By exercising outside — by moving your body through the natural world — you have unwittingly joined a countercultural revolution. This way of life is in tune and aligned with how we evolved and how our ancestors lived for eons, but today it is radical, alien, and foreign to the culture at large. Today, roughly 50% of Americans don’t go outside to exercise even once per year. (Source)
You might not realize this, though. If you’re reading these words, chances are high that you’re so deeply enmeshed in the counterculture that you’ve surrounded yourself with like-minded people who also move their bodies through nature. Whether it’s through the mountains, the forests, the deserts, the oceans, or wherever else, it doesn’t matter — it’s all a part of the same countercultural movement of exercise and connection with nature.
You might be so deep into the counterculture that you’ve relocated your home so you can live in a place where getting out the door and going on an adventure is easier, where there’s less friction and resistance to overcome to get out and move. This might have meant relocating to a different house in your city that’s closer to a park or greenway, or it might have meant moving across the country to settle in Colorado, Utah, or Arizona so that you’re veritably surrounded by singletrack trails.
