Movement & Mobility October 2026 · Neil Ingram BSc Ost · 5 min read

Keeping Moving When It's
Cold, Dark and Raining

Nobody in Brussels needs telling that October is grim. Dark by six, wet most days, and the walk that was pleasant in August is now something to be got over with.

The problem is what that does to your movement without you deciding anything. I've written about why everything stiffens up when the weather turns — the short version is that reduced movement does more of the damage than the cold itself. This is the practical half: five changes that survive a Belgian winter.

One

Pick one outdoor thing and make it non-negotiable

Not a programme. One thing. A Saturday morning walk, cycling one leg of the commute, walking the kids to school instead of driving. Whatever it is, it happens regardless of weather.

People who try to keep everything going in October keep nothing by November. People who protect one thing usually still have it in February — and that one thing is what stops the whole winter sliding.

Two

Move it indoors rather than dropping it

When something becomes unrealistic, the instinct is to cancel it and intend to restart in spring. Nobody restarts in spring. Replace it instead: a twenty-minute video at home, stairs instead of the lift, a swim.

It doesn't need to be as good as what it replaced. It needs to exist.

Three

Take your movement at lunchtime, while it's light

By late October, if you're at a desk you'll arrive in the dark and leave in the dark. Lunchtime is the only daylight you get. Fifteen minutes outside then does more for stiffness — and for how you feel about the day — than an hour of intending to go to the gym after work.

Four

Warm up before you go out, not after you arrive

Cold tissue is stiffer and slower. That's why the first ten minutes of a cold morning walk feel like wading. Five minutes of movement indoors while you're still warm — cat-cow, some squats, arms overhead — and the walk starts from a completely different place.

This matters most if mornings are your worst time, which for stiffness they usually are.

Five

Dress properly and stop bracing

Being underdressed makes you hunch — shoulders up, arms in, head down. Hold that for a twenty-minute walk and your neck and upper back have done real work by the time you arrive. A lot of the "winter neck pain" I see is this, not the cold itself.

Warm enough to walk normally is the target. It's a smaller thing than it sounds and it changes how the whole walk loads you.

The aim isn't to be as active in January as you were in July. It's to not fall off a cliff in October and spend four months at the bottom of it.

What About the Gym in January?

Every year the same pattern: activity collapses through October and November, nothing much happens in December, then a hard restart in January on a body that's spent three months doing very little. That's where a good proportion of February's injuries come from.

Keeping something ticking over through the winter isn't only about feeling better now. It's what makes the January restart survivable.

If You're Already Stiff

Stiffness that eases once you're moving and comes back after sitting is the ordinary kind, and more movement is the answer. Worth getting looked at if it's lasted more than two or three weeks, if an old injury has flared and isn't settling, or if it's stopping you doing something you'd otherwise do.

One to take seriously rather than blame on the weather: a joint that's hot, red or swollen, or morning stiffness lasting more than an hour most days. That's a GP conversation, not a seasonal one.