Thanks to online courses, we now have the opportunity to learn exercises at home, without contacting a trainer and without visiting the gym. How realistic is it to learn new movements from video? How can this be useful, and how dangerous?
As the creator of several video courses on qigong practices, thanks to which our students learn new – rather complex, subtle, unusual – exercises, I can say with confidence that it is possible to master physical disciplines from video. This gives quite tangible results. But there are certain pitfalls in mastering video exercises. What to look for when choosing certain online courses?
Mirror Skill
Why do people, despite the huge variety of video courses, continue to go to real trainers? It’s very simple: watching a real person perform the exercises, and getting a correction, it’s easier to master the exercises. Therefore, if you have the opportunity to go to real lessons with real trainers, this approach is always preferable.
We have mirror neurons in our brains that allow us to directly take on the movement of another person and repeat it as accurately as possible at the moment. Live they work one hundred percent, on the video there are nuances. When choosing a video product, give preference to one that is filmed from different angles so that you can see the movement in 3D. As a rule, such shooting is accompanied by a fairly detailed explanation of each movement, which also improves the quality of online learning.
New movement type
In the video, you can see in detail how a person performs the exercise. However, the type of movement itself is not always transmitted by all coaches. What do I mean by movement type?
In one of our online courses, we are teaching students a new type of movement – relaxation movement. This is a completely unfamiliar type of movement for many, which is important to master for success in practice. To convey it, we have developed a video exercise that, by activating mirror neurons, teaches a person to move in relaxation – turning off large muscles and using deep autochthonous muscles.
This approach to training requires a huge investment of time, effort and resources, but it also increases the speed of learning and reduces the risk of injury in the process of mastering the exercises to almost zero. Therefore, I declare with confidence: it is possible to transfer not only the motion pattern itself, but also the system for its execution online.
Movement amplitude and accuracy control
Seeing the movement, we do not always reproduce it accurately (otherwise there would be much more Olympic champions in all sports disciplines). In some cases, people can hardly assess the accuracy of their movement from the inside: how correct is it?
To keep practicing, I offer a simple and quite fun trick. When an inner voice tells you something like “does it work for me?” Answer him: “Yes, it works!” Because you are already maintaining your health and fitness, and this is already a lot, then you are on the right track. Further details!
To assess how correctly you are performing the exercise, it is important not so much to look in the mirror or record yourself on video, but to rely on internal sensations. In any well-designed course, you will be given a list of “right” and “wrong” sensations, based on which you can evaluate the quality of the exercise. For example, in qigong practices, the list of “correct” sensations includes:
- feeling of relaxation;
- decrease in the intensity of habitual pain sensations;
- pleasant sensations, as during or after a massage.
Among the “wrong”:
- any pain;
- feeling of stretching;
- tension, muscle contraction.
In each exercise, this list is refined and detailed. So it will be easier for you to understand what exactly you are doing right and what is not. For example, if there is a feeling of tension, this is a signal that the qigong exercise is performed with excessive amplitude – you need to reduce it.
Such observations and recommendations from online trainers, among other things, characterize their experience: the longer, better and better a person teaches, the more clearly he understands and explains the mechanics of correct and incorrect execution of exercises.
Escort
Any online course, as a rule, is equipped with the possibility of online counseling. You master the exercises, ask questions, get answers and motivation from a real instructor who answers you online. As our practice has shown, such communication is one of the most important factors for the success of any gymnastics. Therefore, we literally force our online students to share their impressions of the practice, ask questions and answer ours, and do their homework.
Choose courses where such accompaniment is encouraged: without it, any mastery of exercises quickly fades away – our brain does not like to learn new things, and it must be constantly motivated. For the same reason, after completing the course, you should have the opportunity to study in more advanced groups: continue studying, participate in online marathons or develop your practice in real seminars. Such support, being in the field of practice, allows you to create real miracles of healing, rejuvenation and any other useful work on the body.