Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement, 2nd Edition

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Biomechanist Katy Bowman and her occasional co-host, Dani Alexander (an occupational therapist), explore the importance of grip strength for people of all ages. They discuss therapeutic interventions, such as weighted pencils and play-dough, to improve hand strength and sensory input. They also touch on the impact of weak grip strength on daily tasks and emphasize the need to incorporate grip-strengthening activities into everyday routines. Join Katy and Dani as they delve into the connection between grip strength, overall well-being, and maximizing our physical abilities. I found the information presented in this book fascinating on several levels. Even though it has only two days since I started reading the book some of the simple technique Bowman recommends are already helping my foot pain and muscular-skeletal issues. The proof is the pudding and the movement adjustments she describes are very easy to incorporate in your daily schedule. Also there's a philosophical dimension in whole idea that the way our "paleo" ancestors were is the way we're "supposed" to be. I completed this book via audio, which I would highly recommend so you can be moving while listening to a book about movement. She'll even give you mileage marks as you go. Tip: Listen all the way to the end, she includes outtakes.** Chapter Ten: Not Your Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandparents’ Pelvis As I read, I found myself stopping to do the exercises she presented. I expect to use it more than I've used most exercise books because it is about total health instead of just specific exercises.

Modernity with all its conveniences – pillows and mattresses, soft chairs, flat floors, computers, grocery stores,indoor living, and shoes and some of its inconveniences: i.e., constant noise – is affecting our health and changing our bodies in ways we do not even realize. The way we have set up our environment means that some of our cells literally never move or experience a "load", which has a health effect similar to never getting a needed vitamin. Our bodies "evolve" to adjust to the changes in our environment, but more often than not the adjustment is detrimental to our health. For example, when we do lots of reading and computer work, and do not spend enough time looking at distant horizons, naturally causes our eyes to adjust to the circumstances by becoming nearsighted. The solution as presented in this book is to move our bodies in the way they used to move when are species lived closer to nature. The idea sort of implies that our bodies are "designed" to operate in a certain way and when we operate closer to the design we feel and function better. From couch potatoes to professional athletes, new parents to seniors, readers love Katy's humorous, passionate, and above all science-based guide to restoring your body through natural movement. Katy Bowman proposes that we need to think of movement the same way we think of food. Our "movement diet" needs to be natural and varied, and it isn't optional. Bestselling Move Your DNA has shaken up the health and fitness world with this message: there is more to movement than exercise.

The Move Your DNA Podcast*

While I won't be making any sort of drastic changes to my habits as soon as I get home, this book was definitely full of helpful and practical information and tips that anyone can begin to implement in their daily life such as stretches, posture, and exercises. I've been trying to be more aware of my movements and what my body is telling me, and I feel more prepared after this info. Episode Overview:0:00:01 Introduction and mention of previous New York Times features0:03:31 Recap of a previous podcast episode on grip strength0:06:18 Concerns about grip strength from a professional perspective0:08:26 Therapeutic Interventions for Children0:10:40 Play-Doh for Increasing Intrinsic Hand Strength0:13:20 Thera Putty as a Therapy Tool for Adults0:16:04 Importance of Hand Strength in Everyday Life0:24:05 Creating Playgrounds with Obstacle Courses for Kids0:27:04 Importance of diversity in hand use and overuse injuries.0:29:30 The technicality of different hand grips and their importance.0:30:39 Nourishing the Hands and Feet0:32:08 Wondering about the absence of someone in the bathroom0:34:30 Exploring the use of Therapuddy for hand strengthening0:36:54 Multiple approaches to hand training and arm strength development0:39:05 Assessing daily hand movements and seeking inspiration from others0:41:09 Grip Translates to All Finger and Hand Movement0:42:10 The Importance of Grip Strength in Daily Tasks0:44:16 Decline in Strength and Its Impact on Therapy Norms0:45:40 Lowering the Norms: A Frightening Shift in Fitness0:48:51 The Transcendence of Movement: Beyond Individual Body Parts0:49:41 A Salute to an Amazing Friendship One of Maria Shriver’s “Architects of Change” and an America Walks “Woman of the Walking Movement,” Bowman consults on educational and living space design to encourage movement-rich habitats. She has worked with companies like Patagonia, Nike, and Google as well as a wide range of non-profits and other communities to create greater access to her “move more, move more body parts, move more for what you need” message. Katy Bowman is a biomechanist and founder of the Restorative Exercise Institute. Her articles challenged pretty much everything I had been taught about fitness before, during, and after pregnancy, not to mention basic, everyday movements like standing, walking, and putting on shoes. Katy has a fresh perspective on our movement habits that you don’t find anywhere else, and her new book, Move Your DNA, follows in that vein. Katy’s Voice

