1) Move as though life is a gift and not a burden
Mind-set is key- Some folks need a good brush with a life threatening experience to appreciate their moments here on Earth. Put yourself around humbling nature such as raging rapids, waterfalls and waves, volcanoes, violent lightening storms, mountains etc.
2)Movement is a key to assimilation of nutrients in the body. You aren’t just what you eat. You are what you eat, what you eat ate and what you are able to absorb and assimilate.
3)Abandon objective based fitness and find your passion in movement. It’s about the journey not the number on the scale. Numbers come if you are moving in the right direction and the journey persists. Deeply enjoy your movement practice and it will be a sustainable part of the rest of your life.
Time x Effort = Potential Success
4)Make eye contact with every interaction. Have you ever noticed how beautiful the human iris is? It’s absolute magic and it is all free, you just need to take second out of your hectic day of Facebook messages and Twitter notifications to pick your head out of the phone and make human connection. There is no stronger medicine than human connection…
5)Treat every moment as an opportunity to progress your mind and movement. Life is a dance and we are all dancers. We need to recognize in each moment we have an infinite number of options as to how we will develop our bodies and minds. The only problem is, most people don’t realize this is a conscious choice and we forget to make it! If we do not to remember to choose our development, it will be chosen for us dependent on our environment. (If you’re an african tribesman and spend the day running, playing, hunting, dancing, napping and making babies; you are naturally doing what these bodies are intended for.) For everyone else, we gotta recognize what our desks, cars, couches, computers, smart phones and T.V.’s are doing to us. I’m not saying any of these things are evil, I am saying we need to leverage them in our favor with responsibility and awareness. Sedentary, compromised movement is a very slippery slope and I’m tired of hearing stagnant movers talk about getting old. Malarky! If you don’t make an effort to move dynamically, expressively and functionally every single day of your entire life than it is physical blasphemy to blame your body for aging ungracefully on you.
6)Never sit longer than 25 minutes with out moving. Get a standing desk at work and have a foam roller and myofascial release balls at your feet to play with, balance on and perform foot massage as you are working. This will pump blood and lymph out of your legs, keep tissue hydrated and healthy and burn 100’s of thousands of extra calories with time! It’s a no brainer…
7) Squat functionally every day at least 40 times. Our bodies are built to squat and if we forsake our bodies this right, we shall be smoten with hip/back pain and lack of athleticism. Easy solution, watch the how to squat videos I’ve created for FREE and explore this position every single day.
8)Sprint instead of jogging. It’s painful to watch the horror that is most people’s jogging form. I am surprised there is not literally smoke coming out the sides of their knees often times. Not always, but very often, there is dramatic room for improvement. Start working into sprint/walking intervals. Start to expand your range of motion and degree of contraction with moving faster and then take break. Try 15 second sprint with a 25 second walk for 5 repetitions to start and add time/intervals as you become stronger. This is shown to burn more calories, make your muscles more metabolically efficient and leave you looking better naked than slugging through a jog!
9)Pick up heavy things functionally at least 3 times per week. Picking up heavy things is another right we all possess until we decide to forgo it with fear and or laziness. Trust me, you will want it back at some point in your life so don’t let it slip! Not only that, it is shown to make you smarter and make your whole body work more efficiently! Exercise is shown to release the hormone irisin which has neuroprotective properties, stimulates neurogenesis (growth of new neurons!), stimulate cognition and protects our DNA to boot.
10) Actively rest instead of farting around on the couch all day while your muscles “repair” from over working at the gym. Our bodies thrive on adaptation and depend on us to continue pumping fluids through our tissues even when we are resting. Actively rest by taking up a completely different activity on your rest days. Take up line dancing, go swimming, run in traffic or whatever feels right. Just don’t stop completely!