BLOG: What Does Physical Freedom Mean To You?

What does physical freedom mean to you, and how much do you value your physical freedom?

To me, physical freedom is about possibility; travel, adventure, doing fun things with my family and friends, being excited and engaged with my work. It’s about being able to hike up the mountains to see the gorillas, getting through my work day, where I sit a lot, without aches and pains, lifting my bags into the overhead storage compartment with ease, being excited about implementing a new idea, and having the energy to kick it up a gear when I need to.

In my last post I recommended we "make movement our medicine” and touched on the concept of functional movement. If the idea of “physical freedom” ahead is appealing, please keep reading – this could be life-changing!

Your ability to move freely is what will keep you independent and active as you get older.  Whilst that seems obvious, in an era where we spend most of our time sitting and life presents few physical demands, our sedentary lifestyles have become a disaster for our health and wellbeing.

Functional movements (think standing up, reaching, twisting, walking, etc) form the foundations of our functional fitness.  They help maintain and restore mobility and flexibility, improving the balance and alignment of the body. When our bodies are aligned and balanced, we are able to move with freedom and ease.

If you look to include functional movement routines into your daily schedule, you’ll see the benefits almost immediately. Because they focus on your whole body, engage all of your muscles, tendons and joints at once, and mimic the way we should be moving in everyday life, functional movement routines help us better perform the everyday tasks we take for granted now, like walking, climbing stairs, getting in and out of the car, lifting groceries and bending down to get things out of the bottom drawer.

Aging is a fact of life and as we get older most of us start finding it more difficult to do ordinary daily tasks (never mind activities we haven’t done for a while). Sometimes we might even become fearful of trying in case we hurt ourselves, and in my book, that’s not physical freedom.

The fabulous thing is, we get to choose how we’re going to deal with the realities of aging. We can’t stop it, but we can control how we age. We don’t have to buy into society’s false concept that we’ll inevitably suffer from failing health and weak bodies. Growing older and declining health are not synonymous. It all comes down to our choices.

That’s why I founded TheOptimal.me, and am excited about our exclusive functional movement routines developed over the past 30 years by Jannie Claassen. We call them Integrated Movement Routines (IMRs) – and they’re a great choice if we want to keep our bodies moving, boosting our health and outlook, and improving how we age. Here are just a few of the benefits:

• IMRs work all your muscles, tendons and joints at once, in every workout.
• IMRs are low impact and improve stability, mobility, flexibility and strength.
• IMRs improve cardiovascular fitness, reduce stress and risk of injury.
• The integrated, varying movement patterns will also improve brain function

Watch Jannie talk more about Functional Movement https://my.theoptimal.me/movement/jannie-claassen-movement

Aging actually has many benefits and we really can choose to embrace it! We’re wiser, know ourselves better, and often have more time to enjoy doing the things we love. With a healthy body and healthy mind, we have much to be excited about.

So why not make sure you maintain your physical freedom? The choice is yours.

Here’s to your physical freedom,