Frome Valley Osteopaths

Movement is medicine… its magic and we know it really 🙂

After a conversation with my mum it became clear that we are all starting to understand something different about the value of exercise and movement. Exercise is of course movement, but we can also move without it being officially exercise, exercise and general movement are both extremely valuable.

Exercise is a subset of physical activity that is planned, structured, and repetitive and has as a final or an intermediate objective, the improvement or maintenance of physical fitness.

This means improving the health and efficiency of the various systems of your body including: strengthening muscles and bones, stabilising joints and improving endurance through better heart and lung health.

This is all extremely important for our overall health, the impact of ageing on muscle mass, joint stability and bone health are significant, these can all be mitigated to a significant extent through exercise. This can allow us to move through life more smoothly, less pain, less disease.

However, the word exercise can strike fear into the hearts of many people who for historic or more recent reasons don’t enjoy the thought of sweating in the gym, bike rides in the cold or can’t physically manage it. Although I really cannot stress enough how hugely important and valuable exercise is, there is also hope… we could shift our perspective of exercise to include movement, less fear inducing? I think so….

Movement the act or process of moving : change of place or position or posture.

When we start studying Osteopathy, some of the first things we learn are the ways in which each joint moves, we assess most patients for their range of motion in particular areas related to their complaint.

We age, experience pain and discomfort when our joints and supporting structures find it harder, stickier, to go through their full range of motion. This can lead to dis-ease in those joints. This reduction in range of motion is usually related to our posture and movement habits, the joints that get moved and the joints that don’t.

If you spend your day at your desk, maybe you walk your dog and then sit again, the walk is helpful for cardiovascular health, mental health etc but the range of motion your joints are going through each day is limited.

A simple, gentle way to explore improving your health is to explore moving your joints through their full range of motion. There is no intention here to get sweaty, to loose weight (urgh, don’t get me started), to have structure. But there is intention here to move your body more, feel out the range of motion you have, repeat it regularly until there is more, play with load through your body, yoga can be great for this, increasing range and load on our joints slowly. To improve health in a way that feels manageable.

National guidelines recommend the following weekly exercise goals for healthy adults:

• 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, such as walking, playing doubles tennis, taking a gentle bike ride or water aerobics OR 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, such as running, swimming laps, riding a bike fast or on hills, singles tennis or basketball
• 2 to 3 days of strength training (resistance exercises)

I cannot recommend meeting these guidelines enough, exercise is magic and I love it. But if exercise feels like too much, start with finding more movement. Get on the floor to play with your child or dog, climb the stairs, walk to the post box. If you already exercise but there isn’t much movement away from that, find movement breaks throughout your day, get up and stretch, play, when was he last time you touched your toes or checked out the range of motion in your wrists or shoulders? It doesn’t need to be hooked up to a weights machine for it to be useful.

We can come at exercise from a place of punishment, a place of wishing our body felt or looked differently. If we reframe it as movement, can we come at it from a place of curiosity, exploration, acceptance. What can my body do now and what will it be able to do in 2 weeks if i keep exploring.

Community and connection are huge parts of supporting our health, find a friend, a group, a child (preferably one you know 😉 ), to play and explore with.

Our bodies are magic, they are more magic when they are free to shift, free to respond to the demands of life. Move more, keep them free to shift.

x

references: