Episode 176 with Katy Bowman
How to Recognize Signs of Movement Hunger
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1KHO 107: The Greater Culture is on a Sedentary Trajectory | Katy Bowman, Move Your DNA
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Ginny Yurich I mean, are you ready? Welcome to 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich and the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and third time's the charm. Katy Bowman is back.
Katy Bowman Thank you again and again. We have so much to talk about.
Ginny Yurich I guess this so much I know. I never get through all of the things in these conversations, which is great because people can go to your books of which you have ten, I think, which is incredible. Something so many books. But Katy, you were my second podcast guest. I don't know if you knew that or not really. Yes. So people are wanting to look back. It's episode number nine, and that was the one where you talked about the book Grow Wild, which is such a fantastic book for parents about, you know, kind of getting rid of some of your furniture and the clothing and the, you know, the different containers. It's a fantastic book. And yeah, the second one, I had no idea what I was doing, but I had a friend who was a huge fan of you, and she was so excited that you and I got all these cool points with this friend of mine. So I loved it. And then you're also on episode 107, so nine and 107. If people want to go back and they should go back in 107, we talked about being sedentary and about walking. That was remember, you always have to do life changing things. We talked about games that you can play while you're walking. We talked about the difference between walking overground versus walking on a treadmill, which is very different. So fascinating conversations. And here we are for a third time. You just had a new book come out. Rethink your position. Tell us about it.
Katy Bowman This is the book that looks at maybe moving your body more or moving your body. Well, one part at a time. You know, like move can be broken down into two frameworks. One is I am active or I am sedentary. Like, it's a whole body assessment of yourself. I mean, they're sitting down and not doing anything in air quotes, not doing anything or I'm walking, I'm getting from point A to point B, I'm exhausted. Like my whole body is moving. But there's another way of looking at movement. I'm a biomechanics, so it's the way that I also tend to look at movement, and that is you're never really still your bodies are just in a particular position and you're adapting to that position. So you can look at it. It's sort of seems philosophical and maybe it is, but it's it's an idea of looking at your moving parts is much smaller, your cells. So even when you're sitting in place for a long period of time, those part of it being squished there in a particular shape, they're responding to that and they're adapting to that. So if you think of yourself as always moving, but you have high volumes of moving in the same way again and again and again, a lot of us have repetitive use injuries that are coming from sitting. We just don't talk. We sort of segregate our language a little bit of when we're talking about whole body and when we're talking about part by part. I'm trying to unify it. And then also, I think it gives a lot of people an easier entry point to movement. When you think about I maybe I'm not ready to move my whole body or maybe you move your whole body plenty, but you still have these aches and pains in your body, or you want to move your whole body more. But there is these aches and pains that are stopping you, how to approach your body and this sort of movement diet part by part.
Ginny Yurich Oh, and it's really interesting. Your books always have things that I've never heard of before. Never. And I love that. I love that. I know if I'm going to crack open the Katy Bowman book, of which there are a lot there are going to be things that I've just never heard of. And I love the illustrations in this one, you know, the pictures. And then sometimes you're drawing this. It's a fantastic to illustrate all the different things. Let's start with this. We're talking about specific body parts, because I know that the chapters are broken up that way. So you're talking about your rib cage. You're talking about your head in your neck, you're talking about your legs. So one of the things I never heard of before are Calf Hart's efforts. Yes. Why in the world do you most people know about Kephart?
Katy Bowman No, no. Why me? I mean, I'm trying to I try to use a lot of language to help capitalize on something most people are already familiar with, but put it in a context in which they're not used to thinking about something to help them understand the point that I'm trying to illustrate. So, for example, cow farts, when we think about what our heart is doing right, it says the heart is circulating the blood. And that's why I need to take care of my heart, you know? Yes. And also, your heart is not really meant to be going it alone, circulating in your blood. What really ultimately circulates your blood is skeletal muscle contraction. Those are working at partnership or are supposed to be working in partnership. So when it's easy for the blood to get down, harder for the blood to get up, so gravity so you can think of your heart and gravity and muscular contraction is really the complete collection of parts that's circulating the blood in your body and not just circulating it, distributing it, getting oxygen to the end destination. Cleaning out things along the way. Right. So, like, you want this flow to be happening when the blood gets down low. Now it has to like in your feet, for example, down your lower leg, it has to get back up. How does it do that? Well, you've got these valves in your veins. You might have heard about those. Blood, because blood is always wanting to be pulled back down. It sort of stair steps up these venous flaps. You know, the it goes up a little bit and the flap shuts behind it to keep it from back flowing.
