All Movement is Brain Based, So What is Brain Based Exercise?

By midlife, our brains have solidly entrenched predictable patterns of movement. We don’t have to think about movement most of the time. This happens because we have been moving over and over again in familiar ways. Each person has a unique way of moving.

For example, an avid bicyclist will have more similar movement patterns to other bicyclist than to someone who runs or walks regularly.

The way our body looks and moves is both complex and simple. All movement is coordinated by the brain. Neuroscience and biology help us understand how this works. Wolff’s Law says bones grow based on the mechanical forces on them. Davis’s Law says that soft tissue like muscles grow based on the forces on them. This means our body is adapting to the activities and things we do.

This is good news for people who want to stay active and moving well in midlife and into legacy years.

If you don’t know these principles, you may easily fall into the trap of thinking aging means poor movement; this is not necessarily so.

As we age, we don’t move in new ways or play with movement the way we did when we are young. Priorities are often different, preferences change and if you are a parent, you know about burning the candle at both ends. What most people typically think of as stiffness, loss of strength and slowing down due to aging is more about adapting to moving less.

The less we move, the more bad movement shows up and promotes pain, compensation patterns, decreased brain function and decreased health.

Remember though an adapting brain is good news.

A Brain Based Training Program assesses how your brain is creating your movement patterns and then develops exercises to improve movement based on this information.

Good quality movement is moving safely, efficiently and pain-free to meet the demands of the activities you choose to do.

Go easy, have fun, and play with your ever-adapting movement.