Athletic Adventurer

It is leg day here .body.fit ! I definitely enjoy my straight bar deadlift and squats. However, practicing all kinds of different movements especially more dynamic and functional workouts can entertain the brain along with helping the body adapt to new stimulus. By adding in exercises like these from time to time I have found that my squat and deadlift are more stable and stronger than they used to be. Also, the point of working out is to keep moving and to feel good in your body throughout your entire life if an exercise gets boring feel free to switch it out for a different exercise and try something new!

Did you know that recovery is where you actually build your strength and Wellness! When we exercise and work hard, we're putting our body under stress. That stress or force tells our brain that we need more bone tissue more muscle tissue etcetera. When we drink water, eat food, relax, and sleep we are actually building those tissues. So, my favorite color jokes aside, be sure that drinking water, eating good food, and getting some sleep are part of your fitness routine.

Sometimes you just need to move play and jump in a way that makes your inner child happy. We're meant to move. We're meant to figure out how to navigate our surroundings in all kinds of different and interesting ways. If you'd like to work on your brain body connection, pick something difficult to navigate and figure out how to move through it. It's not only excellent exercise to traverse different terrains, but it's also great training for your brain body connection and for your error correction. This helps your cerebellum function properly along with your bilateral movement planning which helps your frontal lobe. All of this is just a fancy way of saying help your brain and body feel better, move better, and operate better as a team.

The eye is surrounded by muscles. These muscles move the eye in all of the different directions it needs to go. Eye movement is so much more important to how the rest of our body moves and feels than you may think. Being able to see clearly while you're moving, your target is moving, or you and your target is moving along with being able to quickly adjust vision to see close and far away objects clearly, are very important skills for all kinds of activities that we do throughout the day and in our athletics. If you find yourself getting fatigued easily doing tasks that seem like they should be simple, it is very possible that your eyes and your eye movement is causing discomfort when you are preforming these tasks. Improving eye movement can be a great way to improve your athletic skill, your ability to read and drive comfortably, and even reduce fatigue from just going through your regular day. If you're curious about your own eyes maybe record one of these pencil pushups shown here. See how your eyes move!

Freeze frame! Have you ever videoed your lifts? Or had a coach's feedback? Or even had someone help take some still pictures of your lift? How something feels and how something looks may not be the same. Outside feedback can be really useful in making small adjustments that create better leverage for your body's specific proportions. It could be a good idea to try a few different small form adjustments and take videos of them. This way you can both feel and see each variation which can help you decide what works best for you. You can even try doing different exercises or drills between your main lifts to see if that automatically changes your form. In other words, there are plenty of ways to improve and enjoy your exercise more. It just takes a little practice and a little work on the details.

The brain is so fascinating! If you are looking at not just improving your motor skills but improving your ability to think clearly, move freely, or exert more power; then, working on fine motor control can be a huge boost to these processes. The brain likes to feel safe. It likes to know that you know what you're doing. The more clean and accurate your movement is on both sides of your body, the more power strength and range of motion your brain will give you, and the more pain it'll take off your plate. The brain continuously asks the questions: is this safe, am I safe, will I survive. And if we know how to move well and accurately so that an incident is less likely to happen your first brain will take your breaks off and let you feel free and comfortable in your movement.

Quick little slideshow from one of my shadow hours. This is when I was working with Andrew, the founder of built well for birth, to finish my built well for birth certification. I learned so much working with Andrew and his clients. There's so much more in the fitness industry we could be doing to help moms. I'm happy to say I now have a lot more tools that I can use to be of assistance to pregnant and postpartum women. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or would like any advice from myself or Andrew as you work to maintain your fitness and move well through your pregnancy.

The brain is so fascinating! It takes in so much information from our senses all the time. It then takes all of that information, integrates it and then uses all of that to create motor outputs. What this means is any sensory input, like smell, can help to increase movement capacity. By doing this we are allowing our bodies to train more optimally which in turn helps us to practice better movement patterns. This can help us to increase range of motion, strength, speed, and endurance for whatever activity we are pursuing. So, when we train let's train for function for our whole life and the whole body of movement. Let's do this by working on the full range of our senses.

Oftentimes I work with individuals on reducing or getting rid of their pain. Not always, but often, there is an illness or injury that preceded their struggles. Oftentimes we're given these short recovery timelines, like "ohh you should be recovered from surgery in three weeks" or "you should be recovered from this head injury in a few months." Then, if somebody is still experiencing symptoms, they can wonder what is wrong with them. Just because you didn't heal completely on someone else's time line, does not mean you're broken. Your nervous system is very complex and trying very hard to keep you safe. You may not realize you have small issues that are a big problem for your nervous system. It's OK to take time and to make accommodations for yourself as you heal and improve. I was in a car accident in 2018 that kicked off a lot of concussion symptoms including light sensitivity. Although my migraines have been gone for several years, I am still very light sensitive seven years later. It's only in the last four months that I've seen a big improvement in my ability to go outside without sunglasses. only in the last year have I not needed to use sunglasses from time to time inside brightly lit places. Trying to untangle the mess that's made by an injury or illness can be frustrating as you pull on that thread and find yourself undoing some knots and making others tighter. But if you are persistent tomorrow can be better than today.

It's the little things like movements that we might do every day that can be the easiest for us to take for granted. Having the strength in one's body to pick themselves up off the floor, or to lift up semi heavy objects, or even to move up and down stairs semi easily is integral to a comfortable daily life and the ability to pursue athletic activities. Moving freely in our day-to-day lives gives us the ability to have the energy and confidence to try athletic activities. Feeling comfortable in our bodies on a daily basis can be dependent on how well we move. All movement is important from being able to grip our coffee mug in the morning to the most complex and challenging movement we do in our sport.