“The breaks give your nervous system a chance to unwind,” said Ms. Khoudari, who has also completed courses in body-based trauma therapy and has become a leading advocate of lifting as a form of healing. “When we deal with trauma, our nervous system generally has less stress capacity and also less resilience,” she continued. “And so you can use strength training to push the edge of how much stress you can take.” Over time, this can increase our tolerance threshold.
For this reason, Dr. Whitworth and others argue that weightlifting can be a helpful tool for people undergoing exposure therapy, with therapists encouraging patients to focus on their traumatic memories for short, controlled steps — not unlike the cyclical nature of strength training. Over time, this exposure can defuse the memories and the related physical stress.
“The idea is that they can be very anxious in the beginning,” said Dr. Whitworth. But “over time, patients begin to process the fact that those memories and feelings are not dangerous.”
Combining this therapy with high-intensity exercise like weight lifting, he said, may be “particularly beneficial.”
For many people with trauma, lifting weights also helps them feel comfortable in their bodies. As Ms. Rooney explained, “Bodies are often the harbingers of trauma and the bearers of trauma,” leading many people to experience some sort of mind-body disconnection. For example, if a person has experienced physical trauma involving their trunk, they may feel detached from that part of their body as a coping mechanism. But lifting weights can help reconnect the mind and body.
Take the back squat, Ms. Rooney said, with lifters pivoting at the hips and knees while resting a weight on their shoulders. “There’s something about having, for example, a barbell on your back, that’s like, ‘Wow, suddenly I can feel my spine. I can feel the back of my body. And I can feel the last time I hit the back. of my body felt no more,” she said.
Danielle Friedman is a journalist in New York City and the author of “Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World.”