In short, no. From a physical standpoint and to thrive as human beings, we are designed to move much, much more. In our current lifestyle we spend most of our waking hours sitting. Think breakfast, then commutes, then office work, then commuting back, then dinner, then TV, then bed. nearly all of that is done in a seat.
We are not designed to sit that long, and when we do, we get problems. We seize up, physically and psychologically (stress).
Rewind back to tribal living, where most of our time as human beings has been spent, and none of that would have been done in a seat.
We are designed for a day filled with walking, running, jumping, swimming, diving, hanging, swinging, rolling, squatting, twisting, pushing, pulling, lifting, throwing, getting down and up from the floor.
Playing in the woods or even a children’s play area will have all or most of this. When was the last time you climbed a tree? Could you still do it? Here’s a question: did most people stop doing these things because they couldn’t do them anymore, or can they not do these things anymore because they stopped doing them? Getting older comes to us all, but in many ways getting older in terms of our ability to move well is a choice.
Some of the best fun my three children had over Christmas was challenges I set them on dog walks for tree climbing.
Don’t mistake this for high intensity exercise at the gym though. All this was done countless times during the day in the course of everyday life. An attitude of play and fun in daily movement is vastly underrated. ‘Exercise’ is just a modern phenomena of the past 40 years or so.
In order to thrive as healthy normal human beings we need to be moving our body through as big a range of movement as possible, every day. We should be able to do the four pillars through the full range of motion as a minimum. I would also add a fifth pillar, a pull up but brachial i.e. overarm not underarm chin up. The vertical hang is also fantastic for fixing shoulder problems (see Shoulder pain, the solution and prevention by Professor John Kirsch MD.)
When we can move well we are and able to enjoy life much more fully. It also cleans us out psychologically. We literally, move and breathe stress and anxiety out of our bodies. It gets locked and hidden in our bodies when we spend too much time thinking and worrying while sitting still, in stasis, and we need to move through our whole body to find stiffness, tension (stress) and ease it out.
For the best results try not to limit yourself to just one type of activity such as running, cycling or swimming. Humans are all rounders. There are better runners, jumpers, climbers, swimmers etc in the animal kingdom, but we are the best all rounders. So try to find something with lots of varied movement. If your are too specific in your type of movement, you will pay a price (balance in your body, injury and boredom).
Its quite easy to incorporate these movements into everyday life and feel the benefits very quickly. Pop along to a local Systema class where you will find out more.
A great opportunity to understand more about this topic is coming up on the 4 Day Systema Intensive Camp in June/July this year.
To continued success in your training.
Matt.
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