Trauma-Informed Fitness
It’s socially accepted that fitness spaces are health-promoting spaces and, for the most part, they are. But what happens when someone has a negative experience or doesn’t feel safe, accepted or successful in a fitness space? Negative outcomes can happen when an industry is predominantly trained in physical health, and doesn’t have much training in trauma and the nervous system.
Fitness professionals mean no harm. At the same time, some fitness messaging, styles of motivation, and even fitness environments have not taken into consideration folx history, background, and identity. When the person’s complexities are left out of the conversation, harm can be done.
That’s where trauma-informed fitness comes in. Being trauma-informed first means that we need to keep in mind that people are more likely than not to have a history of trauma.
What is Trauma?
Trauma is our perception of something as life-threatening from which we were unable to protect or defend. Trauma can also be described as a violation of boundaries (from Embodied Recovery). Commonly known examples of trauma are sexual assault, physical assault, natural disasters, and death of a parent or caregiver. However, trauma can also be bullying, an emotionally neglectful caregiver, a relationship break-up, or a coach pushing you past your limits.
The way I think of trauma is that it can be anything that is not supportive in nature, while simultaneously not having adequate resources to process and heal from it at the time. Therefore, the same traumatic experience could happen to two individuals, and they will have different reactions and levels of impact.
When trauma happens, it is stored in the body (somatically) and experienced through sensations, emotions, and images. Because trauma is stored in the body, movement is critical to healing, when done from an embodied perspective.
What is Trauma-Informed Fitness?
Most simply, trauma-informed fitness is taking the components of trauma-informed care, and applying it to a fitness setting. It requires an understanding that, in order to engage in fitness, we must feel a sense of safety in our body. When we ignore safety, we are essentially overriding the signals from our nervous system. This is common in a fitness setting and might sound like “push harder” or “don’t stop” or “mind over matter” or “pain is temporary.” Overriding our signals overwhelms our nervous system. This can feel like too much and, over time, it can manifest as maladaptive thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.
Honestly, I could study the nervous system and embodiment for the rest of my life and not fully understand it. However, a baseline understanding does help us lay out best practices for trauma-informed fitness. Here are some ideas for you:
Ways to be a Trauma-Informed Fitness Professional:
- Orient to safety. Show your clients around so they know where to find things like restrooms and water foundations. This will help settle them.
- Check in. Ask your clients how they are feeling, how their energy level is, and how they would like to engage in movement. Every day is different, so let’s teach our clients how to notice what their body is telling them. (I.e. there is no reason we need to engage in high-intensity interval training every time we see our clients).
- Grounding. Start your sessions/classes with grounding. This could be breathwork or literally finding the ground underneath you. Grounding brings your clients into the present, where safety can be found. (Trauma lives in the past).
- Choice and agency. Tell your clients that they have the choice to stop whenever they want. Give them plenty of options so that they have agency to move their body in a way that feels good to them. Trust that your clients know their body best.
- Consent. Always ask for consent before using physical touch as an alignment cue. Avoid pushing their body into a deeper stretch unless you have permission.
- Respect boundaries. Are you giving your client adequate space? With mindful curiosity and practice, we can sense if our client wants more space. If you are unsure, you can ask. Also, consider your client’s emotional boundaries and when they want to engage in a discussion and when they do not.
- Teach your client to listen to their body. This takes practice. Ask your clients, “what are you noticing?” “how challenging is this exercise for your body?” or “if your body could talk, what would it say right now?” This helps them be IN their body.
- Focus on function over appearance. When we focus on appearance, it takes us out of our body (furthering disembodiment). If we can teach our clients to notice the function of their body and their capabilities, they will foster gratitude and connection with their body (trauma disconnects us; healing connects us). This can also be very healing for sexual trauma survivors.
- Curiosity. If you hear judgemental responses like “I’m tired because I’m so out of shape,” you can encourage less judgement and more mindful curiosity. “Let’s try to hold judgement and just notice what is, as if there is no right or wrong.”
- Compassion. Try infusing compassion into sessions. “Thanks body, for breathing while I’m working at the same time.” This builds safety and regulation in the nervous system, which can be part of their healing from trauma.
Overall, we need to help our clients find safety and embodiment. The safer they feel, the more likely they are to come into their body, heal from trauma, and enhance their well-being through movement.
Want more? I recently discovered Laura Khoudari who wrote a very helpful blog post on this topic. Her book Lifting Heavy Things, which would be a great next step if you want to learn more.
If you’re looking for trauma-informed fitness or yoga classes (in-person in Raleigh, NC or online), check out our schedule here. We also offer trauma-informed personal training, wellness coaching, and more.
