The Technology of Meditation

Mental Recalibration for Improved Sport Performance

Martial artists shown above clear their minds ahead of practice. This ritualized pre-session mental recalibration resembles the mental-readiness ideal in Japanese sword traditions such as Iaido: presence, immediate reaction, and appropriate response. Optimally, coming out of this pre-session meditation, these men seek to attain a state of internal quietude characterized by hyper-alertness.

In a sword exchange, the required response can be far too fast for leisurely conscious thought. Thought impedes the requisite immediacy needed for a spontaneous yet appropriate response.

I Meditated to Up My Athletic Game

I have studied and practiced meditation since 1975. My original reason for delving into meditation, in all its forms and guises, was purely athletic. I felt certain that meditation would up my athletic performance — how could it not? I was not seeking enlightenment, nor was I interested in following gurus or joining a religion. I wanted to study the mechanics of meditation, the technology of meditation. I wanted to understand it, amalgamate it, adapt it for my own secular purposes. I meditated to up my athletic game.

I began daily practice. I began a meditational journey that continues to this day. I am a meditational researcher, always on the lookout for quality information from true meditational masters. Meditational goals and methods vary dramatically, and I sought books and literature that revealed the specific procedures and techniques unique to each meditational school. As I grew older and wiser and as my “practice” deepened, I began to cross-compare the various meditational modes and methods. I began building a meditation library that by 2021 had grown to over 150 books.

Building a Meditation Library

I delved into the nuts and bolts of meditation. How do the true masters of a particular school of meditational thought approach meditation? What is the overarching, sought-after mindset?

I combed Yes bookstore in Georgetown for books on Hindu meditation, Zen, Taoism, Tibetan Buddhism, Sufism, et al., plus all the subsects. For example, Zen is divided between Soto and Rinzai, each with subtle and overt differences. The South Asian Buddhist meditational techniques were vastly different than meditational techniques taught by central China Taoists. The desired optimal mindset in Pondicherry-inspired Indian Hinduism was light-years different from the mindset goal of the Dogen Zenji Soto Zen school. I sponged up everything and began formal practice.

Autosuggestion and the Western Mind-Movie Method

I had a mindset-alteration head start. By age 25 I already was a 10-year practitioner of Soviet autosuggestion, a performance-elevating eastern European mental technique. Autosuggestion instructs the athlete to run continual mind-movies of himself performing flawlessly in the about-to-happen practice session. This repeated visualization technique was specifically designed to improve sport performance. Nowadays this technique is standard operating procedure and widely used. In 1965 this was revolutionary stuff.

The Iron Curtain coaches determined that if they had an athlete, regardless of sport, repeatedly run a mental movie of the about-to-happen drill or event, performance improved. The better the visualization, the greater the degree of improvement. Visualization improved with repetition.

As a highly imaginative 14-year-old, I began using the autosuggestion procedure. In between training sessions, I would daydream about upcoming training sessions. I would see myself dominating whatever poundage I was due to handle in a particular lift. In the actual training session, prior to a top set, I would shut my eyes and visualize. Immediately before a big effort, I would run one final mental movie. With each successive visualization, I sought to produce ever-greater clarity and vividness.

When it was time to turn psychological visualization into physical reality, I was so psyched the line between reality and imagining blurred.

YouTube up 1980s superstar Soviet Olympic weightlifters like Anatoly Pisarenko, Yurik Vardanyan and Yuri Zakharevich. Watch how they stride to the barbell with a faraway look in their eyes. They stop, stand over the barbell for a full minute, eyes open yet unfocused. They are lost in their final auto-visualization. Done, they stoop, set their hook grip, and turn mental movie into world-record reality. For them and me, a successful lift was déjà vu all over again.

Aladar Kogler and the Logic of Visualization

In 1995, as a top-gun writer for Muscle & Fitness magazine, I interviewed Dr. Aladar Kogler, the Hungarian fencing coach and sport psychologist associated with high-level mental preparation for athletes. Kogler used conscious thought and logic to mentally morph the athlete into an elevated state of attention.

Logic talk, positive talk, coupled with intense and repeated visualizations, improved athletic performance. It was a very Western approach that used logic and reason to think our way into altered states of consciousness beneficial for athletic performance. Kogler, the Soviets, and East Germans were the male Yang of mind-alteration: use conscious thought and mind movies to improve athletic or artistic performance.

East and West: Yin and Yang.

East and West: Yin and Yang

• Eastern philosophic approach: Yin, intuitive, artistic, spontaneous, improvisational, creative. Clear the Mind. Use meditation to elongate the “gap between thoughts,” where “reality” lies hidden in plain sight. Instead of harnessing the Mind, quit the Mind. Find a way to cause the internal voice, the thinker, the observer, to fall silent. Quietude is the optimal athletic mindset for improved athletic performance.
• Western philosophic approach: Yang, logic, mathematical, mechanical, disciplined, tenacious. Couple intense visual fantasies with power wording designed to focus and concentrate the athlete on the task at hand. Use conscious thought to think our way into an elevated, concentrated mental state conducive to improved sport performance. The mind is used, not asked to fall silent.

The eastern religious meditational traditions are the Yin to the West’s Yang. Eastern meditational techniques sought, not to harness and direct the conscious Mind, but rather to quiet the conscious Mind. Instead of repeated mental movies, eastern meditational techniques would show a blank screen. The eastern traditions assert that “reality” can only be perceived in the gap between thoughts. Clear the Mind and the quietude births a hyper-alertness.

This degree of sensitivity appears when the internal commentator, our mental chatterbox, the voice in our head that always comments, finally falls silent. The samurai warrior in a one-on-one sword fight seeks a blank yet electrified mindset, an amplified hyper-alertness, a state of being so sensitive that an opponent’s slightest twitch is countered in a microsecond.

