Why You Don't Have Time to Move

"I don't have enough time."This is the biggest excuse of anyone wanting to make any kind of change these days.The time copout is convenient, seeing as there are always things demanding our attention and pulling us in a million different directions.Yet the same people that make the time excuse are often watching hours of television, checking email too much and too many other activities where their precious life energy is being sucked into a screen to never return again.Time. Our most precious resource, yet we all seem to be so poor in it.I'm not going to spend this article talking about why we're all so poor in time (working too much to buy things that don't make us happy), but instead I want to take a different approach.Let's assume that you are currently wasting zero time (highly unlikely, but I'll play along) and you really don't have an extra hour a day for movement.You might not realize it, but this is actually the perfect situation.Why? Because your only choices right now are to either accept sedentary life, or find a way to make a lifestyle of movement integrated in your other activities, which is actually the whole point of movement anyway.If you must integrate movement, and not compartmentalize it into a box in your day, you'll have to find ways to get more movement with the circumstances and environments you find yourself in.In order to do this, we have to make a paradigm shift: movement is not just about our typical definition of exercise or what we might experience in a gym or yoga class.Movement is the continual feeding of your body new inputs through a change in position.So, let's assuming you're doing the 30 day squat challenge right now.You basically have two options:

1. Try to fit your squat into a designated period for exercise (likely at a gym or something)
2. Find a way to integrate squatting into the things you're already doing

The former option is the paradigm of fitness, the latter is the paradigm of a lifestyle.We all know that when we try to force ourselves to do things in unnatural ways it rarely sticks. Diets hardly ever work in the long term, and neither do promises to stick to an awkward, robot-like gym routine.So, assuming you're going to choose the second option, how would you integrate at least 10 minutes of squatting into your day?Well, you might squat...

• While cutting vegetables for dinner
• Brushing your teeth
• Working on your laptop (you'll need a low table like a coffee table for this)
• Waiting for the bus
• Texting a friend (your knees in the squat happen to the perfect platform for holding your smart phone, the antidote for "text neck")
• Playing with your toddler
• Folding laundry
• Mopping the floor (like a ninja)
• Pulling weeds in the garden
• Mapping out your next project on the floor with index cards
• Eating your oatmeal
• During your morning meditation
• Saying your evening prayers
• Reading a book
• Putting away your groceries

These are just all the possibilities I came up with in the last five minutes of thinking about it. I'm sure you can come up with even more.Multi-tasking has gotten a bad rap these days. And I do think that constant task switching is a good way to kill your progress in your work. But, maybe there is a way we can benefit from the mindset of integration.After all, Bruce Lee was known to be doing dumbbell curls while working on his side splits, reading a book and eating breakfast.If the primal movement movement was happening in his day I bet he'd have been squatting too.Maybe he was on to something.So, integrate and stop compartmentalizing. Of course, the problem with this is that you no longer have any excuses.How can YOU integrate more movement into your life without needing more time?Share with us your ideas for squatting more in the comments. photo credit: LOLCLOCK

Why Your Squat Sucks and How to Fix It

The squat is a dynamic posture and resting position every human should be able to do. The only problem is most of us haven't squatted much since age five or six at best.Funny, that's about the age when we're introduced to... sitting all day.Rehabbing your squat is a process that takes time and diligence, but how do you know how to fix it if you can't figure out what part of your squat needs fixing?In this video I explain the three most common problems with peoples squats and specific corrective stretches for how to fix them.Your squat doesn't have to suck. But it's not going to get any better unless you do something about it.Now you have no excuse.

Why Movement Outsourcing is the Best Thing That's Ever Happened to You

At first you might be pissed like I was.I mean, FUCK, have you ever felt like this?"Movement was outsourced and engineered out of my life without my consent. I was born into this cushy 21st century life, which I have to admit, is pretty damn cool in some ways. I mean, pandora and not being chased by lions is pretty cool, but it pretty much fucking sucks that I have all these muscle imbalances and joint things because I'm not required to move to live anymore like I evolved to for millions of years. So... now I have to go about this pain in the ass work of reengineering movement back into my life in this weird, artificial way that will probably never be as good as nature would have done. Fuck."Yeah, woe as me. Sucks to be living with clean, running water and a supermarket and no lions chasing you. I know, I get it. I have nothing to complain about.I'm a privileged, white, cis-male living in a first world country, must be sooooooo hard. Boo-hoo.And yet, it does kind of suck that I have to relearn how to be a proper human in this day and age.But then I realized there's some really fucking good news:I get to make this my own "choose your own adventure" movement adventure.Yes, my body would probably be most healthy if I lived out in the wild 100% of the time (at least from a functional joint perspective), but it's also pretty damn cool that I get to decide how I move and what attributes I want to develop.Natural, primal movement must of course be the base. But after that, it's really up to me.It's the blessing and the burden of deliberate living.The same is true of being self-employed. I get to create my own schedule and work on whatever I want. But it's also up to me that shit gets done.I could have a job, or be forced to live out in the wild and not have to make as many decisions, and there would be some relief to not having to create my own adventure.But I don't think I'd have it any other way.When it comes down to it, it's pretty damn awesome being a free range, crafting my own destiny kind of human.Yes, it's a pain in the ass. And it's probably the best kind of pain in the ass you could have.So, go out there. Rehab your body (and mind) from modern captivity. Then create your own movement adventure. Only you get to make the rules.P.S. The first series I did on moving heroically on this blog was a major hit. Because of that I'm excited to announce that very soon I'll be doing another brand new series, which will be all about primal movement. Stay tuned!

