listen to a repetitive mantra or concentrate on breathe cycles and try to focus the mind on that sound or sensation and nothing else. When thoughts emerge, the meditator acknowledges them and re-focus’ on the task at hand.
What is Mass 2?
If you are a fitness professional, avid exerciser, or competitive weightlifter, you should know the name Dr. Patrick Davidson. He is the renaissance meathead, mindful savage, Exercise Physiology PhD having creator of the highly acclaimed Mass and Mass 2 eBook and workout programs. These programs are challenging in every way imaginable. Not only do they push the limits of your physical capabilities, Mass and Mass 2 puts your psyche to the test. You will want to quit over and over again, and the biggest challenge of the program is to show up each day and punch your ticket. For the purposes of this article, I will relate my outlook to the Mass 2 program.
Mass 2 is a four block program. Each block is one month, and each week has four different exercise days. These days remain constant until the block is over. Day one and day four are the most challenging from a cardiovascular standpoint. Day one consists of 10 different exercises, performed for 30 seconds, followed by a 30 second rest period. During those 30 seconds of work, the user must complete 15 repetitions of each exercise at maximum speed. If you get more than 15 reps, the load is too light. If you get less than 15 reps, the load is too heavy. The user performs 3 total sets. There is no cheating the 30:30. “It is a punch right in the face with a pair of brass knuckles.” Day four mimics the same protocol as day one. 30:30 work to rest ratio, but at the heaviest load that you can handle, and for only one round. This protocol is simply referred to as “The Cajun”, and it gets spicier and spicier with each block.
Day one of block two progresses the 30:30 protocol and calls for a 20:40 protocol. Five exercises, 20 seconds of work, 40 seconds of rest, 6 total rounds. The block two loads are heavier than block one, and the day 4 Cajun is just as spicy. Three rounds of the heaviest load you can manage. Brass knuckles, right to the face.
The Block 3 Cajun
Finally, we reach The Cajun of block three. Day one of block three is completely different than block one and two, and I won’t get into detail. However, the block three Cajun is the spiciest of them all and damn near burnt my face off. It is by far the hardest exercise protocol I have ever used in my entire life. Perform the same five exercises as the 20:40 Cajun from block two, same exact loads, except now instead of doing 10 reps in 20 seconds, you are back to 15 reps in 30 seconds. Let me repeat, you load up your heavy 20:40 exercises, but bring back the 30:30 for three total rounds. I don’t know if any participant has ever completed every rep of each set of this protocol. The strongest people I know have zeroed a few stations and others have finished with single digit reps. This is by far the biggest acid bath you will encounter in a weight room. After suffering through two brutal block three Cajuns with vomit and dry heaving, I re-read Mass 2 for extra motivation and rediscovered the passage which turned my world upside down.
The Alter-ego
Dr. Pat Davidson is a former Strongman competitor and was the Springfield College Head Coach of Team Iron Sports, a group of Springfield College students who trained together, competed together, and pushed each other to the limits of their physiology. If you are not familiar with Strongman, it is a strength competition which requires competitors to move extremely heavy weights in various different ways, under various time and repetition constraints. To quote Dr. Davidson “…the sport of Strongman is essentially being given a weight that is 95% of your 1RM and having to do 10 reps with it.” The requirements of these competitions are downright silly, and it takes a special person to be able to compete in this sport. In Mass 2, Dr. Davidson explains that every Springfield team member had a nickname, his being “Daddy Bonez.” Nicknames mattered for two reasons. First, having fun and being silly is a requirement. Second, when Dr. Davidson stepped into the weight room and trained with his teammates, he could no longer be Dr. Pat Davidson, he had to become somebody else. Dr. Davidson was not physically capable of accomplishing the same things as Daddy Bonez. In order to do what was impossible for Pat, Daddy Bonez needed to step in. If Dr. Davidson wasn’t in his alter ego mindset for a competition or workout session, it was going to be a long and painful day. After reading this for the second time, something clicked. If Dr. Davidson wanted to crush grueling workouts and be better than he could ever imagine, he had to remove his ego from the situation.
