When you walk into a class or a training session you know you
will be tested physically and mentally. When you hear “burpees for a minute” or
even worse “half burpees” you know that after a minute you will hurt. Even the
word burpee makes me feel dread. That feeling of anxiousness, dread, worry, jittery,
and/or excitement is caused by adrenaline.
The term for this
feeling is fight or flight. Fight or
flight is the decision we have to make when confronted with danger;
either we
stand our ground -fight or we start running -flight. The decision we
make
actually matters very little to our body, either way our sympathetic
nervous
system releases adrenaline, which increases blood flow to the muscles,
blood
pressure, heart rate, sugar and fat in the bloodstream for additional
energy,
blood clotting factors increase in case of injury, pupils dilate for
clarity even perspiration increases to prevent over-heating. Ever hear
stories of moms lifting cars off of their
children, the sympathetic nervous system is doing the leg work.
The amazing thing about fitness is that we can feel that sense
of danger, yet be safe. With fitness we can test ourselves without having to
have our children trapped under a car or falling into a cage with a tiger. With
fitness we can feel completely stressed, yet not be in any real danger.
What is so amazing about being able to safely increase our
level of stress? The amazing part is what comes after. After your body has been
stressed, from tigers or fitness, it relaxes. Your parasympathetic nervous
system (working in opposition to the sympathetic nervous system) begins to
release hormones to reverse the effects of the previous stress. Your body
relaxes. Fitness can safely increase that initial stress which later increases
our parasympathetic response allowing us to relax.
Working out allows us to relax. We just have to be a little afraid first.
Ben Costigan
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