Let’s break down the typical day of a regular office worker in terms of movement.

Wake up and walk into the bathroom (20 steps).  Shower (standing still for 5 minutes).  Walk back into the bedroom and get dressed, walk downstairs and have breakfast (maybe 80 steps total and 1 flight of stairs).

Walk to the car (usually 50 more steps) and then sit down and drive to work.  Maybe head into the drive thru because hey, why get out of the car?  Park at work and walk to the desk (taking the elevator of course).  Sit.  Walk to two meetings which are on another floor but use the elevator anyway (maybe another 200 steps total).  If I can Skype in, even better!

Eat lunch at my desk (I’m trying to be healthy after all and I’m busy).  Or maybe take the elevator downstairs and grab something quickly.  Back to the desk.  Sit some more.  Walk to my car, sit and drive home.  Wow, what a long day.  Sit at dinner.  Then transfer to the couch for some relaxation and into bed (maybe another 200 steps total for the evening).

This is typical of most people in today’s society.  We sit, barely move and don’t do anything all day.

“But wait!” you cry.  “I work out four times a week for an hour!”.  Yes.  You drive to the gym, probably sit on a cardio machine for 30-40 minutes or do some strength work where you are sitting or lying down most of the time.  At least you’re moving, but would it shock you to see that even if you work out 4 times a week for an hour, you’re only exercising 2% of your weekly time?  And in terms of adding movement, unless you only do cardio (which you should not do, by the way – please strength train) you’re maybe adding about 2000 steps to your week walking into and out of the gym and to the various pieces of equipment.

My point is, we don’t move any more.  We don’t walk to school as kids, we take the bus or get driven.  We don’t exercise anything close to daily and many of us don’t exercise at all.  We drive EVERYWHERE.  Even in my job as a trainer in a gym, I stand all day but I’m certainly not moving around much in terms of steps.  I do what I can – I walked to a grocery store just now to get my groceries and walked back.  But it’s really not that much – and the majority of people wouldn’t even do that.

Generations ago, we got up and at least walked to school.  Many of us would have worked on farms and been doing things before and after school and work.  We played sports outside or in school daily.  Now generations of kids grow up in front of a screen and we wonder why they don’t want to be active and the obesity rate in children has more than doubled in 30 years.  And now those children are adults – you’re probably one of them.

Your body is the only machine that breaks down faster if it doesn’t get used regularly.  Sedentary life leads to all sort of issues, never mind stiffness and pack of strength.  Throw overeating into the mix and we wonder why as a society we have chronic illness, need joint replacements and many of us are in pain constantly simply from our daily lifestyle.

What’s the solution?  Pretty simple:

MOVE MORE.

The only way this will change is if we all as individuals take steps to change it and to reinforce behavior in others.  Devices like FitBit and other trackers have things heading in the right direction by prompting more steps per day.  However, there are other examples in our daily lives and business we can use to increase our level of movement – here’s some ideas:

Walking meetings – have a one on one meeting?  Take it outside or even do laps around the floor.  Odds are if you need to show them something that you can pull it up on a phone or tablet.  It will help both you and your colleague.

Park Further Away – This one is an obvious one but something not many people do.  I will often pull into a mall or parking lot and intentionally park in one of the spots farthest from the door.  It takes an extra two minutes to walk but gives you extra movement.  Plus no worrying about finding a spot!

Plan Your Errands – This falls under the heading of PLANNING.  Have a bunch of stops?  Instead of driving between stores, head to an area where you can walk from place to place and go back to the car to drop things off.  You can easily get in a few kilometers of walking just doing groceries, hardware store and heading to Starbucks in between.

Add Evenings In – Instead of automatically dropping onto the couch at the end of the night, make a walk a priority.  Tell yourself that you need to do 30 minutes before watching your first show.  And for those of us here in Canada, weather isn’t an excuse – bundle up!

Let this be a bit of a wake up call.  Take the time to really figure out how much movement you do on a daily basis and resolve to increase it.  It really doesn’t take much, it doesn’t take high intensity exercise and it doesn’t take more time.  It simply takes an adjustment to how you go through your day.  Can you add it in?  You definitely can.  Throwing in ten minutes of focused mobility work will only help more.  Feel free to message me for ideas on easy homework I give my clients to help them feel and move better without pain every day.  My goal is to get you MOVING.  Because right now – you don’t.

If this article prompted you to move more, let me know!  You can find me on Facebook and LinkedIn under David Bateman, my web site at http://www.srottawa.com and on Twitter at  @strengthottawa.  Feel free to share it as well!