“My life, while out of the ordinary, does
not feel like a hero's journey to me,” wrote bodybuilder,
businessman, and fitness author Shawn Phillips in an email to me
the day before our interview. But as someone who has seen
pictures of Phillips with his shirt off, I reserve the right to
disagree. If heroism can be measured by the size of a man's
“six-pack,” Mr. Phillips would give Hercules a run
for his money. Yet for this truly original yogi of the weight
room, a jaw-dropping Olympian physique is but the material
reward of a lifetime devoted to the mastery of an inner
fire.
“Focus is the spark that ignites the flame of
intensity,” he writes in one of his more than seventy-five
articles, and he's not just talking about muscle development.
Sure, weightlifting is his profession, and he made a name for
himself by helping to bring the sport into the mainstream with
his brother Bill, founder of both performance-nutrition company
EAS and Muscle Media magazine, and author of the
New York Times bestseller Body for Life. But
in the gym, Shawn Phillips is more sensei than jock. His
principles of Focused Intensity Training, which he has developed
over the course of the last twenty years, are designed “to
deepen the impact of people's training—physically,
mentally, and spiritually,” he says. “Simply stated,
I'm seeking to integrate the principles and practices of the
martial arts into an activity that millions of people already do
each day.”
Coming from a man who sees strength training as a legitimate
path to spiritual deliverance—and whose generosity and
lighthearted humor are every bit as noteworthy as his muscle
definition—it's no surprise that the title of his book,
ABSolution (2002), is a conscious pun. Founder of
www.nutros.com (a resource for expert knowledge on performance
supplements), Phillips is currently finishing up a new book
officially introducing Focused Intensity Training to the world,
and he's also developing a complete ITP (Integral Transformative
Practice) program in conjunction with Ken Wilber's Integral
Institute.
As we began our conversation, this reluctant hero did admit
to at least some measure of greatness: “I do accept that
in a field that is without the structure and heritage of martial
arts, I am considered a 'master' by many.” But nothing
could have prepared me for just how innovative, just how
limit-smashing, his journey across the inner frontiers of
weightlifting would turn out to be . . .
Excerpted from the interview:
WIE: How did you first get involved with the
practice of strength training?
PHILLIPS: I took up weightlifting in college, and it
soon became my passion. I was getting into intense
daily workouts— all-encompassing energy events—and
I'd spend hour after hour studying the body. I wanted to be a
professional bodybuilder, and although I knew I was never going
to be Arnold Schwarzenegger—I didn't have the genetic
capacity to be huge—I also knew that I could have a great
physique. So I thought, “What about this Frank Zane
guy?”* At 180 pounds, he looked amazing, like a living
Greek sculpture. And at the center of his perfectly symmetric
physique were abs that just pulled your eyes in like a magnet.
He had a trademark pose called “the vacuum” where he
could literally draw his entire midsection up into his rib cage.
His abs seemed to disappear right before your eyes. It was
actually a bit on the freaky side, but I was inspired by the
power of the connection between mind and body that gave him this
amazing ability to control his abdominal muscles. So I decided
that's what I would do. I spent two hours a night in the gym for
six months learning to independently control every muscle fiber
in my abs. I could literally pull up one ab at a time and drop
it down again like a shutter.
WIE: That's amazing!
PHILLIPS: Yeah. These days I like to say, “That
and two-fifty will get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks.”
But it did teach me the power of single-minded focus, and the
clarity that comes from that. For those times, I was free of the
stresses and concerns of a young life. You know, an intense
workout could cure my ego ills for two or three days. It was
just like armor plating. When I would leave the gym, it was with
all the confidence and ignorance of a warrior. I mean, I felt
like there was nothing I could not achieve. And that was a
lasting sensation—a tangible, incredible, deep state of
ecstasy. When you train like that, it makes you feel so strong
and powerful that you can walk into a room and your little tiny
fear-based self actually recedes far enough into the background
that there's space for you to be present. I didn't have
to be aggressive physically and I didn't have to be outspoken. I
didn't have to be anything, because my presence alone made its
own statement.
WIE: How did you develop such an unusual intensity
of focus?
PHILLIPS: It was mostly an intuitive thing. When I was
nineteen, I had to drive twenty minutes to the gym, and on the
way there I'd go through a preparation ritual—snacking on
a baked potato, meditating on the challenge, setting my
intention for the day, and visualizing the result. I also
developed breathing rituals—I was very specific
in how I would breathe and engage the weights. At the time, it
wasn't unusual for me to squat 750 pounds, and when you're
pulling that kind of weight, it absolutely demands a ritual
level of focus. You have to pull every bit of energy from
everywhere you can in the world. And you know that if you allow
anything to come into your head other than what you are
doing, there is no way you will be able to do it. You will be
crushed.
I was very fortunate to engage and ingrain this depth of
intensity and focus early on, because now I can access that
space at will. When I give lectures today, I tell people it's
not about the amount of weight you lift—I can
take a five-pound weight and just fire every single cell and
fiber in my bicep. It's about developing and mastering a
mind-body neurological connection. From the beginning, what I
was connecting with in the gym was a universal energy source. I
would just feel it flowing. Even when I was twenty years old, I
called the gym my church. When I was there, it wasn't about
being social; it was about doing my practice. I was in
it. I was in the zone. I remember being so tuned in to
people's energy levels, I could read the emotional state of
every person who walked by me. If I traveled to New York City,
I'd have to go in and out of the stores because I couldn't
handle being on the street too long.
WIE: Do you mean that through your physical
practice you had developed some sort of psychic capacity?
PHILLIPS: Yes. I could sense body energies—good,
bad, and otherwise—and I would get overwhelmed by them. I
think it was a natural result of that deep connection and
clearing of the mind. From the time I was eighteen until I was
probably twenty-three or twenty-four, I was in the gym every day
practicing for two hours or more. It wasn't unusual for me to go three hours, because I didn't have as much to do in those days, and I just got into a state of such ecstasy and flow that it was like, “Who the heck wants to leave that?” Kids these days go to raves and dances. For me, this was the rave culture sans the drugs—an environment for creating some incredibly heightened states.