My Initial Reaction to Katy Bowman's book, "Move Your DNA"

I stumbled upon Katy Bowman's blog (Katy Says) as a link in a facebook group, in answer to a question about exercises to do at home. This post was about squatting. I read the post, took note of her pictures, and concluded my “squatting position” (thinking “the position I use to do weighted squats as part of my exercise in my home gym”) was fine. Was that the point of my friend posting this? No. Katy is not about exercise (although she is not against it). She is about looking at humans as whole beings – all of our parts, all of the time – in our current living conditions (environment). And to Katy, squatting is not an exercise, it should be a huge chunk of our lives as our bodies were designed to squat. We were also designed to spend much of our days standing and walking, but we do not do that so much anymore. And before you think walking from your car around the store and standing in line is what I mean, I will clarify that it is not. I mean walking four or five miles to the store, standing for an hour or two and walking the four or five miles home – and then going on about the rest of the day. But I digress.

Let me back up.  Here is my general understanding of things (and I am not claiming to be the end-all-be-all or get it all right, but if I'm understanding correctly, here is the scoop): 

Katy Bowman is a biomechanist (that means she studies the mechanics of how the body works - think bones and muscles) that in this book (Move Your DNA) is basically looking at humans from an historical perspective of how we used to behave as hunter-gatherers.  She goes back to this point because she says that time/activity is how our bodies performed optimally and she says a lot (most) of our troubles today (such as osteoarthritis, pelvic floor issues, hyperkyphosis, etc)  are from poor alignment/lack of movement as we do not move as much or in the same way we used to because of modern convenience.

Side Note: This book fell on fertile ground in me.  Whispers of her ideas/concepts/suggestions/explanations have been coming to me over the past few years in listening to my body and paying attention to/choosing my exercise regimen.  And I believe in order for someone to take the advice of another (no matter how smart or educated the one delivering said advice may be) the one receiving the message must see some glimmer of truth in it all.  I see that truth in a lot of what Katy says.  It all makes so much sense to me!!  But if you have not experienced things as I have you might think this post is a bunch of silliness, and you are entitled to such, but I will write it anyhow.

Rather than try and summarize her entire book I will share some things that have been helping me and/or I found particularly interesting.

#1) According to Katy we do not move nearly enough in our average day.  

Even those of us who are avid exercisers, only exercise for an hour or two and then sit for much of the rest of the day.  She is particularly concerned with those who work "desk jobs" and sit basically all day.  We are made to move - so move it!

While my day as a stay-home, homeschooling mom does include more movement than a typical desk job, I can be guilty of parking in the easy chair and commanding the household from my "perch."  I am making an effort to NOT do this.

#2) Katy says walking is good for our bodies - and not just as exercise, but walking is good for all parts of our body and does great things like aid in digestion, etc.  

In her words from this book, "Walking, as basic as it seems, is an extremely complex phenomenon that can simultaneously involve all your muscles at once."

So I have been trying to add more walking into my day - and not just MY DAY, but into the days of my children, too - as even children need to walk.  No, not play sports or run around outside, they need to WALK!  (Granted, children can ALSO do those other things, but walking is important for little people just as it is for big people - accept no substitutes!)

Side Note: You probably do not walk "correctly" or at least could have your walking pattern, gait, etc, improved but I am no expert.  Katy goes into some basics in her book and more on her blog, but her saying is "You cannot do it wrong, but you can always do it better."  

#3) Katy is VERY AGAINST sitting in a typical "chair."  

Our bodies are not designed for this - it has been adopted by our culture - with the chair originating as something of a trophy for the very rich to afford.  Now we sit, I would argue, out of habit and/or because it is culturally expected.  There are chairs in the waiting room at the dentist's office, so if you do not sit in one you are considered a potential "threat" (why is that person not sitting??) or if you sit on the floor you are considered "unprofessional" (you would sit on the floor in public?!?!).  Instead of sitting in chairs, Katy suggests standing workstations and reclining on the floor.  She understands we all need to rest now and again and being on the floor allows our body to open up more and stretch.

I have been taking note of how much of my day I spend sitting in a chair and actively trying to find another position for those tasks - such as sitting on the floor to do school work with the kids and setting my laptop on a shelf to stand while I check my e-mail.  I also squat anytime I would typically bend down to pick something up.  I also squat to hang out with the kids or do simple tasks at floor level (like fold laundry).  Squatting opens up the hips, stretches the pelvic floor, and just overall helps keep the body in good working condition!

#4) Stretching is VERY important.  

And it all starts with the calf stretch.  Seriously, I think every one of her exercise DVDs begins with the calf stretch.  There are a ton of other stretches she recommends, but unfortunately she does not have them all in a neat little list, complete with pictures in such, although she does go through all of them in her book, amidst other information and anecdotes.

