There’s magic in movement.
There’s an old adage about our human bodies:
If you don’t use it, you lose it.
This applies to our brains, our muscles, our skeletons, and pretty much everything else.
Movement is how we exercise our body.
It’s how we stimulate our muscles, keep our ligaments and tendons engaged, and keep the blood pumping through our veins.
Failing to move enough to keep our body healthy puts us at risk for many different types of diseases and conditions.
There’s just one problem.
Sometimes, deciding on a mode of movement isn’t exactly easy to do.
If you’re struggling to figure out how to move your body in a way that’s not only fun, but also low impact and relaxing, this post is for you.
You’re about to learn 4 super-basic free-form movement exercises that you can do anywhere, at any time.
These exercises may not burn a ton of calories or build sculpted, shredded muscles—but they’ll get you up and moving around, and they’re easy to do.
Let’s jump into it.
1. Reach For The Sky
To perform this movement, simply place your feet a little more than shoulder width apart.
Look upward.
Take a deep breath, and raise your arms from your sides up toward the sky.
Make sure to stretch all of your muscles as you do this, and exhale as you lift your arms.
When your hands reach the apex, put your palms together and bring your hands down in front of your chest to begin your next inhale.
As you take another breath, begin the process over again.
2. Maintain A Wider Stance
To perform this basic exercise, spread your feet a bit more than shoulder width apart, and lower yourself into a sort of squatting position.
Then, stand back up and place your feet closer together to rest.
Repeat this several times, each time trying to get your legs a little further apart and deepening the level of the squat.
This helps you engage your leg muscles, but it also helps you to stretch your legs, hips, and lower back.
3. Balance On One Leg
This is about as simple as it gets.
First, take a deep breath in.
Then, as you exhale, raise one leg (bent at the knee), while balancing on the other.
Hold your hands close to your body. Then, raise them outward, giving them a good stretch before lifting them skyward, to fully engage your shoulder muscles.
Then, lower your arms, switch to the other foot, and repeat as desired.
4. Freeform Dance
Sometimes, you just need to dance a little bit.
To perform this exercise, however, you won’t necessarily even need any music.
Simply take a deep breath and start moving your body in whatever instinctual manner seems to feel the best to stretch the muscles and engage the muscle groups.
There doesn’t have to be any rhyme or reason to this experiment.
Just see what feels best to you.
Also, make sure not to strike poses or make moves that’ll put you at risk for an accident or injury.
Part of the point of this kind of ‘gentle freeform exercise’ is to make it low impact, graceful, and safe.
In Conclusion
There you have it!
Four free-form movement exercises to help you stretch your muscles, move around, and feel better.
All that’s left now is to give it a try.
You got this.
