When you body moves it is fulfilling its purpose. The human body has evolved to ‘do’ things. We did not evolve into passive blobs slumped on a seashore or a rock, under a tree or in a hole in the ground. We evolved to move. We walked, fran, danced, swung, swam, swayed and danced ourselves through our evolution. Our brains developed to be the control centre of this movement and it influenced our bodies to develop in ways that made its ability to control, our movements effective within the bounds of what we were evolving towards. And we became smart that way, able to overcome the limitations of our physical size and ability by using ideas and innovation to leverage our influence on the world.
So here we are few hundred thousand years on. Our changes in circumstance from needing to be active daily to function and survive to being able to step back from having to almost be in this constant motion has been super fast. So fast that our physiology has not even begun to catch up. We have not had time to evolve to where we are.
So, when you look across at your coaching client, how they move, IF they move, what their physical movement and experience is, matters. A lot.
Don’t step over it for in movement lies potentially many gifts and answers. Let's stop and consider too that most of what we think about and place our attention on in coaching involves doing. Think of action and accountability, a cornerstone of coaching practice. Action is entirely a doing thing. It is performed by the body at the request of the brain and mind. We are mental and emotional beings knitted into an entirely physical and doing dimension. Even so called practices like mindfulness involve the body in movement ( and sitting still in silence is a physical act by the way)
I have stated that we are interested in health and all the ways we input into the body because we are interested in brain health. And we are interested in brain health because a healthy brain is a prerequisite for peak cognitive performance, creativity and change. Movement and exercise matter to brain health. We know too that mental health challenges are directly influenced by movement. Exercise causes the release of feel good hormones and helps reduce stress. There is hardly any health topic that is not positively affected by exercise. See the graphic.
So, if your client is not on the move in a positive way then make a decision to bring the topic into the coaching session.
Not I wrote above ‘in a positive way’. Exercise can be counter productive if it is compulsive. If people are dependent or even addicted to it or if they are using it as an avoidance technique. Be alert if your super busy client goes to the gym instead of going home to their family or partner. Exercise and movement, like eating and drinking fits into a balanced and health sustaining environment in relation to the other things in a person's life. Coach them to manage that balance well.
It is not essential that you are an expert on exercise.
Being a coach who integrates health issues into the coaching relationship does not mean you are an expert in exercise and fitness. It is important that you have an overview of the benefits of exercise ( and that you can get from a simple study of online topics or from our coach training programme https://www.aerwc.com/ ) but what you are wanting to encourage is your client's own interest in exercise and movement and their ability to use it within their own lives to their own benefit. So it is far more important that they are experts of their own fitness than you are on fitness generally.
You ability to coach is affected by how YOU move!
All the factors of brain health, looking to be the best we can be, looking to be useful to our clients mean that we too are impacted by these factors. It is part of our professional practice that we aim to optimise ourselves to be in the best condition to provide coaching services. So if you are already on the move then keep going and if you are not there yet get started!
The strategy
The way to integrate exercise into your coaching contract is the same as I have written on before in previous blogs.
To recap then:
Reconfiguring your standard coaching toolkit to include exercise and movement as a component that it is important to your coaching practice and your clients awareness.
Invite clients to keep records over a pre agreed period of how and when they exercise. Correlate it with moods, emotions and performance.
Develop the habit of checking in with clients about their exercise over time with some specific times when you invite them to take a closer look
Link exercise with awareness of other connected behaviours such as nutritional awareness, sleep, exercise and rest that we have already covered.
Nutrition and neuroscience
The links are ongoing but here are two articlòes that you may find interesting.
http://neurosciencenews.com/exercise-learning-8821/
http://neurosciencenews.com/exercise-memory-thinking-8240/
Happy Moving!