MINDBODY

The lapping of waves in a quiet cove, clear skies, and a light breeze rustling through palm fronds—this was my recent vacation to Isla Holbox, Mexico. My ideal getaway is a relaxing place to read, and Holbox is hard to beat.

My days followed a simple rhythm: wake up at 6 a.m., run 3-4 miles with the sunrise, shower, and eat breakfast—three eggs, bacon, toast, and a green juice. Then, I’d claim a day bed shaded beneath woven palm leaves. Every 15-20 minutes someone would check in to see if I needed another beer or snack. Why move? I didn’t.

Four nights and 1,200+ pages read later, I felt completely recharged and ready to get back to work. We arrived home in the late afternoon, and by 7 a.m. the next morning, I was back in the gym training my first client. After days of barely moving, I didn’t think much about jumping back into my routine. But my body had other plans. At 7:05 a.m., I adjusted the GHD (Glute Ham Developer), a routine task I’ve done countless times. Then—pull.

“What the hell?”

I hadn’t tweaked my back in years, and the last time I did I was lifting 400 pounds—not moving a piece of gym equipment. As it turns out, five days of being sedentary has consequences. I took a few deep breaths, did some cat-cows, and got through the day, but the stiffness was progressing. The real test: how would I feel the next morning?

The answer — worse.

This is the kind of situation that can make people panic. Your brain fires off strong signals that all scream,  “DON’T MOVE.” The instinct is to find the least painful position—usually sitting or lying down—and to stay there. But that’s often the worst thing you can do.

More often than not, the most painful part of a back tweak isn’t the injury itself but the body’s reaction to it: muscle guarding. This is a subconscious protective mechanism where the muscles around the injury site seize up to create stability and prevent further damage.

I woke up feeling like every muscle in my body was “guarding” my lower back. I couldn’t stand up straight. Bending over to put my socks on felt like I was bracing for a one-rep max deadlift. So what did I do? I went to the gym.

Step one: Convince my body to stop overreacting. I started with small cat-cows, flexing and extending my spine just to the edge of discomfort, then breathing and repeating. With each rep, I pushed for a little more range of motion. Within five minutes, I was moving through full spinal flexion and extension—carefully, but fully. Step one was done. Next, I needed to make sure the relief would last. If I went back home and lay down, I knew the stiffness would return within the hour.

Step two: Load the tissues so they have a reason to stay mobile. I wasn’t exactly sure of what I was going to do, but my plan was simple: listen to my body.

When you’ve trained with intention for long enough, you develop a relationship with your body—you learn to hear it. So, in a near meditative state, I quieted everything else and focused on the injury, asking, "What would feel good?”

That question led me to the 45-degree back extension machine. I started with gentle back extensions, first with a neutral spine, then shifting into a wave-like motion—initiating movement through the neck, rounding down vertebra by vertebra, then reversing the pattern to rise back up. I wasn’t avoiding discomfort; I was searching for it. When I found a tender spot, I stayed there, breathing into it, letting it release.

Within a few reps, the discomfort faded. No matter how I moved, I couldn’t find that tight, guarded sensation anymore. So I kept searching. I added side bends, then kneeling cable crunches, using the same framework—moving with intention, pausing where tension lingered, and letting my breath guide me.

Within 20 minutes, no position triggered discomfort. My back had let go.

Even if exercise did nothing for your physical or mental health, the ability to develop a relationship with your body would be reason enough to do it. Your body constantly communicates its needs - if you’re willing to listen. Sometimes, it’s a restless energy, not mental but physical, urging you to move. Other times, it’s an artificial heaviness, signaling the need for rest.

The more you listen, the more your body rewards you. And as that relationship deepens, you start to realize—it’s not your mind and your body as separate entities. It’s mindbody. Not synergy, but unity. And much of what ails us stems from the illusion that they were ever separate to begin with.