Cajun Anxiety
Here I am, week two of block three and it's time for The Cajun. Week one of The Cajun made me vomit. Before I even started my interval timer for week two, I was anxious, nervous, jittery, and experiencing a significantly greater heart rate than I typically do after my warmup. I was able to see the data on my heart rate monitor, and could feel it pounding in my chest. I started the timer, suffered through an extremely hard and shit-eating workout, and ended up dry-heaving over the toilet. My heart rate hit an all-time high during that workout, and that’s not a good thing, I attribute it to anxiety. Anxiety about something that happened a week ago. Anxiety which took control of my nervous system, cardiovascular system, and musculoskeletal capabilities. In week one of the Cajun, I totaled 32,405 pounds of weight lifted. In week two, I totaled 24,495. In week one of the Cajun, my heart rate maxed out at 186 beats/minute. In week two of the Cajun, my heart rate reached 194 bpm. That an lifetime heart rate PR. I rated the exertion (RPE scale) as 1,000 out of 20. Last week’s vomiting ruined this week’s workout. My body suffered during week one and my mind held it close, not letting go. Buddhists refer to this as an attachment. My mind was on the future suffering that I was about to endure, and it had a profound physical effect on my body before I even picked up a weight. This is a prime example of how holding onto feelings and thoughts, being attached to non-existent situations from the past or in the future, can manifest physically in the body and influence current experiences. I was able to see a spike in my heart rate. I was able to see a decrease in the amount of weight I lifted. My perception of intensity was off the charts. I thought I needed an alter ego. I needed someone else to suffer through The Cajun so I didn’t have to suffer myself. I needed to remove myself like Pat Davidson. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I needed to apply the Subtractive Method.
Please truth, eliminate the false
What are the two golden rules of nicknames? You can’t give them to yourself and you can’t ask for one. Since nobody in the gym was able to read my mind and give me an alter-ego, I was stuck being Gerard, the one who vomited and dry heaved two weeks in a row. If I wasn’t going to get an alter-ego, the next solution I could think of was to completely remove myself from the situation. As the guides say in Subtractive Meditation, throw yourself away, for it is made up of false minds. I did just that.
“I don’t exist.”
On week three of The Cajun, I parked my car next to the gym and I left the thought of my physical body in the front seat. Gerard sat shotgun. Someone else paid the parking meter, someone else opened the gym’s front door, and someone else set up the weights for The Cajun. Anything attached to the notion of Gerard, from his cell phone, to his face in the mirror, to the people who said hello to him, was completely ignored. Gerard was not here, in fact, he no longer existed. This is the essence of Subtractive Meditation. I did my usual warm-up routine, careful not to look in the mirror or allow my mind to wander. If it did, as it always does, I reminded myself that I no longer existed. I kept repeating it and it brought me back into focus. The Cajun did not change. The weights were the same, the challenge was no different, but my attachment to last week’s suffering was no longer there. My perception was different, because it no longer came from a false mind. Gerard wasn’t going to suffer today, he no longer exists. This was my golden nugget. This was the key. If you haven’t already guessed, the results were remarkable. My heart rate never went over 184, the RPE scale was 17 out of 20, I didn’t become nauseous, and the total weight lifted increased from 24,495 to 29,755 pounds. When I repeated this mindset on week 4, I topped out at 34,280 pounds. That is just under a 10,000 pound increase in two workouts and it had nothing to do with my muscles. It’s because I acknowledged a mind about my anxiety over The Cajun’s fury. I threw it away by removing my ego. It resulted in a lower heart rate and higher strength output. Applying the Subtractive Method allowed me to calmly accomplished what had previously brought me to the point of breaking.
Closing thoughts
The last two Cajuns of block 3 taught me more about Subtractive Meditation than I could’ve ever imagined. If I hadn’t re-read Dr. Davidson’s thoughts on the importance of the alter ego, this connection may have been completely missed. Being a fitness professional, this experience resonated with me more than anything. Not only did I have subjective feedback, I had objective data supporting the conclusions. My experience may be situationally unique, but the application of the Subtractive mindset transcends disciplines. Since my realization, I have been meditating daily and continue to experience new sensations and changed perceptions. The guides at Brooklyn Meditation taught me to throw away my false self, and Mass 2 became my first step into the True Universe.
Practical Application
Going HAAM (Hard As A Motherfucker) is a popular practice among weightlifters. It refers to their intense mindset, before and during a workout, which is built on self determination in the face of struggle and adversity. This intensity, in theory, will increase sympathetic tone, priming the nervous system for optimal muscular function as well as increased blood pressure, heart rate, and all other phenomenon associated with the sympathetic nervous system. Going HAAM is admirable and done with good intentions, but may actually be detrimental to the lifter. The HAAM mindset is built on thoughts of the past and anticipation of the future. The ego is the driver of this mindset. The same ego that can consume and ruin an experience. Hyping myself up before lifting was adding to the stress and anxiety about The Cajun. It increased my heart rate and muscle tension before I even lifted a weight. It negatively impacted my recovery between sets. When assessing fitness, the exerciser who can accomplish “Exercise X” with lower muscle recruitment and a lower heart rate is the more efficient exerciser. An ego that increases heart rate and muscle tension is an ego that places unnecessary strain on the person absorbed in it. This is something that can and should be avoided. In my experience, the Subtractive Method of meditation is the only coping device that provides a lasting relief. If you go HAAM on a regular basis, try the Subtractive Method and observe your body’s reaction. I promise, your intensity will not suffer and your focus will not diminish, in fact, it may improve. Avoid your phone, the mirror, any thoughts of your own body and mind, and during your rest, continuously repeat “I do not exist.” Let the gains begin.