RE in the Real Life

Restorative Exercise™ in the real life doesn't always look like a traditional workout.

Not only is it nearly impossible to undo several decades of poor alignment and chronic stillness without incorporating RE principles throughout the day, it's also not always easy to find a solid hour or more to work out.

Thankfully, many of the things you learn in Restorative Exercise™ are about exchanging one movement or alignment for a different one. For example, it doesn't take any additional time to make the outside edges of your feet parallel or to drop your ribs. These changes make a huge shift in the health and strength of the body and are game-changers when you are ready to move on to more advanced levels of alignment.

But there are still parts of the body that need devoted time to correct through strengthening and lengthening. What to do when the hour workout is elusive?

Welcome to my world:

First, I stand or sit on the floor. Here's where I am blogging at this moment. The radiator makes a perfect standing desk and the half dome is there for some calf stretching.

Calf stretching can be done outside, too, on roots.

And if you're at home - well, at least in my home - there's always the trapeze bar hanging in the doorway to help you open up your lats and traps and biceps and pecs. A one-armed "hang" does wonders.

And when you are really motivated, trying hopping down on the ground for some rhomboid push-ups to help pull that thoracic spine back where it should be. Child included.

One of the things I love about Restorative Exercise™ is that, at its deepest level, it's about choice. It's about recognizing that our bodies need something more, something different than what we have been offering them and then providing the framework and tools to make the changes we seek.

How do you RE?