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.

sit down, stand up

Can you get up and down off the floor without “touching” anything?

" My oldest client ever was a woman named Myrle. She was 89 when she started seeing me and we worked together for 5 years. When we first met, I asked her to get down on the floor and back up. I wanted to get a sense of her functional strength. It took her about 2 minutes to get down (with the use of a chair) and it took her 72 minutes, 4 pieces of furniture, and every one of MY muscles to get her back up again.
She was mortified and told me how the exercise brought up memories of her mother. She had cared for her mother in the end stages of her life, and when she watched her mother struggle to get off the floor, she swore “I will NEVER be like that.” Of course, most physical goals require some sort of physical practice beyond grand declarations. Myrle, like most people, didn’t get down on the floor regularly the last 20 (or 40) years and so the muscle strength necessary to do so silently slipped away..."

Read the rest of this brilliant blog post from Katy Bowman here.

Gordon Hewes

There are minimal health benefits to sitting (repeatedly) in a chair, and yet, as Katy Bowman describes in her new book Move Your DNA, the typical childhood is spent making chair sitting a fine art. 

“after a couple of years, sitting still in your chair would be your most-practiced skill, trumping time spent reading, writing, playing games, and physical education in school. Like a ninja of sitting, you practiced sitting still in a chair more than any other activity, with hours and hours in training, with no other learned activity even coming close in time spent practicing.”

--Katy Bowman in "Move Your DNA"

It’s time to start thinking outside the chair and practicing new positions. In her work, Katy cites physical anthropology professor Gordon W. Hewes study, World Distribution of Certain PosturalHabits. Hewes examined 100 different resting postures from all around the world.  As fate would have it, most of these positions don’t involve chairs.
Inspiration!

Alternatives to sitting in a chair. From Hewes "World Distribution of Certain Postural Habits"
Notice how nobody's at a standing desk. (Here is what Katy says about that...)


But before you get rid of all your sofas, make sure you are working within your actual joint range. Work with progressions and load your new found freedom slowly by using bolsters/blankets/cushions to help make your new floor office comfortable.

What the Queef?

I've spent a ridiculous amount of time upside down of late in class...mostly...and two 'issues' keep popping up for my students. Queefing (yep) and rib thrusting.
So I've searched the inter-webs for simple explanations of the two and (to my delight) found THIS from Katy Bowman of Katy Says.
Ladies check it out! Saves me having to provide the detail ; )

The rib thrusting thing is for the gents too...

The beauty is in the detail.

Images by Nina Leen for LIFE, 1949.

Recommended Read

“Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” – Plato

Since Plato, individuals have been trying to exercise their way out of the diseases of civilized living. And to be fair, “exercise more” is a fine goal to begin with. But, as Plato and modern scientists recognize, the goal to “move more when I’m not exercising” is foundational. This significant movement recommendation is often lost when we focus on exercise as a means to a ripped body or high-octane performance, and we forget that moving is as essential as eating. Before we go big, we must go basic. Back to the essential human movements and frequency of movements that provide the context for a human to flourish.

I do believe that “get strong enough for living” makes a noble goal for 2014, don’t you?"

Read this guest post on Breaking Muscle by Katy Bowman of Katy Says and Restorative Exercise Institute 

(Image found here )