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Unintentional Zen Through Autosuggestion
Russian recalibration, susoko-kan rep counting and folding meditational space
Beyond Thinking: The cave monk Tamo is shown enveloped in profound silence. According to legend, after sitting for nine years, he arose, stretched, and left. Asked why he ended his sitting session, he responded, “I grew tired of listening to the ants scream.” There is a fierceness in Tamo’s expression that exemplifies an aggressive alpha-brand of meditation. A spiritual warrior, he imbued his students with a linebacker mentality towards the meditational arts.
Autosuggestion and Athletic Performance
I began recalibrating my mind to improve athletic performance in 1964. As a 14-year old, I was introduced to Soviet autosuggestion techniques in a series of articles by iron guru John McCallum. In retrospect, I could not have had a better mind mentor nor a better entry-level brain-train technique. Mac introduced me to this Russian brain-train tactic at just the right time; it was simple enough for a 14-year old to grasp and implement yet it was exceedingly effective. I got an immediate bump in workout performance. I have been a fan of mental recalibration ever since.
I use and teach this fundamental, entry-level mental strategy to this day. The Iron Curtain athletes found that by intensely visualizing themselves in an about-to-happen event or athletic undertaking, performance improved. Regardless if the athlete was running a 100-meter dash, driving a bobsled, throwing the shot put or clean and jerking a world record, intense visualization was used in pursuit of improved sport and workout performance.
Autosuggestion was brought into athletics by Hungarian psychiatrist and fencing coach Aladar Kogler. The communists considered Kogler’s mental recalibration system so important that they labeled it “top secret” and any coach caught sharing the system with “nonapproved persons” was visited by the KGB. The Soviet autosuggestion system came to the West in the mid-1960s with the defection of some high-level athletes and coaches. Mihaly Huska brought a ton of training knowledge with him when he defected and began coaching the Olympic lifts at the Duncan YMCA in Chicago. Under his auspice, the Duncan Y team won the national team title in 1968.
Autosuggestion, like the poker game Texas Hold’em, takes five minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. I should know, I have been practicing autosuggestion for a lifetime. Kogler’s approach is rooted in intense and repeated visualizations: see yourself in action in your mind’s eye. Over and over, the athlete runs a movie in their head. The degree of detail becomes greater, more vivid and real with each repeated viewing. At its finest and most effective, the final visualizations are so intense that the division between real and imagined blurs. For an autosuggestion Master, the visualizations become so real that the athlete must guard against shooting off his adrenaline supply prematurely, confusing an intense internal vision with reality.
As the years rolled by, I utilized autosuggestion in every training session and used it with ever greater intensity and precision. I became proficient at putting myself into an altered state to improve performance. By age 20 I had a mastery of autosuggestion and (unbeknownst) a mastery of a fundamental Zen practice called susoku-kan. By age 17 I had won my first national championships and set my first national records as a teen Olympic weightlifter. This was concrete proof to me that my training and my mental strategies were working.
Mind and Body Under the Bar
In hardcore resistance training, when attempting to exceed capacity, the athlete must meld mind and body in order to cope with the severity of the task. To keep focused and centered, the conscious mind, the internal voice, is given a simple task to prevent the mind from wandering during a limit set. The iron elite task the mind to keep track of the reps as they are performed. During an all-out effort, the seasoned athlete focuses the conscious mind, the little voice inside your head, solely on the rep count.
Externally, during the limit set, the athlete fixates their eyes on a single small spot, perhaps on the wall, floor, or ceiling. They stare with unwavering focus, using a ferocious, almost X-ray vision to stabilize posture and balance. Wandering eyes have the same detrimental effect on a limit attempt that a wandering mind has. Tamo exhibited a ferocious X-Ray vision stare while deep in the subterranean depths of his meditational bliss-state.
During a past-capacity effort, the athlete’s breathing, amplified and exaggerated, is synchronized with the rep counting. Visualization and autosuggestion are used right up until when it is time to perform. The athlete switches psychological gears: time to actualize visions. If the athlete is performing a limit set of five reps in the squat, seeking to exceed a personal best, the last mental movie is done facing the loaded barbell. Imagery morphs into reality as the athlete opens his eyes. Clear headed, alert, electrified, his adrenaline, purposefully held in check to this point, is now consciously released with a single internal command…
“NOW!”
