If you could instantly add 20lbs to your deadlift, do 10 extra pushups, or add an inch or two to your vertical jump through mental training tactics, would you do it?
Surprisingly, for many, the answer is no. Of course, these people aren’t making the choice based on their experience with the above option, but rather, most people haven’t been exposed to how large of a proportion of athleticism runs through the mind.
Many of us rational thinking types tend to steer clear from the whole mental training trick vibe, because it can be a little unusual, but yet we know that motivation is the key to unlock athletic adaptation, no matter what the endeavor (some of us may outwardly deny this, but we all know that it is true). With that said, there is a lot more to the mind than simply motivation, and even with in the scope of motivation, there are many subconscious influences that many coaches and athletes don’t address or tap into.
As I was wandering through Breaking Muscle a few months ago, a particular series of articles began to catch my eye, those written by a trainer from Santa Cruz named Logan Christopher. After reading Logan’s articles, and eventually purchasing his book, “Mental Muscle”, I knew I had to get an interview with him to help draw the awareness of the masses to the benefit of a full training program on both a mental and physical level.
With all that said, we’ll be covering Logan’s introduction to mental training, and most importantly, the results he gets from his techniques.
Just Fly Sports: How did you get into mental training and hypnosis?
Logan Christopher: As I got into physical training, I wasn’t naturally strong. The only gift I had was that I was smart, though certainly too smart for my own good at times. So I think me getting into mental training stemmed from the idea that I needed to gain advantage in this area where I had none. I always thought that the mind was very powerful so I sought to unlock its abilities.
My earliest introduction to the area was through Matt Furey and how he taught Maxwell Maltz’ Psychocybernetics. Dr. Maltz was an early plastic surgeon and he noticed that some patients would be happy after getting surgery, whereas others would get a surgery to correct a default but then still believe that they were ugly. This stemmed not from how they looked on the outside but how they thought they looked internally. Thus he was in early pioneer in looking at and changing your self-image, and working with what he called the “Theater of Your Mind,” basically the place where you can internally work on yourself. That in turn led me into other areas and it expanded from there.
Just Fly Sports: Do you feel that some qualities, or lifts, more than others are improvable via mental training?
Logan Christopher: First let me say that everything can be improved through proper mental training. Included in the field of mental training, is goal setting, planning, and really your entire thinking before, during and after training. Since how you think guides what you physically do, it matters for everything that you do.
But when it comes to seeing instant increases through things like the visualization processes that I teach, certain things do respond more than others. Anything that has more of a nervous system component or a skill component seems to work better. For instance doing many bodyweight exercises are easier to see a faster upgrade than a simpler muscular move like a deadlift.
Just Fly Sports: How much is the average athlete leaving on the table by not addressing aspects of their mental strength?
Logan Christopher: A common saying in many sports is that the game is 90% mental. That doesn’t mean you’d be leaving 90% of your results on the table though. Unfortunately, it is hard to give any sort of exact percentage. Let’s just say that everyone that isn’t working as hard at mental training as they are at physical training is leaving a good portion of their potential on the table.
Just Fly Sports: What are some of the most powerful anecdotes you have seen regarding the ability of the mind to increase one’s strength and power?
Logan Christopher When I was speaking at Dragondoor’s Health and Strength Conference I did some live demos. In one of them the woman had never done more than two one-arm pushups. After a couple minute mental drill she did seven. A 350% increase sounds unbelievable but it happened.
In another case I was able to take a man that was already performing at a pretty high level, being capable of doing handstand pushups on just his index finger and thumbs. He was able to do two reps at the time, and after a similar mental imagery drill he immediately was able to do four. Now it doesn’t often work this well but done properly it always leads to an increase. It might just be 10% but who wouldn’t want that? I could share many more stories of that drill, or similar ones, taking people from the impossible to the possible, or otherwise increasing what they could do.
One story, not of my own that I like to share is that of Judd Biasiotto who used more mental training than physical training. At a bodyweight of 130 lbs. he squatted 603 pounds, and this was less than a year after back surgery.
Just Fly Sports: Why do you think that hypnosis isn’t more mainstream in strength and fitness today?
Logan Christopher: There are a lot of misconceptions about hypnosis. And in general people avoid what they don’t understand. Further, a lot of this stuff seems “woo-woo” or is clouded in fluffy language which turns many people off. Lastly, actually using these skills to good effect takes work and sadly, most people are content just to work at the exercises they know, rather than work smart. But I feel that once people can see and feel the results, even just a single time, by using a specific step-by-step drill they’ll be much more likely to pursue mental training further.
