Welcome to your pre-workout meditation.
I invite you to take a moment to congratulate yourself for showing up today.
By choosing to meditate and exercise,
You're making massive strides in improving your wellness.
Find a comfortable place to stand,
Sit,
Or lay down and be prepared to close your eyes or look down.
You'll be here for about the next five minutes or so.
If you're in a loud place,
I'd recommend using headphones to help you focus.
Before we start meditating,
Let's review your plan for today's workout.
Maybe you have a set plan or maybe you don't,
And that's okay.
Just take a moment to consider what you have ahead of you.
Will you be completing a specific set?
What equipment might you be using?
What route will you take?
How long and how far do you plan to go for?
Simply review and consider what you have ahead of you in your workout today.
Now that you have reviewed or made a plan,
Let's get your body and mind prepared to perform.
Close your eyes or bring your gaze downward.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and sigh it out through your mouth.
Let's do that two more times.
In through the nose and out through the mouth.
Last time,
In through the nose and out through the mouth.
You can let your breathing relax now,
As I explained to you the breathing technique we're going to do.
This one is called square breathing.
It will help you to improve your lung capacity and also give you a focal point for your mind,
Which is going to help you to focus much better during your upcoming workout.
As you breathe in,
You're going to count to four and imagine drawing one side of the square.
You're going to hold your breath at the top and count to four and imagine drawing another side of the square.
You're going to exhale for four counts,
Drawing a third side and then finally holding for another four counts and drawing the final side.
We're going to continue this way for a few minutes as you breathe in,
Hold,
Breathe out and hold again.
We can start this together.
So first just take a normal inhale and a normal exhale and then we'll start together.
Breathing in for a count of four,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Hold for two,
Three,
Four and exhale two,
Three,
Four,
Hold two,
Three,
Four.
Two,
Three,
Four,
Inhale two,
Three,
Four,
Hold two,
Three,
Four,
Exhale two,
Three,
Four and hold two,
Three,
Four.
We're going to keep going like this and I'm just going to give you some space to breathe.
If you notice your mind starts to wander,
That's totally normal.
Just come back to your breath and imagine drawing that square,
All four sides the same length.
If you'd like,
You can also increase the number of counts per breath.
So you can move up to five or six as you're feeling more comfortable.
Just make sure you keep your inhales,
Holds and exhales the same length.
When I do this exercise,
I imagine drawing my square in the way that as I inhale,
I'm drawing upwards.
As I hold my breath,
I draw across the top.
I exhale,
I draw down and then hold again,
I draw across the bottom.
Just focusing on that image just helps me to keep my concentration and this will stretch from this exercise out into your workout,
Which is really,
Really important for performance.
Take one more square breath and then you can just let go of that focus on your breathing.
Now let's take a moment to imagine yourself actually doing your workout.
So maybe think about your warm-up,
Think about what you're doing in the main set and your cool-down.
It's kind of moving through it almost like in fast forward,
But also like in HD.
So thinking about a high definition,
Very sensory engaged focus.
So you can see that your body is moving up and down.
You can see that your body is moving up and down.
So it's kind of moving through it almost like in a very sensory engaged focus of an image of yourself doing your workout.
I want you to imagine like you're performing at your absolute best.
You've got really good form,
You're appropriately fatigued for the level of strength that you're putting out,
But you also feel really,
Really good and confident in your body and in the training session that you're putting forward.
Now bring that attention to the part of your body.
Maybe you have something that you're working on,
Maybe there's something that's really hard or maybe something you're even dreading a little bit.
I want you to imagine that really difficult part,
But instead of thinking of it as being hard,
I want you to see yourself completing this part of your workout with ease.
Know that you're stronger and more capable than you think.
You will complete this workout and you won't just complete it.
You'll do it to a level that makes you feel proud.
You're doing what you need to do to improve.
You're doing what you need to do to stay.
So you can keep that image in your mind of just a strong and focused and powerful athlete that you are.
And then let this image go.
To close out,
We'll just take one more big breath in through your nose,
Slide out through the mouth,
And then you can gently open your eyes.
It's time to work out.
We'll see you at the beginning of your next workout.
