The other side of the coin when it comes to upper body exercises.
Generally, when we think of exercise we are usually pushing a weight, giving a bit more effort, holding a pose, stretching or breathing more rapidly.
Cortical Inhibition Upper Body Exercises
Do we ever take the time to un-do what we just activated with our upper body exercises?
Many people would think of stretching, which we know is bad for us according to the research. There is a unique way we can actively use our brain to un-do the activating of the muscles of the upper body.
When it comes to the neck, upper back, chest, shoulders and arms… how often have you consciously worked on getting those muscles to let go?
The brain can do this through exercises known as somatics exercises which primarily uses gravity as the load to release any held contraction levels.
Those contraction levels may remain higher after we activate our muscles with normal upper body exercises. If we remain activated and tight, then the muscles can’t lower their resting rates to be more fully activated the next time we need to use them.
While we may spend worthwhile time activating muscles, we can use the brain’s inhibitory process to bring those very muscles back to neutral resting rates so they are idling in neutral rather than revved up in 2nd gear to begin with.
Is the brain factor missing in upper body exercises?
The brain can be used to release relaxation back into our muscular system so we can feel how the muscles let go and become softer.
If we are living with a tight neck from everyday stress do we need upper body exercises to strengthen that which is already tight?
Wouldn’t it seem to make more sense to have a set of upper body exercises which could release the muscles we just jacked up thus giving us a more balanced use of ourself.
Many times we often talk of balance as working the front side or the back side when it comes to upper body exercises. Do we include the muscles of our side so that each side is balanced as well? By working with the front, back and both sides we can strengthen equally and attempt to be more in balance.
Anybody doing de-activating upper body exercises?
All of these upper body exercises are all well and good yet did we take the requisite time to actively de-activate those muscles too.
Getting stiff from exercise or feeling the tension increase in our muscles doesn’t necessarily have to remain. Any rigidity would be hard to balance by what, more upper body exercises to strengthen tight or stiff muscles on the other side of what we think we need to balance.
In normal exercise, we’ll lift or move with ideas like 3 sets of 10 to build strength or we’ll do many movements so our aerobic capacity increases through the repetition of swinging a limb many times.
By using the brain in a very conscious manner, all we need to do is just say three or less movements to get the brain to reset the muscles.
Then we can move onto perhaps a different angle or different intention to re-focus the brain and improve the movement and the memory of that particular movement.
Moving freely, easily and naturally as healthy vertebrate animals do comes from the very same procedure they use to move well, be agile, and appear graceful with their movements.
This type programming and learning comes from the brain. We human animals have forgotten how to use this other side of the coin when it comes to upper body exercises.
All it takes is just a different orientation with gravity and being mindful so we can more fully return ourself to a fuller capacity and have a more or deeper balanced approach with upper body exercises.
If you’d like to find out how to rebalance in a completely different way, then join us on Friday, July 16th. You can join us live, online or get the class which will be ready for replay afterwards.
We’ll explore how to use the brain with simple movements to reset those muscles which often don’t when it comes to upper body exercises.
