Fitness for Normal People

How to Get Stronger, Move Better and Stay Pain Free

I come from a very different background to the usual guy who writes (and makes videos about fitness). I was never an athlete. (Though I once tried to mountain bike my way out of a depression, and I am glad, knowing what I know now about the endurance game, that I did not drop dead.)

Part of what turned me off physical fitness when I was younger was that the people I knew who were into it seemed like they had no other interests. I felt like you had to choose between developing your muscles or your brain, and that developing muscles was going to make me dumber. Do not laugh. That was a very long time ago, a very young boy’s way of thinking. I simply had bad role models. Now I know that exercise actually boosts cognition and protects your brain. Especially when you get older.

One of my Buy Me a Coffee members put his finger on it when he wrote:

“Honestly, it took me a long time to figure out that one of the main reasons I can’t stick with programs like the ‘you are your own gym’ or strength side is that those guys really see physical development as a goal in itself and I just want to be fit so that I can live well.”

Now I know this is not a binary choice. You can be smart and athletic, and you absolutely do not have to subscribe to the view that physical development is a goal in itself. In fact, it was the people who did not have time to train all day who pushed the idea that you can train smarter. Roger Bannister, who broke the four minute mile, was a busy medical student. As he said in an interview:

“I had so many other interests that I wanted to have my evenings free, and I would usually miss lunch, and sometimes there were rather unimportant lectures at twelve o’clock. So I would tend to take about two hours off to travel to a track, spend about 35 minutes running, but running very hard, and then just have a shower. Did not warm up. Did not warm down. Had a shower, would get something to eat and get back to the hospital by two o’clock.”

Today, I’d like to whimsically transform the John F. Kennedy quote: ask not what you can do to be fit, but what being fit can do for you.

Chasing perfect beach abs, maximum lifts, and personal records are all fool’s errands. I want pain free knees, stairs that are easier to climb, deeper squats when we reach for things, and more confidence in our movements. In short, real fitness is nothing like your social media feed. Real fitness is useful on a daily basis. It protects your joints. It protects your brain. It makes you a Body Millionaire (check out How to Become a Body Millionaire).

Real fitness can start very small, almost imperceptibly, with three minutes of the Japanese Radio Taiso stretches (explainer, follow-along). Getting fit in small daily installments and increments (introducing animal movements and fascia stretches in the weeks that follow) is the best way to do it. Embarking on an ambitious gym program is the best way to fail. You can see why. You would be done with the three minutes of Radio Taiso before you find your sneakers. Your body also needs time to adjust, days and weeks for muscles and months for tendons. If you launch an all out assault on yourself with a radical fitness upheaval, chances are you are going to hurt. This is where the DSY principle (explained in Strength You Can Still Use Tomorrow) comes in handy. Do not strain yourself. Injuries will set you back weeks or months and make you afraid of movement in the future. Your body and nervous system respond best to gradual exposure. Building capacity is so much better than testing capacity.

I mentioned the physiological benefits of going slow and building consistency, but there is a psychological benefit as well. We quit when the task feels too big. But if the task is broken down into manageable (three minute) chunks, then no single chunk seems too daunting. And each chunk accomplished is a success. Each grand plan left unfinished is a failure. We quit, because nobody wants to experience failure all the time.

This gradual approach also helps your joints. You get to slowly explore the end ranges and keep joints healthier. That is something I discovered for myself after I thought my knees were shot and that I would have to hobble along for the rest of my life. I talk about my personal story of coming back into full functionality in this Fix Your Knees video. Of course, you have to be sensible. The responsibility of being your own chief safety officer rests on you, so DSY all the way.

Animal movements, balance challenges, rotations. These kinds of movements keep training interesting and neurologically rich. When you crawl, roll, twist, or shift your weight in different ways, you are not only strengthening muscles and joints and stretching your fascia at angles you could never achieve in a gym, but you are also feeding the nervous system better information. Your brain loves variety. It loves curiosity. And most importantly, variety prevents boredom. Many normal people do not quit because of pain. They quit because the routine became dull. Playfulness makes you want to come back the next day without forcing yourself.

In the long term your body will learn to move in multiple directions at once, through multiple positions at once, without complaint. Think of this as multidimensional movement capacity. It is the exact opposite of the stiffness that creeps in when you only train in straight lines.

Weak spots are normal. Everyone has them. Your left ankle might not be quite like your right. Your hip might rotate better in one direction than the other. That is your body giving you signals. There is no shame in them. The smart approach is to notice the red flag and pull back. Pretending nothing is wrong is a great way to get hurt.

Progression without punishment should be the goal. Improvement should feel almost suspiciously easy at first. You are not trying to win a trophy on day one. You are trying to build a habit that sticks. There is a myth that if you are not sore, nothing happened. That is nonsense.

Real life outcomes are what we should care about. You want stairs to feel easier, not heavier. You want to be able to get up from the floor quickly and without using your hands. You want climbing a hill to feel like it did in your thirties. You want to garden without groaning. You want to lift luggage into the overhead compartment without feeling your shoulder. You want to pick up your kid or grandkid without thinking twice.

If you do it the easy way, you will feel stiff less often, stand up more easily, and move with less hesitation. That feels like magic the first time you start noticing it.

In the long term you can delay or avoid the arrival of pain medications, surgeries, and chronic conditions. You are doing the basic body maintenance your body needs. I wrote about in Zen* and the Art of Body Maintenance. You can also think of it as retirement planning for your joints. You invest a little each week so you can spend freely later.

Ask yourself: who do you want to become? The version of you who can join friends and family on a spontaneous hike, get down on the floor to play with kids and dogs, carry groceries without thinking, travel without dread, and sit or stand without pain?

Or the version who watches life from the sidelines as the world shrinks around them and the body becomes more and more like a cage? The difference is shaped by small decisions, taken now, while the future is still soft and malleable. Chance will always play its part, but your daily choices matter more than you think.

Aren’t you tired of feeling unfit and aching? Your body can gradually become your cage or it can become the opposite: a tool that lets you explore, travel, and engage with the world instead. That freedom feels ordinary only if you have it.

Keep that tool sharp. Do three minutes of something today. If you want ideas, try my Radio Taiso stretches. They are simple, safe, and you will be done before most people finish tying their shoelaces. Your future self will be grateful.

An Obligatory Plug for Myself 😜

If what I write resonates with you, and you want to build strength and flexibility without surrendering your life to the gym, I am building a course to help you do exactly that. Support me as a member on Buy Me a Coffee, and you will get access to early material already live: the 4-part Weeks Zero prep course and Weeks One through Four, with more on the way.

Later, when the full program is ready, it will be something you can buy. Right now, your support helps me build it.