Tara Weaver Fitness

You’ve probably noticed that when you wake up your face is a little puffy. Or maybe your ring won’t budge on your finger. While severe inflammation could be an indication of more serious issues, a little inflammation during sleep is normal. It does, however, mean that our joints are more vulnerable to strain and injury in the morning. Especially if those joints are misused or overused throughout the day. A stiff back, for example, that is under constant strain due to prolonged sitting or bad posture during the day, is more likely to become inflamed overnight. This is part of the reason why someone might “throw their back out” over something as innocent as putting on their pants in the morning.

Regardless of how we use our joints during the day, we move less at night and fluids pool around some of our joints until we move again. In addition, cortisol, a naturally occurring anti-inflammatory hormone, decreases at night. This is why it’s so important to gradually take the body through varied and widening ranges of motion upon waking. Movement pushes fluids throughout the body, relieving particularly swollen joints and nourishing others.

I’ve designed my Morning Mobility class to get your joints moving through progressive ranges of motion and to engage your supportive muscular system. We always start out with the second most important muscle after the heart: the diaphragm. After some diaphragmatic breathing and some floor based stretches we end with standing mobility work to get you ready to go about your day. None of this is rocket science - but I craft each class carefully based on what I have learned over more than a decade of studying and teaching mobility. 

The best way to take my class is to sign up here and log on Monday mornings at 6:30 am. But if that time doesn’t work for you, sign up anyway I’ll send you a recording of the class.

All proceeds for the month of August go to Hemophilia Alliance of Maine.

To our health!

-Tara