👋 Good morning from bright and sunny Lisbon. I’m Connor and this is One Percent Wisdom, a newsletter exploring living well and working well.
In case you missed it, I published Part One of this series on Sleep last week - read it here. 💤
Pillar #2 — Movement
You were born to move.
But the world wants you seated, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Movement is medicine that can heal us in more ways than we know. Yet it’s harder than ever for many people to fit into their modern life.
I’m going to share a few practices and ideas that have helped me to make movement an integrated part of my life, and I hope will be of service to some of you reading.
The Pillars
I take it for granted that if you’re reading this newsletter, you too are interested in living well.
There’s a mess of information on health & well-being out there, and my interest is in simplifying the complex and making it practical.
In that pursuit, so I keep coming back these 6 Pillars of Health & Well-Being:
Sleep
Movement
Food
Light
Connection (i.e. relationships)
Nature
I haven’t ranked these in order of importance, but I do believe each of them is fundamental to feeling good and functioning well (aka “well-being”).
Today, we’re jumping into Pillar #2, which is all about moving and grooving that beautiful body of yours.
(Note: what am I missing? Leave a comment - I’d love to hear from you)
Move Ya Body
Even though we all know that exercise is incredibly supportive of our physical, mental, and emotional health, it’s something most people struggle to do.
It often conjures feelings of guilt, not-enough-ness, and dread.
I totally get this.
We’re living in crazy, chaotic, busy times, and the pressures of life can make it feel like exercise is just another thing I “should” do.
That’s one reason I prefer the term movement to exercise or even fitness.
Exercise feels like a chore.
When I hear exercise, I think gym, treadmills, and weights.
But you don't need a gym to integrate a healthy movement practice into your life. It certainly helps, but I think having a more inclusive view of movement is useful.
Personally, I feel fortunate that I got into exercising and sports at a pretty young age, so integrating a movement practice into my routines has been relatively easy for me.
Even so, it’s hard when life gets busy to be perfect and to nail my ideal movement routine.
What are the basics?
The basics of a good “movement diet” incorporate a range of training across strength, flexibility, balance, and endurance. I believe the following evidence-based and actionable for most people:
You need to have a mix of strength/resistance training as well as something to get your heart rate up (i.e. cardio)
You need at least 2-3 hours per week of medium to high-intensity work to meet the minimum, but probably 5 hours per week if you want to feel great
You need to make movement an everyday thing, whether that’s walking to work, grocery shopping on foot, taking stairs instead of elevators, having stretch breaks at your desk etc.
As someone who values longevity, I’d throw one more into the pot:
You need to incorporate some mobility and stretching if you want to move well into middle-age and old-age
Now we could argue to the cows come home about the best forms and modalities of exercise. Crossfit? Calisthenics? HIIT? Pilates?
But it’s honestly all noise.
What’s far more important is finding a way to move that fits your lifestyle.
Once you master the art of showing up and you’re moving and grooving on a consistent basis, then it’s time to think more about the nitty gritty of your training regimen and fine-tune from there.
But when the vast majority of adults in the U.S. and Europe aren’t exercising regularly, then I think consistency is a more interesting (and important) conversation the specifics of any given exercise routine.
What have I found useful?
Do something everyday. Whether it’s 20 minutes of yoga, taking a long walk, or just a super quick gym session, I’m a big believer in moving everyday.
Workout together. Claire and I normally get our movement in together. Even though we don’t always do the same thing, we tend to align our schedule 80% of the time. The value in this is clear when one of us is having a low energy day, because the other person serves as motivation and accountability. Just this week, I felt like shit one afternoon and definitely would have skipped the gym, but Claire was going so I said fuck it and went. Felt 2x better afterwards.
Incorporate play. This was a major unlock for me in the past 2 years, particularly last year with pickleball in Austin. Sports are such a great way to combine competition, community, and movement. Often, I don’t really feel like I’m “working out” when I’m playing sports, but you get all the same benefits.
Walk a lot. Walking does wonders for the body yet it’s often overlooked and underutilized in our modern world. I aim for 10k steps a day, but generally am quite satisfied with 8k. I go for a short walk in the morning and usually after my meals, plus I do my grocery shopping on foot, walk to most places when I’m seeing friends, try to take 1:1 meetings on the phone, etc. I’ve found the more I can integrate walking into my life, rather than make it one more thing, the easier it becomes (also a big reason we love living in Europe which is default more walkable than the US).
