Did you know you can improve your physical workouts with a single technique?
It’s called mindfulness.
You can practice mindfulness anytime, anywhere, it is a valuable addition to your workout routine. It will help you with your athletic performance and ensure you stay on track, literally and figuratively.
Mindfulness teaches us to maintain a state of mind to increase focus and overcome challenging moments and obstacles during a race, game, or brutal training session. Most athletes are so focused on training their bodies that they forget they will have difficulty succeeding if they are not in the right mindset. We encourage fitness lovers to sign up for workout yoga classes in NYC.
When talking about workout motivation, three factors increase the chances of you sticking to the program. These include engaging in friendly competition, establishing financial incentives, and setting goals. According to a study published in the journal of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, mindfulness can help you with this.
The Impact of Mindfulness on Exercises
The study included 66 participants divided into three groups. The first group learned about behavior change and exercise techniques for 2 ½ hours per week. They also participated in fitness activities.
The second group learned breathing exercises and practiced mindful movement for 2 ½ hours. The third and final group did neither. Groups 1 and 2 were told to continue exercising for 20 minutes daily at home.
After eight weeks, the researchers discovered that the second group engaged in different physical activities and was more active than the third group.
Improved Physical Health
Exercising mindfully improves your physical health. According to research, it is connected to increased cardiovascular health. Participants who practiced mindfulness and meditation techniques had low blood sugar levels and body mass index (BMI)
Another research published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine revealed that mindful exercising improves parasympathetic activity, heart rate, and breathing. The exercises attributed for these benefits included activities like Pilates, yoga, and Tai Chi.
Lastly, some studies link mindful exercising with feeling good about yourself, leading to positive health behaviors. In other words, mindfulness pushes you to make healthy lifestyle choices.
What Is Mindful Running?
So, how does mindfulness impact your exercise?
Let’s take the example of running and doing it mindfully.
Mindfulness running allows you to keep your attention in the present. You pay attention to your physical sensations, breath, and how your thought processes and emotions are responding. Runners need to focus on their gait and the path they are running on.
The mind can easily get overwhelmed with wandering thoughts when you are running. Here, where mindfulness brings your attention back to your moving hands and feet. Like stretching, mindfulness also has a pre-run warm-up that allows you to get into a particular state of mind. Do some breathing exercises to center yourself, and then start your run.
The Trick to Mindful Running
Now that we have established mindfulness techniques can improve your physical workout, let’s look at how it elevates your overall well-being.
According to research by Alderman, Olson, Brush, and Shors (2016), walking or running combined with meditation can help reduce depression by 40%. Based on this evidence, ASICS opened the “Blackout Track.” Professor Samuele Marcorra and Dr. Jo Corbett conducted research using this track, which revealed that psychological factors, including sound and light, significantly impact performance.
Usually, what happens is that when you run faster, distractions intensify. Anything or anyone you see while you are running triggers a memory, which can be hard to shake off.
The track encouraged athletes to focus on their activity and body by reducing sensory engagement. The researchers concluded that the positive results were due to staying present in the moment. Since nothing outside could distract the runners, they could focus on themselves completely.
Completing a workout gives you a sense of completion that makes you feel satisfied. You know you have done something that benefits your health. According to research, people with increased satisfaction levels stick to their exercise routine if they incorporate mindfulness into the workout. It allows them to focus on doing better, especially when their previous attempts at exercising regularly didn’t stick. As a result, you can easily maintain an active lifestyle.
FitEngine is offering fitness classes in NYC that teach different types of exercise, including yoga, Pilates, strength training, aerobics, cardio, etc. A quick chat with their fitness experts about your goals will allow you to find the right training technique. We also recommend incorporating mindfulness and meditation techniques into the fitness routines for better results. Click here to book a class now. For more information, call 888-610-4756 or email us at info@fitengine.com.
