Movement adventures
Life is never stagnation; it is constant movement, un-rhythmic movement, as we are constant change. Things live by moving and gain strength as they go.
Bruce Lee
Introduction
Workout. Exercise session. Training day. It all sounds like work! And I'm not one for skiving off, especially when it’s my intention to move everyday, for as long as I possibly can, because, well, that’s what I would live to be able to do.
But I think there’s another way.
Movement adventures are explorations of just what your body can do, necessarily involving patterns and repetition to reinforce confidence but with a side of diversity, bringing us back to life where we don't always know what’s waiting for us. Some would read injury here, and yes probably if we don’t move for it, but that’s the point, right? Move with a side of taking a leap of faith here and there, testing your fear and then some. It’s limitless, truly functional, and plain out playtime!
What are you training for?
I love the sound of “I’m going to get some movement adventures” over “I’m going to get a workout”, which I guess is the point!
I’m excited to move each day, multiple times sometimes depending on the day. It definitely suits us as a family - is it just me, but who has the time for an hour at the gym and half an hour each side for travel - but even after a working day, another ‘workout’ just sounds like more energy out until I can finally do what I want to do. Fit it in throughout your day and smile and enjoy your life ‘by moving and gaining strength as you go’. And you’ll inevitably be doing what you want to do as you go.
So what do I want to do? Play! Yes I live the life of my 7yo and I don’t want to stop. I don’t know why as adults we stop playing, or wait until we have kids to start again! And it’s a very effective way to get moving daily, the inputs my body needs to stay health through it’s full range of motion, with progressive overload built in.
A movement adventure
All movement adventures, clients, family or solo, start by throwing a frisbee or kicking a ball, tip, hide and seek, jumping fence poles, climbing and balancing on fences, hoola-hooping, juggling. My ‘elite octogenarian’ (self proclaimed!) client often walks to the park where we meet balancing on the gutters to ‘get her mind and body’s eye’ in!
It depends on where we are and what’s available, another aspect I love: something from nothing and creativity on demand. Like life, with movement adventures, you never know what you’re going to get. You’re always assessing your body and your surrounding environment in a creative way - which gives you an extra buzz especially before, during or after work and the ‘have tos’ of home life.
Movement adventures about what you can create with your body rather than what you can ‘work out’ of it, like something’s inside you that you need to get out.
Movement adventure programming
So can you plan for movement sessions? I think a ‘program’ for something concerned with exploration sounds counter intuitive but there are guidelines we should all aim for. These are the movements we’ve always had and should never have lost - which is fine if you’ve never lost them but there’s no time like now to start getting them back and then some! You should be able to squat, lunge, push, pull, twist, and use your gait (run, walk, skip, frolic like a lamb!).
Yesterday we were kicking a soccer ball at an oval surrounded by white fence posts. They turned out to be perfect for frog leaping (a really dynamic squat) and weaving in and out (lunges in action, also gait). Our game got really wide and so we tried to see how many ways you could throw the ball in from the sideline - side, front and back which involved some pretty good pushing exercises. We found medicine balls in the boot of the car in bags to help carry them and my son invented a bag dragging (pulling) race to get them to the soccer pitch - a race of course (gait) - and then to see who could throw them furthest forwards, backwards and sideways (progreesive overload on the ball pushing anyone?). We also tried kicking with our left and right foot, stopping the ball with our left and right foot, pivoting to kick, getting around the ball to its other side and snaking it off others (some great twisting and awkward gait moves!). So I’d call that a pretty good whole body ‘move-out’!
Start where you are, with what you’ve got and what you know. Start slow and then see how far you can incrementally increase your range. Think kicking in soccer and small kicks between your left and right and you walk, jog and run, or smaller to wider and wider faster stronger to a partner.
What about progressive overload? Try to go one more time. When you feel like, ‘nah, I’m done’, or 'I'm too tired now’, it’s time to try one more kick and run back, one more fence climbing, one more balance. Just commit to that. It’s just one more (see previous post about harnessing your Underdog Superpowers).
In a nutshell
Movement adventures are about shuffling: your knowhow, your past gains and fails, your expectations. Instead, you’re mapping your body’s allowance, to develop joints with enough stability, interconnectivity and harmony between them, to keep them healthy and able to meet the demands of your everyday life.
When you train in a particular way, you learn only one way rather than when you shuffle things around where you immediately find new solutions and problems and connection and disconnection you might now have thought of, both sides of which are now accessible to you.
You can practice anywhere, anytime and challenge yourself by exploring previously used pr unknown territories of movement, for healthy aging and lifelong learning.
To do today
Recent movement adventures for my clients, my family and myself:
Can we lift each other?
How many ways can you get off the floor without using your hands? (this same client now takes to balancing at least three gutters on her walks instead of walking the pavement!)
Can we safely practice falling (inspired by both skateboarding onto concrete with pads on knees and elbows, bouldering with no ropes but padded floors and kicking and tackling in soccer and rugby at the park).
Look for opportunities to move - on the way to work, at lunch time, after work, even at the gym you can turn your session into an obstacle adventure course rather than leg day or arm day!
Move for the sake of moving. To ‘live by moving and gain strength as you go’ that’s a daily chance to go out there and get some adventure!
