The beneficial role of physical movement and exercise in daily life is one of the few things we can all agree on. Extensive research points to movement as essential for living a long and healthy life. It helps keep our bodies strong, flexible, and mobile and helps maintain cognitive health as we age. So what kind of exercise should you be doing and how much should you train? If you have limited time and energy, what type of movement should be prioritized?

Today for the third instalment of our Health Fundamentals series, Coach Megan Hall is talking with NBT Head of Strength and Conditioning Zach Moore about movement and exercise. They discuss why it's important for you to be moving regularly, and describe ways to increase movement throughout your day. Zach stresses the importance of strength training: why it should be the foundation of your workout and the 3 simple movements you can use to get started. They also discuss recovery, balance, flexibility, and mobility.

To get all the details and studies supporting the information in this podcast, be sure to follow along with Megan's outline for this episode.

Here’s the outline of this episode with Megan Hall and Zach Moore:

[00:00:21] Health Fundamentals Series Part 1: Health Fundamentals: How to Get Great Sleep and Part 2: Health Fundamentals: Stress and Hormesis.

[00:01:01] Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT).

[00:02:36] How to increase NEAT throughout the day.

[00:08:11] Strength training - why it's important.

[00:10:47] How to start strength training.

[00:13:40] How much and how often to train.

[00:16:40] Compound vs isolation movements.

[00:18:39] Strength training for endurance athletes.

[00:20:41] Straight bar vs. hex/trap bar for deadlifts.

[00:22:41] Rest periods during resistance exercise.

[00:24:43] Endurance exercise and why it's important.

[00:25:56] How much endurance exercise is enough for health effects.

[00:28:09] Zach's recommendations for prioritizing movement types.

[00:29:04] How to measure effort during cardio; The MAF Method.

[00:36:01] Recreational/team sports.

[00:36:34] Recovery.

[00:36:59] Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and active recovery.

[00:41:26] Interference effect, and how to minimize it.

[00:46:10] Balance, flexibility, and mobility - why they're important.

[00:47:44] Resistance training is mobility training.

[00:50:01] Structural limitations.

[00:54:29] Summing up.

[00:58:10] NBT website, Set up a free 15-min call with one of our coaches.