Adrenaline, the electrifying hormone, is sent gushing into the bloodstream. This is the physiological equivalent of hitting the nitrous oxide switch in a 2000-horsepower dragster. The lifter feels the surge and attacks the barbell. He strides to the squat bar with a feeling of déjà vu. He snaps it out of the power rack with authority. As in the visualization, the weight feels light. The lifter steps back, sets up, and breaks his knees to begin the first of five reps.
He lowers with studied tension, creating coiled eccentric strength. He bottoms out and rockets erect. His mind is blank yet hyperalert. Centered, focused, exhilarated, drenched in adrenaline, as he approaches lockout he yells (internally…)
“ONE!”
At lockout, he steadies himself, inhales mightily and unlocks his knees to begin the next rep. He dips to below parallel, reverses direction and blasts the 2nd rep to completion with greater ease than the 1st rep.
“TWO!!”
He yells. He inhales and tears into another rep.
“THREE!!!”
He screams as he comes erect with rep #3. This rep was harder: mentally he yells louder.
“FOUR!!!!”
Oh hell! That was heavy!
The thought flashes across his consciousness in a nano-second and in the next nano-second he banishes negativity. “I have come this damned far and will not be denied.” He steadies himself and inhales – for the first time he inhales twice – each time he inhales as if trying to suck all the oxygen out of the room.
He is in dangerous, injurious territory. This is big wave surfing. He has, at best, a 50-50 chance of succeeding: dare to struggle, dare to win, he thinks. His fight-or-flight instincts kick as he breaks his knees for an attempt at a new 5-rep personal record. He smiles as he locks it out. In his mind he screams,
“FIVE!!!!!”
He locks out his knees and stumbles back into the squat rack, racking the weight, triumphant. He hangs onto the racked Olympic barbell to keep from falling. His mind is blown, mentally he spikes the ball. He is completely elated, yet completely drained by the severity of the effort. When dealing with a past-capacity effort, mind and body unite in pursuit of the herculean task. We establish new capacities by progressively challenging old limits.
Nuts & Bolts
Once a weight training set commences, elite iron men establish a visual focus point. They drill their eyesight into a small spot and keep fixated on the spot throughout the lift, be it a deadlift, squat, bench press, whatever. This laser-like focus, this unwavering stare, stabilizes the body and acts as an external attention-gathering device. Meditators are often instructed to fix their eyes on a candle flame or a mandala to stabilize posture.
As the set unfolds, breath control is synchronized with rep counting. The rep counting occupies the conscious mind and keeps it from wandering during the ongoing effort. Use a LOUD internal voice to count reps. An internal scream acts as an attention-gathering device. In my experience, by YELLING internally, the rep count dominates; it cuts through and out-shouts other contending thoughts eager to divert or attract your attention.
If at any point during the past-limit set the rep count is lost, if the lifter becomes distracted, if they space out, if the count is forgotten, focus can unravel at exactly the wrong moment. Big poundage teaches with a big stick: you learn that you must stay centered, you must stay focused and you must stay zeroed in for the entirety of the set.
There is a flow to our mental tactics: the conscious mind starts the process visualizing the limit-exceeding lift(s) beforehand via autosuggestion. The visualizations quiet and center the chattering monkey mind. The next shift is into psyche-mode, purposeful arousal mode, immediately prior to the set. Once the set is underway, the eyes are fixed, and the conscious mind is tasked with breath-synchronized rep counting.
From Rep Counting to Susoku-Kan
In the aftermath of a limit equaling or exceeding set, the conscious mind finds itself bludgeoned into blissful silence. Body and mind experience what I describe as a nirvana-like post-workout afterglow. To exceed capacity, the consciousness must be corralled and controlled: we give consciousness a task – keep the internal rep count. I discovered in later years that concentrating with all our might and all our being on counting reps during past-capacity efforts had a striking parallel with a fundamental Zen practice called susoku-kan.
