Dr. Mercola – “Exercise less, move more” and “nutritional movement” — these are innovative concepts that have been popularized by Katy Bowman, author of “Move Your DNA : Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement,” whom I first learned about from readers commenting on my articles.

Katy is a biomechanist by training, but refers to herself as a movement ecologist. Biomechanism is a rather specialized academic path where you study physiology and anatomy through a filter of geometry and physics.

“It’s kind of understanding how physiology and physical forces work together,” she explains.

“Most people are probably familiar with biomechanics in sports performance. A lot of people use biomechanics experts to help modify their golf swing …

A lot of people will take a class or two in biomechanics as they make their way through different healthcare modalities. But that was my entire focus. My undergrad and graduate school was just studying biomechanics.”

Exercise Less, Move More

Katy is an important influencer when it comes to promoting the transition from traditional regimented exercise to a more “global movement” view, where the focus is on staying active throughout the day.

She believes exercise, in the way we normally engage in it, has particular value if you’re training for something athletic. The problem is that most people fail to consider that their workouts are bookended by hours upon hours of sedentary behavior.

“[It’s] less about moving more, and more about moving more of you. Those are two different ideas. We need to move more. When you go to a store, don’t park so close. Little things like that …

I recommend you pick one place that you could walk to feasibly but don’t. For me, it was the post office and my sister’s house. Both of those places were an easy walk. You’re talking less than eight or nine minutes away.

But I found myself driving there just because I was in the habit to. So I just created these ‘I will never drive there’ type rules …

[Another] thing I did that was really revolutionary for me was swapping a book I’d normally read for an audio book and walking while I listen to it. That was a transformative habit change.”

How to Move More of You

According to Katy, repetitive positioning is a related problem, such as sitting down in the same way all the time. By seating yourself in a variety of different ways, you can avoid some of the problems associated with sitting.

For example, scooch forward in your seat to avoid using the back of your chair, or sit on the floor instead of your couch. Sitting on the floor engages different core muscles than slouching on your couch.

“You don’t always have to be still in the same way. If you choose a different way to be still — that is, speaking geometrically, or speaking about cellular movements, which is the type of movement I’m talking about — sitting differently is in fact moving more.”

Then there’s the idea of “moving more of you.” Katy recommends switching to minimal footwear for the fact that it allows you to move more body parts when you do move. When walking barefoot or with minimally restrictive footwear, you engage different muscle groups than when you walk in shoes.

Personally, the only time I sit is when I’m driving somewhere. Other than that, I mostly stand throughout the day, even when working, as I have a standup desk. I also walk barefoot for about one to two hours a day on the beach.

Katy takes it a step further, and has transitioned from a standing desk to a “dynamic workstation area” that includes a low squatting or kneeling desk, and a variety of devices on the floor that allow her to do different micro and corrective exercises while working, such as calf stretches and foot mobility exercises.

“I can shift my weight from leg to leg. I can work the front of my thigh, the back of my thigh. I try to be still as little as possible. I try to stay dynamic, even when I’m stationary and being productive,” she says.

Nutritional Movement

Nutritional movement is another idea that demands explanation. As noted by Katy, your body adapts to what it does most frequently, not what it does with the best of intentions.

If you’re like most people, your body has adapted to certain movements and certain still postures through sheer repetition. Even if you’ve been exercising regularly, your body may still have developed certain weak spots.

Katy recommends performing some basic assessments to determine which parts of your body are not moving properly, and then take corrective action, either through corrective exercises, or better yet, changing how you move and position yourself through your day to day life.

“Say you want to know if that walk you do every morning is being propelled by your gluteus maximus or your hamstrings as opposed to being propelled by your hip flexors or the quadriceps.

One muscle group is on the back of the body, one muscle group is on the front of the body. The net result of how you walk is going to kind of create the shape of your body in the end.

You would lie down on the floor and you would lift one leg up behind you. You would see, does my leg go behind me, or do my leg and my pelvis go as one? Because I sat in a chair for 30 years prior, and my thigh bone and my pelvis kind of clump together as a unit.

I recommend that people do different corrective exercises to break up any connections, overly connections, between body parts that were the results of a high repetitious input to stillness.

You can’t just jump into the movement that you want to be doing. You want to make sure that all of your body is coming along.

Because when you have parts of you that are healthy mobile next to parts of you that aren’t as mobile, the interface between those two areas, that’s where injury tends to arise structurally. That’s called a stress riser.

When you have lots of movements sitting right up to an area that doesn’t move at all, those tissues are going to pull on each other unnaturally. It’s better if all the parts have a certain amount of suppleness and ability to participate.”

Another component of nutritional movement is the distribution of movement throughout the day. There is a difference between taking one 5-mile walk and five 1-mile walks. The general rule is that movement should be frequent and spread out. You basically want to avoid long periods of sedentary behavior, so five 1-mile walks spread out through the day will provide greater health benefits than one 5-mile walk, even though it’s the same exact distance.

The Nutritional Movement Lifestyle

Practicing what she preaches, Katy is by far more extreme than most. Many of the strategies Katy uses in her own life are likely to be considered unreasonable for many, and I do not necessarily advocate following completely in her footsteps. However, this is the lifestyle she’s chosen for herself and her family, and she just might inspire you to make some beneficial changes in your own life, even if you’re not willing to go quite as far. Continue reading . . .

SF Source Zen Gardner   Mar 2016

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