Ginny Yurich I didn't know this at all.
Katy Bowman Well, so varicose veins, when people are asked like, what happens, the varicose veins are these flaps are broken.
Ginny Yurich Oh, wow.
Katy Bowman And so then the blood can pull down and then the vein bulges because it's not being stair stepped up. But the flaps are not meant to be the mechanical lift. So you've got this heart, which is weaker over distance. Right, Because of blood, because the blood is further away. And you got these flaps which are meant to sort of hold the blood for a moment before it gets back up. But the main mover here is the lower leg contracting, just the same muscles that move you from point A to point B are also the muscle contracting that helps support the blood back up. And so we live in these sedentary times. We're not walking any more. We sit a lot. So not walking a lot is its own category, sitting a lot and wearing positive heeled shoes where your heels are elevated above your toes are two habits that mechanically shorten and stiffen the calf. So now you're missing the blood circulating work. And that's why I call it the heart that's in the lower leg. And so you're just like, All right, heart way over there. Go it alone and and vowels in your lower leg. You do that, too. And I'm just going to sit here and not take any steps and not do anything with my musculoskeletal system. And so, like things like stretching and steps, we don't often know how they relate to our wellbeing. We know kind of nebulous thing they do. Like I know I should exercise or move around, I know I should stretch. These are so tight, but it's harder to tie it to exactly what's going on in your body. These muscles need to be supple. They are the support system of not only the entire cardiovascular system, but also the veins, right? Like the veins. And then also that strong calf muscle not only supports the heart and the veins, it also helps support your ankles and your knees and your hips. So it's just calling out like, hey, do this for your calves, which will also have a payback, you know, for your heart to.
Ginny Yurich Well, and your whole circulatory system, I would imagine.
Katy Bowman Well, that's right. And what your heart does in your mind, what you imagine your heart, heart's job. So that's a whole body job. And you've got slacking parts right now. And so your heart would like you to help it out by stretching your calves and then walking more with those longer, more supple calves that do a fuller contraction and then help support the lower leg. So if people are thinking about veins like veins is the way that a lot of people have aches in their legs because of their veins. The veins are a sign that that musculoskeletal system is not supporting the cardiovascular system well in those areas.
Ginny Yurich So fascinating. I'm sorry, I don't know how you do it. How often do you talk about in this one that if you were to narrow down, you have your like top two exercises and if you were to narrow down because people ask you that all the time, what if I only have this amount of time and narrow it down?
Katy Bowman I only have one minute. What do you what should I do? I see I went wrong. I should have in a thousand exercises. I should have started with a thousand exercises.
Ginny Yurich And outside 1000 exercises. I'm sure that can be the title of your next book. So it has to do with the calf. So one of the more important ones, is that correct? Right. Is that because of this?
Katy Bowman Yes. Well, it's because of that. It's also like very efficient. So it's because that that one move supports your heart. It pays off with every step. Right. So it's not just something that feels good or is beneficial while you're doing it. It changes the way the muscle works when you're stepping. And then again, tight calves end up affecting ankles, knees, hips, lower back. So it's like one thing, just one thing that has a pretty big payoff as opposed to picking something else which might not be so impactful on so many different levels.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, it's interesting. It's not it's certainly not what I would have thought in the calf stretch. So really interesting to learn about the calf hearts and your circulatory system. So that's in the chapter on hips, legs and knees, which is actually probably a really important one. I think people have knee problems and their hips hurt. So one of the things you talk about is walking downhill, which depending on terrain, sometimes I prefer downhill, but a lot of times I prefer uphill because you you feel more stable, you know, how can we walk if people are out hiking when there's a lot of up and down hill? How can we support our knees through that?
