Laia Pujolras: Finding balance in movement

There is little that Laia Pujolras does not do. The physiotherapist enjoys running, yoga, cycling, gym work, Pilates, Nordic walking and more recently, pilatewalk; combining everything into an average week. Her active lifestyle is the fruit of practice and some life lessons which forced her to take a break from everything, to rebalance and approach movement in a healthier way.

Text, photos: Sjors Beukeboom

As a physiotherapist, Pujolras regularly tends to patients who visit her clinic with pain or injury concerns. What lies behind their symptoms is usually not a malfunctioning body, but rather a lifestyle that causes their nervous system to be constantly on alert, always tense and rarely given a break.

“People wake up, have breakfast, and go to work. They do the same things every day, train without really feeling what is happening in their body, and try to combine that with family life, seeing friends and many other obligations.”

“At the same time, there is also external pressure: social media, expectations of our peers, the idea that we should always be doing more. People want to do many things in life, but the body cannot always follow. It’s at this point that injuries appear.”

Slowing down

On occasions, Pujolras cannot solve everything for her patients, but she can give them tools to start making lifestyle changes. Sometimes that starts with something very basic: slowing down, or even stopping completely for a moment. Many people struggle with that more than with any physical exercise.

“In those cases, adding more training is rarely the solution. It’s about stopping physical activity and calming the nervous system, even if it feels counterintuitive in the beginning.”

She speaks from experience. Her own turning point came around 2020. She had been doing too much for too long, and her body made that clear.

Breathing

“I still struggle with accepting that I cannot do everything in one day”, she says. “But when I accept it, life becomes lighter. Sometimes it’s better to stop and do nothing, even to be bored, rather than pushing yourself to the limit every day. Sports, including running, should not become another way of ignoring what the body is saying.”

For those moments of taking a break, what helps her is doing breathing exercises. “Inhale through the nose for four seconds, exhale for eight”, she explains. “Exhale longer than you inhale. When we lengthen the exhalation, the body receives the message that it can slow down. Repeat ten times. “Breathing is one of the most direct tools we have to calm the nervous system and reconnect with our body.”

Having reconfigured her personal balance, Pujolras is back to doing sports almost every day. “When I was young I started with dance: ballroom dancing, tango, cha-cha-cha, waltz. I was quite competitive and looked for challenges outside Catalonia. At weekends, my family and I were always in the mountains. Nowadays, I lead groups of people doing all kinds of different exercises and sports. I like combining different disciplines and I don’t feel I have to choose only one way of moving, as long as it keeps me connected to my body and to what I need in each moment.”

Read the full interview with Laia Pujolras in Nafent Running volume 2, available in the Nafent Magazine webshop.