How Does Exercise Improve Confidence? Developing confidence with GPP
How Does Working Out Build Confidence?
The effects of exercise on self-confidence are not limited to physical changes. In questioning how exercise improves self-esteem and confidence, it has been proven to boost both. But it’s complex.
The ‘happy hormones’ released in the brain during exercise have been shown to elevate mood and reduce anxiety, and working out makes people feel more attractive and confident in their own bodies.
However, when considering the effect of working out on confidence, it’s also important not to get carried away with the idea that exercise is a quick fix for low confidence. Visible signs of positive progression can take time to show, so it’s productive to have support around you to confirm the progress that may not be immediately evident to you.
A common issue is that people will always have inaccurately perceived demands of exercise. This leads to inaccurate self-assessment of the difficulty of exercise or other physical activity. Studies show that when people are shown a picture and are asked to estimate how far they must walk in that image, 9 out of 10 overestimate the distance.
In short, both over-confidence and a lack of confidence must be monitored and managed during exercise and rehabilitation – for both can hinder progress.
How Reload can help you develop self-confidence with GPP
From our experience with hundreds of clients, general physical preparedness (GPP) is a key to developing self-confidence. The stronger you are across the biomotor capabilities, the more confident you will be to take on any task or activity. We call this self-advocacy.
To deliver this, we take a five-step approach to improving confidence:
We understand your past experiences and your knowledge about your situation and the exercise you do. We know that the challenges you face (physically and mentally) are unique to you.
We identify what you think you are capable of, and then perform a gap assessment.
We show you what you are actually capable of during our training sessions.
We debrief and explain why there is a difference between perception and reality
We repeat steps 1 through 4 again and again as we create a process of sustainable training unique to you and your situation.
As you move along the curve, we continue to measure improvements in strength, flexibility, and even body composition. This evidence demonstrates your progress and, hopefully, improves your confidence.
Joe Lipsky, a PT at Reload, says:
“What GPP does for you is to build you up to withstand whatever stress life throws at you. When you can withstand whatever life throws at you, you develop self-confidence, because you put in the work to be able to get to this point.”
You see, as Joe and the team understand, our job is to guide you. In the end, it is you who does the work. It is you who gets the gratifying feeling at the end. It is you who gets to say, “I did this.” Whether this is lifting heavier weights, running faster or further, or jumping and landing without the fear of injuring your knee. It’s your accomplishment.
So, with good and improving GPP, your confidence grows. And it’s not a false sense of confidence, either. You’ll know that you are strong, flexible, and have the cardiovascular health to take on the challenges that eluded you before.
“This is by far the most rewarding thing to see,” says Joe. “It’s probably the thing that makes me love this job the most: to see that in our clients.”
What are some of the best-observed outcomes for Reload’s clients?
We personalize our programs to each client – they’re all individuals and their needs are as unique as they are. Our founder, Ryan Chow, is open about sharing the kind of outcomes that our approach helps achieve while maintaining client confidentiality, of course:
“We’ve seen people who have gotten into surgery when they shouldn’t have, and that had another surgery, and the pain is still there. The pain was never caused by what they saw on the image (e.g. MRI scan, X-ray, or similar)…
“Surgery is, by definition, a trauma, so you cause trauma to an area that was hurting, but didn’t fix the actual problem. Then they try to fix what they got wrong with another surgery. The person ends up in fear, disability, and in a very difficult situation… Now they fear that something worse is wrong, or that they are unfixable.”
We do those checks that should have been done in the first place. Things like hip internal rotation, range of motion, and weakness of muscles around the painful area. We develop a regular, progressive, and engaging strengthening program that is client appropriate.
We help to eliminate the pain, build up confidence, even overcome a disability, and build clients up from having daily pain to rediscovering their identity and developing new goals. This is what we call the gift of injury – the opportunity to learn about your body and develop yourself over and above what you were before the injury.
(To watch what a few of our clients say about our approach and the outcomes they have achieved with Reload, see our testimonials.)
You don’t have to settle for a life of pain, lack of confidence, or fear of injury. You really can get back to your former self, and even progress beyond that.
The first step on a journey is usually the hardest to take. Learning where you are today, right now, is that first step. Take the first step today: book an appointment with us to start with a comprehensive 90-minute physical therapy body evaluation.
