People have a lot of messed up ideas about exercise. “No pain, no gain” is one of the most damaging since it ratchets up the discomfort of potentially enjoyable activities and makes injury more likely. Some people believe that if a workout doesn’t hurt, then the workout somehow doesn’t “count.” Maybe you’ve thought your workouts don’t count if you don’t sweat, don’t go a specific distance, or don’t hit 30 minutes of non-stop movement. I’m here to say your workouts count even if you don’t meet the criteria above. I’ll refer to two great books, Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman and No Sweat by Michelle Segar, to clear up some unhelpful views about exercise and help you pay more attention to movement.

I read these books as part of my quest to heal the Achilles tendinopathy that sidelined me from running for almost a year. I went from training for a marathon to stepping gingerly to avoid tearing my heel chord. I rested, but things did not improve. After a stint in physical therapy and doing boatloads of calf raises every day as part of my rehab, I could move a bit more without pain. To avoid ever being hurt for that long again, I wanted to know more about how exercise changes the body and how to exercise sustainably.

Move Your DNA and No Sweat changed my understanding of exercise and made me appreciate movement more. Here are four big ideas that may change how you think about exercise and movement.

1. Exercise overshadows movement
2. Movement changes your body
3. Enjoyable movement is easier to stick to
4. Opportunities to Move (OTMs) are everywhere

1. Exercise overshadows movement. We’ve all heard exercise is important for building bone density, managing weight, and having a healthy heart. We attend exercise classes, train for races, or try to hit the gym three times a week. We know we need to exercise since society, doctors, and the fitness industry have beaten the idea into us. But, there isn’t exactly a movement industry that tries to sell us on moving more. If you’re like I was, “movement” may not be very high on your radar even though you exercise regularly. Let’s define exercise and movement and explain why paying more attention to movement is helpful.

Exercise – Purposeful, often regimented, physical movement done to improve fitness or health.

Movement – Everyday activities that change the orientation of one’s body and alter the loads experienced by the body.

Move Your DNA illustrates the difference between exercise and movement with this example: 

“Going for a one-mile or thirty-minute walk to strengthen your legs, burn some calories, and stretch your muscles is an example of exercise. Walking a mile to the store because you need to pick up something for dinner is an example of movement.”

Movement is what we do as we move our bodies from place to place and carry out our daily tasks. Exercise is a way of moving for fitness-related goals. Exercise and movement are both good and essential. We just tend to think more about exercise (often negatively, as in “I should exercise more” and “Why am I so lazy?”), and neglect thinking about how we move and how often.

Here’s why we need to pay more attention to movement:

• Movement encompasses exercise. If we drew a circle that contained every way we move throughout our days (brushing our teeth, sitting down, getting up, making dinner, etc.) and a circle for exercise (cycling, going to the gym, doing yoga, etc.), exercise would fit within the movement circle. When we pay attention to exercise but ignore thinking about and improving how we move, we ignore tons of opportunities for better health.
• We move much more in a day than we exercise (or we could if we made a point to move more). Some of the fittest among us work out for an hour per day. What about the other ~15 waking hours? These hours provide lots of opportunities for healthy movement. Katy Bowman explains, “In the same way supplements should not be the bulk of your diet, exercise should not be the bulk of your movement profile.”
• We’ll get into this more in the section about how movement changes the body, but all movement counts. All movement has an impact on your body. Simply shifting your weight in your seat or standing up changes the forces acting on your body and activates your biological system. From this perspective, all exercise and all movement “count.” It doesn’t make sense to say a light workout or a 5-minute walk doesn’t count because it wasn’t strenuous enough. If your body is moving, that movement is making changes and contributing to your health. Obviously, harder workouts or specific movements will strain and challenge your body more than everyday movements and may have a place in your movement regimen depending on your goals, but all movement counts.
• Exercise is hard to stick to. I assume we all know the feeling of giving up on an exercise plan we started with great intentions. Often, we struggle to form exercise habits, and carving out time to exercise, especially if we don’t enjoy it, requires willpower. By contrast, movement doesn’t require discipline; we naturally move throughout the day. Movement can be enjoyable, whereas exercise can feel mandated, brutal, or boring.
• Even if we exercise regularly, we can be almost entirely sedentary when not exercising. If our exercise is dialed in, but our movement isn’t, we risk being less healthy.

If these reasons persuade you to pay more attention to movement, as they persuaded me, keep reading to understand the science behind why movement is so important and how you can incorporate more healthy movement into your life.

2. Movement changes your body. Our bodies respond to movement on a cellular level. Mechanotransduction describes the cellular process that happens when forces act upon our bodies, our cells respond to the forces with chemical reactions, and the chemical reactions change the structure of the cells. This explanation may sound overly scientific, but the takeaway is that our cells and bodies change in response to every movement we make.

I first came across this concept when doing research to plan my Achilles rehab. I learned that tendons repair themselves through mechanotransduction (not rest!). Tendons are made up of a collagen matrix that repairs itself when subjected to loads. So, even though it hurt a little bit, I did weighted calf raises to load my Achilles tendon so it could rebuild itself. I could have rested and iced for years without making progress. Since the heavy calf raise loading protocol (done carefully and over a long time) worked, I paid attention when Katy Bowman claimed mechanotransduction affects our bodies all the time.

