Perform the ‘Happy Hip Hack’ by stepping backward with one leg and simultaneously raising the arm on the same side above your head, ensuring your heel stays on the ground. This simple crawling pattern helps restore balance between tonic (postural) and phasic (movement) muscles, lengthens the psoas, and corrects posture, leading to more efficient movement and reduced hip drop.
Walk backward for five continuous minutes daily, ideally barefoot on grass, sand, or carpet. Focus on soft toes, full weight through your heels, and your belly button pointing towards the lead leg. This practice downregulates the nervous system, decompresses the lower back and pelvis, frees up tension, and improves forward walking efficiency.
Engage in flow rope exercises, focusing on swinging the rope backward in an underhand figure-of-eight pattern, generating movement from your spine (sacrum out) rather than overusing your hands. This enhances somato-visceral movement, animates the spine, unwinds tension, and improves running symmetry and rhythm.
If you experience persistent pain (more than 3 out of 10) or pain that worsens during movement, especially running, reconsider the activity. Prioritize learning to move in a way that doesn’t stress your joints, and then strengthen and rehab that pain-free movement, rather than strengthening on top of existing imbalances.
Actively seek out and engage in activities that foster curiosity and a sense of play. A lack of these qualities can indicate a sympathetic (stressed) nervous system state, while cultivating them promotes a healthy, parasympathetic (relaxed) state and neuroplasticity.
Practice resisted walking (e.g., pulling a tire) to add resistance to your forward movement. As your knee passes your hip, straighten your leg to engage hip extensors (glute max) and push the earth away. This helps restore tonic-phasic muscle balance, teaches proper hip extension, and improves gait patterns by correcting over-reliance on hamstrings or forefoot running.
Practice humming, especially while engaging with screens or emails. Humming slows your breathing rate, which is beneficial for overall health, and helps counteract ‘screen apnea’ where people unconsciously hold their breath, leading to a tight diaphragm and sympathetic nervous system overdrive.
Perform eye exercises to improve flexibility and reduce tension related to screen use. This includes ‘pencil push-ups’ (focusing on a finger moving close and far) and then looking up with a panoramic, relaxed gaze. This practice can improve overall body flexibility and reduce tension in postural muscles, including the neck.
Adopt a simple, effective strength routine and consistently adhere to it over decades, rather than constantly seeking complex or varied exercises. This approach emphasizes long-term sustainability and effectiveness over chasing new trends or excessive hypertrophy.
Avoid judging your self-worth or personality based on performance metrics like running times. Over-focus on comparison and personal bests can ruin the enjoyment of movement and lead to unnecessary mental stress, rather than fostering a healthy, intrinsic relationship with physical activity.
View current efforts in movement and health as an investment in your future self’s quality of life. Prioritize building a foundation of good movement and well-being now to ensure a higher quality of life in later years, rather than solely focusing on longevity.
When beginning a new movement practice or habit, start with one small, manageable thing and don’t be paralyzed by the pursuit of perfection. Progress is more important than immediate mastery, and consistent small steps will lead to significant long-term changes.
During physical discomfort (not pain), shift your focus from the unpleasant sensation to the correctness of your technique, visualizations, or positive mantras. This approach, exemplified in breathing practices, can help manage discomfort and improve performance without increasing suffering.
For sustained and far-reaching progress in movement and life, engage with a supportive community rather than pursuing goals in isolation. The culture of a community can act as a powerful, soft coach, naturally improving individual patterns and providing accountability and camaraderie.