Withhold. Grow.

The inescapable truth of the matter is that reward can sabotage sustained effort. In the deepest abyss

of denial lurks a resonant understanding that withholding from desire promotes growth. This mantra

turns modern Western culture on its head, however. Certainly, the contemporary lament of instant

gratification is a swift departure from the Stoic tenets of Greek and Roman philosophy. To achieve

a cheap and inauthentic victory you will be lauded for your cunning, and yet the Bushido mentality

would be diametrically opposed to this. There is a rift. Spoils are ever-abundant. Discipline is a scarcity.

Strength training in its more advanced stages of theory merges intuitively with the Stoic lament. The

Buddhist practice of monitoring the breath is vital to persistent and outlandish effort during training.

When you read the training results scrawled on the whiteboard, the true shame is that often you can

only fathom the numbers for what they are. An amount of weight lifted a certain number of times on

a particular date by a person weighing this amount. Perhaps you regard the strength to weight ratio

of the person performing these lifts and feel you are harnessing a deeper understanding of the training

session, but you are still only scratching the surface.

The effort is unseen on the whiteboard. The psychological fathoms of pushing through intense discomfort

cannot be measured and the depths cannot be conceptualized or quantified. When a person of galvanized

resolve is pushing through the fifth rep of a heavy back squat while others called it a day at three of four,

you are not privy to the mental mastery at work. Breathless and burning alive, racking the barbell is

the reward. The reward is sabotage. Relief, a farce. The Stoic, the samurai, the disciplined person would

gather their breath, fortify their will, and drop low again, completing another rep, surprising oneself.

Motivational pictures and quotes about training are more abundant than ever. However, just as some

people toil away with posting inspirational quotes and never truly implementing them, many people

idly regard these motivational snippets with some degree of reverence while never thinking to be

honest enough with themselves to put these lessons into practice.

Strength training theory is a microcosm of a much more expansive philosophy of discipline. The

genus of philosophy is unimportant. That you practice Buddhism, Bushido, or Stoicism is unimportant.

That you carry these principles out in earnest and do not sabotage yourself is tantamount.

Apart from the very narrow vector of strength training merged with philosophical discipline, there is

the matter of desire; the matter of the heart. Strength is abolishing want. Wisdom is realizing that

most desires are a mirage. Confidence is found in silence, never condemning another man or extolling

of one's own virtues. (And lo, I write this. Ha.) When reward is withheld, the bounty is growth. Yet

when reward is seized and embraced, an opportunity for something more meaningful eludes you.

The aforementioned philosophical adherences to Stoicism, Bushido, Zen et al. are not new. Truth is

timeless and penetrates the murky coalescing fog of what is popular today. Silence, quiet confidence,

and a mindful approach endure always, even as the allure of these practices dims while society

'advances'. 

There are few absolute truths. There is birth and there is death and some degree of rapture and suffering in between. The rest is subjective, unreliable. Given this uncertain expanse of time to be alive, it seems 

incumbent to me to live with meaning and to pursue growth for its own sake.