“How are you feeling?”

I think it’s more than just habit that has us coaches asking the basic question, “How are you feeling?” This question comes via email, over the phone, or even between classes with our athletes all the time. Specifically, the question that I’m talking about is in reference to a general state of being. It’s about how things are going with training, life, and everything else, specifically evaluated by feel.

Though this might not seem revolutionary, I think it is significant. I almost never find myself first asking students about their lifts or performances and I’m certainly not asking people about how they look in the mirror these days. Us coaches are most concerned with how training sits with you by way of feel. This is significant.

Our sense of feel guides us everywhere. It’s key in decision making, it guides us through complex movement patterns, and it’s always giving us feedback like a compass leading our next move.

You hear it time and time again, especially from health nuts telling you to listen to your body, but there’s an important relationship at play here. Since the importance of how this training, eating with purpose, positive lifestyle stuff sits with you precedes how you look in the mirror or if you can do more pull ups than last week, you’ll want to take note with specifically how you are feeling. This speaks to our first concern (your wellbeing) and it speaks to your chance at longevity when it comes to functional fitness.

So, as serious as ever, I ask you, “How are you feeling?” If the answer doesn’t fit your fancy, we’ve got some lifestyle habits to shift around.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach