Movement Challenge – Day One

Welcome to the First Annual Movement Challenge.  A new video will be posted each day with demonstrations of great ways to get you moving.

Modifications are provided for each movement to help ease you into the Challenge.  If you feel pain at anytime while performing a movement stop immediately.  We want to increase awareness and motivate you to move more and pain will only hamper your efforts to develop healthy movement patterns.  If you currently suffer from joint pain, or if you have, or have had, a condition that limits your mobility such as back pain, shoulder pain, or knee or hip replacement surgery talk to a health care provider before beginning this Challenge.

Movement is essential for health and we hope that this Movement Challenge can help you get started on a path to better mobility.

Movement Challenge Day 1 Video

Welcome to our first movement challenge. I am Dr. Deborah Perkins, co-founder of Evexia Family Chiropractic. This movement challenge is going to help you become more aware of your body. It’s going to improve mobility and get you started on that track to a better life. So the first thing if you guys are feeling any kind of pain through any of these motions, stop immediately and go seek care for your condition. Feeling a stretch, feeling mild tension is common. Also, be aware that after doing these movements you may be sore the next day. So the first thing I’m going to ask you guys to do is to start walking more. By the end of this challenge, I want you to be able to walk 10,000 steps by the end of each day. That’s a huge number to you right now. You may only start with 2,000 steps a day, but each day just work your way up to that 10,000 step mark. So our first movement is just a sitting position. It seems very simple, but once you get down into this position, you will see that you might feel some tension and some stretching. So first is just this kneeling position. Once you get down into this position, I just want you to check in. You know, what does it feel like here in my quads? What do my knees feel like? What do my ankles feel like? If you’re feeling too much tension in one of your joints, maybe you can get to here, maybe you can flex your feet up. You can always use some towels under you like this and it will help bring you up a little bit. And maybe every day you can remove a towel to give you more of a stretch. I want you also to be aware that in this position or any sitting position, you should really concentrate on having a long, straight spine. Think about opening up your shoulders. This is just a perfect way to get started. So our next position is going to be sitting in a crossed leg style like this. This position really opens up the hip joints, and if you’re feeling too much tension here, you can always raise your legs up like this, and every day you can slowly kind of feel that tension melt away and you can slowly lower your legs down. If you start here, that’s fine. It’s not a problem at all. This is a place to start. Just keep working on it, and eventually, you will get like this. Once again, you can put your arms behind you like this, just to help you keep that long, straight spine. I would rather you do this than feel like you have to hunch over like this. So the next movement is going to be just an upright sitting position. I want you to sit on top of the sit bones, have that long, nice, straight spine. If you can’t stay like this, if you feel you have to hunch over, go ahead and bring your arms back behind you. Open up your shoulders, and have that long, straight spine. So I hope you can take this, and incorporate this into your every day life. Stay tuned tomorrow for our next video.