Take real breaks. Throughout my work day, I take breaks to move, stretch, and get outside. I use a break timer on my Mac called Time Out that nudges me every 25 min for a micro-break, and every 90 min for a proper break. The timing of these breaks varies depending on the day’s agenda, but I’ve found these little bits of movement add up (plus they’re essential for focus, stress release, etc etc).
Stand it up. I certainly fell for the Silicon Valley craze of standing desks when I was at Google in SF in 2014, and the obsession remains. This has been tough to manage over the last year while living semi-nomadic, but I often seek out coffee spots with high tables, or just stack some cardboard boxes on my kitchen table for a makeshift version.
Yoga. Guys on this list, you gotta do more yoga. I did my first class with my mom when I was 16, completed my yoga teacher training back in 2019, and even though my practice now is less about the physical, I still think it’s a fantastic way to move, get in touch with your body, destress, and much more.
When I write out these tips, I’m surprised at how basic they seem. As someone who used to put so much emphasis into hard workouts and a perfect training regimen, I now favor simplicity over complexity.
I recognize this when I take a step back and think, “what is my long-term goal for movement?”
Centenarian Decathlon
When I first got into fitness, I was focused on getting jacked. Bench pressing, bicep curling, and anything to get a lean and mean body.
Over the years, my entire mindset around movement has shifted.
I’m no longer aiming just for aesthetics (although I haven’t given that goal up entirely). Instead, I’m much more interested in the quality of my movement, my range of motion, and working out in a more functional way.
A couple years ago, I came across what Dr. Peter Attia calls the Centenarian Decathlon and it’s an idea that has really stuck with me.
The question Peter asked himself was this:
“If I want to live to 100, what do I have to physically be able to do to be satisfied with my life?”
He came up with a a list of things he’d like to be able to do, such as:
Get up off the floor with a single point of support
Drop into a squat position and pick up a child that weighs 30 pound
Lift something that weighs 30 pounds overhead (i.e. a suitcase into an overhead bin)
And a bunch of others that you can read about here.
Then he worked backwards and thought about the types of exercise and training he would need to do in order to approximate those activities, balancing out the needs of strength, stability, mobility, aerobic capacity, etc.
In the last 5 years, I’ve kept this idea at the forefront of my mind when I’m training.
It means I’m much more mindful of my movement patterns in the gym, and even though I still like to push hard occasionally , I’m not going all-out every day and risking injury.
It means I’m less focused on what a movement pattern will do to my physique, and much more interested in how it could benefit me in real life.
It means I put a lot more emphasis into mobility, flexibility, and the quality of my movement.
And it means that I am happy to just get 20 minutes of exercise some days, as I’ve got a much longer-term north star in my head and I know that a little bit everyday will go a long way in the long run.
Resourcing
I’m not a PT and I’m not an expert on movement, but there are a few resources I wanted to call out that I’ve learned a lot from these past few years:
The Ready State — Dr. Kelly Starrett is a legend in the mobility and strength world, and this is the home for his work. I learned a lot of my basic mobility via Kelly and his Virtual Mobility Coach platform
He was recently on the Tim Ferriss pod and I enjoyed this conversation a lot: “The Magic of Movement and Mobility, Training for Range of Motion, Breathing for Back Pain, Improving Your Balance, and More”
Bodyweight Warrior — Tom Merrick is a well-known YouTuber who hosts a plethora of great content, including tons of follow-along mobility routines. These have been a staple of my movement diet over the past year.
Some of my go-to’s from his YouTube channel:
Alex Nino — I owe my biggest improvements to some 1:1 training I did with Alex in London. He’s an incredible coach, and he has plenty of online offerings alongside his in-person work in London and the international retreats he does each year.
Another really cool new project to follow is from my friend
who has started on Substack. Sam's passionate about helping you shift from someone who forces themselves to exercise to someone who loves it.
Thanks.
If you’ve made it here, I wanted to say thank you for reading. This newsletter has been an amazing avenue for personal exploration, and it has also fostered many meaningful connections.
🙏 If you liked this edition, please consider sharing with a friend.
— Connor
This is great content!! Keep 'em coming 🙌
Awesome article Conor! Such a good intro and perspective on all things movement. Particularly love the ideas around play, exercising with a partner, and finding small ways to move everyday.
this feels like the seed of a super interesting follow-up: "even though my practice now is less about the physical". Would LOVE to hear more on how your yoga practice has evolved over the years and what it means in your life now.
Appreciate the shoutout about Intuitive Fitness!