Breaking Out of the Cage: The Importance of Moving More

July 14, 2019 1:49 pm / Posted in , ,

We all know that sitting too much is bad for us. It leads to chronic conditions like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. But our modern world involves a lot of sitting. We sit at our office jobs, in the car when we go from place to place, and even on public transport. That’s why you’ve chosen to work out: so you won’t have to deal with any negative health effects of a largely sedentary lifestyle. And it’s pretty effective, right?

Yes and no. Of course, I will always encourage you to exercise because it’s good for you. Don’t stop going to the gym, but do consider our context. As humans, we’re born with an innate ability to move, which you’ll see if you ever watch kids play. They run just about everywhere, want to climb, jump on things, and move constantly. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s exasperatedly told a kid to please sit still. Eventually, kids grow older and do slow down. They learn to sit still. And they learn to do it a lot, for hours on end. Then their (our) waistlines start to expand and they (we) start to feel lethargic. That’s usually around the time they (we) decide to hit the gym, but they (we) usually don’t fully regain the ability to move like they (we) once did.

There’s the thing: people in our society only move for the 5-10 hours we need to move to reap some benefits. We don’t usually walk, climb, or run just because; we only move with purpose, like to train for a race we want to run or to “walk off” the cake we just ate. It makes sense to be pragmatic, but we were designed to move way more than we do these days. Our bodies become stiff when we don’t move enough and protest when we do start moving – that’s how injuries happen. We’re still built to move, but our world is no longer built to keep up with that drive. So we become like caged animals, restless and unhappy.

What can we do to change? How can we revitalize ourselves and realize our true physical potential? We can hardly go back to hunting and gathering full-time and no one should expect us to. We can, however, incorporate more movement in our days. I call this physical activity. As you know, I’m a huge fan of making exercise fun and using your real life (outside of the gym) to fuel your workouts.

In fact, most of my clients’ workouts are based on compound movements like squatting, lifting, throwing, striking, climbing, and crawling. We can all do these movements if we break them down to an appropriate fitness level. Compound movements use more than one muscle group and more closely resemble real-life movement. They help you train for your day-to-day life, like carrying your groceries properly, gardening, or picking your kids up without hurting your back. Incorporating compound movements is a great start to building functional strength, which is crucial to preventing injury in and out of the gym.

I also recommend that people train movements that actually apply in real life; for example, instead of just a sitting on a machine doing a bench press, why not build up to push- ups? Push-ups use your body as a unit – as it’s meant to be used. They’re also more rewarding. Have you ever seen anyone randomly doing an isolated chest press outside? No, but I’m sure you’ve seen people look graceful as they pull themselves up out of a pool.

To add to more intentional workouts, I also encourage my clients to do more physical activity that they enjoy. Some people love taking long walks with their dogs, others like to swim at the cottage or have a boogie, and still others like to play ball with their friends. It doesn’t matter what the physical activity looks like, as long as you’re moving and having a blast.

So get your body moving more and you’ll look, feel, and move better than you might have even thought possible! In your mind, what is your next physical activity going to look like, now give it a try.

A huge thank you to Erwan Le Corre, founder of MovNat, and Brett McKay, founder and host of The Art of Manliness podcast who gave me the inspiration for this blog post. They’re both doing great work in the fitness and health and wellness spaces.

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