“Relaxation is the absence of unnecessary effort” Chi Running. I’ve been talking to clients about this a lot lately. We all tend to perform daily functions as well as exercises with way too much effort….white knuckling everything. We lift a dumbbell up and we squeeze it too tight. We sit working and realize that our shoulders are up to our ears and our head is sticking too far forwarded and we have a death grip on our pen. We walk and don’t allow our hips to move naturally. Since life can be pretty demanding, let’s not put so much unneeded effort into small daily movements. It’s not efficient and all of those overworked muscles and joints feel pretty tired and sore at the end of the day. Try a quick pause throughout your daily activities and take notice of how you are performing certain tasks. Is your body as relaxed as possible or are you tensed in places you don’t need to be? Are your shoulders down away from your ears? Is your jaw clenched? Pause and relax it all.