Movement and Exercise - there's an important difference

Because we spend so much of our time sedentary an important thing to consider is to create more movement into your day. The exercises I have shown you so far and will show you more during the month can be used together as an exercise programme but can also be interspersed throughout the day.

By creating a variety of movements into your day it gives your body a chance to regain and maintain the strength and mobility it needs to keep healthy into old age.

First, what kind of movements are available to you? The human body has developed for a hunter gathering lifestyle. If you think about foraging you find food deep in the ground, at ground level, all the way up to a level where you may need to stretch or climb to reach it. As you are gathering you may find yourself kneeling, squatting, twisting. Foraging is done over a large distance so all this time you will be walking, climbing or stepping over things, maybe jumping over streams… you get the picture. Back at base camp, so to speak, you will unlikely be sitting on a sofa but lying, squatting, kneeling (see below for a whole variety of ways humans rest.)

Our bodies are designed and need a variety of movements to keep them strong and mobile. If you think about how we live now we have so many things at waist height, even sitting at desks and cars everything is designed for our arms to be in more or less the same position, and often the lowest we get is just sitting on a sofa.

This lack of movement means muscles become shortened or over tense, causing them to be weak. Joints lose their range of movement. All this leads to poor circulation, both of blood and lymph. And lack of blood flow leads to poor oxygen flow around the body. Nutrients cannot move as freely and it is harder for your body to remove toxins and waste from your if circulation is poor. Bones become weak because they are not loaded properly which can lead to osteoporosis – a common problem in our society.

Tensions and weaknesses in muscles will mean that any sport or exercise you do will require your body to compensate, for example if you are a tennis players but have a poor range of movement in your shoulders, as you go to hit the ball above your head you will have to thrust your ribs forwards in order to reach the height you need, rib thrusting compresses the back, and discs in between the vertebrae and can cause strain on your ligaments. So while you are out intending to get exercise to keep fit you are unintentionally creating damage due to your body’s lack of range of movement .

To remedy weaknesses, and lack of range of motion you need to do specific corrective exercises to release tensions and strengthen muscles and you also need to increase the range of movements you do in daily life.

Spend a while as you go about your day noticing what movements you do and what is lacking, just observations no judgements. Then see if you can find some ways of adding more movements.
For example:

Chopping veg sitting on the floor rather than working at the counter.

Scrubbing floor using a scrubbing brush or cloth rather than a mop

Sitting on the floor rather than sofa (try out some of the different positions in the picture above.)

If you are watching tv rather than just sitting in one position try out a calf stretch, psoas release etc.

Create a standing work station if you work on a lot on a computer. (this can be as easy as standing up and putting your computer on a box)

If you have a changing table to change your baby’s nappies can you position it so you can use it from both sides and the bottom (maybe give yourself a real challenge and from the top as well) But also can you make a changing area on the floor so you need to get down and kneel or squat to change nappies as well.

When you go to a playground can you get moving here, some of the exercises we’ve covered this week can be done while you are pushing swings or waiting near climbing frames. Or maybe get on the equipment yourself – make playground time a chance for you to get moving and play too.

Have a play, observe your daily habits and see if there are small changes you can start to make to increase the range of movements in your life. Take it slowly maybe just one or two for now and make them a habit and then work on changing some more.