Built to Move is our life jacket, handed to you, with instructions on how to prepare your body for whatever comes its way, be it aging, injury, or just the physical aches and pains that can come from living in this chairbound, technology-loving, caffeine-fueled world of ours.

 

In an area free of debris, stand with one foot crossed in front of the other. Without holding on to anything (unless you feel very unsteady), bend your knees and lower yourself to the floor until you’re sitting in a cross-legged position. Now, from the same cross-legged position, lean forward with your hands outstretched in front of you for balance, and rise off the floor—if possible, without placing your hands or knees on the floor or using anything else for support.

 

“Mobility” is a kind of wonky term that refers to something quite beautiful: the harmonious convergence of all the elements that allow you to move freely and effortlessly through space and life. Everything is in sync—your joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, nerves, brain, and the vasculature that runs through the body.

 

The premise of Built to Move is simple: 10 tests + 10 physical practices = 10 ways to make your body work better.

 

Soon enough, MobilityWOD had morphed into our present company, The Ready State, and we were working on movement and mobility with all branches of the military; NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL players and coaches; Olympic athletes; university sports teams; Fortune 500 companies; individual CEO types; and thousands of others.

 

Early humans sat on the ground, slept on the ground, and toileted on the ground. In a lot of cultures, they still do, which may partially explain why they’re able to stay more active in old age than your average American. It may also shed light on why people in the Western world are more likely to have joint pain and even joint replacements.

 

Rewilding, in general terms, is defined as “restoring and protecting natural processes.” Like any ecosystem, our bodies have an inherent design for optimal functioning.

 

Our goal is to get you to simply get out of a chair more often, take a few minutes to stand on one leg to improve your balance (what else are you going to do while you’re brushing your teeth?), add roasted broccoli to your dinner plate, wear an eye mask to help you sleep.

 

Walk. Sit on the floor while you watch TV. Better mobilize your hips, shoulders, spine.

 

THE TEST Stand next to a wall or steady piece of furniture if you think you will need help. From there, cross one foot in front of the other and sit down on the floor into a cross-legged position without holding on to anything (unless you feel very unsteady). Now, from the same cross-legged position, rise up off the floor, if possible, without placing your hands or knees on the floor or using anything else for support. Tip: Lean forward with your hands outstretched in front of you to keep your balance.

 

Your ultimate goal here is to work up to sitting on the floor at least thirty cumulative minutes a day, every day.

 

It’s called the Breath-Hold Test or BOLT (Body Oxygen Level Test),

 

The test involves holding your breath until you feel an urgent and compelling need to take in more air.

 

For instance, people with low BOLT scores tend to be snorers and quickly get out of breath when exercising or even just carrying the laundry up the stairs.

 

THE TEST Sitting or standing calmly, inhale normally through your nose. Exhale normally through your nose, then pinch your nostrils shut. Hold your breath until your body starts to get a little twitchy and you feel you must breathe. Note how many seconds from the time you clamped and unclamped your nose.

 

WHAT YOUR RESULTS MEAN The number of seconds you held your breath is your score. Below 10 seconds—Your CO2 tolerance is way below normal; you’ll need to work to catch up. 10–20 seconds—This is a good starting place, but you’ll need to grow your ability to deal with discomfort. 20–30 seconds—Getting close to what is considered normal. 30–40 seconds—Everyone should eventually land in this range, considered normal.

 

But what if breathing didn’t just allow you to live, but allowed you to really live—as in living life to the fullest?

 

Bohr’s discovery led to the practice of increasing CO2 tolerance. The longer you can hang on to carbon dioxide in your system, the more oxygen you’ll be able to utilize, and the more oxygen you’re able to utilize, the more energy you’ll have available for whatever it is you want to do.

 

The bottom line is this: Instead of worrying about your posture, simply ask yourself, “Can I breathe well in this position?”

