All Movement is Exercise
During the past week several of my clients have talked about how much gardening they’ve been doing and the most wonderful part of their stories is that THEY ARE NOT IN PAIN!
I have a 67 year old woman who shared that she will get up at 6 AM and work in her gardens until 9 AM several days during the week. She will come into her personal training session and report that she is a little bit sore and then will do her workout as though nothing else had occurred that day.
Every movement we engage in is technically exercise, but the weight lifting and stretching that we do weekly is often what allows us to do that 3 hours of gardening in the morning (or whatever other activity you want to engage in).
It’s hard for many people to stay on track with an exercise program even though they know how important it is.
Rather than feeling badly about what you’re not doing, consider feeling good about what you ARE doing this week.
Notice how much you move during the course of your day just by engaging with the activities of your life. We are constantly bending, reaching, lifting, moving things, getting up, sitting down.
If you want to do a little more weight work, set a pair of dumbbells in your space where you’ll see them regularly and can do a few bicep curls, tricep overhead extensions of kickback, maybe a few deadlifts or reverse flies.
You don’t have to set any amount of time for your “workout”. Just lift some weights when you see them, have a couple of free minutes AND it’s not creating stress for you to do so.
If you want to strengthen your legs a bit, do some “squats” by simply standing up and sitting back down a few times. The main purpose of a squat (or a lunge) is to help us get up and down from the ground. If it feels hard, do a little bit more so that it will start to feel easier.
Action Step:
Pay attention to how much you move throughout your day this week. If you find you’re sitting too much, get up and move around your space if you can.
If you have a few free minutes, consider using them to stretch or foam roll (if you’re at home) or do a couple sets of a weight or a band exercise.
It’s easy if you just do one thing, and each “one thing” adds up to a stronger, more flexible body that lets us keep doing what we love to do as we age.
