Movement for Health: Key Elements of a Healthy Movement Practice
It all begins with an idea.
From Director of Health Alex Maples
A well-rounded movement practice is foundational to long-term health. But more importantly, it has to be something you’ll actually do. The best routine in the world means nothing if it’s not sustainable, enjoyable, and adaptable. Below are the four essential principles that define a healthy movement approach.
Sustainable
The number one rule: if you won’t do it, it doesn’t matter.
It needs to be enjoyable enough. There are tons of ways to move and get activity in. Take some time to find what you enjoy. There is a time and place to do things you don’t love for the sake of taking care of our bodies in the long run so that we can keep doing the things we do love.
Respect recovery. The body has limits. Overtraining can break us down, tank hormones, and lead to injury or burnout. A good practice leaves you feeling better, not worse, over time.
Regular
Being sedentary is, frankly, terrible for your health – even if you hit the gym hard a few times per week.
Consistency > intensity. It’s not about crushing yourself a few times per week, it’s about moving in some form every day. Our bodies were built for it.
You don’t have to “work out” daily, but you do need to move daily. Walk. Stretch. Play. Do a few squats while waiting for your coffee to brew. The key is: don’t sit all day.
Varied
Variety is the spice of life – and of movement.
Specificity: Our bodies adapt to what we do often.
Avoid one-dimensionality. Only running? You’ll end up tight and weak. Only strength training? You’ll get winded on a flight of stairs. The focus should be on maintaining varied capacity for all of what life throws at us.
Use it or lose it. The body will only maintain what we tell it it needs to do. If you never raise your arms overhead you will eventually lose the ability to do so, or if we only spend time in spinal flexion we lose the capacity to extend.
Types of Movement to Include
To build a comprehensive and effective movement practice, include these four broad categories:
1. General Activity (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, or NEAT)
These are low-effort, informal movements that add up throughout your day.
Examples: walking, gardening, cleaning, cooking, playing with kids.
This kind of movement is critical and often overlooked. It keeps metabolism high, joints happy, and energy flowing.
2. Formal Cardio (Heart Rate Zone Training)
Cardiovascular work exists on a spectrum of intensity. Each zone has a purpose:
| Zone | % Max HR | Description | Benefit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 50-60% | Very light | Recovery, warm-up |
| 2 | 60-70% | Easy, conversational | Endurance, fat metabolism |
| 3 | 70-80% | Moderate | Aerobic capacity (high fatigue) |
| 4 | 80-90% | Hard | Lactate threshold, speed |
| 5 | 90-100% | Max effort | VO₂ max, sprint capacity |
Focus on Zone 2 often: Easy but sustainable cardio (like brisk walking, slow jogging, cycling) yields massive longevity and health benefits with minimal recovery cost.
Sprinkle in Zone 4–5: Short bouts of high intensity push your performance boundaries.
Zone 3 is a "no man's land": It has value for athletes, but for general health, the fatigue cost outweighs the benefits.
3. Movement Capacity (Mobility & Range of Motion)
Maintaining access to healthy movement patterns is crucial for longevity.
Think stretching, yoga, Pilates, tai chi, loaded mobility, dynamic warm-ups.
As we age, joint health and flexibility deteriorate unless we proactively maintain them.
Goal: Access and strengthen your full range of motion not just for performance, but for injury prevention and graceful aging.
4. Resistance Training (Strength & Muscle Maintenance)
You’ve heard it before, but it bears repeating:
Muscle is the organ of longevity.
Builds strength, protects joints, improves insulin sensitivity, enhances mood, supports healthy aging.
Frequency: 2–4 sessions per week is ideal for most people.
Prioritize compound lifts (squats, presses, deadlifts, rows), progressive overload, and good technique.
Your movement practice doesn’t need to look like anyone else’s. It should reflect your lifestyle, interests, and values – but it should always include the above elements in some form. Prioritize consistency, variety, and recovery. Play the long game. Your future self will thank you.
Prompts for refining your movement practice
The First Principles of Health and Fitness
It all begins with an idea.
From Director of Health Alex Maples
You’re busy. You’ve spent a lifetime dialing in where and how to spend your time, effort, and resources to get the best results – in your business, with your investments, with your family, and, perhaps, in your fitness journey. But, dial in prematurely and you may find that you’ve focused on the wrong tree – when the forest is somewhere else entirely.
