It doesn’t matter whether you’re twenty or ninety, you can improve function and strength if you have the health to move! It’s time to get out of the box you put yourself in and explore what your body has to offer after all,it’s the only one you have.
To explore getting stronger, let’s start with talking about weakness. Weakness is often where pain presents itself in our bodies but pain can also show up in spots far from where the actual origin is in the body. Muscles can be both tight and weak and long and weak. Tightening of muscles are often signs of the body compensating, almost like the body giving itself a hug of protection.
This is why muscle length and strength have such an intimate relationship. We have to look at both when building strength because for every body, the strategy for cultivating balanced strength is unique to that specific person.
You might be asking how do you know when a muscle is long and weak or short and weak? In Nimble Fitness we assess alignment and function by determining your muscle weakness, discomfort, pain and your range of motion. When you look in the mirror these misalignments often show themselves and have been created over time with repetitive patterns, injuries from the past or linked to neuromuscular issues.
This all circles back to building STRENGTH AT ANY AGE! Where do we start?
- MINDSET: “We are not are thoughts even as strong as they may seem!” Osho
Shift your mindset to having elevated moving MINDSET now! Strength means a lot of things to people but at the heart of it is functional performance so we can experience life to our full potential.
- HOLISTIC LIFESTYLE HABITS:
What is the spark for strength? ENERGY! We often only have to look as far as our LIFESTYLE HABITS to sense our strength or lack thereof. Being hydrated supports our energy, neuromuscular activation and detoxification. Our nutrition provides fuel to move, nutrients to rebuild and a sense of well-being that helps us stay with our inspired mindset. With quality sleep we get the physical and and psychological repair to live healthy and perform our best.
- GET TRAINING; GET MOVING!
GET TRAINING:This simply means to start supporting your training mindset. To do this you have to understand where you currently stand and then start your movement program from there. Most people fail in their pursuit to change their bodies because they don’t know where to start and don’t know how to build energy through movement. To begin the journey to building strength we have to lay a solid foundation and for each one of this is different. For me building strength in my handstand push-ups will be a different strategy than someone else just started out with training. But there is something that’s similar with both programs and that consistency!
We simply have to GET MOVING! But don’t just do it blindly, think a little about volume, load and recovery. Start with lighter weights and more repetitions. Then build to more challenging loads once your tissue has become conditioned and ready for the challenge. Be in your body and present while challenging yourself and you will enjoy the journey of cultivating strength and get to know your mind, body and spirit on a deeper level.
