Mobility is a basic human need to survive.
It is an essential factor that helps in the maintenance of healthy muscles, bones, and joints. Being active is a necessary element to aging as it promotes healthy, independent living and facilitates participation in everyday activities.
It's very easy to take mobility for granted earlier on in life. At the early stage of life, your body can adapt and work through sports or recreation as you desire in most situations. But that starts to change quickly as you begin to age, and because a loss of mobility tends to be cumulative, minor problems now can translate into significant issues down the line.
This matters for functional health. It is because mobility limitations in the coming years will not only impact your ability to do certain things but can stop you from being active and doing the exercises you need for long-term total wellness. Mobility issues can lead to chronic pain, and that can be debilitating. If you suffer from pain, it affects every aspect of your functional health, and if left unattended, it will only worsen and deliver a more significant impact. Taking care of your body, promoting, and maintaining mobility is a crucial component of your total wellness. The good news is that there plenty of exercises and routines that can help you achieve this. Better still, they are easy to do and fit into your daily life, considering how hectic and busy our lives have become. You can use a gym to help with mobility, but this is an aspect of your functional health that you can work on at home as well if you prefer. You don't need expensive equipment. There are plenty of exercises that are done without equipment and are easy to do, no matter if you are on a small budget.
When discussing functional health and total wellness, movement is one of the critical factors. Your body is designed to be in motion, it is its natural state, and when that motion is reduced, problems start occurring. This applies to everyone. Whether you are carrying out normal daily activities at work and home or training for an athletic competition of any kind, you need to keep your body active. It is its essential requirement to function normally. Without the proper and correct movement, you will quickly find your body experiencing pain that becomes an ever-present reminder of poor posture, lousy gait, and incorrectly performed gym exercises.
There's a saying in design that "form follows function," meaning that if the form of an object is proper, it will function properly. But it is the opposite when it comes to health; functional health follows the correct form. In the rush of daily life, we tend to follow and do things wrong that result in further deterioration of health rather than maintaining it and make us healthier. It is easy to get into unhealthy habits in the modern time, and at the gym, most of us focus on pushing harder, rather than maintaining the correct posture, can lead to similar health issues.
Take something mundane, like picking up a box. Do you bend at the knees, picking up the box from a squat, so your legs do the work, or do you lean over at the waist and force your back to do the lifting? Sure, it probably won't make much difference with a lightweight box, but it's a bad habit to get into because it will become a habit, and you will keep on doing so when you are lifting a massive package that can lead to injuring yourself. Think about the gym. Instructors go to great lengths to explain every exercise's mechanics to ensure you perform each one correctly. Can you remember anything they said? Not only can your poor form and posture in the gym cause injuries and ongoing pain, but failing to perform exercises correctly means they are less effective, and you won't reach your fitness goals either.
The movement that works with your body aids in total wellness and functional health. It boosts your mobility and provides a robust and flexible foundation for significant functional health. Pay attention to how you move, seek to reduce stress, and avoid injury by following the body's strengths. From there, your movement will provide the foundation for your ongoing mobility and total wellness.