24 Ways to Move More. Nicole Tsong

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      In other words, I was like everyone else I know—sedentary.

      Wait a minute. Sedentary?

      Because of my one to two hours of workouts a day, I was “actively sedentary,” according to Bowman.

      Gee, thanks?

      But Bowman does not tell people to exercise more. Instead, she prescribes broadening your mind to understand movement and how lack of it affects your hips, back, and shoulders. When you understand how much your body is impacted on a daily basis by choices not to move—enforced all day and everywhere by our sedentary culture—then you can find new ways to add movement back in.

      Bowman advocates more time outside breathing fresh air and exposing your body to variation in temperature. Go barefoot on grass and rocks. Sit on the floor instead of the couch or chair. Walk a minimum 10,000 steps per day.

      History teaches us healthy movement. In hunter-gatherer times, people sprinted to hunt animals; used their hands, shoulders, and feet to climb trees; and squatted to gather berries from low bushes. Their knees, hips, and shoulders had good range of motion; their feet were supple and strong.

      In our modern world, water is piped to our house and food is prepackaged at the store. We sit on a couch, and many of us work at a desk. Sitting on a chair means we skip using ankles, knees, and hips to lower down and get back up. Shoes trap our toes, and elevated heels force us into a position that affects our hips and lower back. We walk less and scramble to find time to exercise.

      We have knee injuries, shoulder injuries, and lower back pain. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, nearly 70 percent of the US population is considered overweight or obese. Bowman says, research has identified sitting and lack of movement as the foundation for almost every physical challenge modern humans face—hip issues, cancer, myopia.

      Still, we don’t move, not in the ways that will help.

      “It’s not exercise you need more,” she says. “You need to move while getting the rest of your life done.”

      Many of her suggestions are small and simple, though they were radical to me at first. Slip your shoes off at your desk and stretch your toes. Stand while working instead of sitting. Sit on the floor once or twice a day. Take five-minute walking breaks. Park farther away and walk to your destination.

      The US Department of Health and Human Services recommends a minimum 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week to help avoid diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease. Regular exercisers get an average of 300 minutes per week. But a hunter-gatherer moved 3,000 minutes a week, Bowman writes in Move Your DNA.

      Bowman wants 10,000 steps to be the baseline, not the goal. She likens exercise to eating something healthy so you can have dessert, but a kale salad doesn’t negate multiple crème brûlées. “We can do better than exercise. We need to do more than exercise,” she writes.

      For the first time, my usual one to two hours a day doing yoga or Olympic weightlifting or that week’s class for the column felt like underachieving. I took a closer look at the ways I could move more frequently.

      I didn’t get rid of the couch, but I did build other approaches into my life. I started sitting on the floor to work. I rolled out stiff feet and tight glutes while watching television. Fitting in 10,000 steps a day became a daily minimum. To rest my eyes, I looked into the distance whenever I was outside. I’ve done 20-mile walks with Bowman, who, in addition to being as smart as a whip, is a lively and warm human.