- You two put a great emphasis on the importance of a lifter’s mental attitude regarding training, recovery and progress outcomes (Placebo/Nocebo effects, pain and the biopsychosocial model, self-efficacy for example). Did you learn about that only through medical training and coaching or are there good resources out there on the topic?
- Do you think meditation is an effective way to improve progress outcomes, specifically regarding sleep quality, program compliance, and focus in the gym? The research out there is confusing, and a lot of it seems to be tied to people/organizations with a religious / commercial agenda. Anyway, thanks for talking and writing about that topic, it sounds important to me.
This isn’t taught in medical training at all. It’s been acquired through extensive reading of the sports psychology, pain science, and social psychology literature.
I can’t say I’ve read much primary literature on meditation, though I think that “mindfulness” in general has significant potential for benefit in various contexts, and meditation is one potential way to achieve that.
Why read the primary literature when you can read the meta-statistical literature?
Some selections:
https://www.nature.com/news/power-of-positive-thinking-skews-mindfulness-studies-1.19776
My reading is that it is highly unclear at this time whether mindfulness practice has “real” benefits or should be tossed in the garbage along with ego depletion and all the other spurious effects psychologists have “found” due to a lack of statistical and methodological rigor.
I no longer “practise” mindfulness meditation and I don’t really want to (it’s boring and time consuming) but through it I have learned some valuable techniques that I can still put into practise when I need to. Whether it is beneficial to you would not only depend on your response to it but also whether you actually have problems with sleep quality, program compliance, and focus in the gym and what is causing them.