Katy Bowman Well, I just love what you're like, the insights that you have there going outside into nature, especially, you know, if you're talking to people more about going inside that. Her reign becomes complex, which is different than insight to rain. It's different than indoor exercise terrain, which is very controlled. So going downhill and also. Yeah. A lot of people prefer to go uphill, even though it's more effort. Right. It's harder for your heart and lungs, but you are more stable because you're sort of like digging in and climbing up. When you go down, things tend to accelerate. They go down without any effort, right? If you put a ball on the top of a hill, it's going to roll down to you. But at the bottom, it's not going to roll up. So effort, it needs to go up. There's control that needs to happen when you come down. So you're already moving down. You're being pulled down. That's why it's easier for the heart and lungs. You're not having to lift anything. But the primary way most people will control their downhill descent is by clenching the muscles on the front of the thigh. So contracting the quadriceps, but embedded in in those quadriceps is your kneecap. And so when you grip with the muscles in the front of the thigh, I think going down something really steep and sort of taking smaller steps, you know, you're clenched. Those kneecaps get pulled deep is the word that we use, meaning in towards, say, the center of the knee joint so that patella gets pulled in deeply. A lot of people's Patel us or kneecaps are not sitting where they should be. They're not sitting in the groove of the thigh that has the space for them. Because again, of all the things that we do, a lot of people have kneecaps that are pulled laterally, pulled to the outside of the knee joints. So when they get pulled deep, they're not being pulled deep into the part of the knee joint that has space for them. They're being pulled deep into places where they're coming into contact more with the bones underneath. And that's the pain that you feel in the knees. And then that creates like inflammation and then things are swollen, which means a little bit of contraction creates more pressure and a big feeling in the leg. So the first where you can hike better is to not only use the muscles on the front of the thigh to hold you, you also have muscles on the side of the thigh that hold you. And we're not really taught how to use our hips well, So we use our knees. Primarily. I'm going to give the job of stopping me from tumbling downhill to my knees and my hips. And the hips actually are bigger and more able to carry it. So you've got this part, this lever system that could be doing a lot more work. And so you can go downhill and almost not use your knees at all once you know how to do it. And it comes in really handy if you ever have an injury in the backcountry. But also it just allows you to not hurt yourself every time you go outside or, you know, to the point where your legs are throbbing. It is on the stairs too. So the pelvic list, that's my number two exercise. So the number one exercise was the Cavs Stripes and other that number two exercises. I've got this exercise called a pelvic list. You can find it on my website, the video of how to do it as well as in the books in the book, where it's more connected to hiking and walking. And when you do it, you're like, Oh, I didn't even know that muscle was there. And then it's like, okay, now when you're walking, this exercise that you've practiced is actually it is a phase in gait that we want to see there. But you've practice as an exercise, you're stronger, it comes more naturally and you can relax the front of your knees as you go downhill.
Ginny Yurich Okay? For our hiking families, this is incredibly important. Yes, they're hiking out with your kids. You want to have longevity? I think I want to hike with my grandkids. So all of this is really important. This is in the hips, legs and knees chapter. There's so much in there because in that chapter there's also talk about Barefoot. And I would imagine that's helping your calves as well in terms of this footwear and you talk about that a lot and grow wild as well. And then you talk about what my favorite picture is in this book. I love the pictures in here, by the way. I love the things that you wrote. I love the pictures. I love the drawings. This actually is my favorite one. I don't know if you can see it. It's about when you bend forward. It's about the pelvis. And I love that was my favorite one in the whole book.
Katy Bowman They're very simple for people. It's like, these are not stellar illustrations. They're the opposite. They are. They're purposefully drawn to be like simple boxes and lines so that you can just see like, Oh, right, I can.
Ginny Yurich I get it?
Katy Bowman You can get it right, You can get it. So do not it is not an art book. It is not text. It is me trying to convey like mechanical arguments and simple drawings, which I have a whole section. The introduction introductions like this is why I do it like this.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, I love it. So yeah, my favorite one was in that chapter, but that chapter also talks about your favorite. Well, it's not your favorite. You say the best piece of exercise equipment that we're not using. What's the best piece of exercise equipment that we're not using?
Katy Bowman That's almost a tossup. It's like a floor and a wall.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. This chapter has the floor in there.
Katy Bowman It's sort of the same thing, you know, like, Yeah, the floor and the wall are excellent personal trainers, but the floor is right there. Those are two simple things that I imagine every single person listening has. And if you could learn how to use it.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Yeah. Getting up and down off the floor. Actually, I said this wrong. There's hips, legs, the knees. That's one chapter. And then another chapter is because my page, it's like at the bottom of the page and turning its ankles and feet. So that one had the calf parts and. Well, I. Okay. I'd never heard of this either. There's a balancing pedal in the car. Yes. Which there totally is. I do. People. Would you go out and look?
Katy Bowman Did you go?
Ginny Yurich I ha did Just. No, I've never heard of it. Never noticed it.
Katy Bowman I know. This is like so for me, the aha moment I had like, relating to the car was that the gas tank is indicated by the triangle on the side of the picture. When I found that out, I was like, I can't believe I lived my whole sort of adult life without realizing that I don't have to get out when I'm driving a car. I don't know, like figure out where the gas tank is. It's indicated on the inside of the car. Did you not?
