Mind-Muscle Connection: How Mindfulness Can Improve the Quality of Your Workouts

Mindfulness and muscle are not words that you often assimilate together. Mindfulness brings up images of quiet concentration, sitting alone on a rock overlooking the ocean as you focus on breathing. Muscle conjures up images of male bodybuilders lifting massive amounts of weight in a hot gym, sweating profusely, and flexing in the mirror. How can these two images be so far apart, yet also interlocked?

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I see it regularly and am asked by members from every gym, health club, and fitness center I’ve ever worked at, “what does that (pointing to someone using equipment) do?” There’s a 50/50 shot I have no idea because someone has bastardized something they saw on social media or by another member and is attempting to replicate the exercise. They aren’t mindful at all about what they are doing and why they are doing it. Which also means, they do not know what muscles are actually being used, versus what muscles are supposed to be used.

Mindfulness is about being present in the moment of whatever you are doing, or not doing. If you’re working on a project with a completion deadline of tomorrow morning, you are focused on the tasks to do so. This is practicing mindfulness without realizing it, you’re not thinking about making your grocery list for the weekend. Finishing that project takes all your concentration and physical effort to complete it on time. If your mind wanders to the grocery list, mistakes happen that could cost the sale or possibly your job.

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Working out is the same as working on that important project. To lift with proper form and engage the correct muscles, you must focus on your motions, synchronize your breathing, lift with the full range of motion required for the exercise. Any distraction can lead to a major injury at worst, a small injury, or using the wrong muscles and creating more imbalances in your posture. Mindfulness is critical to connect with your muscles to ensure no distractions happen and the resulting negative consequences I just mentioned.

A vital aspect of strength training is to focus on and activate the proper muscles being used in any lift. The body wants to efficient and use the easiest way to lift a load it can. This means using muscles that are not meant to take on the stress of a weight, but do because of postural imbalances, ignorance, and laziness. Can you relate as you think about your own workouts and the movements you do? I can because I’ve been guilty also of all three at one time or another.

My client Bonnie

When I cue my clients during their sessions, I ask them what they are feeling to get them to be mindful of their movements. With my experience, I can see what they’re doing incorrectly and why, but want them to learn so they don’t continue the mistakes. After explaining what muscles to focus on, they do, and it changes the entire exercise for them. Now they know to be mindful and focus on activating the correct muscles at the right time. This is a game changer for my clients, and they love feeling the muscles contract, and I love seeing them progress from this small change.

Muscle mindfulness is the concept that allows you to focus on activating and contracting the right muscles in each exercise. You stay present in the moment, avoid major injuries, and get better results from your workouts. You also build neuroplasticity, creating new neural pathways that tell your nervous system how to move, stabilize, and lift. For older adults, this relearning of movement patterns helps them to delay signs of aging and keep their cognitive function.

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For your next workout, learn what muscles are to be used for the exercises you are doing. Focus on activating and contracting them during the set on each rep. Synchronize your breathing to breathe out during the action of the lift. After completing a set this way, reflect for a minute on how it felt during the movements, and how it feels now done correctly. I promise your workouts will improve tremendously. I know, because I do what I’m instructing you! What’s good for the goose is good for the Gander!

For more help on muscle activation, use my online program Strengthen at Your Desk. It’s simple, easy to follow, and uses muscle mindfulness to help you overcome chronic pain and low energy from sitting at your desk all day. Use it for 10 minutes per day and watch your energy and productivity soar! Get started today!

Work-Life Balance? False. Learn to be More Present for Best Results in Both

Work a little, play hard. Work hard, play a little. Don’t work, play all the time. Only work, no play at all. Work hard, play hard. Which of the preceding statements best describes you? There really is no such thing as work-life balance as all the gurus and “experts” tell you. If you’re a business owner, entrepreneur, or high-level executive, you work your ass off EVERYDAY! Playtime is a luxury that money still cannot sometimes afford. How do you unplug and give yourself time to play as hard as you work?

Be present with family activities

The great Jim Rohn talked about learning to be present. When you’re at the beach, be at the beach and put the laptop away. When you’re at the office, don’t surf the web comparing vacation spots and organizing your vacation photos on Facebook. With constant connectivity, it’s to easy for us to distract ourselves from the people and situations at hand for work and play. Checking emails and projection updates laying on the beach is not vacation. Researching resorts, flights, and what the kids can do in the mountains when your annual report is due tomorrow leads to your income taking a possible hit. You have to learn to be present in whatever you’re doing and for however long the tasks and situation take.

I write about his now as I struggle about bringing my laptop with me on vacation to Ireland and England with my parents and son. Yes, being away for two weeks without doing anything to maintain work momentum is tough! How often do I spend time in Europe with my parents and son, never up to this point! My business is not where I want it to be for a variety of reasons, and my client base is currently low. Not a great time for me to take more time away. Yes, I’m struggling with being present for an amazing opportunity to share experiences with my 20-year-old son that can never be replicated for this point in our lives.

