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Body Awareness

Body Awareness involves Body Image as well as Proprioception.

Body Image,
is the picture of yourself you see in your head. The majority of people need to work on creating a healthier body image. It is unfortunate but we live in a society where ‘Image’ is important. I agree it is, but a “Healthy” body image is what we are after.

Proprioception,
is your physical body’s ability to feel. People often need work with this too, much of balance comes from your ability to ‘feel’ your centre of mass over your feet.

Improving these,
will enhance your life. Realize ‘You’ are your body & mind. Health in one carries benefits over to the other. Strengthening your proprioception and body image will lead only to a better You.

HOW?

  • Body Scan
    – scan your body head-toe, joint by joint – – just ‘feeling’ what state your body is in right now.
  • Visualization
    – imagine standing in front of a mirror, or imagine a specific body part. In your mind, You are in control – shape your image to reflect your goals.
  • Ideally Both Together!
    – imagining performing the movement while actually performing the movement …. very Meta!

This is an important topic, but very rarely talked about.

The truth is, with as little as 5 minutes of practice a day, you can make huge strides in improving your movement and your quality of life.

All it takes is actually doing that ‘practice’!!! = You must COMMIT to it.

There are just over 90 days left in this year, what are you going to do with them?

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Keeping The Blade Sharp

“Keeping The Blade Sharp” is a practice I embrace as a StrongFirst Instructor.

  • It means practicing what I preach and not letting my own training go to the wayside as I get busier with new clients.
  • It allows me to stay in touch with the experience that I am putting my athletes through.
  • It holds me to a higher standard of strength and conditioning.
  • It provides me with the opportunity to learn from the struggle – for strength is made only in the forge.

This commitment keeps me healthy.

YOU TOO should make this commitment!

I am not saying drop everything and become a StrongFirst Instructor (not against the idea either) – but what you should do is make a commitment to a movement routine.

In previous posts I have discussed what type of exercises you should be focusing on and talked all about functional movement, so I won’t go into it now.

All this is to say that you need to be continuously practicing these functional exercises, and using a corrective movement strategy if you have any weaknesses / asymmetries.

Why? Simply because:

If you don’t use it,

You lose it.