Why Preparation Is Overrated

Preparation is hugely overrated.Many of us spend our lives preparing, training and "getting ready" only to wake up one day wondering when the hell we're ever going to arrive.

Preparing to be generous

Maybe you're working on your finances and really want to get to a place of stability and independence before you focus on giving and generosity. Logically this makes perfect sense, you want to take care of yourself before you give to others.But what if the path to more stability and abundance was actually found through giving more before you're "ready"?Besides, when is ready anyway? When will you have enough to where you can give?Knowing what your enough point is can help, but there are still many ways you can give now, without it negatively impacting your personal goals and wellbeing. You can volunteer your time, or donate some of the things you have that you no longer need or use.Doing this might actually make you feel more abundant, which is precious fuel to help you stay motivated to reach your goals.

Preparing to be free

You might be working on not needing approval from others, and working on your self-confidence.Because you're still cautious, you don't put yourself out there and really express yourself freely. You're not ready to unleash the wildness inside of you, because you want to work on becoming more confident first.After all, you could risk being wild and free by walking around your neighborhood barefoot or howling at the moon and you might get some strange looks of fear or disapproval. That would obviously ruin everything, because it would prove you are weird and an outcast from the tribe. Feeling like that could majorly set you back.But what if you could simply start being more wild and free right now, and in turn, inspire others to be more open and expressive? What if it was actually the best self-confidence training possible because it proved you didn't really need others approval in the first place?Nothing bad is likely to happen if you're a little unconventional anyway.You might even ignite a spark in others that turns you into a leader (but wait, don't you have to prepare for that too?).

Preparing to play

Another way we trap ourselves with preparation is with work. Once we've put in enough time and sacrifice, then we'll play. Maybe on the weekend, or maybe when we're retired.We've got to earn it after all, right?Are you beginning to see the pattern?What all of this really comes down to is not demonizing preparation or hard work. (I'm a big fan of working your ass off on things you really believe in.)It's much deeper than that.Preparation and sacrifice is definitely a key part of being a human, but we shouldn't work endlessly until we've sufficiently met the prerequisites for joy and freedom.You can...

• ...help people even if you haven't got it all figured out.
• ...give even if you aren't in the most abundant situation right now.
• ...play even if you haven't mastered your physical fitness.
• ...be wild and free even if you haven't become a God of Self Confidence.
• ...idly let the world pass you by in ecstatic fucking-aroundness even if you haven't put in your 50+ years of work.

Preparation is useful if you want to reach a goal. The quest to level up is an endless part of human existence. We can't stop it even if we wanted to.But what we can do is enjoy the shit out of the ride along the way and stop fooling ourselves that someday we'll earn our way into being ready to really live.Life is right fucking now.If you've gotten really good at preparing then maybe it's time you cash in and start using what you've been waiting for.

On Antifragility: Is Your Quest For Comfort Actually Making You More Uncomfortable?

Modernization could easily be summed up as one giant quest to obliterate human discomfort.We outsource and automate the growing and cooking of our food to avoid manual labor at all costs.We use air conditioning and heating to keep our spaces the perfect temperature at all times in the search for temperature utopia.We cover our feet with shoes in part to elevate ourselves from animals, but also to shield them from pain and discomfort.In the process of all this discomfort killing, something comical happens...

We become increasingly uncomfortable the more we seek comfort

Why is this?When you stop and think hard about it, the reason is clear as day. By limiting our exposure to stressors we train ourselves out of adaptability.

• Don't have to ever move to eat? Stiffness and weakness settle into the joints.
• Same temperature all the time? No need for thermal regulation in the body.
• Feet never have to do feet things because they're babied in cushy shoes? Collapsed arches and weak ankles will surely show up.

Our quest for comfort ends up producing the exact opposite effect we intended!Ah, what humour noir.Of course, there is an antidote.The good news is that it's surprisingly simple, saves you money, creates more freedom, is great for the environment, and makes you a total badass...Voluntarily expose yourself to discomfort.Watch this video to see what I mean...Spread the gospel of discomfort, tweet this to your cushy friends:[clickToTweet tweet="Make it your mission to immerse yourself in discomfort, and your comfort zones increases." quote="Make it your mission to immerse yourself in discomfort, and your comfort zones increases."]