April Challenge: Is Your Workout Affecting Your Mind, Body and Spirit?

“No Pain, No Gain”!  This mantra is repeated by individuals of all ages and fitness levels when talking about their workouts. Exercise enthusiasts believe that if they don’t feel pain, they must not be working hard enough.  Similarly, when you finish your work out and feel like a wet noodle all you can think about is “I had a great work out, but I am going to be sore for the next few days”, because you have trained every muscle to exhaustion. Folks who hold to these traditional thoughts on work out results have their heart in the right place, but the exercises they do are not always the right blend of movements. Instead of working out until sore, your workout should be one that benefits the mind, body and spirit.

There is definitely a feeling of accomplishment when you successfully finish an intense work out, and that can give you a mental lift. But does the workout also affect your body and spirit in a positive way?  Generally, an intense workout isolates a muscle to failure, bringing extreme fatigue which can last for days.  Additionally, the movements themselves are unlike any we perform in our normal day to day life. Biomechanically and neurologically, this is not giving the body what it is ideally looking for.  Spiritually, it is a mix; some people thrive on the intensity and get a lift from the accomplishments while others feel beaten down by the stress and may have to miss work outs to recover from the previous one.

The new mantra needs to be “More is not always better, sometimes more is just more”; or “Bigger is not always better, just bigger”; and my favorite “With Pain there is NO Gain”.

Is there a workout beyond the traditional training that stimulates the mind, body and spirit?   YES!  Functional Training.  When you feel pain it is your body’s way of telling you something is wrong.  Functional Training is based on the individual’s functional needs. Instead of going for pain, we can use the pain to direct us to a successful path where we can then improve function.

Functional training focuses not only on melding the mind, body and spirit, but it also works on stimulating the neurological, muscular and skeletal system.  This will simultaneously enhance strength, power, endurance, speed, flexibility, coordination, cardiovascular health, and balance.

So start exercising your body in the way it was designed to move by performing motions that enhance your biomechanics.  This way the body walks away feeling stronger and functioning better, the mind is in tune with the body and the spirit is refreshed.