L<\/span>ast winter, an acquaintance visited family friends in a small town in Spain. As they were touring the village one evening, they ran into the matriarch of her friend\u2019s family. The small, lean woman was walking home from shopping, packages in hand. Greetings were shared, introductions made, and the 94-year-old great-grandmother continued on her way along the precariously uneven cobblestone streets to climb the stairs up to her two-story walk-up apartment.<\/p>\n That story reminded us of the 84-year-old woman we met recently in Northern California. She also requires no help or transportation when shopping, something the store workers know well. In fact, they automatically weigh her grocery bags evenly to make them easier for her to carry on the walk home.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll have what they\u2019re having.<\/p>\n That is, we\u2019ll have what it takes to keep us moving freely and independently well into old age\u2014and that\u2019s not more time on an elliptical trainer or additional miles on the running path.<\/p>\n We have no quarrel with the public health recommendation for moderate physical exercise: 150 minutes of heart-elevating activity per week. If you manage to fit in all those minutes, we commend you, all the more so if you squeeze in the CDC\u2019s suggestion that all adults also strength train two days a week.<\/p>\n But while hitting the gym, the pool, or the road can have all the benefits you\u2019ve heard about \u2014 improved cardiovascular health, lowered risk of all diseases including depression, better body weight, and more \u2014 it can also give you a false sense of security.<\/p>\n We see all too many people \u2014elite athletes included \u2014 who, feeling heroic after a sweat-generating workout, park their bodies in a car-chair-sofa rotation for the remainder of their waking hours.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a sure-fire way to deprive yourself of the movement needed to 1) keep your joints and muscles well-lubed and pain-free; 2) foster your sense of balance; and 3) help shift the many systems in your body influenced by movement (digestive, circulatory, immune, lymphatic) into gear.<\/p>\n What we\u2019ve gotten wrong about exercise all these years is that it allows us to give frequent, incidental everyday movement a pass. Most likely, years and years of active living have largely contributed to the spryness of the intrepid nona- and octogenarian we mentioned earlier.<\/p>\n Walking to-and-fro, lifting things, squatting down, pushing and pulling objects, carrying stuff around. As mild as these actions may sound, especially when compared to something like training for a triathlon, they pack a powerful punch by building stability, suppleness, and durability. They also help you burn additional calories and, if you are an athlete or work out hard, enhance recovery from exercise.<\/p>\n It\u2019s heartening to know that after years of public messaging, many people are taking the prompts to exercise seriously. According to figures released in 2020 by the nonprofit Global Wellness Institute, Americans made a $265 billion investment in fitness, spending more on gym memberships, exercise and rec activities, gear, and equipment than any other country in the world. That\u2019s about $810 per year per capita, second only to people in Monaco (small country, big spenders).<\/p>\n And yet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 11 percent of American adults have diabetes, and 38 percent are prediabetic. Seventy-three percent of Americans are overweight or obese; projections for 2030 envision an America where 50 percent of people will be obese. Clearly, even with formal exercise now firmly in the mix for many people, something is going wrong.<\/p>\n From our vantage point, part of the problem is that we have bodies built for a life that is literally ancient history. By some estimates, our hunter-gatherer ancestors walked from 12,000 to 17,000 steps per day in the course of their regular activities. While the numbers recorded by researchers vary, the average American takes only about 5,000 steps a day.<\/p>\n How we (meaning most Westerners) use our bodies now is different from the old days. For instance, most of our forebears sat not on chairs but on the floor, crisscross applesauce, and squatted while attending to tasks. In some cultures, people still do, which allows them to vary the positioning of their hip joints so they\u2019re less susceptible to stiffening, discomfort, and orthopedic problems. This may be why the Chinese have 80 to 90 percent less occurrence of arthritic hip pain than Westerners.<\/p>\n Research on the world\u2019s Blue Zones<\/a> \u2014 five places where people consistently live to over 100 years old \u2014 reinforces the notion that the \u201cold\u201d way of moving through life has. Among the nine habits that seem to slow the aging process is moving naturally: \u201cThe world\u2019s longest-lived people do not pump iron, run marathons, or join gyms,\u201d writes Blue Zone researchers Dan Buettner and Sam Skemp. \u201cInstead, they live in environments that constantly nudge them into moving without thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n People in Blue Zones do things like garden without power tools, build fences, and herd sheep up in the hills. We don\u2019t blame you if you\u2019re throwing up your hands and laughing right now. How many of us are going to be herding sheep anytime in the near future?<\/p>\n But there is still an important takeaway. Even in this technology-advanced world where we\u2019re more likely to build castles in Minecraft than fences in our own yard, you can still make a conscious effort to move your body throughout the day in all the healthy ways it\u2019s hardwired to move.<\/p>\n So, yes, check that exercise box off your to-do list, but also engage in as much everyday movement as your body allows. Get up from your chair often; better yet, get a stand-up desk so you can alternate between sitting and standing. Go out and shop instead of having everything delivered. Take the stairs. Sit on the floor while you watch TV. Squat down to pick up things.<\/p>\n Most of all, walk every day as much as you can. It\u2019s not sexy, and it doesn\u2019t come with a T-shirt that showcases all the miles you conquered, but it will help keep everything in your body, from joints to digestive system, in good working order.<\/p>\n What we\u2019ve gotten wrong about exercise<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[176,178],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2023","category-fall-2023-columns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14078"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14914,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14078\/revisions\/14914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}DR. KELLY STARRETT<\/a> is the co-author of Becoming a Supple Leopard, Ready to Run, and Built to Move<\/a>.<\/em> He is also the co-founder of The Ready State and the former co-founder of San Francisco CrossFit. He consults with athletes and coaches from the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB, the US Olympic Team, elite Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard forces, and consults with corporations on employee health and well-being. He lives in California.<\/h5>\n
JULIET STARRETT<\/a>, J.D. is an entrepreneur, attorney, author, and podcaster. She is the co-founder and CEO of The Ready State and the former co-founder and CEO of San Francisco CrossFit. She is co-author of Built to Move<\/a>,<\/em> and was a professional whitewater paddler, winning three world championships and five national titles. She lives in California.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"