Are You Doing the Exercise — or Is Your Body Finding a Way Around It?

Have you ever watched an exercise demonstration and thought:

“That looks easy enough.”

You copy the movement you think you’re seeing and you complete the repetitions. You get from the starting position to the finishing position.

So you’ve done the exercise.

But have you ever stopped to think about how your body actually got you there? Understanding how your body moves can tell us far more than simply knowing whether you can complete an exercise.

How you actually gather, that’s a very different question and it’s one of the things I’m most interested in when I work with somebody.

Because two people can perform exactly the same exercise and their bodies can achieve it in completely different ways.

Let’s take a simple abdominal curl

This week on Instagram I’m demonstrating an abdominal curl.

It’s an exercise most people will recognise. You lie on your back, bend your knees and curl your upper body away from the floor.

It looks straightforward.

But when I’m teaching an abdominal curl, I’m not simply looking to see whether you can lift your shoulders.

I’m watching how you move.

Is your spine actually flexing and curling?

Are you experiencing neck tension/discomfort, by looking at the ceiling?

Are you able to control the movement?

Can you breathe while you’re doing it?

Are your neck and shoulders becoming tense?

Can you lower yourself back to the floor with control?

And, importantly, is the movement comfortable?

Someone could complete 20 abdominal curls and technically have “done the exercise”.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re moving effectively or that simply doing another 20 is the best progression.

Your body is very good at finding another way

Our bodies are remarkably adaptable.

If one area isn’t contributing as effectively to a movement, another area may simply do more of the work.

We call this compensation.

And I don’t want you to think that compensation automatically means something is wrong with you.

Our bodies adapt all the time. That’s one of the reasons we’re able to continue functioning despite injury, stiffness, weakness or changes in our physical capacity.

But sometimes those adaptations can mean that an area is repeatedly working harder than we’d like.

You might notice your neck working during an abdominal exercise.

Your lower back might dominate a movement intended to involve your hips.

Your shoulders might tense when you’re trying to move your arms.

Or one side of your body may behave quite differently from the other.

That’s useful information.

Rather than immediately saying “I need to work harder”, sometimes the better question is:

“Why is my body moving like this?”

Stop trying to make your exercise look like mine

This is something I’d really like you to remember when you watch my exercise demonstrations.

Your movement doesn’t have to look exactly like mine.

We’re different heights.

We have different proportions, different levels of strength and mobility, different injury histories, different experiences of exercise. For women, our bodies can also change considerably through pregnancy, motherhood, menopause and ageing.

So copying the person demonstrating an exercise isn’t necessarily the objective.

I’d much rather you started noticing your own body.

Where do you feel the movement?

Does one side feel different from the other?

Can you control it?

Can you breathe?

Does it hurt?

These are the reasons you’ll often hear me saying things such as:

“Just do what your body tells you to do.”

“If it hurts, please stop.”

“Work within your pain-free range.”

“Try it and see how you get on.”

And one of my favourites:

“Was that challenging for you?”

Because exercise should be about the person doing it — not the person demonstrating it.

Challenging yourself doesn’t mean exhausting yourself

We do need challenge.

If we want our muscles to become stronger and our bodies to become more capable, we need to give them an appropriate reason to adapt.

But there’s a big difference between challenge and punishment.

One of the common problems I see is someone returning to exercise after months or even years and expecting to pick up where they left off.

They remember what they used to be capable of, so that’s where they start.

More repetitions.

More resistance.

Higher intensity.

Five sessions in the first week because they’re determined that this time they’re going to do it properly.

Then everything hurts.

They’re exhausted.

Or something starts niggling.

And exercise stops again.

DO challenge yourself.

DON’T assume harder is always better.

The body you’re exercising today is your starting point — not the body you had five, ten or twenty years ago.

This is why I don’t start with exercise

It’s also why my 1:1 Exercise Therapy doesn’t begin with me handing you a generic exercise programme.

I start with you.

During an Honest Body Assessment, I want to understand how you stand, sit and move.

I look at where you’re moving comfortably, where you’re tight and where areas of your body appear to be working harder.

I’m interested in your movement patterns, your lifestyle, your health, your previous experiences and what you actually want your body to be able to do.

Because telling me that you want to become stronger, lose weight, return to exercise or move without discomfort gives me your destination.

It doesn’t necessarily tell me your starting point.

Your goal tells me where you want to go. Your body tells me where we need to start.

That’s the foundation upon which I believe exercise should be built.

And then we progress

Understanding your body doesn’t mean wrapping it in cotton wool.

Quite the opposite. I want you to challenge it, to become stronger, improve your mobility.I want you to feel confident doing more. Ultimately, I want you to understand your body well enough that you don’t feel completely dependent on someone else telling you what you can and can’t do.

That’s also where Pilates can become an important part of the journey.

For some of my clients, 1:1 Exercise Therapy helps us identify and work on their individual needs first.

Pilates can then provide a regular opportunity to continue developing and maintaining movement, mobility, control and strength.

It’s a progression that I think of very simply:

Understand it. Improve it. Maintain it.

Understand it through assessment.

Improve it with appropriate, individual exercise and progression.

Maintain it by making good movement and physical activity part of your life.

Don’t just exercise. Understand how YOU move.

The next time you exercise, I’d like you to experiment with something.

Instead of counting repetitions and thinking only about getting to the end of the set, pay attention.

What can you feel?

Where are you moving?

Where are you working?

Are you holding your breath?

Is one side different?

Is the exercise challenging?

Does anything hurt?

You don’t need to analyse every movement you make.

But becoming more curious about your own body can completely change the way you approach exercise.

Because the aim isn’t simply to become good at performing exercises.

The aim is to become better at using your body.

And that starts with understanding it.