Therapy thoughts 28/8/25 - Do you know about movement snacks?

If I am being honest, in the short term, most people don’t need an exercise program! And many also don’t want one! Mostly I will give out 1 or 2 movement snacks instead.

There has been a big move into heavy loading over the last few years, I get it, moving away from the fiddly motor control type stuff we see in the past. Also moving away from the idea that the body is fragile etc.

It is important to note currently, no type of exercise programming seems to be superior at a population level!

BUT……….

Often the LAST thing a sensitive system, and the person that owns it, needs is a heavy loading program! Now that doesn’t mean that we should be scared of loads or see the body as fragile, just that if things are upset and annoyed then not smashing the hell out of it seems smart!

That’s where the movement snack comes in and this is a little bit of movement that….

• Keeps the body part moving and oiled
• Doesn’t provoke symptoms excessively
• Can be done any place or time
• Gives the person agency over their problem

Generally done for the painful body part, nice and relaxed with a fairly low effort of like 2/3 on a 10 point RPE scale

The issue here is often there is an idea that a specific exercise “fixes” a specific problem.

This then leads to the idea there is one “perfect” exercise, such as we saw with Core stability and things like the “big 3”.

Lots of movements or exercises could be movement snacks and it maybe as much about moving than a movement!