Ginny Yurich No, I had no idea. No, Kate, I learned all these the answer you gave me.
Katy Bowman So when you look at the gas picture of the gas, there is a triangle on either side of it, which tells you which side the gas tank is on.
Ginny Yurich Unbelievable.
Katy Bowman Next book. Written. Published. Moving on. So this other piece is, you know, imagine yourself driving for a second. You're sitting in the car. You've got your right foot. I was just thinking, okay, everyone's going to be different place. So you've got the foot outstretched. It's on the gas pedal for us here in North America. It's on the right. And then you're what you tend to do is sort of tuck your left knee in. So you've got one leg straight and one leg bent. And a lot of times you're not even sitting even between the right and left cheeks, you're sort of twisted to help push that right foot forward. So your pelvis is twisted to the left. Unless you're in the UK, twist it to the right, you know, or you know, you get what I'm saying. In cars, there is a place to rest the non gas pedal foot that helps hold the hips still and keeps the legs use a little bit more evenly. And it's.
Ginny Yurich Unbelievable.
Katy Bowman Sitting down there. It's this this little thing there that's it's there for ergonomics but they don't cover it and driver's training so off to cover it now.
Ginny Yurich Well I was thinking was there are biomechanics on the team. I mean it's just so interesting to me that it's there.
Katy Bowman Well, for sure. I mean, there's a lot people think about ergonomics and body use and the shape of your car is meant to do particular things. It just maybe not great at communicating what all those things are, just letting people know that those are there.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, just every single book I read, I just my mouth drops. I'm like, Wait a minute, this is fantastic. Let's talk about the chapter about the mind in the brain. Because a lot of times when we think about movement, we forget that piece of it. And so you're talking about brain mass, you are talking about muscle mass as it relates to brain mass chewing our food. What are we missing here?
Katy Bowman Well, I mean, so I've written a lot of books where I've organized the body by parts. And I oh, you know, I chew don't put the mind or even the brain in there. And I was like, okay, enough of that. I'm going to give that its own chapter because it's different, right? If you're seeing a list of parts and they're all musculoskeletal too, through an anonymous scale, skeletal part seems like weird to be on the list. But as we understand more and as we can see, the trajectory of a sedentary culture to add the brain and the mind in as parts that are absolutely maintained through movement, right? These are parts that are maintained through movement. They have these essential baselines that they're not getting. And so I did separate the mind from the brain. I went with just like cognitive function, because there's a lot of work being done in dementia and Alzheimer's. I mean, movement is is the most protective thing that you can do right now for those processes, but it's not necessarily clear why. Again, same with physical movement. And so it's talking about, you know, maintaining hippocampus volume, which is a part of your brain through moving regularly. And then also the mind part is in there for a couple reasons. One, just for mental well-being and how this isn't a book, it's not a psychology book. Could you have working on that next project of how to deal with the barriers that come up, the psychological barriers that come up to moving or creating movement habits when you feel overwhelmed, like what to do about it. But in general, there's this these one breaking breaking out of the mold of exercise as the way you have to get movement I think is really helpful. And there's just a list of like your simple ways you can do like one minute, like things that just help you change your position. It's really to help you deal with the inertia of not. And then I just really included my story because I was not always really active movement, rich life kind of person. I grew into that. And I just outlined how much my mind transition at the beginning was what allowed that physical transition to flow from that. So that's why I put it in there. And I hope people love that chapter as much as I do. And it's the same thing that we've covered in other interviews about other books. This moving more does not have to live in this very rigid exercise box. It can be joyful, it can be celebratory, it can be with others, it can be part of how you accomplish non exercise or not and movement things in your life. If you wanted to get more things done that require a little bit of physicality, how to reframe them to be like, Wow, this is not only meeting this need over here, but also my need to nourish myself with movement. How to recognize signs of movement hunger. We don't have language for movement hunger and that that's a big reframe in yourself to recognize that you you're not necessarily fluent in your body's way of communicating with you. It's need to move. We call it other things, right? So. Right.
Ginny Yurich Well, and I would imagine that kids have a lot of movement hunger. They do. I mean, we probably all do. But sitting in a classroom or sitting at your desk trying to finish your homework, there probably is a lot of that. And that's the fidgeting and fidgeting.
