“some quote about humans being meant to move”
Exercise is good for you, right?
(If you aren’t in agreement so far, then probably stop reading now. That’s kind of an underlying premise of this whole post.)
The way we view ‘exercise’ or ‘move’ in our society is a bit odd. It’s been allocated to certain places: a gym, swimming pool, sports centre, park, countryside or the streets. But do the same thing in another place, such as an office, train station or outdoors in the city, and it is ‘wrong’.
There’s also the way that exercise is meant to be done in certain ways and for a certain purposes (looking slim or hench), but actually in the five years since writing this post there has at least been some shift towards more healthy and holistic relationships with exercise. When done well, ‘exercise’ or movement can be something that we do for the joy of it, for mental wellbeing and an activity with other people, or perhaps also as practical training for something, instead of just a means to some aesthetic end.
This is a version of ‘domain dependence’, where we put a something that is good into a ‘domain’. Nassim Taleb tells a story of people taking an escalator to get to their gym, or someone who lifts weights at the gym putting a suitcase on a trolley instead of carrying it.
This approach to ‘exercise’ doesn’t line up much with how our bodies work. Our body is working and ‘moving’ the whole time, just to varying intensities; it isn’t a binary of exercise or not but a continuum of movement. Sat still for awhile on a chair, you aren’t moving much (but still breathing, heart beating, shuffling around, scratching your face), but when you stand up to go and fetch some crisps from the kitchen, your body works a bit harder. Can your body tell the difference between going for a jog and running for the bus? Not really.
I listened to a podcast awhile ago (Kelly Starret, London Real, comes well recommended) which talked (among other things) about the underlying idea of the ‘base activity rate’ as a determinant of health. This approach suggests it’s much less about doing three sessions of ‘moderate intensity’ each week but rather the aggregate of what you spend most of your time doing. This makes sense (even if it is an opposite approach to the norm): if ‘exercise’ is only ten percent of your movement (what your body is doing), it makes sense it will have a minority effect compared to the other ninety percent of our time. Kelly Starret describes a sedentary lifestyle is comparable to smoking in how bad it is for your body: muscles fairly inactive, breathing often shallow, circulation limited, and the damage done by bad postures.
One of my favourite quotes on this is from Ido Portal (this video): “Humans are great at adapting. If you start doing something, your body will adapt to be better at doing it. If you stop doing something, your body will adapt to be better at not doing it.”.
If you don’t use your joints and muscles fully, you will lose the ability to use them fully. Young children are able to squat down on the floor: despite it being called the ‘asian squat’ or the ‘slavic squat’, it is a natural human position that pretty much everyone can do when they are young. In asian societies where people still do it, this is just because people have kept doing it and it is normal, not any sort of genetic difference. But most adults (and even teenagers) in our society can’t do this, showing that they have lost some of the mobility of their ankle or hip. It’s use it or lose it, and spending most of our day sat in chairs with our hips locked in place and not using our ankles much means that we lose much of what we had.
Squats are a normal human resting position. They allow us to catch our breath (and stretch out the back a bit). They are also the very similar movement pattern to jumping, so if you can’t do a full squat then your body probably can’t jump at its best, and may even have a limitation that could cause damage. Most runners/joggers run with something out of alignment, whether it’s a collapsed knee or a turned ankle or a wobbly ankle, which can cause damage over time. Squatting is also a functional movement for picking something up off the floor, packing a bag, getting into a cupboard or shelf, even sweeping the floors.
So part of being ‘healthy’ in (or against!) this modern lifestyle is to try and increase the amount we are moving throughout the day. Some of this is pretty standard stuff, like to try and walk or cycle instead of driving or taking the train/bus/tube/etc, or adding a 10-15 minute walk into the commute by parking further away or getting off a stop early. But we should also think about the whole range of movement: walking adds a bit of energy expenditure, heartrate and breathing, but does nothing for our shoulders or flexibility.
Ideally, spaces would include a bit of equipment for different movement options. A bar and some rings, some floor space, perhaps even a vault box, and of course a healthy way of using a computer. Throughout the day, if we must spend many hours stationary using a screen, we could put in short bursts of things. Maybe use the toilet that is on a different floor instead of the nearest one to make use of the stairs, or even better, add in some hopping or quadrupedal movement on the way. For a phonecall, maybe take a walk if that works. If standing still waiting for something, balance on each leg for a minute at a time. Large buildings should also have movement spaces, in a similar way to quiet spaces for prayer or wellbeing, a designated space where it’s encouraged to move or stretch.
The title and inspiration for this post came from a moment when I was visiting a hospital and, after reporting to reception, I was told to “take the lift to the fourth floor”. Take the lift?! It shocked me a bit that using the lift was part of the instruction: it wasn’t just ‘go to the fourth floor’ but specifically the lift! Of course the receptionist wasn’t thinking about the whole movement philosophy behind what they said, but it got me thinking. I made it a general rule to take the steps, even at tube stations. 5-10 stories of stairs is a good way to put a short burst of exertion into your day. That’s 50+ reps of having one leg lift an extra load!