We embark on a mission to train “strength” right now on Sunday, Monday and Thursday. It’s about 75 minutes per session.
Ruby and I train together. It’s fun: barbell work, bidyweight work, some accessory work.
There are three things that all of these sessions have in common, for them to be a successful mission:
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Warmup, or “prep” work – prepare the body and mind to be “ready” for the loading or movement. This isn’t complex, but it’s specific.
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We aim to “feel good.” Yes, we could go “harder.” Yes, we could do lots “more.” But we aren’t in that club. We use strength work (and other movement or training methods) to feel good and progress slowly, year round. If we don’t “feel good” during the workout, we back off, leave it for the day, or switch to something else.
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Then we lie down! At the end and do some specific breathing work for an average of 10 minutes.
This last part sounds good. It is, and here’s why:
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We are lowering the heart centre relative to the rest of the body by switching to a supine (lying) position. Similar to swimming, this drops the heart rate quickly.
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We are decompressing the skeletal structure and taking load out of it. To do this, we always lie on a hard, flat surface.
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We use specific slow breathing work and conscious relaxation to increase blood carbon dioxide and increase vagal tone. Nasal breathing.
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In a study of post exercise recovery techniques (Bera et al., 1998), it was found that lying in a supine position with a specific conscious relaxation process (savasana) was considerably more effective than a siting position or just lying down.
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It was found that on average, with the supine position and relaxation techniques, recovery from the stress of a treadmill exercise test could be achieved in just 10 minutes or so, while a seated position in a chair took over 30 minutes (just lying down was ~24-28 minutes).
So, we finish up, we get our 10 minutes in, then eat or drink our food post workout before we move on to whatever comes next.
If the gym environment was too busy, I’d drive home or to work and do it there.
With practice, the shifts in your nervous system state in this time are quite remarkable.
This is also an effective exercise to do after work, during a break or in other times of stress.
If you don’t feel like you have the tools, hit reply and let me know.