Katy Bowman And even it can be psychological. It can be the things that come across as mental mental reaction. And I think that's the big difference is if we looked at hunger just straight up dietary hunger as a signal, sure, there's like the physical ways. Do you feel the growling of your belly? I'm feeling extra low because I'm hungry. But also, you know, the signals of I've had too much coffee, I've had too much sugar. Right? You either. Well.
Ginny Yurich Agitated, you're irritated, right.
Katy Bowman Or got like hangry. HANGRY is a feeling of it's not about physical in the sense of things that are connected to your mouth and your stomach or your energy level. It's irritation, it's perceiving other people is doing you wrong and all these things. And when you when you get into that movement lens, you be like, oh, it's the same thing. So I talk about like when everyone is irritating me. I have learned it's taken a long time to learn that like, Oh, this is the way my body lets me know I'm under moved. Go out, take a walk, and I'm like, Look, everyone's less irritating now. Like magic. Wow. So you just have to learn for yourself. I mean, sometimes the signals are I'm so lazy or, you know, like they're they're self-taught, and you just haven't learned to decipher or translate these impulses that are coming through into looking at like, the movement medicine or whatever that helps you deal with them. And then you can connect. Oh, that's just a signal. That's just how I feel.
Ginny Yurich Kate It's fascinating because the mind, the mind brain thing is so interesting because you're talking about, look, your brain mass will be bigger, you'll have more brain mass if you move more. But also you you had a story about some woman who basically it was like what? She would feel ugly. Yeah. And then she'd go on a walk and then she feel better about the way she looked. So there's two very different things going on there, both of which are very beneficial. Just helping with your outlook, helping with how you're dealing with other people and at the same time growing the mass that's actually in your brain or maintaining it, at least maintaining pressure, maintaining it.
Katy Bowman Maintaining it. And we're just we have very old software. I mean, I think it shows that our software is really old. The modern context is very fresh, it's fast, it's fresh, and there's sort of a mismatch between the two. So the signals are pretty rudimentary. You know, they're not they're blunt. I guess it's another we've got these blunt signals. And so, yes, the oh, I'm ugly. You know, it's just like it's just these negative. Somewhere along the line that thought got put together with the movement habit and then you can work to separate them for sure. There's work to separate those, but it's also just learning how to read yourself, like, Oh, I'm just feeling down about myself in general. I'm feeling malaise and low. And so going out and moving is just a nice way to start seeing if movement hunger is affecting what's coming up for you in that way.
Ginny Yurich That's really profound because hangry is a word that has permeated society. So we know and then we know immediately, oh, we go eat something and you feel better and your outlook is different. And so what if the same thing is true for movement, but we don't go there, You know, you feel malaise or you feel low. So you turn on a show or you scroll through your phone and that is not fixing the problem. And just this sort of separating movement from how we look, I thought was such an important part. It's jumbled.
Katy Bowman It's it's. So jumbled and they really have very little to do with each other at all. But I can see how we got there academically, scientifically. But now it's just all warped for people. And if you can just set down esthetics for movement right now and develop a set of movement practices that are more about nourishing and just recognizing it's a nutrient, it's a nutrient that you need for basic pair of parts. And also it's practical. It's how you get tasks done. It's how you get celebrations done. It's how you are able to connect, it's how you are able to, you know, build or create things, or if you can see it for its utility and have it have very little to do or not nothing to do with a static, then I think uptake will be easier, Right?
Ginny Yurich I think that your books one of the reasons I love your book so much. Well, first of all, because I always learn things I never, ever did before. And I do love that. But I also love that they're very motivating. I think that you do such a great job of displaying all of the benefits. So then, you know, if you're feeling like ho hum about moving, but then you read the stuff about mind and body, and then you also give really easy entry points. Like the thing about the floor was really interesting. It was like lay out on the floor with your face down, stand back up, lay down on the floor with your face up, stand back up. Do it 5 to 10 times. And this is going to be a whole body workout for you. You could do that. I mean, I don't know if you'd want to do it in a hotel, but if you could do that anywhere.
Katy Bowman But a sheet down.
Ginny Yurich Right, you could do that on the grass. You could do it indoors, you could do it outdoors. And even in this section where you're talking about feeling frozen. And I think a lot of times we do feel that as well. We don't even know we should be moving or we feel frozen. What I'm going to do and you say, well, just clap. Just give yourself a round of applause, clap, move. You just move your body.
