An embodied practice and intervention that is informed by the latest in neuroscience and trauma research. It transforms weight lifting to both promote and facilitate healing for trauma-impacted individuals and groups.
Weight lifting, when approached in a trauma-informed manner, aims to foster resilience, increase a felt sense of agency and empowerment, cultivate healthy nervous system functioning, and facilitate positive relational connections to self and others. Trauma informed weight lifting posits that using external forms of resistance can facilitate healing and recovery through engagement of the proprioceptive and vestibular systems, while supporting individuals in developing greater interoceptive awareness, vagal tone and parasympathetic nervous system recruitment.
Additionally, it is believed that the physical strength developed in weight lifting is a manifestation of self-trust as one learns to bring a sense of curiosity to the process of attempting both new and familiar movements under increased resistance.
