Part 1: My Cardinal Rule (after years of fitness training- and injuries)

Happy Fall ya’ll! It’s been awhile since I’ve shared a blog, but I’ve been coming back to this again and again and wanted to open up a dialogue.

When it comes to fitness, I’ve had a decades long relationship with exercise. It started in middle school with field hockey and softball, and continued into college as I became interested in outdoor sports and started learning to work out in the college gym.

I’ve also always been a very sensitive person, both emotionally and physically. Yoga as a movement practice has served me well in that regard, but SURPRISE it is not my main form of exercise. I have [mostly!] always enjoyed more rigorous forms of exercise, such as running when I was younger and in sports and focused weight training starting in my 30s.

Unfortunately, not only am I physically sensitive but I have also had my fair share of physical injuries. I had a back injury in my late teens and was recommended back surgery at 21 by my orthopedist. I refused back surgery, and have been on a personal fitness journey for several decades figuring out how to support disc degeneration in my back without undergoing surgery.

And because I am a sensitive person, including emotionally, I have carried a lot of tension in my body for those last two decades. Combine that with genetically lose joints (which means hypermobility in yoga poses and chronic instability in day to day life) and I have had a lot to work with and work on.

I have worked with many modalities, including yoga, Network Spinal Chiropractic, physical therapy, Melt method (more on that here), massage, and now a very specific system called Genius Frequency, in order to sort out what I describe above,

Now, as a 40 year old, I am moving better with less discomfort than I can ever remember. From all of the modalities above, I have developed a cardinal rule-RELAXATION TRAINING IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS EXERCISE.

In today’s world, it is no secret that our nervous systems need support. More and more people are becoming aware of this. In our modern world, we are constantly bombarded with information and stimulus, which creates maladaptive stress responses. If we start out with a very sensitive or comprised nervous system, as I have, this chronic stress can compound. In other words, the resilience of our bodies and minds is tested by our modern way of life.

If we bring a chronically stressed body into moderate, and especially, into strenuous exercise, we are setting ourselves up for trouble. Chronic stress creates fascial patterns in the body that lead to muscular imbalances and maladaptive movement patterns, and we end up training our way straight into worse muscle imbalances or even injury. That is what happened to me. At 39 years old, after 3 years of consistent weight training, I started developing significant knee pain. Thank God for a very gifted physical therapist, dry needling and regular Genius Frequency sessions, as my knee pain and knee mobility is improving greatly. But this led me to my cardinal rule-RELAXATION TRAINING IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS EXERCISE.

One caveat or addition to my cardinal rule, something that has very recently dawned on me as I have started learning from a new teacher: relaxation training BEFORE exercise. I will say, this is really just dawning on me in the last couple of weeks. I have not fully incorporated it into my routines, but one easy way that I have gradually prioritized this is by working out at a gym called HOTWORX. Not every community has a HOTWORX, but I am lucky to have one in my community and it is changing the way I exercise. HOTWORX has what they call a 3-D training method-heat, infrared sauna, and isometric exercise. This may seem wild, but what it boils down to is 15 to 45 minute isometric or cardio workouts IN the infrared sauna.

HOTWORX Member Media Campaign. My white board says:

“Outside HOTWORX, I am a yoga instructor”

I started attending HOTWORX a few months ago, but it was only after watching a new trainer friend’s video that I realized I had been using the infrared sauna as relaxation training before I started exercising. I have noticed myself gravitating more and more to HOTWORX, though I worked out at the YMCA for the last 4 years. I had to ask myself why, and it’s not because I am getting a better workout. In fact, some nights I use the sauna workout, the gym equipment, and stop by the YMCA for bigger lifts with their equipment. My Why seems to be because the sauna relaxes me before I work out, helps me release the tension of the day, and this has a really positive effect on my mobility and energy levels.

In Part II of this blog, I will share other ideas for RELAXATION TRAINING BEFORE EXERCISE, including something special I learned from my new trainer friend. Enjoy your fall!