Elevation

Over the past year and a half, I have started picking-up the game of golf.  Since I really knew nothing about the proper golf swing, or how to make the ball go in the general direction I wanted it to go, no joke there, I did the unthinkable and purchased several lessons with a local pro.  After a good solid summer on the course, the range, and with the pro I have learned a lot, but still none the less proudly maintain the status of a horrible golfer.  During my trials and tribulations though, I learned a very valuable lesson.  I learned that golf is a game of continual learning and that even professionals like Tiger Woods utilize coaches to facilitate their progression through a rough spot in their game.

Reflecting upon this lesson, while also paralleling it to the fitness industry, I ask myself why do people, myself included, not more regularly schedule appointments with Fitness Professionals to review exercise form and proper execution?  After turning this question over and over in my head late last night, the answer finally came to me.  Unlike golf, where if you are making a mistake it is pretty obvious because you run out of balls by the 6th hole (4th if you play golf like I do), the body during and after fitness training does not always provide immediate negative feedback (e.g. excessively sore muscles or joints, torn muscles, and/or strained tendons).  It is this potential period of delayed negative body feedback that allows the individual executing the exercise to rationalize their form, thus promoting the mindset of “since nothing has gone wrong yet I must be performing the exercise correctly, and therefore do not need the additional guidance of a professional.”

Correctly engaging the required muscles and properly executing a exercise is something that requires a well disciplined mind, lots of practice, and continual review,  and as in golf, we have our good days and our not so good days of exercising.  To prevent ourselves from getting stuck in a rut or continuing down the path of improper execution, having a weekly, monthly or quarterly check-up with a Fitness Professional is a good idea.  Like a good golf instructor, Fitness Professionals are not just there to put the “distance on the drive” (aka size, mass, strength, endurance, weight loss).  They are also there to assist in the further development of the fundaments and the safe execution of the exercises.  So schedule your check-up, better your form, and better preserve the use of your body.

In the New York Times today, Gretchen Reynolds wrote an interesting article entitled Phys Ed: Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious.  The article explored the research being performed at Princeton University to determine the functional difference between the new brain cells (neurons) that were created in response to exercise and those that are not.   In the research lab rats were separated into two populations, those that were allow to run and those that were not allowed to run.  After predetermined periods of time, the two populations of rats would swim in cold water.  Cold water was utilized as the catalyst in these experiments because it is known that rats do not like swimming in cold water and that that doing such induces a state of anxiety.  After the swim, the brains of the rats were examined and it was found that swimming activated neurons in the brains of both populations. According to the article, “the researchers could tell which neurons were activated because the cells expressed specific genes in response to the stress.”  The most interesting find came about when the youngest brain cells in the running population of rats were scrutinized.  It was found that these cells, which were assumed to be developed during the period of running, were less likely to express these genes and were “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.”  The article then goes on to recap several other experiments that have been conducted or are currently being conducted to “tease out how exercise remodels the brain, making it more resistant to stress. “   While it is unknown at this time as to the magnitude or timeframe in which such results occurs in humans, just knowing that the exercises we all perform today are helping fashion a brain that is built to resist stress is very motivational.