I watch people move all the time. As a personal trainer, I instruct clients on
how to perform specific movements for improved fitness and function. In general, I find it fascinating to observe
how individuals get from one place to another.
It troubles me that many people seem to have difficulty moving while
performing their normal activities of daily living. Sometimes it is obviously due some injury or
chronic impairment. However, many times
it looks like the body is just not used to moving. This gives me some insight into why exercise
can be such a daunting prospect. If
walking from the car into the grocery store is a challenge, getting on a
treadmill would be completely unappealing.
Even those who regularly go to the gym are often culprits of being too
sedentary for the rest of the day. That
is still a problem. The human body is designed to move. Here are some easy
ways to add more motion to your day.
Take
the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator. You can ease into it by walking down the
stairs for a week. Many stairwells are
located at inconvenient places in buildings which gives the plus of added steps
to actually arrive to the head of the stairs.
Once you have gotten accustomed to walking to and down the stairwell you
can add the anti-gravity portion of the movement. If your destination floor is higher than you
have the stamina to traverse, just get off the elevator a few floors early and
walk the remainder. This is a great way
to move your body and strengthen your heart.
Park
your car at the end of the aisle. Those few extra steps must be of some value
since everyone is always seeking out the closest spot. It actually saves time looking for parking to
just aim to be far from the front door.
This tip also makes it easier to find your car sitting by itself at the
end of the aisle. The fact that you now will
have to carry your purchases a few more feet is just an added strength-building
bonus on the back end.
Get
up from your desk every hour. Prolonged sitting in one position, especially
hunched over a computer, is terrible for the body. Backs get sore. Hips get tight. Bums spread out while the muscles get weak. I’ll speak another time about the travesty
that is the increasing size of the buttocks in the face of decreasing strength
of the gluteus muscles with sitting. Even
if you just stand up for a few seconds and sit back down that is an improvement
on the standard. It is difficult to ask
bodies to move effectively on demand when we keep them still all day.
Walk
to your co-worker’s office/cubicle. I must confess to have never worked in a
typical office environment. As I
understand it, many people call/e-mail/text/instant message their officemates
to communicate during the day. That was
not an option when I worked in a medical office. You had to walk to where the person was with
whom you wanted to speak. There were a
lot of steps accumulated over the course of a day. I grant you it is not the most time-efficient
way to communicate. However, a walk to
the other side of the office is probably a reasonable use of a few minutes for
the sake of overall well-being.
None of these suggestions is groundbreaking. The general principle is to try to
incorporate more movement into your normal routine. Even paralyzed individuals get physical
therapy to keep their bodies from developing the complications associated with
being still at all times. Those of us
with the power to put ourselves in motion ought to take advantage of the
ability. Your body will feel better for
it.
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