iPods and Television Cause Exercise Routine Failure!
Stop Tuning Out, Start Tuning In
The prevalence of iPods, TVs, Walkmans and other entertainment gadgets in our society has found its way into the fitness world and it threatens to cause many unsuspecting health goers to fail in their attempts to reach their intended goals.
As I was leaving the Body Sculpt class I teach at a local gym, I began to notice the number of television sets that were in the facility. They were everywhere — hanging from the ceiling, on the walls, and even on some of the exercise equipment itself. The next thing I noticed was the number of people listening to something that involved the use of headphones. I began to count of the number of these people who were actually getting the full benefit of their exercise routine. The answer was a sad little if any at all.
Some were there before I started my class and were still there after it had ended. Three of them had not even broken a sweat! It struck me as funny and sad at the same time that I had just given 15 people a workout that required them to move their bodies through space, exercising the body as one unit and elevating their heart rate in that same hour that these people spent on the treadmill/elliptical machine. Whom do you believe got more from their time spent at the gym?
Performance psychologist Jim Loehr, EdD, author of The Power of Story and chairman and CEO of the Human Performance Institute, in Orlando, Florida, advises busy corporate executives on how to become more successful at sustaining their commitment to fitness. He has found that a primary component for making exercise sustainable is to stop tuning out during workouts. “We don’t want you disengaged while you are working out,” he says. “We tell ourselves that exercise is so painful that the only thing you can do to get through it is to watch TV. Watching television and working out is a form of multitasking. To me, however, real value lies in paying attention. It is an engagement practice, it gets your mind off work, and it aligns what you’re doing with what you’re thinking.”
Efficient and effective movement requires that you concentrate on the particular muscle contractions and movements throughout the body as well as the plane of motion you are moving in and at what speed. The human body is a machine, or should I say a computer, like no other in existence. It has the ability to reduce force, produce force and stabilize force and move in various planes at different speeds — accelerating and decelerating. Your body has the amazing ability to remember how to accomplish those tasks while finding the most efficient way to move you — all without conscience effort.
So when you are performing a squat, curl, press exercise your brain has to tell your muscles to reduce the force for the squat then immediately produce force coming up, engage the muscles of the core and legs at the same time, tell the biceps to produce force to lift the weights and finally tell the muscles of the shoulders to lift the weight over head. Distractions can cause you to incorporate muscles that were not intended to perform a particular movement increasing your chance of injury. The more you can feel and hear how your body reacts to the different stresses you place on it the more in tune you will be thus making your workout more efficient and beneficial.
The human body seeks the path of least resistance. It wants to move as efficiently and with as little effort as possible while using the correct muscle groups. These toys are great and have their place, but if you are trying to get the maximum benefits of your routine then you have to tune in to what you are trying to accomplish. Leave the ear buds at home.
