To an uninitiate who has never exercised in a structured way, any form of activity is a beginning. So it stands to reason that we motivate them by ensuring they ‘walk’ if that is all they will ! However, walking is really not an ‘exercise’. It is an activity that we ought to do – one that is crucial for our very survival. Nevertheless, if you are not yet ready to become an active exerciser, it is important to at least follow these basic movement principles to keep your body active.

Paul Chek, founder C.H.E.K institute USA, has coined a new paradigm for exercisers – to train the movement and not individual muscles.  Very often in a fitness scenario, we find people who believe that just because they know how to use a machine, they also know how to design their own workouts! Most often, such self learners end up training only isolated muscles rather than movement patterns. This leads to functional inadequacy as they may find it easy to lift a dead weight of 40 pounds in a gym, but end up with a back ache when they try to carry their 3 year old child! Functional training is related to identifying the functional limitations in each movement pattern; isolating and strengthening the weak muscles; and most crucially integrating them into a training program that combines the entire movement pattern. Paul identifies seven basic movement patterns that we as human beings are capable of and need to be capable of performing in order to lead a healthy life. He calls these the Primal Pattern movements – those movements that were crucial for the survival of man in the wild.

Imagine living during the cave ages when hunting and food gathering was our primary role rather than technology and wealth creation. The very survival of the man in the wild was dependent on his body’s ability to effectively pursue these movement patterns:

• He sure had to walk miles, at times jog and sometimes even run to hunt his prey.
• Hunting involved the need to twist his body to swing his spear at the prey…
• throw his spear with all his strength at the fleeing animal…
• pull his heavy kills homewards…
• carrying the lighter ones on his shoulders, lunging over rocks and rough terrain.
• He would have needed to bend to light up his fire and cook his dinner…
• and most certainly would have needed to sit down to relish his meal.

All of the above movements were basically needed for his very existence. The human body was designed to perform these activities over extended periods of time. While fortunately for us, we no longer live in the forrest with a need to become hunters and food gatherers, unfortunately we have forgotten that these basic movements need to be performed to keep our body hale and healthy! It is mandatory for every person to walk, twist, push (throw), pull, lunge, bend and squat (sit) everyday. However today, we use vehicles to move, swivel chairs to turn around, lifts instead of stairs to lunge up, shelves at hand levels so that we don’t need to bend down, trolley to push our suitcases, motors to draw water from our wells and even closets that are high enough so that we don’t need to squat fully to relieve ourselves! Is it any wonder we are becoming a race filled with dis-ease and obesity? 

Albert Einstein, revealed to humanity in measurable ways, how time is relative and not a constant. The understanding that dawned on humanity that matter and energy are interchangeable, as encapsulated in the famous equation e=mc² was defining in every way conceivable – energy is created when matter is destroyed. But the original equation of Einstein was e/ c² = m implying that matter can be created from energy! Man finally came face to face with the truth that matter and energy are mutually convertible. Matter is the currency for energy and energy the currency for matter!

Your body is matter – it is made of bones, blood, tissues, muscles, organs and much much more. But it is also energy as exposed by our inability to control death. Life is energy! When we eat, our body converts food matter into energy usable by the body. Excess food is also stored as ‘fat’ or matter for future use. When we move, our body converts the stored matter into energy. But equally true, our body converts the energy generated by the movement to build our body.  Energy and matter are mutually convertible and exchangeable! It takes energy to convert matter to energy as in the process of digestion. It equally takes matter to give you energy as in the food you eat. Every movement of the body does indeed exert energy! But equally true when performed correctly, the movement also creates your body! Exercise – you simply cannot afford not to!

Written by Gita Krishna Raj  |  Published in Food & Health in April 2013