If you remember back to when you first started riding a bike, you got on the bike and you began feeling it out until you were up and riding. Someone, maybe a parent or a friend provided some guidance, but for the most part you learned how to do it on your own. You weren't bombarded with conflicting, confusing, often intimidating information on how to do it. Nobody sat next to you saying that your form was all wrong or that you needed to ride longer to get real results.
We have been living in our current anatomical structure for about 200,000 years. We should be very familiar with movement, but to so many movement and exertion has become a foreign concept. There is a large portion of the population that are very hesitant to begin a fitness program. Much of the information we are fed through media and magazines leaves us thinking that beginning a program requires the guidance of an expert, special equipment in a fancy gym, or large amounts of free time. Many will go all in on something that isn't sustainable. People will often sign up for a program that is very time consuming. Get your gym stuff together, drive to the gym, hit the change room, lift like a beast for and hour and a half, hit the showers, hit up a Jugo Juice, drive home. All good if you have the time, but many try to make that work only to give into the fact that it just takes too much time, negatively affecting other aspects of your life such as family or social relationships.
Well guess what, your body is a bike! Get on and ride! You didn't need the big fancy gym membership and the stack of creepy supplements go ride bikes as a youngster and you don't need that stuff to start a fitness program as an adult.
The foundation of TheGoodsMethod is consistent, short duration, body weight workouts that include a variety of movement patterns. All you need is a small space, I use a timer app on my phone, and some creativity. Set the timer for 20 seconds on 10 seconds off (TABATA protocol) for a total of 15 mins and do a "choose-your-own-adventure" (I used to dig on those books) workout using your body. Pick whatever movements you want in any order you want. Maybe you choose one that makes you breath harder, the next movement you want a nice stretch, maybe the next movement you want a little pump. You get what I mean when I say choose your own adventure? Jump like a frog for 20 secs, take a break for 10 secs, do push-ups for 20 secs, take a break for 10 and so on. No equipment needed, no expert telling you that you're doing it wrong, nobody judging you because you can do it in the privacy of your own home. Your body WILL respond if you begin doing this 3 days a week. Your body composition will change, you're posture will change, you'll feel less achy, more energized, and your mental game will change for the better.
Take a short period of time out of your day and move your body in ways that you don't normally move it. If you step back and take a look at what a modern adult does as far as movement on a daily basis, you find the movements are very linear, often static and very repetitive. Our daily jobs and responsibilities keep us holding babies with the same arm, sitting at desks for hours at a time, walking in straight lines, looking down at cell phones. Our 200,000 year-old anatomy is not responding well to these new stresses and it's showing up as a huge burden on our medical systems.
I recently spoke with a health and safety rep of a large corporation and they told me that, per capita, there are more away from work cases among the office workers than there are among the field workers in the company. That says a lot to me. You'd think the employees that are working around dangerous equipment would be the ones getting hurt, but it's the employees that are in a more sedentary environment that are making up the majority of away from work cases.
So, getting back to my bike analogy. Get on it and ride it, maintain it, and enjoy it on a regular basis! If you just leave your bike sitting there it is gonna get stiff and rusty and when you do try ride it the chain is gonna snap or the brakes aren't going to work and you're not gonna have a good time! If you are "just digging your bike out of the shed," be gentle for the first little while. Take it easy and make sure the movements your are doing feel good. If it hurts in a bad way, don't do it. Before long, you'll have a large vocabulary of movements your body is capable of doing and your body will be ready to take on all challenges. When your buds call you up to do a scenic hike, you'll be the first one up the mountain!
And remember, if you want some guidance or a group to move with, give The Goods a shout. We've got your back!
Have a healthy week, kids!
Randy
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