 

Mouth breathing is associated with a number of ills, including insomnia, sleep apnea, snoring, allergies, congestion, gas and bloating (from sipping air while you’re also chomping on food), higher blood pressure, and even poor dental health.

 

After James Nestor’s book Breath came out, there was practically a run on athletic tape as people were inspired to use adhesive to ensure they were nose breathing while asleep. Does it work? Reports are that snorers stop snoring, it corrects sleep apnea, and people are getting better, higher-quality sleep. We have heard stories of mouth breathers waking up in the morning with high lactate levels, an indication of stress.

 

The great thing about the human body is that it adapts, then it adapts again. You can, in other words, rewild your hip, but it takes a conscious effort.

 

According to the study’s metrics, women and men who sit more than six hours a day are 37 percent and 18 percent, respectively, more likely to die before people who sit less than three hours a day.

 

There are varying accounts of how much our hunter-gatherer ancestors walked daily. Estimates run from 12,000 to 17,000 steps per day. If information about the past can be gleaned from the study of contemporary Indigenous tribes with hunter-gatherer habits, the number may be around 15,000 steps per day.

 

Most recently, in 2020, a large study conducted by a team of researchers from multiple national health organizations found that, compared with taking 4,000 steps per day, reaching 8,000 daily steps was associated with a 51 percent lower risk of death from all causes. Taking 12,000 steps per day was associated with a 65 percent lower risk.

 

So we decided to take a different tack. We made a plan to get up twenty minutes earlier and start walking our girls to school. Our older daughter was in third grade and our youngest was in kindergarten. Both were able to do the mile-and-a-half distance, and it turned into a lovely family time. We’d walk and talk, nobody on a phone, and saunter through a field where we’d look at bugs and leaves. Despite the fact that the girls attended a community school—most everyone attending lived within a two-mile range—we rarely saw any other kids walking or biking on our route.

 

Nine Strategies for Walking More • Walk while you talk. Use personal phone calls and even work meeting calls as opportunity to walk, whether it’s outside or just around your home or office space. • Communicate in person. At work, walk to talk to a colleague before you call or click. • Walk your dog! If you don’t have one, maybe this will inspire you to get one: A U.K. study found that dog-owners walk twenty-two minutes more per day than non-dog-owners. At the very least, borrow your neighbor’s dog—it’s the rare canine that won’t enjoy an extra outing. • Walk your kid to school. If it’s safe, there is no better way to get steps in while also doing something healthy for your child (see Steps, Community, and Less Loneliness, this page). • Take the stairs. Okay, you’ve heard this one before, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t remind you that taking the stairs is another way to get steps in without having to go for a formal walk. Every flight counts. • Shop in person. During the pandemic, a lot of us got used to ordering groceries and just about everything else online.

 

Wander the aisles in person, however, and you’re going to move way more than you would by letting your fingers do the walking on your keyboard. • Park far from your destination or get off public transportation early. There’s no rule that says you have to be delivered to the doorstep of where you’re going; that’s just something most of us have gotten used to. Break the habit. You may not be able to walk the whole way to your destination, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get some steps in. • Use wait time to walk. If you’re taking someone to the doctor or dentist, don’t just hang out in the waiting room. Take the time to walk. Likewise, if you’re at your kid’s volleyball tournament and there’s downtime (and there almost always is), walk around the venue a few times. If you have to wait for a table at a restaurant, give them your cell and tell them to call you when your table is ready (a lot of restaurants do this now anyway) while you walk around the block.

 

Walk around your house. We’ve heard about people, stymied by bad weather or poor air quality, who’ve set up obstacle courses in their homes just to get more steps in. Sure, you’re not going to rack up the miles, but it’s better than nothing. Or consider a treadmill. Al Roker, the Today Show weatherman, vowed to walk more after a prostate cancer diagnosis. To avoid New York City’s cold temps (and who better than a weatherman to know when to stay inside?), Al took to walking in place—a very good idea.

