3 Ways to Stop Doing Too Much
Every block there's a new workout studio opening up. Chances are someone in your friend group is heavily involved in crossfit. Back Bay and South End in Boston are great and full of options to workout.
Most people think their problem is not working out enough. Although that may be true, working out harder is not not necessarily smarter. Every block has t
For instance -- your goal is to lose 20 lbs by the end of the summer, so you not only up the amount of workouts you do, but you make sure you work at 110% every-time. I guess that kind of makes sense, but let me explain to you how that's counterintuitive.
When you workout as hard as you can, or keep your heart-rate as high as possible for 45-60 minutes that is an incredible stress on the body. This high stress activates what we call our Sympathetic Nervous System (which I get deeper into on the blog)
A little bit of time spent in high stress situations is actually really good for the body, and helps us become stronger. BUT, if you are touching the top of your heart rate zone for EVERY workout, 4-6x per week that is far too much stress on the body.
That, piled on top of a high stress job, working from home, dealing with kids, returning to normal life etc. etc. means our body is in our high stress system at all times.
So why's that matter, stress is good right? Umm - no. When our body is constantly in fight or flight mode, that's all it can think about.
Forget about the body trying to lose weight, recover from workouts, or do anything along those lines. All it knows is that adrenaline needs to be constantly pumped and stay in it's fight or flight system.
Moral of the story, we need to work smarter not harder. Those 5 Pelton PR classes you take every week might just be doing the opposite than what you think.
Instead, if your goal is to lose weight, use exercise as a stress management tool, or to put muscle on we need to prioritize down regulation techniques.
Down-regulation will help the body get out of fight our flight, and get you to your goals faster and more efficiently.
As of now, your training may looks like this-
M - Noontime High Intensity Workout Class 45 minutes
T - Morning High Intensity Heavy Strength Training Gym Day 45 minutes
W - Noontime High Intensity Spine Class 45 minutes
R - Morning High Intensity at home Workout
F - Morning High Intensity Gym Workout
S - Morning High Intensity Bootcamp Class
This is a great workout routine. But, when we look at a goal of reducing stress, weight loss or anything along those lines -- there isn't any stress reducing activity in there. I say this because for all 5 of your workouts, you are at the top of your heart rate zone. Not a bad thing! But, that means you're in your sympathetic nervous system throughout and never tapping into your parasympathetic nervous system.
Yes, exercise can be a great stress reducer, but when you look at your days on a 24 hour scale, you are constantly in your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) with exercise, work, and all day stressors. Constantly being in the SNS is proven to be a key factor in why people don't lose weight.
On the opposite end, you have your Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS). The PNS is literally summarized as the rest and digest nervous system. The PNS is when you go out of your fight or flight nervous system (SNS) and back to a normal, more relaxed state where your body has reduced anxiety and stress. Increased time in your Parasympathetic Nervous System is proven to help in weight loss, whereas the opposite can be said about the SNS. A good scholarly article abstract can be found about that here.
We're passionate about this stuff so lots of great content above, but the overall message here is that much like working out your muscles, we need to have an active plan to strengthen your ability to get into the PNS. We can work to reduce your stress levels AND help with your body composition by increasing the amount of time and how efficiently you can get into your PNS. Seems counterintuitive, but the more time you spend relaxed, mindful, turned 'off' the better you'll feel and your body will respond.
This is what we do the best. Here are 3 ways we help you do more with less
#1 Plan out your individual exercise or treatment week with added down-regulation
Instead of the the above workout routine, we can make a few changes to it and help the body tap into the PNS a bit more. Most of the time, this means one of your 'workouts' is a mindfulness breathing day, postural down-regulation exercises, or a combination of the two. Trust me, still a workout though! Depending on the person, we may not even need to make any changes to the workout routine iteself, BUT we can add in mid day down-regulation tactics like breath work, body practice, or a mindfulness activity. Our trainers sit down with each of thier clients and develop this workout plan EVERY week.
#2 Add breath work into your workouts
Breath work is the number 1 thing you can do to help get yourself from the fight of flight nervous system and into the PNS. At Ripple, we teach the best breath work techniques to help people down-regulate and improve posture
#3 Add in a daily practice
And whatever that practice is, to start it doesn't matter. For our treatment clients, we generally start them on a body practice. This helps them slow down, and get a better feel for their body. Then, we start to implement a daily mindfulness activity, whether that be meditation, journaling how they feel, or anything along the lines of helping people deal with stress
Want to learn more about how we can help you!?
Give us a shout, and we'll get back to you with a plan!
Cheers,
Jeremy
