I Want To Be Strong - Part 3

“I want to be Strong” 

“I want to feel Strong”

I’ve heard this said so many times. I’ve said it myself. I’ve had interesting conversations about Strength and what it really means. And Strength is a key component of my Wellness.

This is the third part in a mini series of blogs about Strength. 

You can read Part 1, where I share some of the science behind why Strength is important. 

And Part 2, where I explore how Yoga can help us build strength. 

In this blog I’m going to explore my personal Why behind the statements; ‘I want to be Strong. I want to feel Strong’.

And if you’re wondering why you should carry on reading…

Then the real purpose of this mini series of blogs about Strength is to help us keep showing up on our mats for our Yoga practice and to practise with intention. Some days we need to tap into the Why, to help us get on our mats to practise. And Strength is a key part of it.

We saw in Part 1, the many health and physical benefits of building strength. And in Part 2, we saw that we can do this through our Yoga practice. 

But I really want to explore the less scientific, the ‘feeling’ of being strong, and what that gives us.

‘Strong’ - what does that word mean to me?

It means I can physically do ‘things’. Things like carrying my groceries, moving the sofa to clean under it, and carrying buckets of compost when I’m mulching my garden. Everyday things. 

It means that when I go for a walk with my Dog, I don’t get phased, I can climb muddy steps and hill sides, I can slide down muddy slopes, move over rough ground, all with control. 

It means I can get into open water and swim against currents, navigate waves, and enjoy the feeling of being free in the water.

It means I can move on my Yoga mat, getting into a moving meditation.

It means I can move and I can move confidently.

Plug in here what resonates with you - what does being strong enable you to do?

So being strong enables us to do things, to move, to move confidently. Now I want to attempt to describe that feeling of strength in the body. How it feels to be strong.

It’s like when you reach to the top shelf in a supermarket, you rise onto your toes, you reach, you lean and there’s a feeling of the muscles firing up, a feeling of support in the body from your toes to your fingers. 

Let’s translate that into a pose on your Yoga Mat, let’s take a plank as it’s an obvious full body strength pose. 

As you move into the plank position, I move from thinking about my arms as that initial load of body weight comes into the arms, to then feeling every muscle in my torso activating, working, contracting, knitting themselves together to keep my torso lifted. The glutes fire up, the muscles in my legs activate, my hips and legs float in the air. All the way to my feet, with the heels pushing back, my feet are active, every little muscle in my feet is charged. 

There’s effort in strength, but when there is strength, when I feel strong, it’s a feeling of floating. 

I’m pretty sure for most of us when we think of holding a Plank for 1 minute, you don’t think of floating! But that is what feeling strong can feel like in my body, a feeling of floating (not every day mind!). 

If I take that a step further, it’s a feeling of effortlessness. The stronger I am, the stronger I feel, the more effortless physical tasks are. 

Now building physical strength takes effort.

I like to build strength in a way where I feel it building, i.e. there will be a quickening of the heart beat, maybe a flush of heat, maybe a tiny bit of shaking. But I don’t push past that to a point where I can’t still breathe smoothly and slowly, so I feel calm. It’s about micro adjustments, so that in each moment I can tap into those feelings of support, floating, and effortlessness. There’s a sweet spot. 

The other key here is it takes consistent practice. Going to one strength based class/exercise a week just isn’t going to cut it. It can be a brilliant place to start though. 

For me it’s about how we move through each posture, and how we move each moment of the day. Half the time, it’s about building strength without really knowing we’re doing it. 

To re-cap. 

Building strength enables me to do things, to move, to move confidently. That’s a big part of my personal Why for building strength. 

But feeling strong is a feeling in my body that I love; a feeling of effortlessness, where physical tasks become effortless (or at least a lot less hard). That feeling is another big part of my personal Why for building strength. 

And it’s the feeling in my body that drives how I build strength, and how I teach to build strength in our Yoga practice; a feeling of working, but also being calm, a feeling of support and effortlessness. Finding that sweet spot. It’s about consistency, and moving in a way that we maintain and build strength without thinking about it. Instead we’re taping into the feelings in our body, finding our sweet spot.

I’ve shared my Why behind; 

I want to be Strong. 

I want to feel Strong. 

And how that translates into how I build strength - the focus on the feeling in the body.

But I’ve so far only talked about the physical. There’s also a massive Why behind strength, that is beyond physical. 

In my next blog in this mini-series I’ll be talking about emotional and mental strength and how they are intricately connected to physical strength. Check out I Want To Be Strong - Part 4.