Flow State VS. Adrenal State:
In powerlifting, the main goal is to move as much weight on the bar as possible. In broader terms, it is about living in the uncomfortable. In any strength sport, there’s a form of disassociation that happens when you push your body past it’s previously established limits.
Flow state allows you to experience the lift in third person, where you experience yourself experiencing yourself lifting, this allows you to observe the pain, the anxiety.
The adrenal state takes you to another planet mentally; allowing yourself to push passed where you might normally stop yourself.
It’s a form of meditation, and after you first achieve it, you begin to develop a process to help access it more efficiently. Konstantin Kostjukov would recite poetry. Eddie Hall creates a scenario in his head where he must save children, creating a state that allows him to move what was until very recently a world record deadlift. It’s what attracts people to the world of strength sports, beyond the ebbs and flows of peaking training, people find the meditation of lifting attractive.
During training, I have tools and mental cues that allow me to create a flow state or an adrenal state depending on what I’m trying to accomplish in any training session. Acknowledging where your head at is also an important thing to be able to control what results you can get from a training session or meet performance.
Flow State: If I have high life stress, I try to focus on bringing it back down. I create a flow state by listening to bluegrass folk or lo-fi hip hop. I’ll listen to a recording of The Iron and The Soul or recite Tears In Rain before big lifts because I need to be able to organize my mind, and understand where these emotions are coming from. While emotional elevation is a good place to draw from in lifting, it can also be an enormous gas leak. It makes me rush through my setup, or not focus on the lifts because my mind is everywhere but under the bar.
Adrenal State: If things are going well, and I feel healthy coming into a day of training, I know I can trigger an adrenal state. This mental state allows me to red line, whether it’s adding extra topsets or 5-30 lbs. AND it’s what makes training fun. Death metal, smelling salts, preworkout and baby powder are all tools and little mental cues for getting myself psyched up for a big lift. This state is also extra taxing for my central nervous system, as adrenaline allows a lifter to push the boundaries of what they’re capable of. Meaning it’s not ideal for day to day training. Equally, the more someone taps into that resource, the less effective it is. It’s also much harder to come down from after a training session is over.
It may sound silly, but control of emotional elevation will either make or break you in the moment. Learning to control this deep emotional state also lends itself to mastery over your emotions in every dimension of your life. Being able to pinpoint, acknowledge and control the flow of your emotions will improve the quality of high-stake conversations in relationships with friends, family and significant others. That’s what keeps me attracted to powerlifting, without it, my emotions spiral out of control. I sink into a deep depression, and tailspin into an uncontrollable mess of compulsive behavior and anxiety. Control over these things has let me experience the best years of my life with far less second guessing, taking two steps forward and three steps back.
When you’re “in the shit” it’s just like being in the hole of a squat. Once you learn the only way out, is up, your life changes dramatically.