Zen, Hindu Trance States, and Reported Mind Research

Adam Smith’s book Powers of Mind pointed out a dramatic mindset-goal differentiation between southern India Hindu meditational techniques and the mindset sought by Zen adherents. Smith reported studies and demonstrations from the Menninger Institute era in which scientists and doctors monitored Zen monks and Hindu gurus after they had entered deep meditational states.

The story, as Smith related it, was that some Hindu meditational masters were so deep within trance-state that external stimuli did not register in the normal fashion, while Zen masters registered disturbance without losing equilibrium. The old accounts also describe adepts capable of manipulating breath, bodily stillness, and pain response in ways that shocked observers.

These stories should be read as old mind-research and meditation-literature accounts, not as a modern medical prescription or a casual challenge. The useful distinction for our purposes is the contrast in mindset: trance-like inward withdrawal versus alert, centered quietude.

The Zen mindset became synonymous with the samurai warriors who found the Zen blank-yet-alert mindset ideal for life-or-death warfare. There are shades and flavors of meditation, largely geographic distinctions. A meditational synthesis would have many unifying characteristics.

A Meditational Synthesis

• Posture: Sit on a cushion that elevates the tailbone. Cross the legs if you can do so comfortably. Sit upright. Do not slump. Slumping is indicative of a loss of focus. A straight spine enables fuller and easier diaphragm breathing. The head is upright. Perfect skeletal posture provides the structure for successful meditation.
• Eye focus: There are three schools of thought: eyes wide open and focused on an external object; eyes closed to eliminate visual stimulation of any kind; eyes half-opened and semi-focused. Pick one of the three for a formal session. Do not wander between them.
• Breathing: Deep diaphragm breathing is sought after. Push the floor of the abdomen downward, creating a vacuum effect that maximally fills the lungs. Great concentration is built by following the inhalation and exhalation. Pay attention to the sound of the exhalations.
• Hand position: The cosmic mudra is a hand position. While in full or half-lotus or sitting in a chair, place the left hand, palm up, next to your belly. Lay the right hand atop the left. Allow the thumbs to lightly touch. Do not crunch the thumbs or allow them to separate; this is your attention meter.
• Counting breaths: Zen beginner practice has the meditator count breaths from 1 to 10. The goal is to not let thoughts arise, capture your attention, and cause you to lose count. Lose count and go back to zero and begin anew. Let thoughts arise and float away. Practice, repetition, improves focus and concentration.
• Beyond counting: At some point, the Zen meditator “throws away the toys.” They stop counting. The meditator becomes conscious of the mechanics of breath without counting. Similarly, mantras are also abandoned. When thoughts arise, they are noted and allowed to pass without comment or commentary.
• Expand the gap between thoughts: Over time, with repetition, meditational practice deepens. The meditator cultivates mental silence. They seek to lengthen the gap between thoughts. “Reality” is only detectable when conscious thought falls silent. Willpower-enforced silence is no silence at all.
• Dropping off Mind and Body: Deep meditation can have a revitalizing effect. You do not have to be a Zen master or Hindu guru to experience brain-cleansing, energy-infusing, stress-relieving benefits associated with serious meditation practice. When “the Mind of no Mind” is attained, we are, for that moment, stress-free.

Moving Meditation and Exercise-Induced Quietude

Moving meditation — Tai Chi, Pa Kua and Hsing I, the Chinese internal martial arts — were designed to attain a meditational mindset, then put the body and the meditational mindset into motion. Movement and meditation are intertwined.

Exercise-induced Nirvana is another pathway. Intense physical exercise, especially high-intensity resistance training, can cause the conscious mind to fall silent. Intense training changes body chemistry and can create a post-workout “glow state,” a state that feels to me like an advanced, if unrecognized, meditational state.

This is one reason I have always viewed hard physical training and meditation as allies. One clears the mind by sitting still. The other clears the mind by asking the body to produce so much effort that the internal chatterbox has no room to speak.

Equipment Notes for Meditation, Floor Practice, and Balance Work

Meditation does not require much equipment. Still, a stable, quiet, repeatable practice space helps. For floor practice, stretching, moving meditation, and seated work, readers can compare foam exercise mats or a simple option such as Aeromat Essential foam workout mats with eyelets.

For balance, proprioception and controlled standing work, foam rollers and balance training tools or an Aeromat Elite foam balance block can support supplemental practice when used appropriately. For those who prefer supported seated work, the Aeromat Elite height-adjustable ball chair may be relevant to posture practice, office breathing drills, or supported sitting.

The tool does not create meditation. The practice does.

Safety Note for Meditation, Breath Practice, and Altered States

Meditation, breath counting, diaphragm breathing, moving meditation, and intense exercise should be approached progressively. Do not force breathing, hyperventilate, hold the breath excessively, or continue if dizziness, panic, chest pain, faintness, or unusual distress appears.

People with panic symptoms, trauma history, major depression, psychosis history, neurological conditions, cardiovascular concerns, pregnancy, balance limitations, or significant medical conditions should seek qualified guidance when needed. Meditation and mindfulness can be useful practices, but they should not replace conventional medical or mental-health care.

This article preserves Marty Gallagher’s RAW meditation and athletic-performance perspective. It is not individualized medical, mental-health, rehabilitation, or programming advice.

Related Meditation Reading

For a practical beginner companion piece, read Meditation - Meditational Fundamentals. For a deeper Gallagher article on athletic altered states, read Pure Meditational Awareness and Deep Athletics. For a modern Body / Mind routine example, read Jerry Seinfeld on Weightlifting, Cardio and Meditation.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.