Purposeful Movement
You sit in a chair all day. You sit in traffic for 45 minutes on the way home. You sit on the couch eating a ‘quick meal’. Then you drive to the gym (parking as close to it as you can). You lean over a cross trainer whilst reading a magazine. Then you sit on some weight machines and then you drive home.
And you wonder why you still don’t look like the guy/gal in the magazine.
No lighting, dehydration or photoshop was used in the making of this photo… seriously…
Let’s leave aside the photoshopping, the make up, lighting and the fact that that guy/gal has does modelling for a living and had to prepare themselves for 2 weeks before they did that shoot (including dehydrating themselves).
The reason is you’re aimless. You have no purpose in your movement. Now, we all need to work so I’m not about to tell you to get a new job as a lumberjack in the Canadian wilderness. But how about you set a simple timer so that you get out of the chair and move every 15 minutes for thirty seconds. Could we change the way you travel to work so that there is some more movement in your life?
Doesn’t need to use a stairmaster. Does need to use deodorant.
When you are in the gym, is there purpose and intent behind the things that you’re doing? Why are you doing the things that you’re doing and are you doing them correctly?
The most common errors I see in the gym:
No incline set on the treadmill when doing anything. This one is going to exacerbate that forward slumping posture, put an incline on that treadmill. Have you ever noticed how its harder to run on a surface that is fixed? (e.g outside). There’s a reason for that.
Watching TV or reading a book whilst on the treadmill, stepper, cross trainer. Music is fine, but reading and TV have been shown to reduce the maximum intensity that you are able to sustain. Also, having a book or leaning into the machine only reinforces the unhealthy kyphotic slump that many people have as a result of excessive sitting. TVs are very rarely set at the correct height, and you’re only going to crane your neck.
Side bends. Do you have less than 10% bodyfat or are you a professional strongman/powerlifter? If you are neither of these you can no business doing this ugly spine destroying thing. And besides, we all know we ‘work’ an area to make it bigger right? So why if you want a thinner waist do you do side bends?
Agh! My spine! Seriously, don’t do this, even with tiny pink kettlebells.
Seated weight machines. These are here to make things easier, right? Take the hard work out of things, right? So ask yourself why you are in the gym again. These machines reduce the planes of movement down to one and remove the need for core engagement. Essentially you are training yourself to ‘move wrong’. So unless you need somewhere to hang your hoodie, don’t use them. If you thing you need to use machines to become strong enough to move on to free weights all you really need is to learn how to practice free weights correctly in the first place.
Dangerous technique. The reason that squats, deadlifts, kettlebell swings, etc hurt you is because you are doing them wrong. The reason that aren’t working is because you aren’t able to move with sufficient intensity.
A lack of intensity. I don’t expect people to go flat out all the time, that is actually detrimental. But we do need to see some real effort applied.
For there to be the required result, there must not only be a purpose for doing the activity/exercise, but you need to be doing them correctly. Purposefully.
Purposeless movement ingrains poor technique which can lead to injury and a loss of the ability to train.
So, whatever your exercise ‘weapon of choice’ is, make sure you know it’s purpose and make sure you are using it purposefully.