If I understand it correctly, stretching is what brings the blood to the muscles and gets rid of the waste.  While the heart does pump blood, it is the smooth muscle of the capillaries that gets it into all those cells.  And our typical "exercise" only uses certain muscles and often in a repetitive fashion.  While these muscles get stronger, those around them get weaker.  (Use it or lose it.)  So wee need to be stretching and moving in all the ways we can in order to keep the oxygen going to and the waste moving out of all our cells.

I am working on stretching more.  I'm not ready to give up my cardio exercise because although walking and stretching would probably make my body the healthiest it has ever been, I am too caught up in the worldly way of things to be happy with my extra weight right now.  While it would eventually fall away (I think! - or at least some of it) I do not have the patience for that!

Plus I would say I am mildly addicted to "serious" exercise.  But of all the addictions I could have, this one has some of the best benefits (losing weight, building muscle - albeit it only SOME muscle on those parts I am actually using, but still - and relieving stress) and the least adverse affects (potential for injury, my husband having to listen to me whine about missing my work-out, or go on and on about how amazing it was today).

#4.5) After having my most recent baby I concluded that Kegels were not doing it for my pelvic floor.  

I then stumbled upon Katy's DVD called "Down There For Women."  This video consisted of five stretches that I found MOST HELPFUL but it was not until I read this book that I realized the final component in pelvic floor health (for me at least - as Katy would surely argue that the whole body works as a whole and you cannot piece out any part of it, from the pelvic floor to the foot, it all goes together).  

Are you ready for this?  The final component to my pelvic floor health was/is sucking in my gut.  And I do not mean the kind of sucking in one would do to button a pair of pants that is a bit small, but the constant tightening of the abdominal muscles.  Yes, the very tightening that my physical therapist recommended I practice "all the time" because that is "what these muscles are designed to do."  Katy says the brain, specifically the unconscious brain, is very smart and your body will naturally respond as it needs to, far better than you can consciously try to clench certain muscles.  So, instead of tightening my core to lift my child I am just supposed to lift my child?!?!  What if I strain my back?  Well, then Katy would say you are not strong enough to lift your child in that fashion in the first place and by tightening your core you are taking the stress in other joints/ligaments that are not up to the task any more than your back and eventually you will feel the injury in them as well.

What does this mean for me?  Well, by relaxing my core muscles and letting them fire when they decide it is right to fire (rather than the constant flexing that creates muscle tension and inhibits some muscles from behaving as they should) I was able to take the final bit of strain off my pelvic floor, allowing it to behave as it should.  (I will save you the specifics but I imagine you understand what I am saying here.)

Funny side note: When I first read that I should not be flexing my core muscles all day my reaction was, "WHAT!!!  NO WAY!!"  Followed by a deep analysis of how smaller, tighter tummies is a cultural thing!  How vain of us!  And now that I have been relaxing those muscles and letting my belly "pooch" out I realize this better offsets getting my pelvis back in neutral (read: sticking my butt out as we are meant to).  Now I cannot imagine NOT doing this.  Unfortunately it means I might have to rethink a few of the tighter/shorter shirts in my wardrobe, but honestly, who am I trying to impress?  I have a husband and he loves me skinny or chunky, with my belly in or out.  Who have I been trying to impress?  Everyone else.  Everyone that looks at my choices in life (to be open to life and to homeschool my kids) and wants to tell me I am crazy.  I am secretly trying to impress them so they will at worst leave me alone and at best encourage me.

#5) Katy considers this way of looking at the whole body as a whole is one of alignment.  

She has a facebook group called "Aligned and Well."  By stretching and walking, standing, and squatting as we should we are able to keep our bodies in alignment.  Key to this alignment is good footwear.  Starting at the bottom, if we have positive heeled shoes (even just a little bit of a heel, like a quart of an inch) it throws off our alignment.

This is one of those things I TOTALLY GET!!  As I have been struggling with footwear for quite some time.  And finally I realize that bare feet is the best way to be!  And when one cannot be barefoot, minimalist shoes (like vibram five fingers) or at least zero-drop shoes (straight all the way across like this pair I have my eye on, the Kigo Flit - or the Kigo Drive which I currently have) are definitely the way to go, for me at least.  Now, this being said, I can walk fine in these shoes (and it took some work to get my foot muscles to wake up and respond appropriately in the vibram shoes) but I am not ready to run in them.  If you want a quite comprehensive list of "Katy's footwear suggestions," you can find it on her blog.

And I must say that going barefoot and wearing more minimalist shoes has improved my balance as I have woken up all those muscles and bones in my ankle again.  I could feel it as I ran yesterday - even though I was wearing stiff regular positive heel tennis shoes - when I turned a corner that would normally have thrown off my balance and caused me to teeter some, I was able to adjust in my ankle and keep the rest of my body moving as I desired.

The End. . . for now.

While there are many more tid-bits to be gleaned and ideas to process but here is what I have stewing right now.