Move Your DNA with Katy Bowman

Try Katy's Virtual Studio Free for 7 Days!On this episode of the Move Your DNA podcast, Katy and her special guest Dani Alexander reflect on the past year, discuss movement goals for 2024, and emphasize the importance of choosing a guiding word. They also explore personal experiences with living in walkable communities, navigating perimenopause, and general aging. Looking ahead, they share specific goals and strategies for incorporating more movement into their life - plus they select their new movement theme words for the year.

Dani Alexander, a certified occupational therapy assistant specializing in pediatric care, joins Katy to discuss the crucial role of grip strength in our lives. They explore therapeutic interventions, like weighted pencils and Play-Doh, that can enhance hand strength. The conversation shifts to the alarming decline in grip strength among millennials, its impact on daily tasks, and its correlation with overall health. Katy and Dani emphasize the need for playful, engaging activities to strengthen grip, highlighting its importance for both children and adults.

Podcast discusses foot injuries as a natural part of life, emphasizing the need for adjustments in movement patterns. Stresses the importance of staying active as we age. Talks about psychological aspects of injury and strategies for avoiding future ones. Reflects on minimal shoes after foot injury and their impact on healing and foot strength.

Try Katy's Virtual Studio Free for 7 Days!In this episode, Katy is talking about technology. Specifically where technology meets your head. No, not how technology affects mental health or how you think, but how it could be affecting the actual structure of your skull. Katy and her guests get into headphone dents, tech neck, and bone horns. Episode Overview:0:00:01 Welcome to the Move Your DNA podcast!0:00:31 Tech and Mental Health: How It Affects Your Head0:07:58 Discussing Head Dents0:11:56 The Dent Mystery: Seeking the Truth0:21:12 Importance of varied positioning for babies' development0:31:52 Strengthening tissues to handle increased load and shape changes0:32:33 The Horns Phenomenon and Click-Bait Headlines0:43:01 Natural selection and the success of sickle-shaped cells0:53:15 Navigating the Challenges of Screens in Schools0:57:56 Skeletal Development and Surgical Solutions0:59:20 The Addictive Nature of Handheld Devices1:00:40 Introduction and Background of the Conversation1:03:36 The Nuance of Phone Use and Posture1:09:20 Introduction and Greetings from Lynn Dung, Melbourne, Australia

Try Katy's Virtual Studio Free for 7 Days!Katy Bowman talks with Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett about their paths to becoming leaders in physical health to share their ideas on how to make movement more joyful and relevant to you, the mover. Not just in the distant future but here and now.

Try Katy's Virtual Studio Free for 7 Days!Katy reveals another group of very important muscles that probably are not on your list of body parts which need movement - the muscles in your face. Just like any other parts of your body, when these muscles don’t get movement, it causes problems now and later in life. In this episode, Katy explains why this matters and gives you some fun exercises that you can do at home. 

Try Katy's Virtual Studio Free for 7 Days!There is an old (and hopefully becoming obsolete) idea that getting your body “vacation ready” means you need to exercise ahead of time to get your body looking "fit" so you can enjoy your vacation. In this episode, Katy flips this idea on its head and invites you to take a different approach. An approach that involves getting your body “vacation ready” by making sure it is moving well enough to enjoy the things you want to do on your vacation. 

Try Katy's Virtual Studio Free for 7 Days!It will surprise nobody that Katy spends a lot of time considering the mechanics of breathing movement—the way the levers and pulleys work throughout your breathing anatomy—to facilitate breath. But there are also other things to consider when it comes to breath and breathing. So, Katy invited her friend and author of the new book, Body by Breath, Jill Miller to talk about how the way we breathe can be showing up and affecting our bodies in ways we might not be aware of.

Try Katy's Virtual Studio Free for 7 Days!In this episode, Katy explores the way all the “move more” messages we hear and read are framed and how they could be a lot more helpful and effective. It turns out that simply telling people to “exercise now to not die later” isn't working the way we might want it to. 

Try Katy's Virtual Studio Free for 7 Days!In this episode, Katy and Dr. Barbara L Reiss are talking about Myopia (the medical term for nearsightedness), which is being able to see up close but not far away. This is important because your muscles are not only for moving, but they are also creating physiological states in the body - which includes your eyesight.