Clean Up Your Street!

Hey everybody. Today is my birthday and to celebrate, I am going to bring a trash bag and just start picking up all the trash I see on my street as I walk my dog and when I go to the beach. If you would like to do the same IN YOUR AREA, that would be AWESOME! Plus, you will feel pretty good afterwards for doing a good deed.

It’s pretty simple…

1. Get a trash bag.
2. Walk around and put trash in it.
3. Stop when you’re tired or the bag is full.

I don’t know where you live, but in the city, It’s really easy to just pretend there isn’t any trash. We can get REALLY good at ignoring it… but it’s there. Once you start picking trash up, you will notice there’s little pieces everywhere and it feels really rewarding knowing you cleaned up a solid section in such little time. (By the way, I’ve seen pickers/grabbers at some 99cent/dollar stores. It’s not mandatory to have one, but it does help make it easier and it’s kinda fun.)

You could also just make it an exercise in itself by just working on your deep squat… or walking in a deep squat (“duck walk”) as you pick stuff up. Or maybe meander left/right with cossack squats (hah). You could also work on your hamstring flexibility by hinging  at the hips with a flat back as much as possible before reaching down so you don’t yank on your lower back. Try a whole slew of things. Switch hands. Variety is good. I’m sure some of you will come up with some clever ways of moving anyway. Maybe treat it as a warm up before you do your training.

Interestingly enough, if a place already looks trashy, people are very likely to litter. But if it looks pristine, people become A LOT more hesitant to litter. Funny how that works. There’s a Ted Talk from India about this topic which has this problem more than anywhere else and shows interesting solutions.

Anyway, I hope you like this idea and do it and have someone help you. Plus, you feel pretty good afterwards!

For motivation, I am attaching a before/after photo of a SINGLE man who simply cleaned a little bit of trash each day, on the way to work, and cleaned up the river bank in a month.

So if you think it’s futile or that one person doesn’t make a difference, think again.  “Be the change you want to see in the world” by you know who applies more than ever here.

Update

When I first started doing this, my back was tired after 30 minutes. After a week, I could pick trash up for an hour before my back feels tired.

Since I’ve been spending more time in the Deep Squat, I noticed I gravitate toward one side and will always raise my left heel up in the deep squat when reaching over for something. So I started working on balancing that out and trying different movement patterns.

The next best thing I started doing was a Single Leg Deadlift (Half Moon 2 Pose) each time I picked up the trash. I naturally do this with my right-leg standing and started doing it only with my weaker, left-leg as the standing leg. It’s actually a great challenge for my left leg and the trash bag acts like the kettle-bell.

Update

https://instagram.com/p/9Coa4gqJiB/?taken-by=antranikdotorg

I noticed picking trash up is the perfect way to way to walk my dog nowadays. As she’s getting older she doesn’t enjoy walking in a straight line nonstop super fast.  She much rather take sniffing breaks often.  This works perfect as I stop to pick up trash.