Engage Your Brain for Stronger Muscles.

Mindfulness has become a hot topic in recent years, and I think most of us are aware of its importance to our overall health.

But what about applying it DURING your workout?

Sometimes we joke about “going to your happy place” in your mind while you are working out, but there is some truth here, and some benefit.

Rather than it being a dissociative process, “zoning out” can mean a person is focused in their own present moment, they’re really paying attention to how the machine is feeling and the muscles that are being worked, and that’s a good thing.

We are Strength Training when we are working out on our machines. That’s the process, of developing lean muscle and improving our ability to do everyday tasks or prepare for less common tasks that require a larger effort.

The most significant benefit of being mindful during a workout is an improved muscle contraction. The greater the muscle contraction, the faster we will be able to move the machines and so the greater improvement in our Strength – but how do we improve our muscle contraction?

Our bodies will only do what we tell it to do – surprise! You are in control of the quality of your workout, and the results you get from it. What we tend to do is think about the bigger picture, “I need to work hard, I need to move the machine faster, I need to get green”.

What we should do is think in a more focused way. When you are on the machine, instead of thinking about moving the machine, think about moving the body part. Sounds daft? Bear with me on this one.

Take the leg curl for example. This machine is quite simple to operate, you sit in it, slide your ankles between the rollers and lift, and then pull back. That often means we are focused on lifting our feet.

Coach Xan focusing on her upper legs (her thigh muscles) doing the lift - everything else is relaxed as it’s not involved (except her core, that’s always working!)

Let’s get into the science here (I’ll keep it simple; I want to come back to mindfulness!). To lift your LOWER leg, the muscles in your UPPER leg must do the work. Bones are attached to each other by ligaments at our joints, and muscles cross over each joint from one bone to the next. When the muscle contracts, it pulls on the bone it is attached to causing it to move.

When you want to raise or lower your feet, it’s your quadriceps and hamstrings in your thighs that are doing the work, but if you thinking about lifting your feet against a resistance, it can result in leveraging against the knee joint and puts all the pressure into the lower leg.

Instead, thinking about using your quads and hamstrings to do the lift, means the brain will send the correct muscle stimulating messages to those muscles, meaning they take the strain (and your feet will relax) and that’s what they’re designed to do!

The more you think about using those muscles to move the machine (focus), the more muscle fibres will be recruited into this mission, the faster you move the machine, and then you get Stronger, developing muscles that will function well, help you do things, protect your joints (in this case your knees!) and look good too!

So, you see, while your Coach is there to know the fancy names for each muscle, and which machine works which, make sure YOU know where on YOUR body you should be feeling each machine, and where you shouldn’t!

Bring mindfulness to your workout by intensely focusing on using the part of the body responsible for each movement, picture the muscle fibres doing their job and really feel the benefits of each machine.

You can also use mindfulness to execute a more effective warm up (preparing the body to exercise) and cool down (preparing the body to stop exercising before stretching) by being intensely aware of what you are feeling and experiencing throughout.

Mindfulness will not only help you get a better more effective warm up, muscle contraction and cool down, it will also help you feel more fulfilled from your workout, increasing feelings of satisfaction, reducing boredom, making your workouts more enjoyable and so increasing your motivation!

Sounds marvellous to me!