Why You Should Flex Like a Gym Bro.
Who would think that flexing in the mirror was such a good idea? Not just for the decades of gym bros admiring themselves ever so vainly, but the cultish approach to block all light from advancing passed the reflective surface. To watch them squeeze and twist awkwardly. It looks so stupid. It looks foolish 90% of the time and you are right. You know, until you go home and find yourself doing the same dumb things in front of your mirror. We all did it. Or had that somber moment to see our reflection and flex to watch nothing significant occur. That one is worse. It might as well lead you to the fridge, by hand, and fill your arms with as much junk as one can hold. But flexing is important. You should do it and do it often. Not to start blasting front double bicep poses during a meeting, but to feel connection to yourself.
Stuck in the house for more than I want to admit, I spent a lot of time thinking and then that thinking got me reading. There was a quote from the stoics. Make the body obedient to the mind.
This clicked. I can tell my body to do anything, and it should be able to conduct part of the task. It should do as I say. If I tell my arm to raise overhead it will, but how well? Will it rotate correctly, does it hurt to get to certain spots? On those moments, it’s not to become upset with yourself as a failure, instead show compassion as you are still dealing with your favorite person, yourself. Try to envision the movement from the inside of your body. Feel for the pull of the muscle (no muscle pushes). Recognize tendons and ligaments. Picture the shape. Draw it. Mold it. Watch it. Learn it.
Now this all sounds super hippy dippy. Point noted. However, my argument here is not to do more yoga, but to flex like a gym bro. The more you can feel the interworking of the movement the better you will connect to the move. The body doesn’t understand what you want to do exactly, but it’s desire to achieve a goal. If a bicep curl is too heavy, arch your back, drive your hips forward. The weight may come up but that is what you told yourself to do. “Weight is at the top as directed, so what now? I did it”. But did you absorb the moment your elbow flexed and realized what it needed to do. Could you feel not just the bicep, but both heads of it? Did you throw the weight to just get to the finish line, or did you learn from your journey?
The next time you train. Think intensely and carefully about how you move and what you want to do. People hurt their backs on squats and deadlifts mostly because they created, maintained, or forced incorrect form to get to the end. It’s more than, I picked it up. It is I used this muscle that recruited this muscle to move to a proper end range of how my body moves. Consider your tempo. Can you do the same thing at half speed?
When you contract the muscle do so fully, safely, and with an expected and understood full range of motion. Take a cable row for example. Your shoulders may come forward for a wonderful, protracted stretch, but we shouldn’t pull from this super stretched position. Practice holding your shoulder down (depressed) and retracted (squeezed together) before each rep. Think to break a pencil between your shoulder blades and then hold it there. Try to squeeze it back together. Reach forward only as far as your shoulders hold close. Once they separate, softly find the stretch, then draw your shoulders back together, as if to grab a new pencil. Wait one moment. Feel your chest lift slightly forward to shorten the range. Feel the length of your neck exposed. Draw your elbows back; let your forearm simply grip the handle. As you pull back, advance your chest to meet your hands. Increase your ability to pull, start to recruit the gang of back muscles to work together in harmony.
If envisioning pictures are tough, I recommend looking at pictures of muscles flexing online. These could be scientific ones revealing depicted muscle during normal movement. Those help because there is a fair chance you move the same as the depiction. You can also experiment with yourself. Low and behold, TOUCH YOURSELF to feel the body as it moves. Or you can just stand in front of the mirror and try to connect with the muscle. See and feel the change in real time. In the mirror, like a gym bro.
