if you walked in a circle...

Where we are with movement is where we were with nutrition 40 years ago. We say, “Just move more!” if a whale in captivity were to just swim more, it would make the flopped fin worse. Moving more might bring about even more of the forces that brought about the disease of mechanotransduction- in this case the flopped fin. It might make things worse.

At the end of the day swimming more wasn’t really the problem. If you walked in a circle everyday, you would notice that your body became shaped to that.
Then you walk fast in that circle, it will highlight those diseases even faster.
When we say we need to move well or differently, often we say [in this example], “Walk in the circle in the other direction.” You would offset some of the adaptations with that correction, but it’s still treating the symptom.

Corrective exercise is spot-treating these nutrient deficits by creating something novel instead of pulling back and asking what is the actual problem here? What are my actual movement requirements and how can I actually meet those instead of taking the vitamin or pill equivalent?

-- Katy Bowman for Liberated Body

getting shorter with age

"So, “everyone” gets shorter with age and this phenomenon is usually chalked up to compression over time. It is said that your height decreases because either the discs between your vertebrae have flattened out or, your bone density decreases with age, creating weak bones that can no longer stay upright so they curl forward. This seems to be the general understanding of why we get shorter as we get older. However, things are not always as they appear.

What I’m about to explain here is how someone can measure as shorter without any change in their mass — only in how their mass is oriented. I’ve failed, many times, to get this point across to large crowds of clinicians and they always end up looking at me like I’m insane. How can someone possibly be shorter if some body part hasn’t changed in length?

Let me show you...."

Katy Bowman making sense of shrinking. Head over to her blog to read the rest.

Katy Bowman

This woman is brilliant.
Go directly to her blog to read everything she has to say, or listen to the many inspiring podcasts she is firing out, or better yet add Move Your DNA to your online bookbuying wish-list.
It is a must read if you move (i.e. if you are human). I cannot recommend it highly enough. In it Katy forms a brilliantly written, scientifically based alternative way of thinking about movement and exercise, which maybe, just maybe, will change the way you see the whole damn universe. Revolutionary and a truly beautiful thing.

 

However, there's no point in starting a revolution if you're hungry. So why not add this mighty fine cook book to your (NOT AMAZON) basket while you are at it.