Be Activated

Activation

“What’s in the mind is in the body and what’s in the body is in the mind.”

Have you ever caught yourself suddenly gasping for air or getting out of breath quickly? 

In a society filled with stressors, we believe we all too often get stuck in a “fight or flight” state, resulting in poor health, such as sickness or injury and fatigue, both physical and mental. We use a system based approach termed ‘Be-Activated’ to help the body fire in the correct sequence. This helps to reduce the highly alert state of living into a more relaxed state, thereby allowing us to handle and overcome our stressors more efficiently and effectively.

Be-Activated can help you interrupt these stress evoked patterns and find a state of balance. We can help you identify and more easily manage stress, resulting in increased productivity.

What is Be-Activated?

Based on the concepts of muscle activation and sequencing in movement, ‘Be Activated’ is a powerful yet simple hands-on system developed by physiotherapist and kinesiologist, Douglas Heel.

Be Activated is the science and art of getting your body to work the way it is meant to, and in doing so allowing it to break free from pain and dysfunction. From here your body can move into higher states of performance on all levels allowing you to not only move, function and feel better but also giving rise to massive shifts in strength, speed and flexibility.

Why have an Activation?

Whether you are in pain or want to feel, function and move better, activation will help you get there.

Our body’s ability to overcome the stresses and pressures of life can result in reduced movement and exercise, putting us at risk.

Through systematic manual therapy, activation techniques are simple to teach and offer unique, powerful tools for control over your own health.

Who would benefit from Activation?

Everyone.

Whether for athlete performance or stress relief, activation can help you find centre.

Postural muscles of the body are all slow twitch muscle fibres as they need to hold up the body for sustained periods of time with minimal movement. Slow twitch muscle fibres are oxygen dependent, which means they require oxygen to operate effectively. If we are not breathing correctly and therefore not getting enough oxygen to the muscles, they cannot function correctly to support our body’s continuous fight against gravity. This means that if we can influence our breathing we can influence our ability to maintain good posture.

How is Activation different from massage?

Where massage is looking at muscle tightness, activation is a systematic system designed to prioritise the two necessities for survival; to breath and to move. Without both, we will die. Our body finds ways to meet those priorities and is willing to sacrifice anything in order to do this. That is when we see dysfunction and/or pain.

How often should you be Activated?

Everyone is different. The idea of activation is to teach your body new (correct) patterns of movement – essentially creating new habits. You may have significant gain and hold this pattern effortlessly, or you will need more intervention and reminding. This is why we also teach you to activate on yourself, to take control of your own health and maintain the new patterns of movement we have taught the body.

Written by Sofia Tsamassiros – Movement Specialist and Personal Trainer