Hailey Friedman
Hailey Friedman is a San Francisco resident passionate about sharing tips and advice on health, wellness, and the best fitness services in San Francisco.
Mental health and fitness are deeply connected. While traditional talk therapy is an essential tool for trauma recovery, movement-based healing plays a critical role in processing and releasing stored trauma. Exercise not only strengthens the body but also rewires the nervous system, reduces stress hormones, and fosters a sense of emotional resilience.
Live Fit Gym, a doctor-owned gym in San Francisco, utilizes evidence-based exercises and strategies to help you build emotional resilience. Live Fit Gym incorporates integrative fitness, a combination of mindful exercises, structured training programs, and restorative therapy to heal both the mind and body. Read on to learn how this approach impacts mental health and which fitness program is best for building your physical resilience.
How Trauma Gets Stored in the Body
Trauma isn’t just emotional—it’s physical. When a traumatic event occurs, the body responds by activating the fight-or-flight response, flooding the system with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. If unresolved, these trauma responses become ingrained in how we think and how the body reacts to environmental changes.
Common Ways Trauma is Stored in the Body:
- Muscle Tension: Chronic tightness in the jaw, shoulders, or stomach often stems from prolonged stress.
- Nervous System Dysregulation: The body remains in survival mode, leading to anxiety, insomnia, and fatigue.
- Postural Changes: Trauma imprints physically, causing slouched shoulders or rigid movement patterns.
Exercise, breathwork, and mindful movement help retrain the nervous system to feel safe again. By intentionally moving the body, both physical and emotional stress can reach a healthy equilibrium.
Impact of Fitness on Mental Health & Trauma
Fitness is an effective tool for mental health and trauma recovery, as long as you stay consistent. Whether it’s walking 10,000 steps a day or jogging for 10 minutes each morning, repetitive movement can help reduce anxiety, enhance mood, and promote psychological resilience.
Here are four ways that fitness improves overall health:
Stress Reduction
Exercise lowers cortisol levels and stimulates endorphin release, creating a natural sense of calm. Engaging in activities like yoga, strength training, and HIIT activates the parasympathetic nervous system, counteracting stress responses and restoring balance. Some find that practicing yoga regularly helps them feel more grounded and in control of their thoughts.
Enhanced Mental Resilience
Building mental resilience starts with a strong mind-body connection, allowing for better emotional regulation during stressful or uncertain times. Integrative fitness helps strengthen this connection by pairing things like personal training, nutrition, massage therapy, and alternative treatments to improve overall health. For instance, someone dealing with high work-related stress might find that regular strength training not only releases built-up tension but also improves their ability to stay calm in new environments.
Boosted Self-Esteem
Every workout is a small win that builds confidence and keeps you motivated. Whether it’s lifting a little heavier, running a bit farther, or finally nailing that yoga pose, hitting your fitness goals strengthens the way you view and talk to yourself.
Better Sleep
After a long day, engaging in activities like strength training or cardio helps reduce cortisol levels, making it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep. If you’re struggling with insomnia, you may find it helpful to add regular evening walks right before bed.
Start Your Mental Health Journey with Integrative Fitness
Discovering the right fitness routine is key to building lasting mental and physical resilience. Live Fit Gym provides integrative fitness programs that help you improve your mind-body connection by combining physical conditioning, strength training, cardiovascular workouts, and flexibility exercises. This multifaceted approach improves emotional resilience, endurance, and mobility by creating a balanced and sustainable routine. To begin your mental health journey, choose the fitness classes you’d like to incorporate into your new routine.
Yoga for Stress Relief & Emotional Healing
Live Fit Gym’s yoga classes are designed to release physical tension and help process stored emotions. Through a combination of breathwork, mindfulness, and movement, each session reduces anxiety and lowers cortisol levels. Choose between Yin, Vinyasa or Power Flow Yoga to start feeling lighter, calmer, and more balanced.
- Power Flow Yoga – A fast-paced workout that blends strength, flexibility, and dynamic movement to boost energy and focus.
- Yin Yoga – A restorative practice that targets deep connective tissues to release tension and promote emotional healing.
- Vinyasa Yoga – A yoga class that links breath with dynamic poses, building strength and flexibility while calming the mind.
Strength & Conditioning to Boost Self-Esteem
Strength and conditioning workouts not only build physical power but also play a crucial role in improving mental health. Strength training has been shown to release endorphins, which elevate mood and combat anxiety, making it an essential part of any mental health journey.
Explore Live Fit Gym’s classes to build muscle and boost self-esteem:
- Cal-Aesthetics – A blend of calisthenics and aesthetics-focused exercises designed to build strength and improve body composition. Each workout enhances stability and functional fitness while boosting self-confidence.
