What Skill Are You Getting Better At?

 

This week's email will be a little shorter than usual, but it's a pretty powerful concept.  We're getting back to some brain science!

As fitness and getting healthy has grown in popularity and science has improved, we've began to look at the body more as a machine than a living, adapting being.  We're told we need to get to the gym to "get our work in"- burn the fuel- to create the calorie deficit to make our bodies smaller which will equal better health.  Sounds pretty logical right?  Our body is very similar to a machine- we push a pedal, to make it burn fuel, and if we burn enough of that fuel we will be smaller, stronger, healthier.  It sounds logical and how things seem to work.  But....

We forget to consider the fact that we are not really machines.  We are controlled by a mass of jelly in our skulls that decides what's going to happen.  Our brain is always monitoring what's going on, and it's always learning.  That means that everything we do is a skill that our brain is adapting to and trying to get better at- for better or worse.  In truth, neural plasticity is amazing, and it can be a great thing.  But it can also be a bad thing.  

When we "add load", our brain pays attention more and learns more.  Going to the gym to exercise is adding load, so the brain's paying attention- are you?   Are you doing everything in your workout for a purpose, and are you actively trying to get better at it?  Or are you doing it because it's what's on the paper and you need to "get it in?"

Neural plasticity is calorically and resource expensive.  Our brain picks and chooses how it's actually going to adapt to what we're doing based on it's perceived importance.  So, if I'm just going through the program to get it done because I'm supposed to, I may get a little better.  But, because I'm not trying to get better at it or just going through the motions, my brain is learning that "this workout isn't that important.  I don't need to do a whole lot to adapt to it- I can just stay the same because I'm surviving it already."  And so, our adaptation is minimal as well as our results.  

Research shows that the more engaged we are in an activity and actually trying to get better at it, the faster and greater the adaptation is.  The brain understands that it's important and will signal the start of all change processes necessary to be able to do that skill better- increase strength, joint health, cardiovascular function, lose excess weight to decrease the strain...  It's not the counting of the reps that matters as much as the quality of those reps and the intention and attention behind them!  The more you are engaged and paying attention to what you are doing, the more your brain is active and learning.  An active and learning brain is a healthy brain.  It's being shown over and over now that a healthy brain is what leads to a truly healthy body! (Looks can be deceiving!)

So, at your next training session, ask yourself, "What skill do I want to get better at?"  Do you want to get better at moving and feeling better and working toward a goal?  Or do you want to get better at exercise being a chore that I have to endure, distract myself from, and get through.  One of these will happen, whether you want them to or not.  You get to pick!