Definition
The muscle monk is a person who is concerned with the development of their body and spirituality. They have crossover points, to work on your body is to work on your spirit and vice versa.
For a lot of people the opposite is the entry point for the other. The bodybuilder unlocks their spirituality through development of the body and the meditator unlocks the desire to train through elevation of consciousness.
There is a layer of discipline woven into both paths and they can be mutually beneficial. The stuff that slams iron in the gym is the same stuff that sits you down on the cushion.
Simultaneously walking both of these paths is one of the most beautiful and challenging things someone can do.
What mindfulness brings to muscle
Mindfulness, meditation or your practice of choice can bring flow, ease and a new found presence to your training journey.
There is a short term gain of being in the moment during a workout, not rushing the set and wanting the training to be over. To indulge in every rep, calorie and bead of sweat knowing it is gravitating you towards a better self (or sense of it ahah).
There is a long term gain of keeping you grounded in your journey. We are guilty of pushing too hard during individual workouts or taking a whole fitness pursuit too far. For example, back to back competitions that leave you drained for months after. Gaining the awareness of knowing when to push and when to pull back is worth its weight in gold.
What muscle brings to mindfulness
Sometimes we have got to chop wood and carry water. When starting your training journey it can be perceived as a high discipline task. Discipline is doing the things we need to do when we don’t want to do them.
Awareness also benefits the body, being able to notice when the body is tired (needs a deload) or thriving (ready for a peak) can be the difference between hitting the spot or not. A good mindfulness practice can help with just that.
The hardy side of getting yourself to the gym will pull over into your meditation practice like never before. Bear in mind this is only in the initial stages down the line something magical happens…
The collaboration
Eventually your meditation practice and your weight training become entwined. You are meditating when you are training and training when you are meditating.
Your alarm goes off at 5am and there may be a lingering fatigue on the body but this time you have no problem getting up.
Why?
You are aligned.
Your training aligns with your life, seen clearly by your newfound awareness.
In this case discipline is used as a tool not as a fuel.
Deep dive
We then take it a step further, we delve into our training journey as a whole. Why did you start training? Why do you train now? Are your current habits serving you?
We often hear of bodybuilders who have to sacrifice other parts of their life.
Are you willing to sacrifice your business and relationships?
It’s common for those who get involved with high level strength and physique sports will start to experiment with performance enhancing compounds.
To what level are you willing to use these, if at all?
It comes down to a trade off. We only have a designated amount of time in this flesh vessel. What are you willing to trade off for the best human experience possible?
Becoming aware of our goals and our actions allows us to act from alignment and balance.
The ego
If there was ever a place where the ego manifests itself it’s in physical training.
How much muscle, strength or speed is enough? Bigger, faster, stronger is narrative for most. But why are you doing it? Are you doing it for external validation or are you doing it for you. Is your training a way to make yourself feel better, an extension of play or a combination of both.
There is no right or wrong answer here, however getting carried away you wan’t to get with your training is completely down to you. Know yourself so well that others' opinions can never affect you.
If someone's comments draw out resistance or insecurities I normally find that is a place I need to do some work on. Once you have explored all realms of your ego within training the after(flow) you get from it is incredible.
For me I sacrifice and have sacrificed a lot. Health, relationships and business. But I am not upset about this, I was in complete control the whole time and aware of the trade offs I was making and the decisions I will make in the future.
We make decisions in the moment with the information available to us at the time.
To finish
The muscle monk walks a different path to most.
In training we all deal with the ego at the forefront of all decisions. Having a meditation or mindfulness practice to back this up is a super power.
Skillfully being able to know the decisions to take and when to take them is worth its weight in gold.
Your obsession with your craft can sometimes become your suffering. Remember the obstacle is the way and just another place to learn.
No one knows you like you do. Don’t let others opinions or way of thinking become the reason you don’t explore.
Train hard, meditate like fuck and be un unapologetic with it.
Strong lifts and strong spirit.
Move with love
JM x