CORRECTIVE
EXERCISE
FOR THE MIND
The state of your mind affects your movement, fitness, sensations of
pain, and overall wellbeing, so training it reaps both physical and mental
dividends, writes corrective exercise specialist Justin Price, creator of
The BioMechanics Method.
s a passionate fitness professional,
you have spent many hours,
weeks, even years, training and
developing your body to look, feel
and function at its best. Your hard work has
likely resulted in feelings of pride when you
catch a glimpse of your reflection in the mirror.
However, in all this time spent working on your
body, have you neglected or overlooked the
part that matters the most? What would your
answer be if you asked yourself, ‘What would
my mind look like naked’?
A
The difference between the mind
and brain
People often use the mind and the brain as
interchangeable terms. In actuality, they are
very different things. The brain is the control
centre for the body. It sends and receives
signals from inside and outside the body
to help you act, react, and interact with the
world. From a body functioning standpoint,
the brain enables you to breathe, eat, sleep,
and move so that you can exercise, recover
and perform other important activities of
daily life (Ackerman, 1992).
The mind helps oversee the brain, and
establishes the quality of the messages sent
from the brain to the body. The mind creates
and processes your thoughts, feelings and
emotions, which then influence the signals
sent by your brain to your body (positively or
negatively). The health and state of your mind,
therefore, ultimately affects your movement
performance, fitness capabilities, sensations
of pain, and overall wellbeing (Ozanich, 2011).
The mind and the body
Negative thinking in the mind produces
emotions such as sadness, anger,
depression and anxiety (Rankin, 2013).
These unpleasant emotions change your
brain chemistry and directly affect your
nervous system. Feelings of uneasiness
and worry, for example, have been linked
to increased heart rate, increased muscle
tension and sweating, increased recovery
THE QUICK READ
• The brain sends and receives signals
from inside and outside the body to
help you act, react and interact with
the world, whereas the mind creates
and processes your thoughts, feelings
and emotions
• Unpleasant emotions change the brain
chemistry and affect the nervous
system, negatively affecting the ability
to exercise and recover effectively
• Pay attention to any recurring negative
thoughts you experience and make a
note of them
• Stretch
yourself
mentally
by
considering alternative and positive
ways to think about the same topics
• Reinforce your new mental habits by
performing multiple reps and sets.
NETWORK SUMMER 2019 | 27