It All Counts: The Exercise You Don’t Realise You’re Doing
/Last weekend I decided it was finally time to tackle a few jobs around our property.
I hired a stump grinder and spent most of Saturday removing old tree stumps, including one enormous fig tree stump that took almost half the day on its own.
By the end of it, I definitely knew I'd done some work.
- Did I go for a run? No.
- Ride my mountain bike? Nope.
- Go to the gym? Definitely not.
- But had I exercised?
My body would certainly say yes.
And that's something we often forget when we're thinking about how active we've been.
Your body doesn't care what you call it
We tend to put activity into different boxes.
There's exercise — walking, running, cycling, gym, sport.
And then there's just... life.
Gardening. Mowing. Cleaning the house. Walking around the shops. Chasing the kids or grandkids. Spending a day on your feet. Moving furniture. Or, in my case, spending half a day trying to convince an enormous fig tree stump that its time was up.
"Your body doesn’t really care whether you call it exercise, work or gardening. It all counts."
"Your body doesn’t really care whether you call it exercise, work or gardening. It all counts."
In the clinic we sometimes call this your load — essentially, how much you're asking your body to do.
And it's worth thinking about when you're planning to become more active.
The weekend warrior trap
We've probably all done this.
You haven't done much for a while, then suddenly there's a beautiful weekend and you decide: Right. Today's the day.
You're going to walk 10 kilometres, start running again, attack six months' worth of gardening, or begin the new exercise program you've been promising yourself you'll start.
The enthusiasm is great.The problem is that your body doesn't necessarily know about your plans.
If you've been comfortably coping with a certain amount of activity and suddenly ask it to do substantially more, you may know about it later that day — or when you get out of bed the following morning.
That doesn't mean becoming more active is bad. Quite the opposite. It just means how you build up matters.
Change one thing at a time
Increase duration → Adapt → Increase intensity (Rather than increasing everything at once)
If you're getting back into walking, don't try to walk much further and much faster on the same day.
Perhaps increase the length of your walk while keeping the pace comfortable.
Once you're coping well with that, you can start increasing the pace.
The same idea applies to running, cycling, gym work and plenty of other activities.
You don't need a complicated formula.
Give your body something new to adapt to, see how it responds, and then build from there.
Don't forget the stuff you've already done
This might be the most useful tip of all.
Before deciding what exercise you're going to do today, think about what else you're asking your body to do.
If you've spent six hours gardening, perhaps that's not the day for your longest walk of the week.
If you've had an unusually physical day at work, maybe you don't need to smash out your hardest exercise session that evening.
And if you're feeling run-down or unwell, sometimes backing off for a day is the sensible choice.
Recovery is part of being active too.
Spring is almost here
Here in South-East Queensland, spring doesn't necessarily mean everyone suddenly emerges from winter hibernation.
Some people love exercising through our cooler months. Others are very happy to see the warmer weather arriving. And before too long we'll all be complaining that it's too hot again!
But changing seasons often change what we do.
You might start walking more, get back into running, spend more time in the garden, take on a few projects around the house, or decide it's time to improve your fitness before summer.
Whatever you're doing, remember:
Your body counts all of it.
Build up gradually, give yourself time to recover, and don't underestimate just how much exercise can be hiding in an ordinary day.
And if your feet or legs start objecting to your newfound enthusiasm, that's where we can help.
If foot or lower-limb pain is getting in the way of doing the things you enjoy, give us a call on 3820 6326 or book an appointment online.
