NYC : Transform Fitness NYC : Thoughts on the Body, Part III ...

Thoughts on the Body

Part III: Becoming More Aware of Our Bodies

by Paul Watson, Transform Fitness NYC Founder & Master Trainer

Every creature on Earth is continually pulled down by our planet?s gravity. We human beings have an edge here. Unlike other animals, we are active for many hours of the day. We work, play, and sleep with minimal effort, partly because our bodies conserve energy by stacking our joints on top of each other.?We spend less time fighting gravity and more time aligning with it. Most of the other land-based animals are essentially quadrupedal and spend much less time moving about because their bodies have to work so hard fighting the downward pull of the Earth?s gravitation. Evolution?s gift to us, our erect posture, provides us with tremendous potential for different kinds of motion and activity.

Yet even with this advantage, all of my clients must go through a process of becoming aware of the relative strengths and weaknesses of their 600 muscles, of the range of motion of their joints and rotator cuffs, and so on. We create tension patterns within our muscles through innumerable little acts that go unnoticed over days, weeks and years. We are creatures of habit, so we tend to have pet motions and positions of rest, and our muscles learn to accommodate these positions. Some muscles get stronger as a result and other muscles that don?t have the responsibility to do very much get weaker. This is learned behavior.

Muscle cells do not divide like other cells in the body. Thus when those cells shrink from disuse, our bodies do not make more to rebuild what has been lost. You can only strengthen what?s left. When we are young, our bodies grow and fill out our musculature. But our muscles cooperate less and less the older we get. Muscle tissue is more than 70 percent water, so it generally has great elasticity. But as we grow older we must learn how to deal with muscles that become rigid and stiff (or fibrotic, as physical therapists sometimes refer to it). Sometimes muscle can act and feel almost as rigid as bone. It takes time to become aware of the varying strength and flexibility of our muscles. But this process of increasing awareness yields great benefits in terms of specifics such as localized pain management and in general areas like overall health.

Stayed tuned for Part IV or Contact us for more info: 212-759-5006

Source: http://www.transformfitnessnyc.com/thoughts-on-the-body-by-paul-watson-transform-fitness-nyc-founder-master-trainer-part-iii-becoming-more-aware-of-our-bodies

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