Stop Exercising, Start Moving

Over the last few years I've had the opportunity to learn about a great variety of "Exercise" methods. From Weightlifting and Crossfit, to Spinning and even Yoga. One of the things this type of variety gives you is a giant toolbox with which to help people achieve their goals in health and fitness. But as widely different, and at times polarizing, as they can be, what I keep realizing is that they're all just combinations of movement. Some may be fast and explosive, whereas others can be extremely slow, and even stationary. But no matter what about them seems so much different from each other, they all share that same similarity. And it's in that similarity that I think most people have lost touch a bit with what's so powerful about exercise in the first place.
These days exercise has become something that people do as a means to an end. "I want to get bigger", "I want to get leaner", "I want to get stronger and faster". So we do our homework to find out what we need to do in order to achieve that goal, or we hire a trainer, and set forth to get it done. We spend days of our lives on the treadmill, under the bar, on the track, in classes, and hopefully if everything's planned out right, in a matter of months or years we'll have reached that goal. Hurray!!
But I feel that using exercise simply as a tool is taking for granted what an amazing piece of machinery we're born with. Over hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years, our bodies evolved into a miracle of moving parts, energy systems, and neuromuscular magic, that is nearly endlessly adaptable to any and all stimulus placed upon it. You can make it stronger, faster, leaner, bigger, capable of the fastest and most explosive, as well as the slowest and most graceful actions. And as different as a world record Snatch seems from the slow methodical precision of a Tai Chi form, they're all based in human movement. The perfect synchronization of hundreds of muscles moving about dozens of joints, all controlled by an organic computer and wiring system that the most brilliant scientists in the world are barely beginning to fully understand.
But in today's society, where everything is rushed and we have no time to even look sideways at a rose, much less smell one, we've lost touch with the wonder of our bodies. The beautiful concerto of movement is relegated to 30 minutes on an elliptical, or so many sets and repetitions at some certain loading parameter. When was the last time you took the time to focus, and I mean really focus, on a movement, just one single movement, during one of these "Workouts"? When was the last time you tried to feel every muscle moving your arm or leg through some range of motion? Tried to feel your body change is pursue and joint alignments to keep your center of mass perfectly in place? Tried to sense how your entire body works together to absorb force, stabilize itself, and redirect that force back outward?
Sure, maybe these are just the types of things that exercise science nerds like me think about. But it's not required of You, the ordinary human, just to simply focus all your energy and simply feel what is going on during these movements. I promise you there are millions of people around the world that for whatever reason can no longer perform certain movements that once filled them with happiness. Whether they're paralyzed, injured, or just broken down, they might give everything just to move that way just one more time. Do you think they'd just fly through it from beginning to end to get it done? Or would they feel every muscle fiber? Every breath? Every signal in their brain? Imagine the effort and focus they would put into just feeling that movement! That's what I urge you all to feel.
Obviously it's not realistic to do this every single time you're going to move. You still need to train, work, pay rent, compete, for those of you who do. I understand that. All I'm asking is that over the course of the next few days pick a movement. It doesn't matter which one, but hopefully one you enjoy, a certain lift, or yoga pose, or gymnastics element, whatever. Try to do this in a quiet place if you can, to help you focus. Set up everything you need to get it done, and then just wait. Start by visualizing that movement. Over and over. See in your mind which parts of your body are moving where, which muscles are moving which joints, where everything starts and finishes. As you view it in your mind, start to focus on different muscles each time. See if you can feel those muscles ready to work as you stand there being ready. Towards the end try to focus on feeling each of those muscles, primed and ready. Take some deep breaths. Feel the air flowing in and out. Feel your heart beating, over and over, pulling pint after pint of blood throughout your body, and into all those muscles. Once your ready, take your ready position. Feel your toes grasping the floor, feel your hands gripping your equipment (if there is any). As you get set, notice how all your joints and muscles tighten in unison to prepare for what's to come. As you begin and finish the movement, focus on as much of your body as you can. If you can't feel all of it, then try the movement again, focusing on different pieces and parts.
Try this exercise a couple times a week if you can. I want all of you to stop simply exercising, and instead make each and every session a Symphony performed by the great Orchestra that is your body. Stop making all these workouts something you dread throughout the day, and instead look at them as an opportunity to get in better touch with who you are and what you can do. Above all else our bodies were designed to move. Let's get that back!

Stop Exercising, Start MOVING!!