Exercise, Sport, and Fitness
Fitness is the body’s ability to do work – to lift heavy objects or sustain an activity for an extended time without fatigue.
We could all use a little more fitness in our lives.
When it comes to fitness, we never really get enough.
Life is busy, so it’s hard to get to the gym. Your favorite yoga class is at the wrong time.
The weather isn’t quite right for running outside. Your favorite hiking spot is a little too far. Your friends can’t find time for a pick-up basketball game.
It’s just so easy to prioritize something else.
Even when we exercise regularly, our fitness goals seem so distant.
When we do fit exercise or sports into our schedule, we can see the positive impact. But it often feels like we still never reach the level of fitness or skill level that we are striving for.
We could be faster or stronger, slimmer or more toned. We could get better, faster. We don’t quite meet our fitness goals, though, because often we are not be approaching exercise or sports the right way.
Exercise is not the only way to improve fitness.
Fitness can be improved by learning to do more work using less energy – by changing HOW we stand and move during exercise and all our daily activities.
When exercise is hard to fit into your schedule or is limited by pain or injury, we can still come to feel and look more fit.
We use our muscles all day long – to walk around, carry things, and live our lives. But, most of us approach these daily tasks with an imbalance of muscle tension – straining in certain places while leaving other muscles too slack.
We have particularly low activity in the muscles used to maintain good posture. We can improve the tone of these muscles by using them in a balanced way during our regular activities.
Alexander lessons can show you how to develop length and dynamic tone in the postural muscles in your back and core so you can activate these muscles all day long and look your slimmest. With good posture, muscles in the legs and arms can work with tone instead of tension.
Additionally, moving around with the perfect balance of ease and support, your rib cage and lungs can move freely to best meet the cardiovascular demands of your activities.
We can make more progress by exercising smarter instead of harder.
The bad habits we have in our posture and movement are the same whether we are doing dishes or running a marathon.
When we exercise or play sports, these bad habits can make it so that we activate muscles where we hold tension instead of the ones most needed for the exercise.
We tighten our neck to do a bicep curl and tense our low back to transition to a new yoga pose. Our breathing turns to gasping through our mouth as soon as we start to run. We lift our shoulder way to high to throw the ball and land too heavy on our feet after jumping.
The Alexander Technique can teach you to STOP the habits that are interfering with your goals for fitness and sport skill development. Regular exercisers can find huge improvements by changing HOW – not just HOW MUCH – they are exercising.
Learn to exercise effectively and efficiently…
With the Alexander Technique, you can make incredible fitness gains and feel better afterwards.
Improve your strength, flexibility, speed, endurance, and overall health faster…
When you exercise with a conscious approach that involves better posture and leaves bad habits behind, you will strengthen or stretch the muscles that need it the most and find gains during cardiovascular exercise come more easily. Using your mind and body well, you can get the most out of your exercise routine.
Develop better skills…
You can improve your performance in simple gym exercises, movement classes, and in sports maneuvers by being better at learning and developing the skills necessary for that activity. When we use our bodies in a more conscious way, we can learn more from each practice and develop our skill to a higher level.
Improve your breathing…
Many of us hold our ribs rigidly and breathe by lifting the shoulders or over-expanding the abdominal region, making it difficult for the lungs to maintain normal breathing. We can improve our breathing mechanics by getting rid of the bad habits we have when we breathe. Better breathing will improve your aerobic capacity…feel better too.
Develop an approach to exercise that decreases pain and injury risk…
When we bring bad postural habits and unhealthy mindsets into exercise, we put ourselves at risk for exacerbating existing pain and for causing new injuries. With the Alexander technique, you can learn to move in a way that won’t harm your body and develop an approach to exercising that sets you personal well-being as your highest priority.
What are you waiting for?
Schedule a free consultation to find out how I can help you establish a new, better level of fitness in all your activities.