The MOST Essential Foundation For Fitness Success

To be very honest, I find writing posts like today’s very challenging. Not because I don’t think it is valuable, quite the opposite. I actually believe posts like today are essential and the most foundational to achieving any goal, not even in fitness. The difficult part comes in the fact that I know in fitness people want to sweat, they want to lift big weights, all of the physical parts that we often think of when it comes to fitness.

Yes, we can do ALL that, but we can do so with so much more intent if we create a better foundation to our body and mind at the same time. You see, mind-body training isn’t something that you do so that we can feel a better pump in our biceps or anything of the sort. True mind-body is understanding how they interact and impact one another. A great example is depicted in the graphic below.

Whether it is butterflies in our stomach because we feel nervous or we start sweating more, or even become physically tired, have brain fog and more, the mind-body connection is really strong. There are many research studies linking stress to a host of diseases and lifestyle habits that can predispose people to disease.

You can see that stress can cause people to even not exercise because of how they feel mentally and physically. It can cause people to make less nutritious choices in their eating habits and so forth. The good news is that movement of the body can help the mind as well as vice versa. However, it isn’t just working out that is key, but what we do in these workouts and how intentional we are with them.

That is why when I wanted to introduce Tai Chi and Qigong to our DVRT community I was afraid people would just write off these old systems without even trying them or thinking about what they are actually trying to teach the body. These arts have been around for centuries and the research on their effectiveness in combating a host of these issues is becoming very overwhelming in favor of their usage.

The great thing is you don’t have to become a Tai Chi or Qigong master to really benefit from either and not only will they help you with the mind, but they will do wonders in helping build greater mobility, stability, balance, body awareness and skills that will help you greatly in your workouts. That is why I asked an expert like Shriley Chock of Aiping Tai Chi to sit down with me for a few minutes to discuss why and how these arts can improve people’s health and fitness levels. I am sharing this information because I have personally found it so beneficial and the perfect addition to any DVRT program because there are so many parallels.

I hope you will get a chance to listen to this interview, but ALSO check out the videos below the interview for some great examples by Shirley!

Listen how to use movement to better balance your mind and stress HERE

Check out MORE of Shirley’s great training HERE