Just Fly Sports: What are some key elements of your own personal mental training routine? What percentage of your own training is mental vs. physical?
Logan Christopher As much as I’d like to give a percentage it doesn’t really work in that way. I can’t say I do 50% mental and 50% physical training. Sure sitting in hypnosis or visualization you can count the time, but time is only one factor. Sometimes the two go hand in hand so the lines are blurry.
Logan Deadlifts 505 at 6’2” and 185lbs bodyweight
Firing an anchor only takes a split second, but the effects can be the difference between succeeding in a lift or not. For those not familiar with the term, an anchor is something specific that you do, whether a motion, a phrase or a visual, that can immediately put you into a specific mind-body state. Think like being angry or sad, but they can be much more complex and multi-layered states too. Thus these help you to get psyched up or relaxed to the right degree. Some examples that I personally use would be listening to the same album of music over and over again for every workout to put me into “workout mode”. There are also anchors I have for specific lifts like for when I deadlift and do pullups, because each exercise takes a bit of a different state.
What I do for mental training changes over time, depending on what I’m working on at that time. I often listen to a pre-recorded hypnotic visualization track about once a day which is aimed at my biggest training goal. This keeps me motivated for the goal as well as trains the skill in the movement by firing the nervous system in seeing and feeling myself do the move.
Before my workout I do a bunch of anchoring things to put me into the right state to train, like the music mentioned above. Then in the workout itself I will use different drills at different times, once again depending on what I’m working on. Sometimes it will be quick self-hypnosis with a bunch of hypnotic commands. Other times this is different sorts of mental imagery like with the Instant Exercise Enhancer technique, or working with perceptual positions and time lines.
I know I’m throwing a lot of words that most people probably don’t know so a couple examples of what I mean. When you see an internal movie of yourself doing an exercise it will likely be somewhat realistic. If you simply brighten this movie, in many cases you’ll become stronger. That is just one submodality of the movie that can be changed of many more possibilities.
More advanced methods involve stepping into someone else’s shoes, or your own one or three months in the future, and noticing how it is mentally coded differently than how you previously mentally coded the exercise. Thus when you make that change more often than not you’ll instantly become better at this exercise. Hard to describe everything in a few words but the book lays this out in so much more detail. So I do stuff like this throughout my workouts from set to set.
Just Fly Sports: What are some things you are working on right now that didn’t make it into your book, Mental Muscle? What is new on the horizon of linking the mind to sport and strength performance?
Logan Christopher: I have so much more to cover on the topic of mental training so a sequel is likely. Something I would like to cover more is your higher levels of thinking, even more about beliefs, and how those apply to training. Additionally, a whole section on competing would be useful to many people.
Another area of focus is the use of energetic forms of training (once again I use step by step processes, not the fluffy stuff many people advocate) to aid in my efforts. I am a certified Eden Energy Medicine practitioner as well as certified in Emotional Freedom Technique, so I have applied many of these techniques into my training, like using meridian tapping to accomplish belief changes as well as many similar effects to those that can be done with mental imagery. Another example is the Lung Re-energizer technique which is useful for catching breath after an endurance set that involves tracing the pathway of the meridian backwards and then forwards. It sounds weird but it works!
Just Fly Sports: What are the top 3 books you would recommend for those seeking to learn more, in depth, regarding the power of the mind and human performance?
Logan Christopher: I mentioned all three of these in my book but I’ll mention them here again.
- Peak Performance by Charles Garfield is a classic in the field.
- Beliefs: Pathways to Health & Well-Being by Robert Filts, Tim Hallbom and Suzi Smith is a great one from the field of NLP that will greatly help anyone to realize just how much things are within their control based on the beliefs they have.
- Judd Biassotto’s 2001: A Sports Odyssey is biographical but has lots of useful information.
About Logan Christopher:
He created the Peak Performance Trinity to help people get the most out of their physical training, health, and mental training. As a certified hypnotist and NLP Practitioner, he is also one of the leaders in the field of applying mental tactics towards achieving your goals in the gym.
You can find much more at his two main websites. Legendary Strength (www.legendarystrength.com) covers all aspects of physical training with lots on kettlebells, bodyweight exercise, and feats of strength. And at Lost Art of Hand Balancing you can learn how to do handstands, acrobatics, and much more.
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