Think like a yoga teacher when lifting weights

In any yoga class I’ve taken, the teacher refers to the experience in class that day as “your practice”.

We (and I mean me) don’t usually think of other workouts (like strength training) as practice but in reality, all of our workouts are actually that, practice.

Over the past year, I’ve been dedicated to learning kettlebell Olympic lifts and get frustrated when the moves are not coming to me easily especially since I’ve been working with kettlebells in a traditional strength capacity for 10 years.

The feelings I’ve been experiencing with the kettlebell Olympic lift training mirrors those of when I first started as a beginner to strength training. “I just can’t get it right.” and yet, it eventually all comes together.

What we do in the gym or any fitness studio is practice at getting better (or stronger) at the exercise and the skill. It’s no different than the soccer practice kids go to.

Our greater purpose in exercise: practice toward skill mastery, practice at getting stronger. For us older folx, I look at the exercise as a lifelong health practice.

Are you learning something new right now? How we do right now is the least skilled we will ever be at it and with practice, we move toward mastery. (that's me reminding both of us)

If we think like yogis do, we’ll embrace the time as our practice.

Kettlebell Olympic lifts are what I'm practicing right now, what about you?