Archive: Around Town

Right now we are in a storm of stress and depression (or so the media would have you believe). Some people are in a category 5 hurricane and some people see it as a drizzle. Whatever the level of your stress, the key to reducing the stress on your mind and body is to bend, not break.

 

Deepak Chopra, spiritual guru and author, writes of the law of least resistance in which you accept what the world throws at you and not let it bother you either way. It is simply acknowledging what is in your control and what is not in your control. The analogy to illustrate this is that of an oak tree and a palm tree in a huge hurricane. The oak tree is strong but inflexible and either stands firm or breaks, no in-between. The palm-tree, on the other hand, bends and sways in the storm and is left standing at the end no matter what. Stress reduction doesn't always mean making the storm go away but changing the way you react to a storm of stress by being a flexible and strong palm tree. Thus you have to yield to the stress and not break from the stress.

 

Just like the mind can be trained to change the way you react to life's storms, so your body can be trained to bend, not break. Most exercisers perceive exercise as building up oak tree-type strength. Typical resistance training exercises revolve around the big prime moving muscles of the body, the global muscles (e.g. bench press for chest, leg press for legs, pulldowns for back, etc). Working the big prime movers definitely can make you more oak tree-like. But you are setting your body up for failure should an activity of daily life (the storms) exceed its limit (e.g. tweaking your low back when picking up your cat or hurting your neck when turning to check a blind spot).

"Functional" exercise is defined in many ways but in this case, functional exercise prepares your body to bend, not break. Stabilizing muscles, the local muscles around joints, lose function as we age. Stabilizing muscles allow your body to bend and withstand temporary storms of stress (e.g. not breaking bones when you fall or when you roll your ankle and are able to keep your balance before it sprains).

In your exercise choices, be sure to work some fullbody stabilization instead of isolating prime movers. Instead of doing a machine leg press, do a bodyweight-only squat. Instead of hanging onto the arms of an elliptical for dear life during your cardio, try to balance on your own two feet while spinning those pedals. Instead of doing a seated smith machine military press, do a standing barbell military press. Instead of holding onto the rail while walking on a treadmill, take a walk outside on a trail.

"If you had to define stress, it would not be far off if you said it was the process of living. The process of living is the process of having stress imposed on you and reacting to it" (Sarnoff, 1963). Storms will come, guaranteed. Prepare your mind and body to handle the stress of your life; bend, don't break.

 

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