Here we are in November in a year where time has often felt, somehow abstract and disjointed. For many, our time doesn’t feel so familiar. We have more time to do some regular things in our lives and yet less or no time or opportunity for others. It’s all disorientating and ever shifting. Getting our head around this can swing from days where we feel pretty together, to days where the sense of free fall into the abyss is a more accurate description.

Since the start of the pandemic, I have noticed a quiet but gradual decline in energy levels and general strength with the people I am working with. This is both in my Simply Move! and Simply Fit! classes as well as with the people I am treating one to one. Part of this is the mental fatigue of the constant despair and disbelief of what is going on around us. The other part is the change in our overall activity levels in our everydays. I know there are lots of people who are still moving their bodies with online classes and taking regular walks, runs and cycles which is a life line to sanity.

But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the life where once we REGULARLY walked to the bus stop, the coffee shops, the train station, the helping out of our friends, families and neighbours with any and all manner of physical tasks; the popping in to somewhere to collect something, the nipping here and there in and out of the car over and over and over again, day in and day out.

We may have once considered this use of time of ‘getting to places’, as wasted time. I too have had those thoughts. However, if you added together the accumulative amount of reaching bending twisting our bodies in-and-out-up-and-down into vehicles and buildings, it is a VAST amount of time.

For most people, despite the life affirming dedicated bursts of exercise performed in their day, this is a WEENY amount of time in comparison to the rest of the day which can be spent largely standing or sitting.  Without the prompts to move so as to undertake a task, we are morphing into being only as fit as our lives permit. Which frankly, for many, is NOT VERY FIT.

In a nut shell, the bits of us that need the most attention right now are our buttocks, thighs and arms. Sitting on the former, more than we have ever done in the history of humanity is turning those vital and strong body-holding-together muscles, perilously close to hanging-by-a-thread muscles. You may not sense there is much change now, but the accumulative effect of moving less and less over time, leads to more and more weakness in your body which inevitably results in our bodies malfunctioning with us plagued with aches and pains.

So what’s to be done?

See below my friends for some buttock action, leg loving, arm revolutionising suggestions.

Don’t just do them once or twice a day. Do them throughout the day moving this way and that, to be the human-moving-being you were designed to be. Start with just a handful of repetitions, slowly and gently if you feel uncertain about these moves. Progress as you feel able to steadily increasing the pace and repetitions to feel your muscles working hard and your heart rate increasing.

Lean your body over onto one leg while raising the other leg up.

Lengthen your spine, drop your shoulders, breathe and squeeze your pelvic floor!

Adjust your position until you feel the work in your buttocks thighs and lower tum.

On hands and knees, thread one arm through the gap between opposite arm and leg

Lengthen your spine, drop your shoulders, breathe and squeeze your pelvic floor

Keep hips over knees and shoulders over hands. Adjust position until you feel your buttocks thighs and lower tum work.

Feet apart as wide as possible and turned outwards.

Lean one arm over one leg and stretch arm and sides.

Lengthen your spine, drop your shoulders, breathe and squeeze your pelvic floor!

Adjust your position until you feel the work in your buttocks thighs and lower tum.

In addition throw in some squats and buttock clenches and press ups on the wall, while you sit or wait for the kettle or listen to an audio book or podcast. Mix it up, turn up the groovy music, throw your arms in the air and

MOVE . YOUR .  BODY . MORE . MORE . MORE .