Whole Body Days

From one of my new favorite Facebook Friends, Stop Chasing Pain by Dr. Perry Nickelston. He is right on with so many of his ideas. And so many of them I learned in my dance trainings through the years! Funny how now some of the exercises or movement suggestions are gaining popularity when they were part of my every day warmup as a modern dancer!

So a few weeks ago, Perry posted a quote from his interview with a Parkour expert, Dan Edwards. What’s Parkour? It’s described as a sport done in a city where there are plenty of obstacles to surmount! Jumping, leaping, rolling, climbing, clinging, you name it – you see it with parkour!

You need to stop exercising. And you need to start moving instead. Repetitive training paradigms or environments breed mindlessness, overuse injury, and limited capability. Vary your training routine, your movement patterns and explore your environments as much as possible. Grunting and powering through endless reps of isolated, useless exercises may build your muscles and burn fat but they won’t make you the true mover you’re meant to be. Mix it up, play, explore, when one movement challenge tires you out start working on a different one to let your body recover. There are no ‘leg days’ or ‘arm days’, there are only whole-body days. Let everything get stronger and more mobile in balance with everything else. -Dan Edwards