Movement is More than Exercise
Katy Bowman, expert biomechanist, founder of the Nutritious Movement movement
This post was inspired by this podcast in which Model Health Show host Shawn Stevenson talks with Katy Bowman, expert biomechanist, founder of the Nutritious Movement movement and bestselling author with a new book called Rethink Your Position. She is on a mission to “Change the Way You Think About Movement” and in her book she share her knowledge on “how to transform your daily movement practices in a way that improves your functionality and enriches your life.”
To start…. Nutritious Movement. I just love this. We eat nutritious food to help our bodies work, grow and heal, we consume nutritious content to fuel our minds, hearts and souls…. It is only natural to have nutritious movements to nourish our physical bodies, joints and muscles. But what are nutritions movements specifically because, if you’re like me then you might be thinking its the weight you’re lifting at the gym, the sports you play, your yoga practice or perhaps the exercises you perform to keep your body limber.
The answer is sorta.
To explain what they are, it’s best to first clarify a couple things about movements
Movements are anyway you manipulate your body. *ANY* way. Human beings are constantly in movement. Say you are moving your thumb to scroll the text down to read, that is a movement, You are siting at your computer (movement) moving your eyes left to right (movement) and tapping your toe (movement). Over time, we develop different movement patterns thought repeatedly engaging in the same movements over time that some expects call movement accents. You know when you can see a figure walking 30 feet ahead of you and can tell its your friend because of the movements they make with their bodies. That’s it! We each have our own little movement mannerisms, “accents”. When walking its called gate accents. And just like your verbal accents which can be acquired geographically, your movement patterns tend to be influenced by your surroundings. Speaking about accents for a minute, you know how many movements are taking place when we talk, to have an accent and evoke speech?! Such a lovely orchestra of intermingling of our throat, mouth, tongue, and lips, then cheeks… so many different body parts moving and working together just to create sounds. #humansareincredible
Okay, so we’re starting to get the idea of what movements are. Now just like if you visit the southern states for more than a week you might come home with a little twang of an accent, we physically can get influenced by our surroundings to repeat one certain movement pattern over and over which can create a constriction, a negative accent. Often we don't even realize it is happening until we don’t feel the freedom of movement we once enjoyed. We have changes and adaptations in our bodies functionality and movement form just by engaging with various positions that the human body does.
If you’ve ever been in physical therapy after an injury you know that the body has various planes of motion it can operate within. Sagittal aka laterally (side to side), Coronal (front to back), and transverse (axial or rotationally) planes. Our bodies can only really operate within these limitations but being the super awesome dynamic beings with flexible in our joints muscles and ligaments we can move freely engaging all three planes often simultaneously!
The goal we should strive for with our bodies is…. to feel good in them? Duh. to have vitality and energy? would be nice. To have free mobility like we did when we were younger? Please. It’s none of those things but also all of them. Really the goal is to have resiliency in our bodies. Resiliency is the ability to manage challenges, quickly recovering from them, and growing to improve as a result of these challenges [s]. We want resiliency to be able to handle an all day jaunt to the amusement part and not be sore for days afterwards. We want our bodies to have resiliency to endure a strenuous or stressful situation and bounce back easily and maybe even feel stronger afterwards.
And for most humans today the physical resiliency we really want is the ability to come back after an accident or injury. Say you are in the basement packing up for a move and a heavy cabinet falls on your foot. Or maybe you’re walking down the sidewalk and you trip on something, There will always be an unexpected situation that moves your body differently, that it doesn't do tremendous harm. but does challenge us. It could be an illnesses, a family members deaths or one of a vast number of other problems that challenge the way in which we engage with the physical world around us. If you’ve even been plagued with a duration of physical pain, you know that showing up in all other aspects of your life is that much harder. Having conversations is harder, showing up for others is harder, life is just hovering with this underlying pain waiting to take your breath away.
When our bodies are more physically resilient, when you are moving more of your parts, you can respond to whatever trauma with more of you.
How do we get Body Resilient?
With a Nutritious Movement Diet. Having more movement inputs to engage with that can nourish our muscles, joints and ligaments to form good movement patterns. Just like a high nutrient in diet will give you more dietary health, a high nutrient movement lifestyle will give you a solid base of physical fitness and resilience.
Our bodies respond to inputs from our environments in a process called mechanotransduction.
It’s similar to when we eat (input) food. When the cells of our body receive a mechanical stresses (input) it sends a chemical signals that elicits an adaptive response. The more freely your body can receive inputs and the more diversity we can have engaging with these inputs, the healthier our movement diet.
We are currently living in a very low movement input culture. A couple post ago I shared how sitting is the new smoking for our health… today’s humans are just not engaging with the same daily activities of just a few generations ago. “Tech Neck” is a new phenomenon attributed to looking down, maintain a fixed posture for multiple hours a day but long ago, we were looking down on other things, we would be reading, sewing, wood working or washing … honestly most things we do are looking or holding our heads in one position .…. So why now are we having neck issues, its because decades ago we were living in a more movement-rich environment.
