Movement is one of the four key areas of health used in the HealthFit approach, and a great tool to improve your health and feel better – our end goal! To help you achieve it, we provide a three-step framework that takes the seemingly overwhelming process of increasing fitness and strength, and turns it into something a little challenging, but totally achievable. Whether you are investing in yourself with Health Coaching for healthy lifestyle choices, or succeeding with an In-Home Exercise Program, your coach will work with you to develop the details while guiding you forward through the process of building more movement into your life. It’s as easy as one, two, three…
Step One: Get Moving
Think about all the muscles and joints you have in your body – it’s built to move! Just 100 years ago, life had many more physical demands. These days, while we don’t have to worry about planting the garden in order to get dinner on the table, now we also don’t get the exercise that goes along with that.
You and your coach will work as a team to figure out what kind of movement you can fit into your lifestyle – easily and enjoyably, and taking into account your interests and abilities. This may mean joining a gym or taking an exercise class, but it also can be as simple as taking the dog out for a daily walk. There’s no single “best” way to get moving.
It’s important that you stay safe and pain-free (always, but especially at the beginning). That means easing into it to get your body accustomed to additional movement, and making sure you feel good before, during, and after. It’s also important that you have a movement plan you enjoy. Life has a tendency to throw curve balls, and exercise is often one of the first things to stop when the going gets stressful.
Step Two: Move Better
The Move Better step helps your body move easily. The stiffness, weakness, and aches and pains that we associate with aging have more to do with years of postural stress and lack of movement than getting older. Move Better is not learning a new way to move. Rather, it allows your body to remember how to move well, and lets you rebuild the ability to do it.
You and your coach will come up with a plan to help you loosen tight parts and lengthen short parts to decrease physical stress, and strengthen the whole body to help you more easily meet the physical demands of daily life. This will allow you to achieve and maintain better posture and greater flexibility, and stay pain free and decrease injury risk. As well as kicking those achy joints to the curb, adding Move Better to Get Moving can result in positive changes to health markers like blood glucose levels or high cholesterol or triglycerides. Much of this work can be done in your own home and on your own timeframe, and doesn’t require a major time commitment to create a major change.
Step Three: Move More
For many people, taking steps to Get Moving and Move Better will be enough to get them to the level of health and fitness that makes them happy. But if you want to build on feeling better, Move More is the next step. You can get stronger, fitter, leaner, more flexible, or train for a specific goal or event.
Move More often does mean having a more detailed plan for exercise or physical activity, but that still doesn’t mean a daily commitment to an hours-long gym workout. To continue your progress, you will work with your coach to find smart, realistic ways to further increase the amount of movement, exercise, or physical activity in your everyday life. Your program will follow the same rules: keep you safe and pain-free, fit into your lifestyle, and be effective.
At each step, the focus is on finding what works for you. You’ll be guided through this process with the freedom to call the shots or follow directions as much as you like. You’ll have the full support of your coach to pursue better health and fitness in whatever way makes you most comfortable, and have someone to celebrate with when you hit the marks. Our goal for every client: Healthy, fit, happy.
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