Fostering A Mind Body Connection During Your Warm Up

I thought I would try something a little different and use this space to post videos. While I have become proficient at writing about movement, nothing beats giving an old fashioned demonstration.

A trauma sensitive approach to strength training is an embodied approach to strength training. After experiencing emotional or physical trauma, parts of your body may become shut down or you may have no sense of feeling in your body at all. Or, you may find it hard to stay in your body, or a part of your body, through an entire range of motion, or even the complete contraction or extension of one particular muscle. A trauma-sensitive approach to strength training helps you reconnect with your entire body in a slow and thoughtful way.

One way to do this is to include some isometric holds or slow movements in your warm up. As you do these movements, you will want to bring your awareness to a primary muscle involved in the movement. You may experience sensations throughout your body, but part of this exercise is to bring your focus to the one specific muscle and notice how it feels as it works. In the videos below I take you through a warm up that targets each region of your body. I’ll walk you through the set up and specify where to bring your attention as you engage an isometric hold or move through each form.

Please listen to your body and don’t do anything that hurts or feels “too” anything—too hard, too slow, too fast, too stimulating, too boring. When something is “too” much of anything, there’s a risk of feeling overwhelmed. If you find this to be the case, please stop, check in and ground with a self-regulation tool. Don’t hesitate to find support that feels right to you. This might be a movement coach, trainer, counselor, or another person with whom you do healing work. And as always, check with a medical professional to see if any of the movements are contraindicated for you.