Happy Friday - unexpected wins
Sometimes we do things and get unexpected outcomes, pleasantly surprised by changes. Maybe we weren’t seeking these things specifically, or perhaps we were caught up searching for a different result that we were blindsided. Either way, it’s a lovely thing and it feeds the trust in the human body being a complex system. An example for me this week, a positive surprising result; since I stopped teaching regular classes and face to face PT my daily movement has significantly decreased in terms of variety and quality. I still move all day with the kids but it’s not intentional. Previously I might demonstrate foot rooting exercises 3-4x per day. I would hang regularly throughout the day. I would do reps of all types of exercises.. so my body felt great before I even put any time aside for my training. Nowadays that’s a different story. But this week, I got stuck into some jobs I’ve been putting off. Weeding my garden specifically. I got time in the sunshine, barefoot in nature, the kids helped fill the wheel barrow and dig around, my toes, feet and ankles got amazingly stimulated and I even got a sweat on which felt great. I had been a bit down because I haven’t found as much time to train as I would like to, but by taking on this ‘chore’ I was pleasantly surprised by how good my body felt. I was moving through squat, fisherman squats, and various low gait positions for a couple of hours, 3 days in a row. The only benefit to procrastinating this job so long was that I finally did it on the first days of spring when the sunshine was so glorious (hello Vitamin D ☀️). A few things I did to make this job nourishing to the body… I used both hands to pull weeds, I raked on both sides of my body, I squatted with flat feet, sometimes on the balls of my feet, and moved into fisherman squat regularly. I stood up from time to time when the legs needed a rest and then got straight back to work. When lifting the wheelbarrow to the greens bin I used my whole body. At the end of the night I lied down in the lounge room and did some thoracic rotation and rolling over the basketball. 💫