Marty looked in the fridge and sighed. The milk she wanted for her morning coffee had expired. Could she skip her beloved coffee?
Sighing again, she put on her coat, grabbed her purse and went outside. She walked down the short flight of stairs to her car and drove to the grocery store.
After parking her car, Marty slung her purse across her body, grabbed a basket and searched for milk. She put the carton in her basket and remembered several other items she needed. Retrieving those extra items, Marty wished she had gotten a cart since the basket was feeling heavy on her arm. “Wait” she said. “I can do this. Heavy but manageable.”
Suddenly, Marty thought of her group fitness instructor from all those classes she had taken at the local community center. She heard her teacher’s voice in her head reminding her to carry weights using her core rather than her back. She also recalled the teacher’s gentle but constant reminders about the importance of good posture and what good posture is.
Marty immediately pulled her shoulders down and back and lifted the top of her chest a little bit. Good posture never hurt anyone she thought.
She went through the self-checkout lane, bagged her groceries into 2 separate but equally weighted bags, walked back to her car and loaded the bags. She drove home and took the bags of the car. Carrying a bag in each hand, Marty carefully walked up the stairs.
She put the milk on the countertop and started brewing her coffee.
“Mission accomplished” Marty said with a satisfied smile.
Marty’s trip to the grocery store involved using her body in basic ways:
- Getting dressed
- Stairs
- Walking
- Squatting (in and out of her car)
- Lifting
- Carrying
- Twisting
Essential exercises for grocery shopping could include:
- Walking both with and without weights
- Turning/twisting safely
- Lifting weights from high to low
- Squatting properly and lifting weight from low to high
- Stairs
- Core/back strength
- Proper posture
- Good balance
- Joint flexibility/mobility
These essential movements are needed for daily life. During the course of a day, we may
carry a jug of water, change the sheets on the bed, load/unload the dishwasher or pick up dog
food/cat litter, to name a few activities which require the body to move in specific ways.
Even if you use a food delivery service, you still have to lift the groceries from where they were
delivered, carry them into your residence and put away the items. You may not use your body
as extensively as going to the grocery store but you still need to be able to move.
Perhaps you don’t give grocery shopping a second thought in terms of how you’re using your body. Most of us don’t until we can’t use our bodies the way we want to. Injuries can happen to anyone, and they are not necessarily age-related.
Consider that some of us:
- Can’t lift a bag of groceries because of a shoulder, neck or back injury
- Can’t lift a heavy item off the floor
- Aren’t strong enough to carry heavy bags any distance
- Are at risk for injuries due to a weak core and/or back
- Are shaky on our feet
- Worried about falling or slipping
- Can’t get up and down stairs because their knees hurt and/or they get out of breath.
A simple trip to the grocery store may be a tiring and potentially unsafe activity for some people.
It does not have to be that way!
Practicing basic movement patterns is beneficial for most adults. You don’t
need join a gym or buy expensive equipment to do this. You can easily find foundational body
exercises online or join a group fitness class which covers essential movements like Marty did in
the above story.
And you don’t need to work out for hours to perform the exercises with good form and master
the movements.
Your program could be 5-10 minutes a day where you rotate through fundamental exercises
like squats and balance one day, walking another day, core/back strengthening exercises
another day, joint mobility/flexibility the next day and so on.
Think of foundational exercises as a daily health habit like brushing your teeth or washing your
hands.
Boring?
Maybe.
However, practicing fundamental movements regularly can make your daily life easier.
Consider them an aspect of your self-care.
Over time little by little becomes a lot.
Even practicing a few minutes daily will yield some improvement.
