Movement: Why Moving More Matters

We often overestimate how active we are.

You might train several times per week and still spend a huge proportion of your waking hours sitting down.

At a desk.

In the car.

On a train.

On the sofa.

That's not a moral failing. It's simply how a lot of modern life is structured.

The human body is capable of an enormous variety of movement, yet it's remarkably easy to spend hours at a time barely moving at all.

So alongside your actual training, I want you to think about something much simpler:

How much do you move?

Movement and Exercise Aren't the Same Thing

When people decide they need to become more active, they often immediately think:

“I need to go to the gym.”

That's one option.

But exercise is only one part of your overall physical activity.

Walking to the shops counts.

Playing with your children counts.

Gardening counts.

Taking the stairs counts.

Walking the dog counts.

Carrying your shopping home counts.

None of these necessarily replace structured exercise, but they all involve using your body rather than remaining stationary.

Movement doesn't have to look like a workout to be worthwhile.

Why Does Movement Matter?

Regular physical activity is associated with a huge range of health benefits, including better cardiovascular health, physical function and mental wellbeing.

Current UK guidance recommends adults accumulate around 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity, alongside muscle-strengthening activity on at least two days per week.

It also recommends breaking up long periods of inactivity.

That might sound like a lot if you're currently doing very little.

Don't let it put you off.

You don't have to go from zero to the complete recommendation tomorrow.

Some activity is better than none, and relatively small increases can be meaningful when you're starting from a low level.

Sitting Isn't Destroying Your Body

I wouldn't go as far as the original version of this article and tell you that sitting will inevitably leave you with aches, pains and restrictions.

That's too simplistic.

Sitting is a perfectly normal thing to do.

The problem is that modern life can make it incredibly easy to spend a lot of time sedentary while doing relatively little physical activity overall.

So rather than becoming frightened of sitting, think:

Can I introduce more movement into my day?

Stand up occasionally.

Walk somewhere.

Change position.

Take the stairs.

Go outside.

Train.

You don't need to discover the perfect posture and maintain it for eight hours.

Bodies generally benefit from activity and variety.

Start Smaller Than You Think

This is where people often make things unnecessarily difficult.

You've decided to become more active.

Fantastic.

Monday arrives and suddenly you're going to:

Train five times.

Walk 10,000 steps every day.

Stretch every morning.

Start running.

Cycle to work.

And become an entirely different human being by Friday.

Or...

Go for a ten-minute walk.

If you're currently doing very little activity, that's progress.

More importantly, it's something you might actually repeat tomorrow.

Little and Often Works

Movement doesn't have to happen in one enormous block.

You can accumulate activity throughout your day.

A ten-minute walk in the morning.

Walking somewhere at lunchtime.

Taking the stairs.

Five minutes outside between meetings.

Playing with your kids after work.

A gym session later in the week.

It all contributes.

If your work requires long periods at a computer, you might find it particularly useful to periodically stand up, walk around or perform a movement that simply feels good.

You don't necessarily need an elaborate “desk posture correction routine.”

Sometimes you just need to stop being in exactly the same position for hours.

What About Stretching and Mobility?

Stretching can be useful if you want to improve or maintain flexibility.

But you don't need to spend an hour doing yoga every day to be considered mobile.

One approach I like is simply identifying movements that are useful to you and practising them regularly.

Perhaps there's a position you want to become more comfortable in.

Maybe your ankles need more range for your squat.

Maybe hanging from a bar feels fantastic after sitting at a desk.

Do a little.

Do it regularly.

See what changes.

And remember that strength training through an appropriate range of motion can itself help develop and maintain movement capacity.

Mobility doesn't have to exist separately from strength.

Walking Is Seriously Underrated

If somebody currently does very little physical activity and asks me where to begin, walking is difficult to beat.

It's accessible.

It's free.

It doesn't require changing clothes.

You can do it almost anywhere.

And you can scale it incredibly easily.

Ten minutes becomes fifteen.

Fifteen becomes twenty.

Maybe you start walking somewhere you previously drove.

Before long, you've created considerably more activity without needing to carve another hour out of your day for a formal workout.

Walking isn't a consolation prize because you didn't make it to the gym.

It's physical activity.

Don't Let Your Tracker Become Your Boss

Step counters can be useful.

If your phone or watch tells you that you're averaging 4,000 steps per day, you might decide to gradually increase that.

Great.

But 10,000 steps isn't a magical threshold where 9,999 is unhealthy and the final step suddenly fixes everything.

Use numbers as information.

Not commandments.

If tracking motivates you, use it.

If it makes you obsessive about pacing around the kitchen at 11:57pm because you're 83 steps short, perhaps it's stopped being particularly useful.

Small Action Often Leads to Bigger Action

This is one of my favourite things about starting small.

Tell yourself you're going for a ten-minute walk.

You might come home after ten minutes.

Excellent.

You did exactly what you intended.

But sometimes ten becomes fifteen.

Then twenty.

You find a route you enjoy.

You start doing it regularly.

Eventually you stop thinking of it as something you're forcing yourself to do.

It's simply something you do.

That's where we're trying to get to.

Don't Always Ask “Could I Do More?”

Ask:

“Could I move a little more than I currently do?”

For someone sedentary, the answer might be a ten-minute walk.

For someone already training hard five days per week, the answer might actually be:

No. I could probably do with recovering.

Context matters.

The goal isn't to maximise movement every waking minute.

It's to build an appropriate amount of physical activity into your life and maintain it.

Your Movement Challenge

Don't completely redesign your week.

Pick one small thing.

For example:

Take a 10-minute walk every day.

Walk somewhere you'd normally drive.

Get outside during your lunch break.

Take the stairs instead of the lift.

Break up a long period at your desk with a few minutes of movement.

Pick something that feels almost too easy.

Then do it consistently.

Once it's part of your normal life, you can build from there.

The Bottom Line

You don't have to become an athlete to benefit from moving more.

You don't need every activity to become a workout.

And you don't need to spend hours exercising every day.

Walk.

Lift.

Play.

Carry things.

Change positions.

Use your body.

Start from wherever you are now and gradually build an active life that you can actually maintain.

Because ultimately, the best kind of movement isn't the theoretically perfect option.

It's the movement you keep doing.