Creating a Balanced Approach to Your Health and Fitness
Do you view your fitness routine as something you do to “earn” your calories or that every workout needs to leave you laid out on the ground? We all need to move, work up a sweat, and stress the system to adapt and grow. However, we can’t kill ourselves in the gym every day. A lot of gyms today are focused on high-intensity training and making you sweat so you can “earn” the calories you consume. This is a recipe for burn-out and leads to injury and more stress than most people are ready for.
For example, look at pro-athletes’ lifestyles. They work extremely hard but recover just as hard. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, eating poor quality food, and over-stressed in your daily life, going too hard in the gym will only break you. There is a time to compete and there is a time to focus on the process and work on getting better than you were the day before.
CrossFit is a great way to train. It gets people moving and builds strong communities but there can be too much emphasis on competition in every workout. Competition is great but if you are sacrificing form and cheating reps to put up a higher score, you are only doing yourself a disservice. Are you just trying to win the workout or are you focusing on proper movement, proper breathing, and the long-term? The short-term mentality gets us in trouble in most areas of life.
As we age, the ability to move well and the ability to do whatever we want will go a long way. Wouldn’t it be nice to run a race, play a sport, or learn a new skill at a moment’s notice? The goal of fitness is not to win every workout. The focus should be on ensuring you are healthy enough to continue to play the game of life and enjoy whatever activity you like. This starts with the ability to move your joints through a full range of motion, strength training to build muscle, and endurance training to move at a consistent effort. As Laird Hamilton says, “Don’t be a liability.”
We still want to train hard and push ourselves. Training hard helps prepare us for the ups and downs in life. It will make us more resilient and give us the ability to bounce back during tough times. However, as we work-out, we must also work-in. We can’t be “on” all the time and need to learn to take time for stillness, this is what I mean by working-in. We need to give our bodies and minds a break to be able to take on life’s challenges. This starts with a breath practice and mindfulness. Yoga, ice baths, saunas, and getting out in nature are also key practices. These practices put you more in touch with your body and nervous system and help you become less reactionary. By incorporating these practices, you will find that you can choose your response to situations and work through any negative thoughts you might have about others and yourself before reacting. They also allow you to recover and give you the ability to train hard and handle the stresses of everyday life.
To Sum it Up
Fitness and wellness are not about punishing yourself in the gym or through some fad diet. It is a lifestyle. Our bodies are amazing machines and we need the right nutrition to function at our highest capacity. This starts with eating real whole foods and staying away from all the processed crap of western diets. Get out and move. Every workout doesn’t need to leave you on the floor in a puddle of your sweat. It could be as simple as going for a walk focusing on nasal breathing. This is a simple goal I recommend to many of my new clients. However, don’t be scared to turn it on when you need to and push yourself out of your comfort zone, which could be running your first 5k or maybe 100 miles. We are all different and can’t worry about what others are doing. Spend time on your recovery with a breath practice, ice baths, or meditation. No matter where you are starting in your fitness lifestyle, we are seeking progress, not perfection. Keep moving forward and create an inner balance between intensity and stillness. This will allow you to be ready to take charge when life calls you.
Call To Action
At Symmetry, we help busy people take back control of their lives so they have more time, more energy, and less stress! If you’re ready to take back control of your life, set-up a FREE 15-minute call today! We develop individualized lifestyle plans after assessing your breathing patterns, stress levels, fitness, and goals. We are currently offering virtual breath classes to help you begin to experience the benefits of the breath. You can access our schedule here. Our programs will improve your mindset, your performance, and give you tools to better handle the stresses of everyday life. Check out our website www.symmetry.live to find out more information.
