Hello Warriors! I’m coming at you with the fifth installment of my Intuitive Exercise Series. (You can read the intro here and part one here.) The fifth principle of Intuitive Eating is to Feel Your Fullness. And I believe that the movement and exercise analogous is to Tune Into Your Body.
As I blathered on about in my previous post, Exercise Culture teaches us to revere certain exercises or workouts as “good” or “bad.” This typically goes hand in hand with Diet Culture to elevate workouts that burn a lot of calories. And of course, many of us are engaged in these workouts for weight loss or control purposes. (You can see how this is a real chicken or egg situation.)
But a lot of those workouts can be very intense in some way or another. Strength workouts involve lifting very heavy weight or completing a crazy number of sets and reps. Cardio workouts in this vein are usually completed at a high percentage of max heart rate. And that doesn’t speak of the mechanical stresses that our bodies undergo during repeated running, jumping, or lifting tasks.
The pervasive belief in Exercise Culture is that more is more. If you can lift heavier and run further than the last workout, then you are awesome. Double bonus if you can do that multiple times per week. And triple bonus if you can do that without taking a day off. No pain no gain, right?
But you have to ask yourself if you are really tuning into your body. If you are really feeling your body during workouts. If you are noticing pain, soreness, or feelings of fatigue post workout. Are you pushing through (a lot) of intense workouts just because Exercise Culture says its “better?”
Here’s a hot take for you: exercise (of any type) is more efficient and worthwhile if you are concentrating on how your body is moving and feeling during the movement. With everything from distance running to strength training, individuals who take the time to tune into how their body is feeling get better results in terms of the hard numbers. Yes, I am telling you to feel the burn, but in a slightly more mindful way.
When you are consciously aware of the muscle contractions you need to produce, your brain is able to recruit more muscle fibers which results in a stronger, more forceful contraction. When you are concentrating on the exact motion you need to create, the proprioceptive centers in your body engage more fully, which results in your brain receiving clearer feedback and planning better corrections. With awareness, your brain is able to fully engage your body in movement in ways that will pay huge dividends for your Physical Health.
Hard numbers aside, there are other Physical Health advantages to really tuning into your body during exercise. You can hear your body tell you that a certain pressing motion causes shoulder pain and look for ways to properly modify it. You learn more productive movement patterns, which allow your body to work more efficiently. You also learn to hear what your body is telling you post exercise about its need for rest and recovery. All of these signals are important for long term injury prevention.
And the feedback loops work in favor of Mental Health, too. With your brain fully engaged in movement and exercise, you have no space to worry about anything else. You have the opportunity to fully disengage from the stressors of life. Mental breaks are incredibly important to increase creativity and problem solving abilities. By actively tuning in to your body during movement, you are also training your mental capacity for focus.
But these advantages are harder to come by if you aren’t listening to what your body has to say. There is nothing wrong with intense or difficult workouts. But they come with a need for more focus and rest. If you aren’t listening, you won’t be able to give your body what it needs. You aren’t Honoring Your Body.
The mind-body connection and its benefits have been written about extensively, especially in relation to movement practices like yoga. Yoga, and similar workouts, lend themselves to really tuning in due to their lower intensity and (sometimes) slower pace. But as a yoga teacher, I can say with fair confidence that we in the West aren’t taking advantage.
We come to the mat distracted. We come to the mat with numbers based goals. We come to the mat competitive. Then the practice becomes more about forcing the body into the most advanced position possible. Or comparing low lunges. Oh, we leave during final relaxation, too. And instead of really connecting with our muscles and breath and feeling whole, strong, calm, and capable; we resign ourselves to keep at it because our hamstring flexibility still needs work.
By failing to tune into our bodies during exercise and movement, we are failing ourselves. Our sense of self and our relationship with our bodies is, or at least should be, about how we feel about, during, and after movement. Those feelings of strength and capability are more important. More important for developing the grit to keep at it workout after workout. And more important than a pants size for developing a sense of esteem with our bodies.
How do you tune into your body during workouts? Tell us in the comments, and until next time, be well friends!
