With Valentine’s Day looming I thought it might be nice to write a bit about a topic that’s dear to my heart. That topic is finding and integrating your other half. So what does a personal trainer know about romance you might ask? Actually I am not talking about Boy meets Girl conventional romance. What I would like to talk about is a much bigger picture that could best be described as the Divine Romance. That romance is the most epic of all. It’s you coming home to all of you.

Many people in our modern hectic world live fractured lopsided lives. I have discussed the root cause and effects of this in blogs such as Adrenaline Junkie.

If we let our lives get out of balance for long enough then don’t be surprised if our bodies get out of balance, and vice versa. In Pilates we have an expression:

“A Balanced Body, For a Balanced Life”

I have been biomechanically assessing clients for over 12 years now and I have learned a lot about what is going on behind the scenes of a person’s life just by looking at how their body functions physically.

The overwhelming thing that I see is that people are either Yin or Yang dominant in their physiology and temperament. What do I mean by this? Most of you will have heard of the terms Yin and Yang as I have used them many times in writing my blogs e.g.: THE YIN IS KING!

Yin is the Chinese medicine term for the Feminine energies and Yang is the term for the Male energies. A perfect balance of these energies for each human being leads to harmony. As the great Mystic and Existentialist philosopher, Osho, used to say everyone comes from a Man and a Woman so there is a bit of both in each of us.

If we don’t acknowledge and develop both sides of our being we become split, fractured and go off on a search for our “other half” hoping that a romantic relationship might bring us back to balance. Alas this is an equation that can only be balanced internally.

People who are yang deficient lack:

Confidence, Strength, Power, The ability to take action and follow through.

People who are yang deficient procrastinate a lot and they are always looking to somebody else to solve their problems. They lack independence and inner strength.

People who are Yin deficient:

Can never seem to switch off, they numb out their emotional and intuitive sides, they suffer from burn out, they may be very restricted in the flexibility department, they may rely far too much on science , math and logic and have an under developed artistic side. They also never ask for help or show their vulnerability, that soft underbelly that we all have. Is that why that lower abdominal fat is so hard to get rid of?

People who are yang deficient need to hit those weights hard! Under correct instruction that is. This is one reason why weight training does wonders for a person’s confidence. Confidence is a yang quality.

People who are yin deficient need to hit the yoga and Pilate’s studio and get stretching and releasing all those tight spots out.

Another way I summarise this is that all the powerlifters need to hit the yoga studio and all the yoginis should lift some heavy ass weight! Somewhere in the middle we reach that personal harmony and integration of our being.

But what happens? The Yin dominant person hides out in the yoga studio for fear of bulking up and the yang dominant person overdoes the weightlifting, doesn’t stretch and chill out enough and gets injured or over trained.

We all love to do the things we are naturally good at however you will only make progress by working on your weakness.

What part of you have you abandoned? Fall in love again this Valentine’s Day and give attention to that part of you that has been left in the shadows. It might be very tough initially but like all great romances it just keeps getting better every day that you do!

Why not organise a Biomechanical Assessment today and learn about your imbalances and how to fix them.

* Special thanks to my good friend Lexi Kusturiss who let me share the photo above. Love You Lexi!!!!