Does walking count?
Is yoga enough? Do I need to lift weights? If I only have 10 minutes, is it even worth doing?
There are so many versions of the same question when it comes to movement:
Am I doing enough?
I understand why we ask it. We're surrounded by recommendations about how many steps to take, how many minutes to exercise, how often to strength train, and what kind of movement we should be doing at different ages.
But I'm not sure Is this enough? is always the most useful question.
Because enough for what?
What Do You Want Your Body to Be Able to Do?
This is where I think the conversation gets much more interesting.
Instead of asking whether walking, yoga, strength training, or 10 minutes of movement is "enough," think about what you want your body to continue being able to do.
Maybe you want to carry your groceries into the house without thinking twice about it. You want to get down on the floor and back up. You want to spend an afternoon walking around a new city on vacation and still have energy for dinner.
I see this with my private clients all the time. After we've worked together for a while, what they often notice isn't something that happens during our sessions. They notice that something in everyday life feels easier.
Recently, one of my clients told me she realized she could carry more groceries into the house—and that carrying them simply felt easier than it used to. It's such an ordinary thing, but that's the kind of change I'm interested in.
We're not building strength just to be stronger during a movement practice. We're building strength for the things we want to keep doing outside of it.
And those everyday things ask quite a lot of our bodies. Carrying groceries, navigating an icy parking lot, climbing stairs, working in the garden, or getting up from the floor can require some combination of strength, balance, mobility, coordination, endurance, and the ability to respond when something doesn't go exactly as planned.
So perhaps the better question is:
Am I giving my body opportunities to build what I want it to be able to do?
Yes, It Counts
I talk a lot about moving more throughout your day because I think we've made movement far too synonymous with "exercise."
You take a 10-minute walk between meetings? That counts.
You carry groceries into the house, take the stairs, work in the garden, walk the dog, get down on the floor, or spend the afternoon cleaning out the garage? Your body is moving, and that matters.
And if you have five minutes instead of 30, I would much rather have you move for five minutes than decide five minutes isn't worth doing.
It all counts.
But there's another part of this conversation that I don't want us to miss.
"It Counts" Doesn't Mean "It's Everything You Need"
Let's say you walk regularly. That's wonderful. Walking supports your body and brain in all kinds of ways, and it's something I hope you're able to continue doing for a very long time.
But does walking ask you to move in every direction? Does it challenge your upper-body strength? Does it regularly ask you to balance on one leg in different positions, get down to the floor, lift something heavy, or coordinate an unfamiliar movement?
Probably not.
That doesn't mean walking isn't enough. It means walking is walking. It offers certain things to your body, while other kinds of movement offer something different.
The same is true of yoga, strength training, cycling, gardening, or any other movement you enjoy. We don't need to decide whether one is "good enough." We can notice what it gives us—and what we might not be practicing very often.
Your Body Needs More Than One Kind of Challenge
I think this becomes particularly important in midlife.
If we want to maintain strength, we have to give our muscles reasons to stay strong. If we want our balance to remain responsive, we need opportunities to challenge it. If we want to keep getting down to the floor, reaching overhead, turning to look behind us, or carrying heavier things, we need to keep doing things that ask our bodies to maintain those abilities.
Our brains benefit from variety, too. A familiar movement can be valuable, but so can learning a new pattern, coordinating your arms and legs differently, changing direction, or doing something that requires your attention.
That doesn't mean every movement session needs to accomplish all of those things.
It means that over time, variety matters.
This Isn't Another List of Things You Have to Do
Now you might be thinking, Great. So I need to walk, strength train, work on my balance, move in different directions, challenge my brain, and somehow fit all of this into my already-full life.
That's not where I'm going with this.
You don't need to check every box every day. And movement doesn't have to happen only during a designated 30- or 60-minute workout.
Some days you might take a longer walk. Another day you spend 15 minutes working on strength. You might practice your balance while you're waiting for the coffee to brew, take the stairs when you have the opportunity, or get down on the floor while you're playing with the dog.
What you do can change depending on your day, your energy, your body, and what you have available to you.
That's very different from doing nothing because you couldn't do the "right" amount.
Notice What's Already There
Before adding anything else, take a look at the movement that's already part of your life.
What do you do regularly? What do you enjoy? Where are you already challenging yourself?
Then get curious about what's missing.
Maybe you walk all the time but rarely ask your muscles to work against much resistance. Maybe you're strong but haven't challenged your balance lately. Maybe you have a regular yoga practice but notice you're always choosing familiar movements and could give your brain something new to figure out.
You don't have to change everything at once. You may simply find one place where you want to build from where you are.
So, Is It Enough?
Maybe that's not a question we need to answer every time we move.
A 10-minute walk doesn't have to meet every movement need you have for it to be worthwhile. Neither does a yoga class, a strength session, an afternoon in the garden, or five minutes of movement between everything else you're doing.
Instead, zoom out.
Look at the way you're moving across your days and weeks and think about the life you want your body to support.
Are you giving your body opportunities to keep doing the things you want it to do?
That's a question I find much more useful than Does this count? or Is this enough?
One Thing to Try Today
Think about the movement that's already part of your life and choose one thing you want your body to keep being able to do.
Maybe it's carrying something heavy. Getting up from the floor. Walking for a few hours. Feeling steadier on one leg.
Then ask yourself:
What could I practice today that supports that?
It doesn't have to be big. Start with where you are—and build from there.
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