Movement vs. Exercise
Movement, not exercise, is essential to our health in the same way that proper nutrition and sleep keep us living a healthy life.
From the ages of zero to about 13 I dominated my neighborhood in street hockey, all forms of tag, and home run derby. My dad built a pitching mound in our back yard so I played really aggressive home run derby every day after school. The result of every afternoon mattered to me. If I lost, I was angry. Backyard games to some are just games. To me, it defined my place in the neighborhood.
Fast forward to the middle of 2014 and I popped on a Robb Wolf podcast in which he interviewed Katy Bowman. This podcast has been at the forefront of almost every thought that has passed through my brain since that day. Her thesis revolved around the idea that movement, not exercise, is essential to our health in the same way that proper nutrition and sleep keep us living a healthy life.
When I was a kid playing home run derby in the back yard, nobody ever told me I needed to exercise. I was probably in phenomenal shape. I was constantly sprinting, moving side to side, swinging a bat, climbing fences, etc. Somewhere in my adulthood, these things stopped. After months of thinking about this idea of movement as being an essential part of being human, I want those days back.
But what is movement, and what is exercise? Movement is an innate part of our biology. Lift your arm, sneeze, walk, run, sprint, or roll and you are moving. As a general rule, movement is free flowing and you most likely do not need to think about the mechanics of movement. When you were a kid playing tag, you never thought about your running stride, you just did not want to get tagged. Walking on the boardwalk does not require intense effort or thought, but it is also one of the most beneficial things you can do to improve your fitness. Most of the time, you never even think about movement until you are injured and suddenly natural movement is taken from you.
Exercise is a very concentrated, and often more intense, form of movement. The intensity of exercise requires us to spend more time focusing on the movement patterns. Exercise is an important aspect of being healthy; however it is only a small part of the fitness lifestyle. Fitness, as a lifetime journey, should be a mix heavily skewed toward free movement throughout the day, with three to five days a week of concentrated exercise.
As we dig deeper into the concept of movement vs. exercise, and the importance of both of these concepts, try to think back to a time when you went outside and just played. A time when exercise was not the goal but when you were done, you had spent an hour throwing, running, moving laterally, catching, and just moving naturally. Too often, movement gets lost in the rules of exercise. Get outside, walk, run, sprint, throw a football, and integrate movement back into your fitness plan.
Tomorrow we will look at lifestyle choices and how to implementing movement into your daily life.
This Thursday, Anders will be hosting a clinic at 1019 Garnet Ave to discuss movement, exercise, and the benefits of finding balance.
