Sports are dominated by all kinds of machinery that measure body parameters to improve and control performance. More and more devices are construed to give more and more detailed information about our body’s condition. Nevertheless body sense is a term that in the end always comes into the game if parameters are not conclusive, and in many ways they are not.
I found an article in the Psychology Today Blog that underlines the importance of the body sense and the ability to assess the condition of well-being. It goes very much along with an article I myself wrote about this topic, and may encourage you to a less structured training program that takes the body sense more into consideration.
One of the sentences that athletes and coaches love to say is: “The most important thing you can do to recover quickly is to listen to your body. If you are feeling tired, sore or notice decreased performance you may need more recovery time or a break from training altogether. If you are feeling strong the day after a hard workout, you don’t have to force yourself to go slow. If you pay attention, in most cases, your body will let you know what it needs, when it needs it.”
The problem for many of us is that we don’t listen to the warnings of overreaching or over-training as there are general malaise, fatigue, mood instability, lack of motivation, loss of appetite, fragmented sleep, delayed muscle soreness, disturbed body temperature regulation etc… or that we are misinterpreting body signs.
The good thing about this post is that it brings body sense into the loop of understanding exercise physiology. Body sense herewith is accepted as a biological and not only psychological phenomenon. We know a lot about metabolism and muscle during and after exercise but less focus is placed on how exercise feels in our bodies. Learning to feel the body during any type of activity enhances the body’s ability to most effectively marshal its resources to enhance health and well being.