‘Love is watching the petals fall’ – Bloom, Of Mice & Men

The sentient snowman is not only a snowman when he’s just been completed, small hands patting him into his final form. He’s also the snowman as he melts and shrinks. The water that soaks into the soil and the vapour rising off his body into the atmosphere is still the snowman.

We never stay the same. Each minute, our cells refresh themselves, and chemicals travel in and out of our body. Our physical borders are fuzzy things.

So far, so Eric Cantona… but this recognition that each moment is completely unique can supercharge our strength training practice.

Melting in the squat rack

Strength training is about the long game and the present moment. We sell ourselves short if we only think of the outcome, or what comes after.

Where are you while you perform each movement?

Are you in your head? Can you sink lower, down into the centre of your body?

Can you feel your pulse? Your breathing? When does the air that was inside a moment ago stop being part of you?

Can you take your awareness to the target muscles and feel them lengthen and shorten? Can you feel small muscles firing to stabilise you?

Can you travel even lower and feel the connection your feet make with the earth?

Awareness is a skill, as much as picking up the weight is. Training it can have a massive carryover to our experience of life as a whole.