“The air is up here! Get up. Put your hands over your head and stand up straight.”

In the athletic realm, hands on your knees, bent over, gasping for air is to be avoided. Coaches yell at us to stand up tall.

The only problem? It's bad advice that goes against our physiology.

Bending over and putting your hands on your knees improves recovery immediately after an exhausting workout.

Currently, there are two theories to explain this phenomenon. https://journals.lww.com/acsm-tj/Fulltext/2019/02150/Effects_of_Two_Different_Recovery_Postures_during.1.aspx

1. Putting your hands on your knees puts the muscles you utilize to breathe in a better position to do what it does best. Your rib cage is in a better position to expand and your diaphragm is able to relax and utilize more of its total capacity.

2. Lowering your upper body & being on a level plane with your heart, the heart doesn’t have to work as hard against gravity. This explains why some even fall to the ground post-exercise, minimizing gravity’s difficulties, allowing the heart to pump on an even playing field.

Regardless of the exact mechanism, putting your hands on your knees isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s the right choice.

Our body is smarter than we give it credit for.

Ignore the pain. Suppress the feelings of hurt, despair, or anxiety.

Far too often, we are told to bat away inner signals that may be relaying a message. We frame them as enemies to dispose of, to resist. Instead, we need to learn when to listen to what our body is saying.