The big thing with Move U’s 90 day challenge is to develop the habit of doing the exercises. And that part definitely has down its work with me. I’m still going strong over 130 days into moving every day. And although I kind of felt like I was “done” at the 90 days, I’ve discovered that by continuing, I’m continuing to improve my posture in ways I didn’t even know were possible.
Like, I thought after the Back & Core Level 1 program that I understood how to do posture, because I finally learned which muscles to engage to hold that posture. It felt amazing, and it definitely did improve my posture from its original point. But once I got to the Shoulders & Arms program, I started to feel how my shoulders were still very much sitting in a rounded forward position, which may well be the root cause of the pinchies I’ve been having in my shoulder for the past few years with overhead movements.
And now that I’m working through the Level 1 Head & Neck program, I’m feeling that even more. With Head & Neck, you want to be isolating your neck muscles, and that requires the ability to separate all the shoulders muscles from the neck muscles, motion-wise.
I also recently got a massage, and when I mentioned that I was working on my posture, the therapist noted that such a change in my posture would also involve a widening of my chest. I’ve run with that a bit with my own at home massaging, trying to loosen the muscles across my chest and the capsules of my shoulders with lacrosse balls and foam rollers and even my fingers. I’ve also been trying to do some static hangs from my pullup bar with my scapulae down, using the serratus anterior muscles as the drivers of the hold. I’ll build there and work into a better position for doing pullups.
I suppose there wouldn’t be multiple levels of each program if just going through the first got you all the way.
But I don’t plan to continue doing program work through the summer. That’s my backpacking season, and I don’t want to be tied to a specific program or specific exercises through that time. I’m going to finish Level 1 of Head & Neck. At that point, I’ll have completed all the Level 1 programs, and I’ll take a break from going through those levels.
I do plan to continue doing the Move U exercises during this period, just not moving forward in any of the programs. I’ll retrench instead, and focus on continuous review of the programs that I have completed. At the very least, I’ll spend 15 minutes each day focused on breathing if not on body movement exercises. I’ve got an elaborate plan to make up little routines using dice, but those don’t always pan out for me. I mean, I’m good at making the elaborate plan, not so great at executing…
I wish my brother would consider trying the Move U program. I truly think he could benefit from it immensely, but for some reason he doesn’t want to. I haven’t tried to probe. Maybe he’ll get there. Maybe in a couple of years when I’m being amazingly athletic, he’ll come around.