Now that you're all terrified because you're ruining your body, the second half of the book is a practical guide to fixing bad habits. Bowman gives us specific movements and releases to start regaining mobility and strength. Mostly though, it's just a matter of changing your daily habits to incorporate more natural movement. The exercises given are good. A handful of them are difficult to understand in the book, but these I just looked up on YouTube and found loads more information. Her solution is build a life around subtle and constant movement, as we have for the past two million years. Exercise cannot come close to restoring the tissues already adapted to the way we have been using our habitiat. In the same way supplements should not be the bulk of your diet, exercise should not be the bulk of your movement profile. It's often said that "movement is medicine," but rarely is the "how" behind the power of movement explained. It's not only our whole body that's moving; our cells are being moved as our limbs push and pull to locomote us around, and each movement moves our cells uniquely.The first half of the book explains basic biomechanics and cell function, relating to a "movement environment." The biggest idea is that we aren't moving anywhere near enough, or properly. All exercise as we do it is movement, but not all movement is exercise. It's not only "move more," it's "move more of your body parts!" (All bodies, couch potatoes to high-level athletes have areas that can be nourished with better movement.)

Accessible and fascinating, Move Your DNA is a game-changer in the world of health, fitness, and movement science. Hailed as offering a pioneering and paradigm-shifting perspective on exercise, this book: Why a physical therapist or personal trainer is coaching you in alignment or "good form" we're adapting most to our daily positioning!She also observes that our butts are disappearing, and she is livid. Me too. While a portly childhood of walking places because I couldn't afford transportation, and a subsequent near-religious squat regimen has rendered me bammin' slammin' bootylicious, I am in the minority. Our gluteal muscles evolved to keep our uniquely bipedal bodies balanced and upright while we list merrily from foot to foot like a hairless simian sailboat. Power and athleticism comes almost exclusively from the legs. You can establish a fighter's potential looking at the keister. All in the hips, as Henry Cimoli said, but isn't everything?

Many of the ailments we face today relate to how little we move and how stiff our bodies are when we do move. Body issues are often more accurately symptoms of "movement malnutrition." Am I going to immediately stop using my pillow and start sleeping on the floor? Probably not. Will I start using my husband's Squatty Potty? Maybe. Am I going to stop wearing a bra? Tempting! (You'll know what I mean after you read this book.) contains a three-level movement program to help those of all strengths and fitness levels transition to a movement-rich lifestyle A new expanded edition of the bestselling Move Your DNA. Now with an exercise glossary and three-level exercise program!The human body evolved to a tremendous amount of certain movements―like walking, squatting, hanging, and carrying―loads our bodies still require to work well, even though they're mostly gone from our "convenience-centric" culture. In the Epilogue, Katy sums up what she hopes this book accomplishes for her readers: to plant seeds for further movement exploration and a renewed assessment of our own presuppositions. Katy says it best: Bowman is the creator and host of the "Move Your DNA" podcast, teaches movement globally, and speaks about sedentarism and movement ecology to academic and scientific audiences such as the Ancestral Health Summit and the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Her work has been featured in such diverse media as the Today Show, CBC Radio One, the Seattle Times, NPR, the Joe Rogan Experience, and Good Housekeeping. Bestselling author, speaker, and a leader of the Movement movement, biomechanist Katy Bowman, M.S. is changing the way we move and think about our need for movement. Her ten books, including the groundbreaking Move Your DNA, have been translated into more than 16 languages worldwide. I do love my unga bunga bullshit, and sweet Katy legitimizes it more than the paleo zealots and coffee bulletproofers could ever hope to, because she is a Load Scientist. While I'm sure a contributing factor is her rejection of bras in favor of "the natural strengthening of our tissues", in this context I refer to her biomechanics degree, and her obsessive study of the long term effects of repeated movement under weight to parts of our bodies, as we all as the whole damn body.