The benefits of healthy exercise – gentle and therapeutic movement for health enhancement – are well documented. There is a difference between therapeutic and athletic exercise. However, in both vigorous and gentle types of exercise, the body produces a powerful mix of metabolic resources.
Vigorous Exercise
Vigorous exercise can help strengthen or support muscle growth and development. In vigorous exercise, energy production supports muscle activity and feeds hungry muscles. Athletic exercise is for healthy individuals who seek to compete with themselves and others in developing the body into greater ranges of enhanced ability. This type of exercise results in gains in weight resistance and aerobic endurance in general. Individuals may also may be very appearance conscious, sculpting their bodies for a specific external look. Sports medicine was developed primarily to address the risk of injury from this type of heightened body usage. Issues arising from repetitive syndrome are common. There are many young athletes today who now have life long injuries, due to their ambitious over worked practices to attain sport scholarships or professional sport careers. Sport competition is often times not healthy exercise.
Gentle, Healthy Exercise
Less intensive activities such as Qi Gong and breathwork may be more suitable for recovery and healing. In less intense fitness systems, the body conserves energy and circulates it throughout the body as an internal healing resource to sustain and heal tissues organs and glands. Therefore, it supports the body’s optimal function, recovery, and longevity. In ancient China it was known as “the inner medicine” or “the healer within.” Above all, there are three potential benefits of therapeutic exercise, due to the increased oxygen available. Firstly, energy production; secondly, cellular and intracellular hydration, as a by-product of energy metabolism; and thirdly, enhanced immune function.
More gentle exercise can have many therapeutic benefits. This is because it helps boost oxygen and circulation in the body, which can also trigger the body’s health-enhancing capacities. Qi Gong exercise can be medical or therapeutic. The aim of general healthy exercise is to maintain good health. Our first principle is ‘Do no harm’.
No pain, no gain
No pain, no gain is a phrase we have become used to hearing. It’s supposed to be motivational. However pain is your body’s way of communicating that something isn’t right. In other words, struggling through an exercise session is likely to harm your body and your health. So, at Movement In Mind, we think about ‘fitness’ in a different way. We believe that moving your body should never feel like a chore or a punishment. Instead, we prefer to think of exercise as a celebration of all the ways you can move. In this way, you can appreciate all your body is and does.
Rather than coming to a session because you want to change your body, we encourage you to tune in to it and listen to its cues. If you can let go of ideas of right and wrong, you can find release and freedom in movement.
Our wellness programme includes Tai Chi and Qi Gong for therapeutic, healthy exercise.
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