Stay fit and vital! Introduction to Resistance Stretch (RS) for Trainee Teachers
What are the physical effects of one-sided strained postures, stresses and emotions – this is the question that concerns participants in the "Stay Fit and Vital" seminar, which the Myoreflex therapist, Tanja Hemlein, offers for young trainee teachers in her seminars for didactics and teacher training in Weingarten.
In June 2010, the therapist invited the future teachers to learn how to appreciate and more effectively train their own bodies through specific movement exercises. Using case examples from different hobbies, such as Yoga, sailing and tango, the participants used their own bodies to learn how to implement specific exercises for disease prevention and health maintenance as well as general stress relief and rehabilitation.
For practitioners of the teaching profession, such exercises are especially important, because they can compensate for the tiring activities of sitting at a desk correcting class work or preparing lessons. To combat another problem that is relevant for teachers, daily psycho-emotional stress, which is responsible for the very high burnout rate in this profession, Myoreflex Therapy, with its Resistance Stretch (KiD) exercises provides an effective counterbalance.
Starting from the basic premise that emotions and emotional stress can be mirrored in the form of increased muscular tone, participants learn how to pursue targeted stress reduction using coordinated RS exercises.
In order to prevent classical “diseases of the teaching profession,” such as backaches and prolapsed vertebral discs caused by poor posture and too much sitting, we also explain strategies for preventing biomechanical changes in the joints.
Using additional RS exercises, it is possible to achieve better blood flow in the lumbosacral spine and thereby provide support for the central nervous system. Other benefits of such support include improved concentration and vision, and promotion of blood supply to the inner ear, so that stress-related problems such as tinnitus and burnout can be combated prophylactically.
According to Tanja Hemlein, it is especially important that all these exercises be easily integrated into everyday life. The comprehensive major training program, which requires two hours three times weekly, will no longer be feasible for teachers in their later professional life.
RS exercises only take a few minutes, and require no apparatus or additional travel. Thus, participants in the seminar have learned how they can take a major step to support their muscular and skeletal system and provide active stress reduction assistance for both body and psyche, with only a small expenditure of time and effort.