Bowman explains that just as trees need wind to grow thicker and stronger, our bodies need movement (twisting, pushing, walking, pulling, bracing, stretching) to grow and work optimally. The forces and loads we experience when we move are signals communicating to our cells that they need to alter themselves to tolerate the physical inputs. Bowman writes about mechanotransduction and our need for movement, “Most cells depend heavily on mechanical stimulation. The loads placed on the body via movement translate into loads on the cells themselves, which creates cellular data, and it is at this level that change—in the form of strengths, densities, and shape—occurs.”

Modern, comfortable living allows for minimal movement and creates a movement deficiency for most of us. Essentially, we sit a lot, outsource as much manual labor as we can, and don’t get the inputs from varied, frequent movement that our bodies need for optimal health. Bowman compares our current way of life to how our ancestors moved and writes, “The loads that drive many of the functions we depend on for living—are not well met by the quantity and types of loads created in a modern society.” So, while some of us may feel we don’t exercise enough, the truth is many of us don’t move enough.

Every load our bodies experience contributes to our physical health. It’s important to move often and with great variety to help our bodies function properly, be effective in our environments, and protect against injury.

3. Enjoyable movement is easier to stick to. Move Your DNA makes the case that we need to move more often. No Sweat, written by a behavioral sustainability researcher, is all about tailoring our exercise and movement routines so we can stick to them. One of the best ways to stick to our movement routines is to move in ways we enjoy.

Michelle Segar, the author of No Sweat, advises those who struggle with sticking to exercise routines to focus on moving enjoyably. Those who move or exercise because they enjoy it do it more consistently than those who exercise to accomplish a fitness or health goal. We often resist things we feel forced to do and gravitate toward things we like doing. If you can find ways to move that give you energy or are fun, it will be a lot easier to do them than to “work out.” See Dylan’s blog for more about how exercise can be fun. Segar suggests movement and mindful exercise also contribute to joy and overall well-being – not just physical health. Engaging in movements you like and doing so consistently is Segar’s suggested path to wellness, not sticking to an “exercise routine” you hate.

4. Opportunities to Move (OTMs) are everywhere. Whether or not you engage regularly in exercise you enjoy, Segar suggests you can move more often by taking Opportunities to Move (OTMs) throughout the day. Bowman agrees and writes, “Instead of short (relative to the entire day) bursts of high-intensity exercise, consider moving in a way that gets your blood moving throughout the day.” By moving more, even if those movements aren’t what we typically think of as exercise, we create the physical inputs that improve physiology and well-being.

Segar writes, “The world is filled with opportunities to move that we never noticed,” and provides a thorough list of things we can do to move more. This is a reproduction of that list.

• Take longcuts – take longer walking routes than needed to get to your destination
• Phone call walks – take phone calls on the go
• Wait actively – don’t just sit there when waiting for an appointment; move around while you wait
• Get a “movement snack” – don’t be afraid to do a 1, 5, or 10-minute movement session if time is limited
• Walk and talk – catch up with a friend or partner while walking
• Dance break – play some tunes and dance to your heart’s content
• Get out in nature – go outside, to your backyard, to a park, or further out of town and move around
• Family play – play sports and games with family. Kids are always on the go; go with them!
• Walking meeting – walk while on a work meeting
• Recess – recreate recess by playing around, investigating your surroundings, or hitting the jungle gym
• Coffee walk or lunch Walk – when meeting with someone to share a drink or meal, consider taking it to go and walking as you talk
• Walk the dog – a walk with your four-legged friend is good for both of you
• Take breaks – when working, get up and shake it out periodically
• Household chores – use chores as opportunities to twist, carry things, crouch down, etc.
• Walk for enjoyment – explore the area, enjoy fresh air, get some sun, and walk
• Airport walking – rather than sit waiting to board, walk the terminal
• Airplane activity – walk the aisle or do calf raises in the back of the plane
• One-minute workouts – take a minute to do a yoga pose, some jumping jacks, or stretches

If you’re fired up to move more, consider taking advantage of the OTMs in your life. For some specific examples, these are some of the OTMs I take:

• My girlfriend and I walk our dogs every morning.
• I try to sit at a desk as little as possible and instead opt for sitting on the floor, working from a lunge position, or working at a standing desk. 
• I do chores or do yoga while on low-involvement video calls. 
• I take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator when possible. 
• I try to walk instead of drive when time allows. 
• If I notice I’ve been stationary for a while, I change positions. 
• I ride a stationary bike when watching TV or playing video games. 
• I hang from a doorway pullup bar when I walk past it. 

Overall, I try to add movement snacks into my day, get more steps when I can, and try to combat my modern work environment. I hope the above lists give you ideas about how you can move more within your everyday life. By paying more attention to how we move, moving often, and doing a variety of movements during our normal lives, we can achieve great physical health without forcing ourselves to exercise. Remember, all movement counts!