- Muscle Maxout – A muscle-building class focused on maximizing strength and muscle growth. Ideal for those looking to build a strong foundation while improving mental resilience and physical power.
- Ath-Elite Training – Power training specifically designed for athletes. Each class emphasizes explosive movements, agility, and endurance to help improve athletic performance while fostering mental toughness and focus.
HIIT & Circuit Training for Mental Clarity
HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) is a workout that alternates between short bursts of intense exercise and brief rest periods, designed to maximize calorie burning and improve cardiovascular fitness in a short amount of time. At Live Fit Gym, each HIIT class typically includes bodyweight exercises, cardio bursts, and sometimes strength training. These group classes help you reset your stress responses and provide you with a supportive community to stay motivated.
Explore each HIIT class to build mental endurance:
- HIIT & HIIT IT – Quick, intense bursts of high-energy exercises to push your limits.
- HIIT & Core – The first half focuses on cardio, followed by a core-strengthening session.
- Total Body HIIT – A full-body workout designed for maximum intensity and overall conditioning.
Personal Training for Emotional Support
Whether you’re engaging in high-intensity sessions, yoga, or powerlifting, working with LFG’s personal trainers ensures you reach your full potential while minimizing injury risks. Each coach customizes a program tailored to your mental and physical goals, helping you build strength, reduce stress, and improve focus. Not only will you receive effective workouts, but also you’ll develop sustainable eating habits to improve nutrition. To accelerate your fitness journey, personal trainers may also suggest recovery services like massage therapy, physical therapy, chiropractic care, and acupuncture to support you from the inside out.
Gain Extra Support with Holistic Wellness Treatments
At Live Fit Gym, you’ll gain extra support beyond personal training. The goal is to provide a balanced, holistic approach that ensures your body and mind are in optimal condition, helping you thrive both in and outside the gym. Discover chiropractic care, massage therapy, acupuncture, and advanced healing treatments to support both your mental and physical well-being.
Chiropractic Care for Nervous System Balance
Chiropractic care plays a vital role in relieving tension, improving posture, and restoring nervous system function, which helps reduce anxiety and supports recovery. Most chiropractors at Live Fit Gym specialize in treating the neuromusculoskeletal system—bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and nerves—by using hands-on or tool-assisted adjustments. These techniques correct misalignments (subluxations), which reduces pain, improves nerve function, and enhances overall health.
Massage Therapy for Deep Stress Relief
Massage therapy is an excellent way to release stored tension in muscles, promoting relaxation and reducing anxiety. Each massage therapist specializes in soft tissue manipulation to target muscles, tendons, and ligaments. With techniques like kneading, stretching, and applying targeted pressure, massage therapy helps improve circulation, reduce inflammation, and ease muscle tension.
Explore all massage therapy treatments:
- Swedish Massage: Gentle strokes to relieve tension and muscle knots.
- Deep Tissue Massage: Focused pressure to target chronic pain and injuries.
- Sports Massage: Combines deep pressure and soothing strokes to relieve pain and improve flexibility.
- Prenatal Massage: Gentle techniques to ease body aches and stress during pregnancy.
Acupuncture for Emotional & Physical Reset
Acupuncture is an ancient healing technique that regulates mood chemicals, lowers cortisol levels, and supports emotional balance. It’s effective for a wide range of physical and emotional ailments and can be used alone or in combination with other treatments. Acupuncture promotes overall energy, mental release, and enhances the effectiveness of your other wellness treatments.
SoftWave Therapy for Cellular Healing
SoftWave Therapy is a non-invasive treatment that utilizes soundwave technology to speed up muscle repair, reduce inflammation, and promote deep healing. This advanced therapy activates the body’s natural healing processes and is supported by research and evidence. It effectively reduces both acute and chronic pain, boosts blood flow, and encourages tissue repair and regeneration. Additionally, SoftWave Therapy stimulates stem cells and growth factors, helps modulate inflammation, and improves flexibility and mobility. Experience the power of cutting-edge SoftWave technology at Live Fit Gym, with OrthoGold SoftWave available at both the LFG-Castro and LFG-Arguello locations.
Receive a SoftWave Therapy Session
Transform your Mental & Physical Health
Taking a holistic approach to fitness and wellness is essential for both mental and physical healing. At Live Fit Gym, you’ll find a variety of specialized classes and wellness services to support your journey. Whether it’s through yoga, strength training, HIIT, or personal training, each program is designed to release stored trauma, reduce stress, and build emotional resilience. With comprehensive care options, including chiropractic care, massage therapy, acupuncture, and SoftWave Therapy, you can optimize recovery, alleviate tension, and achieve lasting well-being.
Ready to transform your mental and physical health? Contact Live Fit Gym today and begin your mental health journey.