Strength and Conditioning Equipment
Mental focus has practical value when it is attached to physical work. For the resistance training Marty describes throughout this article, explore IRON COMPANY barbells and dumbbells, including the CAP Barbell Olympic Barbell Set and PowerBlock Elite USA 90 Adjustable Dumbbell Set. For floor-based exercise, stretching, or meditation work, the Aeromat Elite Workout Fitness Mat provides another relevant equipment option.
For conditioning sessions, explore exercise bikes and elliptical trainers. These equipment categories provide additional ways to apply focused, repetitive effort without changing the central strength-training and mental-training purpose of Marty’s article.
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 for a more in depth look at his credentials as an athlete, coach and writer.
Marty Gallagher is a champion strength athlete, coach, author, and RAW Podcast host known for powerlifting, Olympic lifting, and serious strength training.
Your unwavering commitment to sharing uplifting and enlightening articles and podcasts is greatly appreciated. I can't even begin to count the multitude of valuable insights I've acquired from your guidance. Allow me to share an article that resonates deeply with your profound training philosophy, capturing what I think is the very essence of your influence.
Iron and Soul by Henry Rollins
I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention.
To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. Completely.
When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me “garbage can” and telling me I’d be mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size. I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t run home crying, wondering why. I knew all too well. I was there to be antagonized. In sports I was laughed at. A spaz. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with some strange fury. The other boys thought I was crazy.
I hated myself all the time. As stupid at it seems now, I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease of knowing that I wasn’t going to get pounded in the hallway between classes.
Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I only talked to a few boys in my grade. Other losers. Some of them are to this day the greatest people I have ever known. Hang out with a guy who has had his head flushed down a toilet a few times, treat him with respect, and you’ll find a faithful friend forever. But even with friends, school sucked. Teachers gave me hard time. I didn’t think much of them either.
Then came Mr. Pepperman, my adviser. He was a powerfully built Vietnam veteran, and he was scary. No one ever talked out of turn in his class. Once one kid did and Mr. P. lifted him off the ground and pinned him to the blackboard.
Mr. P. could see that I was in bad shape, and one Friday in October he asked me if I had ever worked out with weights. I told him no. He told me that I was going to take some of the money that I had saved and buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears. As I left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on Monday when he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy. Still, it made me feel special. My father never really got that close to caring. On Saturday I bought the weights, but I couldn’t even drag them to my mom’s car. An attendant laughed at me as he put them on a dolly.
Monday came and I was called into Mr. P.’s office after school. He said that he was going to show me how to work out. He was going to put me on a program and start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway when I wasn’t looking. When I could take the punch we would know that we were getting somewhere. At no time was I to look at myself in the mirror or tell anyone at school what I was doing.
In the gym he showed me ten basic exercises. I paid more attention than I ever did in any of my classes. I didn’t want to blow it. I went home that night and started right in. Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. P. would give me a shot and drop me in the hallway, sending my books flying. The other students didn’t know what to think. More weeks passed, and I was steadily adding new weights to the bar. I could sense the power inside my body growing. I could feel it.
Right before Christmas break I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr. Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I laughed and kept going. He said I could look at myself now. I got home and ran to the bathroom and pulled off my shirt. I saw a body, not just the shell that housed my stomach and my heart. My biceps bulged. My chest had definition. I felt strong. It was the first time I can remember having a sense of myself. I had done something and no one could ever take it away. You couldn’t say **** to me.
It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons I have learned from the Iron. I used to think that it was my adversary, that I was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. I was wrong. When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the mat, it’s the kindest thing it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn’t teach you anything. That’s the way the Iron talks to you. It tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you.
It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can’t be as bad as that workout.
I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control.
I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone’s shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. It is the difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and Mr. Pepperman.
Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.
Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if he was not strong. Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a weakened body cannot sustain it for long. I have some of my most romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron. Once I was in love with a woman. I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was racing through my body. Everything in me wanted her. So much so that sex was only a fraction of my total desire. It was the single most intense love I have ever felt, but she lived far away and I didn’t see her very often. Working out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness. To this day, when I work out I usually listen to ballads.
I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had taught me how to live.
Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole. I see them move from their offices to their cars and on to their suburban homes. They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat badly. And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. They need the Iron mind.
Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind. The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.
The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs.
Friends may come and go.
But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.
-Henry Rollins