I trained like Goofy when I was 10-years old, and why that’s not okay.
Disclaimer: This is an opinion blog. I may use clinical knowledge and experience as a Physiotherapist to develop this content. I will also cite resources where appropriate. However, this content does not replace nor seek to replace the consultation with a Physiotherapist or other healthcare professional for your health concerns.
I want to start this post with a story of when I was 10-years old: I was chubby and looking to become healthier. I looked at my main fitness resources at the time: Disney movies. I knew nothing of flexibility, resistance training, cardio, periodization or the FITT principle. If you don't understand those words either, then you're in the right place. But I DID know that Hercules took a whole 20-second montage to become muscular and that Mulan climbed a pole just because she willed herself to do it.
There was a scene in "An Extremely Goofy Movie," where Goofy started studying for an exam and exercising at the same time by doing bicep curls with his textbooks. Wanting to improve my grades and get in shape at the same time, I followed his example and started lifting my textbooks while reading them too. It was a very inefficient way to study and become fit, to say the least. I also started running 2 miles a day, every day without rest. I started doing a lot of other things, too, because I genuinely thought I understood how the body worked from looking at these resources and from simply "willing myself" to become fit. Instead, I developed a host of other health problems because I pushed myself too hard. Sixteen years later, with a bachelor's degree in Kinesiology and a master's degree in Physiotherapy, I can see how silly those things were. But as a 10-year old, I used to think that's how things were done, and I believe that my childhood blunders may provide insight into how the rest of the population feels when it comes to fitness and exercise.
I see it all too often in my clinical practice now: healing an injury takes longer than expected because people feel that they need to be strong and push through the pain despite my advice to increase function gradually. People may also become dependent on forms of passive treatment (massage, joint stretching, etc.) because they think they look weird while doing exercises. Despite attempts to accommodate exercises to fit their lifestyle, or encouragement that it takes time for the body to learn new movements and a period of frustration is normal, these individuals remain uncomfortable with being uncomfortable.
For those who want to get moving, there are many more and much better resources available than just Disney movies. However, if we don't understand the most fundamental components of how to get moving, then most people may continue to shy away from achieving better health. Does that mean that a majority of the population doesn't move? That sounds ridiculous! And yet, it's true. The Participaction Pulse Report for 2018 showed that 84% of Canadian adults are not meeting the Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per week (1). Canadians are inactive, and we all know it.
I want to be clear though, I loved Disney movies growing up, and they inspired me to achieve things I never thought possible. My story isn't meant to be a slight to the Disney industry because I believe other issues are responsible for our misinformation on how to become healthier.
Here was the cause that I shared with you in my last post:
I want to give people the power to help themselves. I want to help build a world in which most people genuinely understand human movement such that we prioritize it when developing our societies, communities, and organizations. In this world, people will know who to go to and be provided with appropriate support when they need help to gain and maintain movement or to regain lost movement.
We're going to start with that second sentence, where I say "genuinely understand human movement." Here's the thing, right now, there is a lot of knowledge out there on the internet about exercise, health, and fitness. If you were motivated to start moving and have some base of physical literacy, with the help of one or many of these resources, you might be well on your way! However, for someone who may not have a high level of physical literacy, which, to be honest, is the majority of people, all that information can be overwhelming.
If we equate health with exercise and fitness, then are we favouring those who either have some base of physical literacy or those who have easier access to figuring it out in some way? If so, where does that leave everyone else? You know, the ones who still think about getting healthy and getting moving but are intimidated continuously by what fitness and exercise are? Or even those who get turned away because they don't believe in themselves enough to get started?
I believe that the way we talk about exercise and fitness hides the genuine concept of what health is because of how those once well-intentioned concepts have become corrupted. Instead, I propose a new concept with a new word: movement.
Let's conceptualize movement.
Let's go back to that technical definition of movement from the last post: the change in the position of an item. So, then that must mean that walking and biking both count. Both true, yes. But what about grasping your fingers around a fork to eat? What about wheeling a wheelchair around because your legs cannot fully support your body weight for whatever reason? What about being able to close your lips around a stick attached to a power wheelchair and move the stick up to move forward and back to go backwards? Yeah, that's a thing. All of these things are examples of movement. More than that, we use whatever movement we have to help us achieve whatever purpose we have in our life, whether it's in that moment or something we're working towards in the future. Let's start by taking a look at how movement is created in the body to appreciate all types of movement and the meaning behind it.
How does the human body CREATE movement?
I'm going to talk about it from a muscle, bone, joint, and brain perspective because that is my bias, but I'm going to do my best to make this digestible.
Most people think about their movement in a hierarchy. You can see this reflected in how most people use their bodies: "I tell it to sit, so it sits, I tell it to run, so it runs. When my body hurts, it's not obeying my orders!" The brain is at the top of the hierarchy, and the rest of the body is at the bottom. In this way, see how someone might think that communication in the body only happens in one direction? Our bodies, YOUR body is like the job you wish you had, where not only does your boss tell you what to do, but your boss truly listens and makes decisions based on what you tell him/her as well. The human body has two-way communication, which makes even seemingly small movements in our day-to-day lives so important.
Everything you tell your body affects what your brain knows about your body. Let's think about the example of, "I tell it to sit, so it sits." Because of this two-way communication, when you sit, your lower body tells your brain that your legs and core muscles don't need to be active. If you are sitting on the edge of your seat, where most of your weight is in your feet instead of your buttocks, then your leg and core muscles turn on again to help you maintain balance (go ahead, try it). Think of the adage, "you are what you eat," but in this case, it's, "you move how you move." If you sit all day, you unknowingly tell your brain that your legs and core aren't that important. Over time, that can lead to behaviours like using your hands to help you get up from a chair even though you don't need them to do that. Inactivity can lead to a higher risk of injury when people attempt to do activities that use the muscles that are usually quiet.
If the thought, "well then I will just never be active," is crossing your mind right about now, I want you to try and reconsider. Have you ever watched the movie Wall-E? If not, I would highly recommend it. Essentially the premise is that 700 years into the future, humanity fouled up the Earth so severely with our garbage that we flew into outer space and left robots to clean up the Earth. Seven hundred years in outer space and new developments in technology allowed humans to float around on hover chairs, completely reshaping the bone structure of the human body. We became blobs and were unable to function as human beings. Forget homo-sapiens, think more, homo-globulous. Although it won't happen in your lifetime, that is the message you send your brain about what your body is when you stay inactive for prolonged periods. The opposite extreme has it's adverse effects on health too.
Today, if you walk away with one point from this post, it's this: when you want your body to do what you want it to, remember that it only knows what you've taught it. It doesn't mean that you have to run a marathon so you can kick the soccer ball around with your kids. But what it does mean is that we need to be mindful of what we ask our bodies to do on an everyday basis, so it can do what we want it to when it counts.
We are still only at the beginning. I will continue to do my best to clarify this concept of movement and what it means to move how you want to move. Hopefully, we can start having conversations about what matters: living your life the way you want.
Until next time!
REFERENCES:
1. ParticipACTION. ParticipACTION Pulse Report. 2018:12.