Diversify your movement and your health

"Variety is the spice of life"

This is a saying that can apply to many aspects of life and health. It is much easier to find balance when you employ this approach. Why? because it allows you to be flexible in your choices, decisions and every day actions.

Let's take diet as an example. It is pretty safe to say that eating nothing but fast food isn't recommended. It will more than likely take a toll on your health in many aspects if you sustained this for a prolonged period of time. On the other hand eating a completely "clean" diet or following any diet to every detail can have negative impacts as well. Often times it can become stressful trying to maintain the regimen. Whether going out with friends for dinner, or just seeing commercials for junk food, etc. The stress itself can actually counteract your attempts of losing weight or improving health. Stress can have major impacts on your bodies function from hormones, to excess fat storage, etc.

When it comes to movements, exercise and the way your body feels, this variety principle is no exception. Let' cover a few examples in various aspects of physical health:

The all cardio, no resistance training approach. Cardio is a great addition for anyone looking to improve their physical and mental health. At the same time this isn't ideal either to do only cardio training. Although it helps build up bone density and cardiovascular health, it does not necessarily build up strength. This can easily lead to overloading of the lower body if the volume of the cardio is not progressed properly especially with running.

The common sedentary lifestyle. Sitting most of the day and not getting up and moving for a considerable amount is an imbalance of general activity. You don't have to be always moving, you can slouch here and there, and still sit for a decent portion of the day especially if your situation requires it. A simple way to find a balance and get variety is to incorporate some various activities such as taking the stairs instead of escalator, go for walks, etc.

So let's look at movement specifically. Every joint in the body has a relative range of motion by design and that design will be fairly individualized from person to person. Then you have the actual motion available at the various parts of the body. This can have many factors, but one of the main ones is your habits. For example if you don't reach behind your back very often, through adaptation that movement can become more difficult over time or it can easily become overloaded if you had to do a high volume of it in a given time.

You always want to have variety. Whether in your general activity, your gym routine or your small day to day habits. A great way to help improve or maintain your mobility and physical ability is to simply take your joints through their full range of motion on a regular. Sometimes as simple as doing a few large arm circles a day can help keep your shoulders mobile. The above video demonstrates that in action. This is a video I put together for someone. The main goal was to give their neck and upper back a variety of movement and taking it through relative full range. As you can see it's nothing too complicated and relatively easy to carry out. As the individual continues working with this their body over time should adapt to allow more and more movement as they consistently explore those extremes of ranges, essentially building some new movement habits that should transfer over to their well being and daily life.

Move often

Move with variety

Thanks for reading, Vitas