Try this: Stand up, then sit back down in your chair. It seems simple enough, right? Now imagine if you couldn’t do that without grabbing onto something without pain shooting through your knees or without your back seizing up. That simple movement you just did is one of the most important athletic performances of your entire day.
I am a chiropractor who’s spent fifteen years analyzing and treating sports injuries and rehab cases: the weekend warriors, the gym enthusiasts, Sunday badminton players. Here’s what I’ve learned: every single person who walks into my clinic is an athlete. They just don’t know it yet.
A few months ago I met a man who wasn’t able to squat. Not wouldn’t, but couldn’t. A car accident had left him so deconditioned and fearful of movement that even sitting down on the floor to play with his grandchildren was impossible. His knees wouldn’t bend properly and his hips had forgotten the pattern needed to accomplish sitting on the ground. His brain had built walls around that movement pattern, marking it as dangerous. We didn’t start by trying to squat. We started by teaching his body that movement wasn’t the enemy. We began with small shifts, weight transfers, gentle mobilization and acupuncture to calm the nervous system down. We then incorporated soft tissue work around lower extremity joints and week by week his body remembered what it was designed to do. Six months later he was able to squat. He sat on the floor and played with his grandchildren. He was over the moon! Squatting isn’t just an exercise; It’s how humans have sat for thousands of years. It’s how you use the washroom. It’s how you pick up something from the ground without throwing out your back. When you lose the squat, you lose a fundamental human movement pattern and your body doesn’t care whether you’re training for a powerlifting competition or just trying to live your life, it needs that movement pattern to function.
Your muscles, tendons and joints follow the same biological rules as an Olympic athlete. When you lift a bag of rice, your shoulder doesn’t ask “Is this person athletic enough to require proper form?” It just responds to a load. When you bend to tie your shoe, your back doesn’t check your gym membership before deciding whether to protect itself properly. The difference between an athlete and you isn’t how the body works. It’s in preparation and respect for the body and the capacities it requires.
Great athletes warm up before practice. They spend day in and day out training to accomplish certain movement patterns. Excellent athletes build diversity around those movement patterns in order to accommodate for change and unpredictability in their sport. You jump out of bed after 8 hours of not moving and immediately bend over to pick up your phone charger. Athletes build gradually towards heavier loads but we sit at a desk for 6 days and then spend 4 hours straight doing yard work on Sunday. Athletes listen to their bodies and rest when needed but we tend to ignore that nagging shoulder pain until it becomes a tear that often requires long-term care and rehabilitation and in some extreme cases it requires surgery.
I see this weekly: bodies responding to poor preparation exactly like an athlete’s would, because that is what they are.
Your actual day: Getting out of bed requires core stability, hip mobility and coordination. Lifting your child or grandchild is a deadlift. Reaching a high shelf is an overhead press. Carrying your grocery bags is a farmer’s walk. Climbing stairs is leg training. You’re already an athlete, you just don’t know it yet. You’re competing in the sport of daily life but your body doesn’t give participation medals for showing up unprepared.
I can often tell someone’s injury risk within the first 5 minutes of watching them move, not by their age but by how they move. I’ve worked with 30-year-olds who move like they are 70 and 60-year-olds yet move like they are 35. The difference isn’t genetics or luck, it’s movement diversity. When you do the same movement every day. Same sitting position, same sleeping position, same walking route, same exercises, your body becomes really good at those specific movements and terrible at everything else. You’re creating movement poverty. You’re not aging poorly, you’re practicing the same three movements for 40 years. Research shows that people who can sit on the floor and stand up without using their hands have significantly better health outcomes and longevity. This simple test reveals coordination, balance, flexibility, and strength all at once. Can you do it? Try it right now. No cheating, no hands, no momentum, just you and gravity. If you’ve struggled you’re not alone, and the good news is you can change that!
In my years of practice, I’ve noticed something important. There are people who address small problems early. That stiff shoulder, the knee that clicks, the hip that feels tight after sitting too long. These early warning signs are your body’s way of communicating. When people pay attention to these signals and take action, recovery is usually quick and straightforward. Not always perfect but far simpler than what happens when they wait. The body just needs some guidance to find its way back. Then there are those who wait, they hope the pain will go away on its own. They convince themselves: “it’s not that bad”. They keep pushing through until something gives way completely: a tear, a rupture, a deterioration so severe that months of intensive rehabilitation become necessary. The difference between these two paths isn’t luck, it’s actually timing. Your body whispers before it screams. That nagging discomfort you’ve been ignoring for three months? It’s information, not something to push through. The shoulder that hurts when you reach overhead. It’s asking for help before it becomes a problem that disrupts your entire year. In my experience, amongst all the loud noises in our lives, many people miss the whisper. I always tell my patients:
“Respect your bodies and make time for your health now, or you’ll be forced to make time for it later.”
You don’t need to call yourself an athlete. You don’t need a gym membership or expensive equipment. But you do need to understand this: your body operates on athletic principles, whether you like it or not. It doesn’t care about your identity; it cares about preparation, variety, gradual progression, and recovery. Ignore these principles, and your body will treat you exactly like an unprepared athlete: injured.
Start today: stand up without using your hands, sit on the floor, walk backwards, stand on one leg. These movements are our investments in a body that can still do what you need it to do ten, twenty, thirty years from now. If you try these movements in real life and something doesn’t feel right, like pain that’s been lingering for longer than it should or if you’re moving in ways that don’t feel normal anymore, pay attention to that. Your body is giving information. What you do with the information determines whether you’re addressing a whisper or waiting for a scream.
Your body doesn’t care whether you’re competing in sports. But it will respond when you start treating it like it matters. Because it does. And so do you.
References:
1. de Brito, L. B., Ricardo, D. R., de Araújo, D. S., Ramos, P. S., Myers, J., & de Araújo, C. G. (2014).
Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 21(7), 892-898.
2. Bartlett, R., Wheat, J., & Robins, M. (2007). Is movement variability important for sports biomechanists? Sports Biomechanics, 6(2), 224-243.
3. Windt, J., & Gabbett, T. J. (2020). How much? How fast? How soon? Three simple concepts for progressing training loads to minimize injury risk and enhance performance. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, 50(10), 570-573
4. Linton, S. J., & Andersson, T. (2000). Can chronic disability be prevented? A randomized trial of a cognitive-behavior intervention and two forms of information for patients with spinal pain. Spine,
25(21), 2825-2831.
5. Straub, R. K., & Powers, C. M. (2024). A biomechanical review of the squat exercise: Implications for clinical practice. International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, 19(4), 490-501.
Bio
Dr. Talha Farooq is an expert in the field of chiropractic and physical medicine with over 15 years of experience in the health and fitness industry. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree with Honors in Kinesiology and Health Science and a Doctor of Chiropractic degree from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College. He holds multiple certifications, including Medical Acupuncture from McMaster University, Athletic Movement Assessment, Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization, MSK+ and Integrated Patterning. Combining his passion for physical medicine and his engagement in many sports, he possesses a deep understanding of the kinetic and movement sciences, especially as it pertains to the clinical setting. He is the clinic owner and director at Performance Therapeutic Care in Brampton, Ontario, as well as the lead clinician at Regenesis in Vaughan, Ontario.