Lunch at The Windsor Court Grill Room with my son

I am not a philosopher or highly recognized motivational speaker; I am an author and Corrective Exercise Specialist who knows that injuries can happen from exercising if you’re not present to good form. When I’m not present in my workouts, the workout sucks and I get angry because I know I can do better. The gym is my office and working out is part of my job. Would you pay and trust a fat trainer? The days I’m present in my workouts and with my clients, we have the best time and get better results.

One of my goals in 2022 is to attend a major sporting event, and I accomplished it by attending the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. Yes, I did some studying the day before when my friend was also at work, and I was alone in his house. The day of the event and when he came home, I put the work away and focused on having fun. The day of the Preakness, many adult beverages were had and not one work item was thought about and accomplished. I played hard and had no regrets!

Winning bet at the Preakness 147

As humans, we’re constantly looking to the next event or thing regardless of what it is. Not necessarily the grass being greener but looking ahead and missing what’s right in front of us. As my book, The Athlete in the Game of Life talks about, it’s important to understand our current situation and do our best now, to put ourselves into a better situation later. Easier said than done, I understand. So it is, the struggle of being present in our lives and achieving the status of being our best athlete in our game of life.

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There is no work-life balance, never has been and never will be. There is being present in the current situation to get the most out of whatever you are doing, work or play. In that, you feel balanced because your attention is focused on the task at hand for you to give your 100% effort and get the best results possible. Distractions can lead to injuries, physical and mental. Presence leads to progress, results, and achievement of your goals. Wrap your mind arout being present, and enjoyment of what you’re doing will automatically follow. Your family will appreciate you more on vacation, and your boss will do the same about your job. Who knows, you may even end up working less hours because the quality of those hours is higher than what you gave it before. And a typical weekend of chores and a few hours with the family could seem like an extended weekend vacation because you’re fully immersed in what’s happening. Try it, see what results you get, and drop me a line at athleteinthegameoflife@gmail.com. I’ll share your amazing story with others to inspire them to be more present in their lives!

Nature vs Nurture, What are Your Disease Risk Factors

Treating the source or treating the symptoms of the source?  That is a question for the human condition.  Medicines make trillions of dollars a year treating symptoms.  If medicines treated the source to eliminate symptoms, how would the human condition improve?

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COVID-19 brought a flurry of activity to quell symptoms, and a flurry of controversy in the process.  The human condition is driven genetically with some results we cannot change, and some that are 100% in our control.  The science of epigenetics says 5% of disease risk factors are in the cannot change category, and 95% are related to our environment and choices regarding foods, exercise, and stress management.  Early on in the pandemic, those with higher risk of severe symptoms and death were those who were obese, overweight, and over 60 with additional health problems.  Was this really a surprise?  To me as a fitness expert, not at all.

We cannot consciously control the ingredients of our genetic material.  All humans have the same genetic code, it is just arranged differently for each of us.  What dictates 95% of our gene expression are nutrition, air pollution, physical activity, stress, water intake, what we think, and what we believe.  All of these factors directly contribute to our immune systems and the ability to fight viruses, bacteria, and environmental stressors.  When these stressors overload our genes’ ability to adapt, we are more likely to have severe symptoms from viruses and bacteria.

I work in a health club, which is populated by generally healthy individuals.  Yes, some members and employees contracted COVID-19.  Nothing can stop a virus from mutating and spreading, that is scientifically proven.  Unlike places where people with high disease risk factors lived or worked, there was not an outbreak of severe infections.  Is this coincidence, I think not, it is more scientific evidence through gene expression.  Healthy individuals have a higher antioxidant level through proper nutrition, hydration, and exercise, than those that are sedentary with poor nutrition.

Lean protein sources

Regardless of what side of the political aisle you are on, the one constant is nobody in public health discussed the SCIENCE of improving our immune systems to naturally fight infections.  Instead, public health said gyms are infection spreaders and then don’t leave the house unless you have too.  If public health is really about public health, they would say to exercise 150 minutes per week at a moderate-to-vigorous level, do weight training twice per week, and eat a diet full of fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins, with plenty of water on a daily basis.  That message never got out as your body’s best defense against severe symptoms and death, even though the CDC has evidence to show it. 

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Back to the question beginning this blog, treat the source or the symptoms?  By treating the source, proper diet and exercise, the risk of severe symptoms take care of themselves in 95% of the population.  The human body is the most resilient and efficient machine on earth.  Unfortunately, 1/3 of Americans treat it miserably, and almost half or more terribly.  Yes, that corresponds to 1/3 being obese and half or more overweight.  No medicine can improve our immune system, it only treats the symptoms of disease the immune system cannot handle.  Medicines can only go so far on their treatment efficacy.  When the body is in shambles from disease and abuse, the dyke will have more holes than fingers to plug the holes.

I am my own testimonial to the contents of this blog.  Since 1997, I have not seen a doctor for illness, or have been on any prescriptions.  At the age of 46, I eat, drink, and consume alcohol moderately.  My weekly exercise exceeds the 150 minutes, yes, and I do not jog or run for any of my aerobic movement.  Am I a freak of nature?  No.  Am I superhuman?  No.  I take care of my body and trust it to work properly because I treat it properly.  Funny how that all works, isn’t it.