 

How is metabolic flexibility achieved? The physical practices in this chapter—getting your micronutrient count up by eating 800 grams of fruits and vegetables per day and monitoring your protein intake—promote metabolic flexibility by packing your primary diet with healthy whole foods, leaving less room for the high-sugar, highly processed foods that send your blood sugar on an unhealthy roller-coaster ride.

 

EC Synkowski based the 800-Gram Challenge on a 2017 study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The researchers analyzed ninety-five studies and concluded that eating 800 grams of fruits and vegetables a day was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, some cancers, and, in fact, all causes of death. In particular, apples, pears, citrus fruits, green leafy vegetables, salads, and cruciferous vegetables (like broccoli and cauliflower) lowered cardiovascular disease and incidence of death; green and yellow vegetables and cruciferous vegetables were associated with lowering cancer risk. Research has long suggested that produce has a protective effect, not just against heart disease and cancer but also other maladies like diabetes and stroke.

 

One of the values of this study is that it gives us something to aim for: 800 grams. Those in the nutrition world disagree about a lot of the particulars, but it’s safe to say that no one opposes the idea of a diet with 800 grams of fruits and vegetables.

 

In fact, someone who ate one daily serving of vegetables was 50 percent more likely to have physical limitations than someone who ate just 2.4 servings. The association was that strong.

 

Pain is a request for change. Your brain gets input from the affected part of your body, then interprets that information as a threat or not, ultimately giving you the message that you need to do something differently.

 

It’s rare, though, that people make the connection between poor sleep, not moving all day, limited range of motion, and congested tissues and the fact that their knees (or other parts) ache.

 

Squat Test

 

WHEN WAS THE last time you organized your body into a full squat, bending your knees deeply and dropping your butt low to the ground?

 

Squatting is something we did naturally as children; as adults, it can feel challenging if you haven’t done it for a while.

 

It’s not where you start; it’s where you end! Keep it up!

 

We’d wager that there is not a physician in the country who advises their patients to squat for good health. And yet there’s evidence that squatting really can make a difference in your well-being. Researchers at Chinese and U.S. universities collaborated in 2002 to publish the results of a study comparing the prevalence of arthritis of the hip in elderly people in China and the United States. The study found that the occurrence of arthritic hip pain in Chinese men and women was 80 to 90 percent lower than for their American counterparts.

 

 

PART 1: SOLEC (Stand On One Leg, Eyes Closed) Test; PART 2: Old Man Balance Test

 

Of all the many physical competencies we possess, balance is the unsung hero, the attribute that’s on few people’s radars but affects just about every aspect of mobility.

 

Falls are the third leading cause of unintentional injuries for people ages eighteen to thirty-five years old.

 

THE TEST Stand barefoot on the floor in an open, uncluttered space. Close your eyes, bend one leg, and raise your foot off the floor as high as comfortable (it doesn’t need to go high). Stay in this position for twenty seconds, counting the number of times you touch your foot down. Switch sides. If you feel uneasy, stand next to a wall or in front of a sink.

 

Researchers observed that twelve- to nineteen-month-olds fell an average of seventeen times per hour. But falling when you weigh 25 pounds versus falling when you weigh 125 or 225 pounds is far less impactful. (That’s why we try to be really good at not falling.)

 

Judging from how often toddlers get up and try again, it barely impacts them at all.

 

Because most people rarely go barefoot, primarily walk on smooth surfaces, and stuff their feet into cushy shoes—the human movement specialist Phillip Beach calls shoes “sensory deprivation chambers”;

 

Women and men who sit more than six hours a day are, respectively, 37 percent and 18 percent more likely to die before people who sit less than three hours a day.

 

In 2017, StandUp Kids was able to provide a $50,000 grant for standing desks in public schools.

 

Benden’s research has shown that above and beyond the extra calorie expenditure (17 percent more than seated students, almost double that for overweight kids), standing students were more focused and less disruptive.