How to get a more Movement-Rich Environment, add nutritious movements into your day to day.
The site says Nutritious Movement recognizes that not only do we need to move our whole bodies more; we also need to move our individual body parts more. We combine big-picture education on biomechanics, kinesiology, physiology, and natural movement; and also simple, basic exercises to wake up all your trillion body parts [s].
Okay I’m sensing you wanna stop with all the back education and start getting to some actual things we can do to get this.
Neck Nutrition (for that tech neck):
Head Ramp - the simple exercise of sliding your head back (so that it sits over your shoulders) and lifting the top/crown of your head up towards the ceiling (without raising your chin). You can also use/engage your middle back and ribcage to assist with the motion (they are more nutrient inputs). Holding this position for several seconds and relaxing. Then repeating
This movement can be done anytime. While walking, while typing (i just did it), while cooking, driving, riding a bike, really anytime you think of it or anytime you notice that your head is slumping forward.
Chicken Head - is this invitation to explore eight more neck motions to balance out maybe the one forward one that gets overdone all between the space between your head and shoulders. Ever see a chickens head, its smooth and balanced, so engage with this like a chicken would. Start by slide your head forward and backwards. Next stretching your neck to the right and to the left, then turning your head to the right and to the left. Then dropping your right ear towards your shoulder, then the left ear. To finish, sliding your ears to the right and to the left. If you’d like add in some neck rolls going both directions, clockwise and counterclockwise after 8 revolutions.
Calf Stretch- This stretch is completed with the heel of your foot planted and the front of the foot is elevate d and stretched. You could use a rock, foam dome or rolled-up towel to provide the elevation needed for the stretch. Hold the stretch for 1 minute and repeat on the other side. Repeat each foot for 2-3x’s especially after wearing heeled shoes. You can progress this by allowing the other leg to step forward.
Pelvic List - Standing with legs in neutral stance, place your hands on your pelvis. Shift your weight on the right leg and (with your knee firm) push your right pelvis downward (while pushing right foot into the floor). While doing so you can notice how the left hip moves upward. Repeat for 8-10 repetitions. To progress this, hands on pelvis again, stand with one leg onto a block (weight in your heels, toes mobile) or phonebook and without bending the standing leg, push your right hand into your right pelvis, this will cause the opposite leg to lower down and up. Complete 8-10 reps each side.
Check out OUR BEST “HEALTHY PELVIS” RESOURCES
So really I am just sharing a couple moves I mean nutrients here that I found helpful, to get the full array of nutritious movements please visit their site directly. They have exercise plans and a ton more free resources.
The main #takeaway is that introducing more inputs into your body, engaging with some of these dynamic and active positions create a memory for your body so that when you are put into a situation where your neck/chest/hips is moved suddenly, your body has the memory “ its been there before.” And can perform the movement with more ease. By engaging in these new and more diverse movements we avoid being stuck in one or just a couple positions for most of the day (like sitting…..).
There is so much more they discussed in this episode and if this was helpful then I encorage you to explore the entire discussion here or watch it here. Or grab her new book Rethink Your Position, Reshape Your Exercise, Yoga, and Everyday Movement, One Part at a Time
SideBar Talk
One thing to add that really stuck with me about this episode was the concept of “removal to make better” or thought of another way it’s simplicity, minimally, efficiently. This happened around minute
Instead of thinking what can we add to make something better, what can be removed?
In America there is always this notion to add. Perhaps its the capitalist society we have perpetuated since the industrial revolution, where there is always “room for more,” more to be bought, more to be found, I need more to do less, or maybe its the marketing agencies looking to make profits and exploiting a where consumer driven marketplace. Maybe its’ the generational trauma response and false belief that we are never enough, Whatever it is, Americans what more and and more.
And where has this thought stream taken us? Whelp we have more disease, more ailments, more weight, more debt, more mental health issues, more more more…
What if switched it. Thought about the polarity. The opposite of more is less.
To think minimally in the space of a problem. What can we remove to alleviate the discomfort that our current situation is putting us in. Could this potentially solve the problem?
So if you are one that’s default is “what can I add”… maybe explore that a little deeper. Do you really need more? If this new thing really going to make you more whole?
In my experience, I know this idea that I am not enough is such a false belief. You are enough. You were always enough. Within you contains more than enough of what you need to feel whole. What can you remove from your life to allow yourself to see that you are?
For me, it was the need to be “busy.” It’s weeding out my wardrobe to allow for less options so I have more joy for the things that really make me feel like me when I wear them. It’s reminding myself over and over than I am enough when my mind starts to go on those downward spirals (I writing it down for several days in a row is super helpful to help retrain our subconscious mind to default to “I am enough.”