Weight Lifting and Trauma: The Healing Connection

Alyssa Ages was no stranger to the gym when she had a miscarriage in her mid-30s. A Strongman competitor, CrossFitter, and Ironman finisher, she was the strongest she’d ever been athletically. But after losing the pregnancy, she felt vulnerable and broken, and lost a way of trust in her body. When she returned to the gym, the goal wasn’t to construct more strength, but to tap into strength training’s palliative emotional capabilities.

“After my miscarriage, I used to be trying to find something more—a method to imagine in my body once more,” Ages says.

While weight lifting is, after all, not a alternative for therapy, research shows that the tangible challenge of lifting a heavy barbell can foster greater mind-body connection¹, because it did for Ages, who recounts her story in Secrets of Giants: A Journey to Uncover The True Meaning of Strength.

To make certain, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are difficult to treatment², and what’s best for one person may not work in any respect for the subsequent. But while healing can occur within the therapy office, for some people, it may also occur on the ground of a gym.

How can lifting help heal trauma?

Trauma specialist Mariah Rooney, MSW, LCSW, co-founded Trauma Informed Weight Lifting in 2018 after hearing countless stories from individuals who turned to lifting to address mental health challenges, but had harmful or unwelcoming experiences in fitness spaces. Today, the nonprofit researches the healing potential of weight lifting and teaches trainers the best way to higher support the needs of individuals with trauma who walk through a gym’s doors. On this work, she and her colleagues have observed various ways in which lifting can result in healing, with lessons and takeaways that translate from the gym to life. Listed below are a number of of probably the most powerful effects weight lifting can have on trauma.

The challenges can construct self-trust and agency

Rooney explains that one in all the best impacts of trauma is that it disconnects us from ourselves—including our sense of safety, sense of belonging, and connection to the world. One among the findings in recent research¹ is that weightlifting may help reestablish a severed reference to the body by constructing self-trust. “Weightlifting is a relentless query,” she explains. Those lifting face the inquiries: Can I do that? Can I lift that? Can I do that with good form and never get injured?

“Being within the position to even ask those questions after which being willing to attempt to see what the reply is, builds up quite a lot of self-trust for people since you learn that you could do really hard things, you’ll be able to lift heavy things, and you’ll be able to move your body in ways you didn’t know you could possibly,” Rooney says.

Just as necessary as finding the reply to those questions is honoring your ability to say no to them, which may help construct agency when trauma so commonly takes autonomy away.

The physical sensations can bring people back into their bodies

Rooney says that sometimes, a byproduct of adapting to trauma is to change into highly dissociated, when an individual detaches from their feelings, thoughts, or physical sensations in response to being overwhelmed. “We will leverage things like weightlifting, to support regulation for individuals who could also be dissociated,” Rooney says. The external stimulus, just like the barbell in your back or the feel of knurling (the metal pattern on a barbell) is a method to hook up with the body, and physically feel your muscles and joints again, reengaging the mind-body connection⁴.

For Ages, it was particularly helpful to reconnect with an element of her body that she felt had betrayed her. “With a view to move something heavy, like going for a heavy deadlift, I needed to brace my core to guard my back,” she recounts. “I’d take a deep breath in and feel my abdomen press against my weight belt. In that moment, if I desired to lift that bar safely, I needed to imagine that a part of my body—the one which had been home to a lot sadness, that felt so weak—is also a spot of strength.”

The intervals can expand emotional resilience

Interval training, which involves short bursts of exercise met by rest—a vital feature of weight lifting—may widen someone’s “window of tolerance,” or the space during which someone can comfortably cope with stressors. Trauma can shrink your window of tolerance, making it easier to change into dysregulated. With interval training, the capability to do a tough thing for a brief period can construct resilience and confidence.

What to search for if you happen to’re lifting for trauma healing

When you’re figuring out to work through trauma, search for a gym with staff members which have a foundational understanding of trauma, the way it manifests, and the way it might impact people, Rooney says. Concentrate to signs of general inclusivity, which might span from marketing language to gender-neutral bathrooms, and signal a welcoming space.

Rooney also says to search for coaches and trainers who operate from a spot of curiosity about client behavior. She explains how behaviors historically labeled in fitness spaces as “unmotivated,” like not showing as much as a session or exhibiting resistance toward a certain exercise, needs to be met with a matter as an alternative of the all-too-common drill-sergeant mentality of “just do it.” Especially when working through trauma, it’s necessary to go at your personal pace and be certain that your coach prioritizes your safety and desires.

Also, keep in mind that engaging in community might be particularly helpful on the road to healing. The correct environment can provide help to find your people, and find your strength again, inside and outside.