The Economy of Movement
Most of us know what it means to be in a tough economic environment whether it was self-imposed damage to our finances or outside circumstances that we did not have control over. Either way we know that it restricts what we’re able to do, by limiting the flexible spending power we have, and it becomes really hard to do the same things we either used to do or want to do.
Economy of movement is much the same: we many times take it for granted, until we lose capability of movement for doing things like we used to, and it takes much more effort to do the same thing, and in some cases, we are simply unable to do it at all. Unless through an accident or a debilitating disease, most times this loss of movement comes on us like a slow creep rust over time, that we recognize only when we try to do something that we haven’t done in a long time. We then oft times take the most damaging approach and blame it on aging instead of the real culprit, inactivity!
When it takes an extreme amount of effort to do activities of daily living, (ADL) this is simply a bad economy of movement, but when we can do these same activities of daily living (ADL’s) with ease = we have a good economy of movement.
Whether we’re 25 years old or 85 years young this can really become important when (the very thing of walking across the floor to the door or playing in the yard with our children) becomes something that takes an extreme amount of effort. Once it gets to this point many of us avoid doing these things for the above same reason, and the problem usually then gets worse and gains more debilitating control of our life.
A vehicle will rust and corrode if it sets up too long, simply because the parts and fluids that were meant to move didn’t, and we can expect anything from leaking gaskets, flat tires, rusting and other things that we could have prevented by regular usage and maintenance. Our body is much the same, if we don’t move, activate and challenge the different parts of our body, a thing called sarcopenia shrinkage of muscle tissue will set in, and our body will begin to age much more rapidly.
There are several things we can do to avoid this:
1. We can replace discontinued activities with new ones.
Example: if we retire from active work or are simply no longer the one doing the physical end of a job and start to manage it instead, such as spending a lot of our time behind a desk, we can then replace the physical work with exercise or active sports. We need to remember that when we are active, more of our weight is muscle and when we start to become inactive; we should lose weight due to a loss in muscle weight. Oft times (when we become inactive) we stay the same weight or gain weight, and the muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones become less supportive, and movement becomes more and more labored.
2. Make sure that all parts of the body get exercised several times a week, whether individually or doing a functional movement/exercise (one used in natural movement) such as squatting and touching the floor and then reaching toward the ceiling (repeat movement as many times as you can). You can increase the resistance over time by speeding up your movement or holding weights in your hand while doing the movement.
Take away: consistency wins this race; overdoing it is what usually leads to injury of joints and other problems as well as giving us the false sense of aging, when it was simply too much activation after too long inactivation!
Consistent physical activity does a lot to stimulate the physiological processes in our body that help guard us against premature aging, disease, and losing strength and capability to do our daily activities…
A body that keeps in motion, stays in motion!