Welcome to First Principles, a series of posts and resources to help you focus on what truly moves the needle – so the energy you spend improving your health is as efficient and effective as possible.
We’ll dive into four main pillars – those foundations that provide the greatest return on our investment when it comes to building lasting health. Here’s the quick overview:
1. Body Composition: What You’re Made Of Matters
Most people have heard about body composition, and the benefits of improving it. (Look better? Check. Be healthier? Double check.)
It’s worth noting that your ratio of muscle to fat isn’t just about aesthetics or a standalone marker of “health” – it’s metabolic currency. More muscle improves insulin sensitivity, bone density, and resting metabolic rate. Too much fat, especially around your organs (visceral fat), drives inflammation and increases the risk for chronic disease. Improving lean mass while reducing fat is strongly associated with lower all-cause mortality.
Think of your body like a financial account: Muscle is your investment, fat is your overhead. The goal is to build the account wisely. Muscle is a long-term asset – it keeps us strong, mobile, and resilient as we age. Unfortunately, muscle loss is inevitable with aging. But the more muscle we invest in building during our prime years, the more we’ll retain later in life, helping us stay upright and independent.
Fat, on the other hand, is the cost of doing business. Sometimes it accumulates as a byproduct of growth. That’s okay – it's part of the process. But eventually, the books need to be balanced. That’s where fat loss phases come in. They’re our financial audits – strategic, intentional efforts to trim the excess and keep our health account in the black.
2. Cardiorespiratory Fitness: The Engine Under the Hood
Often relegated to the realm of the endurance sports nuts, cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is in fact one of the strongest predictors of lifespan. VO₂ max, a key measure of CRF, reflects how well your body delivers and uses oxygen – a fundamental requirement for every cell in your body.
Good CRF helps you think clearly, recover faster, and handle more physical and mental stress. It lowers the risk of heart disease, stroke, and even some cancers. (And, yes, it lets you run that ultra if you want to.)
The best part? You don’t need to run marathons. Consistent zone 2 cardio (think brisk walking, cycling, rowing), along with occasional higher-intensity sessions, can make a profound difference.
3. Sleep and Recovery: Your Built-in Repair System
If you’ve tried to get healthier, your first instinct (like many people’s) might be to add more: more workouts, more supplements, more productivity hacks. But sometimes the most powerful lever is knowing when to rest.
Without quality sleep and recovery, you don’t adapt – you just accumulate stress. Recovery is when your body rebuilds, your hormones rebalance, and your mind processes the world around you.
Lack of sleep impairs glucose metabolism, weakens the immune system, disrupts mood, and fogs cognitive function. Deep sleep, in particular, is essential for physical restoration.
When you train, you write the check. Recovery is when you cash it.
4. Stress Management and Purpose: The Psychological Core
You can’t out-lift chronic stress or out-supplement a lack of meaning. (Read that again.)
Stress isn’t inherently bad – if you have goals or care about anything (i.e., you’re human), stress comes with the territory. In fact, too little stress can be just as dangerous, often signaling a lack of purpose or engagement.
The real key is learning to manage and channel it. Chronic stress disrupts your hormones, appetite, sleep, and focus. But when stress is anchored to purpose, it becomes fuel instead of friction.
A clear why is a GPS for your nervous system. It helps you reframe discomfort as growth, and it keeps you aligned when life gets messy.
We build resilience just like we build strength: through consistent training. Breathwork, boundaries, meaningful relationships, movement, time in nature – these are essential tools, not luxuries.
It’s a System, Not a Checklist
These four pillars don’t exist in isolation – they support and amplify one another. Better sleep enhances body composition. Cardio improves stress tolerance. Purpose sustains consistency.
Health isn’t about chasing perfection — it’s about mastering the fundamentals and building a system that works for your real life.
This series is designed to equip you with practical tools and mental models to strengthen the core pillars of health. You’ll learn how to filter out the noise, focus on what actually matters, and tailor a system that fits your goals and lifestyle. Whether you want a quick overview or a deep dive, you’ll find both the why and the how, along with a clear roadmap to support not just your health, but your life as a whole.