Gedankenmeditation Enriches Your Endurance Training And Your Life In General

Hi folks,

Meditation is critical for good mental health, and it can be undertaken in almost any location, as demonstrated by Dave Deming in the CostCo parking lot.

I cannot imagine what my life would be like without regular meditation. How do people quieten their minds without it, I wonder. To sit quietly, mind silent, increasingly aware of your internal and external worlds, intermittently watching your mind so as to encourage inner silence. It feels great! Recently, I decided to gently explore different thoughts and feelings during my meditation sessions, but with the simultaneous objective of avoiding mental chatter. This is an interesting, and sometimes challenging process, which worked best with a simple smiling meditation. Just calm your mind, enter that quiet calm place, which resembles the undisturbed surface of deep water, and smile. In fact, you don’t need to smile physically, just think smile. You will feel the warmth of smiling spread through your body in the most remarkable way. It feels good! Then try a frowning meditation. Very different feelings! Kind of hard and rigid, but easily dispersed by a simple return to internal smiling. Check to ensure that you are not falling for mental chatter, return to quiet for a while, then pass through smiling to another meditation thought/feeling experiment (gedankenmeditation). For instance, this morning I was exploring fingertip feelings and freestyle, to great effect. I have become convinced that your fingertips are key sensors in the pool, especially as your pace increases and they explore the ‘fluid mechanics space’ of freestyle swimming.

Beware the chattering mind, only undertake gedankenmeditation for about 10% of your meditation time (the 10% gedankenmeditation rule), and I think that you will enrich your meditation experience.

Have calm fun!

-k @FitOldDog

Today’s workouts:

Workout PLAN Coach: Chris Hauth

Weights

Duration: 01:30:00

Description: This is the final and most important phase. Following the same format as the previous Phase, perform 3 sets of 10, then 8, then 6 reps on each exercise with the exception of leg press (1×15, 2×12), sit-ups(3×25) and leg ext. / leg curl (still 2×15). Again, increase your weight significantly so that you may need a spotter to help you complete the last 2 reps of the 2nd and 3rd set – but you see we also reduce the number of repeats to help facilitate this. Ideally, you should only be able to complete 6-8 reps on your last set by yourself. Rest 60-75 seconds between each set.10′ jump ropeCore exercises: 2′ hold of position or 2′ of continuous repeats (1x through only): Plank – Side Plank – Lunge – PushUps – Supermans – Back Extension – Abdominal Scissors1. Bench Press (chest) 2. Incline dumbbell flyes or Machine Pec Dec 3. Squats (glutes & quads) 4. Calf Raises 5. Lat – pull downs (lats) 6. Dumbbell Pullover 7. Low Row (or bent over dumbbell rows) 8. Upright Rows (shoulders) 9. Alternating Dumbbell Curls (biceps) 10. Dumbbell Kickbacks (triceps) 11. Leg Press 12. Leg Extensions 13. Leg Curls 14. Incline Situps or your choice of preferred ab work