You are Built to Move.
If you need me I will be sitting on the floor working on Vital Signs 1 and 5.
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Built to Move
As with anything in my life, when I come across something I want to learn more about, I am relentless in its pursuit. I listen to all the podcasts, google all the articles, and read as many books as I can get my hands on. In light of last week’s post about my body starting to feel the aches and pains of aging I’ve been doubling down. I had been listening to the Be Well Podcast while I do my walks in the morning and host Kelly Leveque interviewed Dr. Kelly Starrett and his wife Juliet who are cofounders of a mobility company, called The Ready State* and they’ve written a couple of books on the subject. He wrote a running book titled, Ready to Run* which I devoured because anything that can benefit my running is a priority. Their newest book, Built to Move,* was the topic of conversation on the podcast and I went straight to The Strand to get a copy. I don’t know if you’ve heard but sitting is the new smoking. A sedentary lifestyle leads to all sorts of health risks from heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers to obvious neck and back pain as well as a weak posterior chain. It even affects the way your body digests food. Movement doesn’t have to be strenuous but it does have to be consistent.
Starrett’s book is a simple set of physical practices designed to increase your range of motion to reduce the risk of injury as well as easily integrate more movement into your day to decrease sedentary tendencies. There are also breathing practices to help manage stress and refresh the body with a larger supply of oxygen. Here is an overview of the 10 protocols.
1. Getting Up and Down Off the Floor. Those of us at a certain age have all seen the ad with the elderly person lying uncomfortably on the ground dramatically yelling “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” As cringy and low-budget as that ad was, falling is a real danger at any age but as we get older and lose mobility, falling and the inability to get back up pose really great dangers to our overall well-being.
2. Breathe Easy. People with healthy lung function tend to live longer and a lot of us don’t breathe well as often as we should due to poor posture, mouth breathing, and taking shallow breaths. Because breathing is an automatic physical response that we don’t even really think about, we could be doing it so much better if we took notice and learned to breathe well.
3. Extend Your Hips. Most people have limited extension in their hips because they sit all day. Limitations anywhere along the chain can cause a cascade of problems. When there is tightness in one area it tends to pull on another area, leading to pain and restrictions. The good and bad thing about the human body is it will adapt. Sitting for hours at a time, day in and day out, and Hip flexion becomes the norm, albeit with consequences. Thankfully with a little effort, better hip flexion and healthy mobility can be achieved.
4. Walk This Way. Get those steps in y’all. You can’t work out for an hour a day and then sit the rest of the time and think you’re active. That’s not how your body works. You need to MOVE your body all day long like it was built to do.
5. Future-Proof Your Neck and Shoulders. I’ve always been on Scott about doing strength training not for anything other than making sure we can both lift 35-40 pound camera cases into the overhead bin. The shoulder and neck is a complex interconnected area and when it’s grumpy, it can make life miserable.
6. Eat Like You’re Going to Live Forever. I’ve talked about the importance of protein before, here. I love how the book summarizes the importance of quality nutrition. “Your daily nutrient intake affects all components that allow you to move, including your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and other tissues as well as your cartilage and bones. It also influences the level of inflammation in your body and that too can affect movement.” Preach it, my brother.
7. Squat. So many song lyrics are accosting my brain now. Everything from the “how low can you go” part from Grease’s Hand Jive to Shawty getting “low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low.” Apparently, they were on to something as humans are built to squat, and a deep squat takes your joints into their normal end range, which is what every joint is designed to be able to do.
8. Find Your Balance. Balance is so important to retain as you age, and it’s an easy skill to turn back on with a little mindful practice. It literally affects every other aspect of mobility and lack of balance can lead to people living smaller lives as the fear of falling looms. The easiest way to incorporate a little balance work is to start standing on one leg while you brush your teeth.
9. Create a Movement Rich Environment. This goes back to moving all day long. I’ve encouraged Scott to drink more water during the day which in turn makes him get up from his desk more regularly to go to the bathroom. Win-win, he stays hydrated and doesn’t sit at his desk for 8 hours at a time. Some things caused by prolonged sitting you might not even realize are connected include “impaired vascular function, high blood pressure, poor blood sugar metabolism, inflammation, reduced blood flow to the brain, and even blunting the beneficial effects of exercise, such as lowering triglycerides and insulin levels.” Get up and MOVE!
10. Unleash Your Superpower: Sleep. I mean y’all know how I feel about sleep if you read one of my first blog posts. You can revisit it here. I take sleep very seriously these days. I love how the book sums it up. “When we’re tired, most of us hold it together. But if you look at how kids behave when they haven’t gotten enough sleep, you get a little window into what the body really thinks about being sleep deprived.”
I don’t want to give it all away because I think this book is a worthy investment you will use as a resource for years to come if you want to age well and have healthy mobility. The book* provides assessments so you can get a gauge of where you are in each area and how you can get better in the areas of weakness. I for one will be testing myself on the regular and adding in the practices where I need improvement.
