Rethink your position and move nutritiously with Katy Bowman (live from Costa Rica!)
Apr 24, 2023
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Katy Bowman, an expert in movement and body alignment, joins the host to discuss the importance of conscious movement choices and how they can enhance our health. They explore topics such as alternative ways of sitting to alleviate negative impacts, embracing discomfort for personal growth, stepping out of our comfort zone, and the significance of strong and supple feet. They also delve into analyzing movement, body perception, and the power of personal changes.
Movement throughout the day impacts our muscles, joints, cells, and overall well-being, emphasizing the importance of nutritious movement beyond traditional exercise.
By aligning our movement choices with our values and prioritizing specific movements or activities that are personally meaningful to us, we can invest our time wisely and improve our overall well-being.
Creating movement-friendly environments in our homes, such as incorporating spaces to hang from our hands and swapping movement options, allows us to integrate more nutritious movement into our daily lives.
Deep dives
The Concept of Nutritious Movement
Katie Bowman discusses the concept of nutritious movement, which goes beyond traditional exercise. She explains that movement throughout the day impacts our muscles, joints, cells, and overall well-being. Nutritious movement involves considering the different types of movements our body needs and making choices that nourish and support our health.
Importance of Mindful Movement Choices
Katie emphasizes the importance of being mindful about our movement choices and aligning them with our values and goals. She suggests identifying the specific movements or activities that we want to do but are currently unable to and making those a priority. By understanding our individual movement needs and focusing on what is personally meaningful to us, we can invest our time wisely and improve our overall well-being.
Creating Movement-Friendly Environments
Katie advises creating movement-friendly environments in our homes. She recommends incorporating a place to hang from our hands, as hanging provides numerous benefits for our muscles and overall health. She also suggests having open spaces and swapping movement options to keep things interesting and engage both children and adults. By designing our environments to support movement, we can integrate more nutritious movement into our daily lives.
The importance of using chairs differently
Chairs, while not inherently problematic, can be a problem when used without variation. The issue lies in our habituation to a single sitting position, which leads to a lack of movement and muscle activation. The solution, when modifying the environment is not possible, is to modify how we use chairs. By consciously changing our sitting positions, such as sitting with one foot on the chair or sitting on one side of the chair, we can introduce movement and muscle activation into our sitting routine. This simple modification of a chair can help increase energy expenditure and promote overall movement throughout the day.
The power of discomfort and changing perceptions
Embracing discomfort and stepping out of our comfort zones can bring about meaningful changes, both mentally and physically. Inertia, the tendency to remain in the same state, can work in our favor when we establish new movement patterns. By regularly engaging in uncomfortable activities, we build resilience, bravery, and courage. Behavioral stretching, or getting out of our comfort zones, has been found to have numerous mental health benefits. Additionally, living in environments that naturally promote movement, rather than relying on willpower, can make incorporating movement into our lives easier. By changing our perceptions and mindset around movement, we can create a culture of movement in our own lives and inspire others to do the same.
When we think of movement, we often think of exercise. We overlook that all day long, we are positioning and moving our bodies in ways that impact our muscles, joints, and even our cells. In this episode, Katy Bowman joins me to discuss why we should “rethink our position” and how we can move our body parts in more nutritious ways. We explore everything from tech neck to chair sitting to movement values. Plus, Katy answers some audience questions about foot pain, designing movement-rich spaces, and more!