Katy Bowman Yeah, it's inertia. So inertia is a tendency to keep doing the thing that you're doing. And so when you feel frozen or overwhelmed, I mean, I mean, I guess overwhelm creates its own. There's a lot of different reasons we might freeze. And also there's a lot of information coming around about what to do. Right? And then like, then you got this thing that works for you and then you hear like, Oh, don't do that. And you're like, Oh, I'm trying to show if you can do something physical, that's simple. It helps you change the course. And changing the course is the hardest part. Once you've changed the course and you're doing the thing, it's now inertia is working for you, right? It's easier to keep doing the thing that you're doing. So with movement where there is much more of a physical component and changing your thoughts, you're going to have to start with a movement that feels not overwhelming, feels doable, and that's what people have said Take a walk. But there is like take walks, like seemingly the easiest thing that you can do, you know, as long as you're physically able to walk. But what I have found is we're at a place of overwhelm and just so much of our environment is beckoning us to continue to sit and scroll that we needed. Just, okay, give me one part to move, one thing to move to help this journey of becoming a mover, you know, becoming someone who sees movement as an overlay to their life. And so I get a list of, like, really simple things, and I put it in the mental wellbeing section because the challenge is like there's a spectrum of mental health issues and not all of them are solved by movement at all. But that being said, the group that can often benefit from the movement most is also the group for which it is hardest to take it up. And that's always been the issue. So it's not just like, just do it, you'll feel better. We need to find a way to reduce the overwhelm. And so rethink your position was like, Let's go and buy parts, let's go and buy small steps. And then once you're on that roll, you'll continue to be on that roll.
Ginny Yurich And I want to say, you know, we interview a lot of people here and pretty much everyone has a social media mostly pretty much everyone has a website. Yours is very valuable. So even at Christmas, you know, everyone's doing Advent things and you are doing different movements each day. Try these different movements. You're always talking about the ways that you're challenging yourself. So you hit a certain age and you're going to walk X amount of miles to celebrate that birthday, or you're going to do it with friends. It's very practical. And so I highly recommend your social media. It's nutritious movement on Instagram, Facebook, your website, nutritious movement. You even have a movement program that's new, correct?
Katy Bowman Yes. So like it's called nutritious movement improvement, which is just 12 weeks, where you just get an email that's got a 30 minute video and then a 15 minute video just once a week. And you're just you just work on this one little thing and it's one section of your body. How to move this one section of my body better. And you're in that space. And then the next week you move to a different body part, and then you learn this little things about movement and how to think about your chair as a as a landscape for moving differently in or your home as a way. So every week is a different focus to transition you into someone who can start to see the way, learn the way your body moves, how to move it well, and then how to look at domains of your life as places that you can pepper movement in.
Ginny Yurich Even you talk about when you walk through a doorframe, reach up. Yes. And touch. Yes. So I found that your information that you put out, your content is so practical and so motivating. Always, always so people can check that out. The nutritious movement improvement and your social media, many people probably already know who you are. You've been on here several times and everyone knows who you are, but your books have been translated into more than 60 languages. You've been everywhere Joe Rogan, MPR, and here you are with us. So amazing Seattle Times Today show Good Housekeeping. So this is a hub. You've created a hub with your books and your social media and your website and all this content that you put out to really help people in practical ways with what they're doing on a day to day basis. I would need a little bit about maybe a lot of it about agility and as I'm getting older. Well, so here's an example. We went to this water park, I guess it was basically like these big blow up things in a lake. And then you would get up on them and run around and try and go through these obstacles is what it was. And I just felt very not agile. So my kids are running forward and I'm afraid I'm going to fall. And I just wondered, how could I get that back?
Katy Bowman Yeah. How old are you?
Ginny Yurich 42.
Katy Bowman So I'm 47. So there's this phase of like, I think, you know, you have young, you get, you have kids and then you start and you know, you'll soon be in the next phase. Like I'm in the next phase and you're, you never really recognize it, I don't think, until you're in the phase. So then there's like the perimenopausal phase or whatever the male equivalent is to that phase, like this phase where there's a hormone shift and everybody has a hormone shift, there are just different shifts and there's, you know, an increase in a loss of muscle mass. Your injuries take longer to heal. And so definitely starting to work on that phase now is helpful. So agility would be like the simple definition of agility is the ability to rapidly change directions that you're moving. You know, so kids are really good at like they're cutting and they're like because they're like they're green twigs, essentially, and everything's fresh and you become a little bit more protective of your parts, especially when you don't have a lot of muscle mass around those joints. It's harder to do things like becoming agile and strong, too. It's not just agility, it's it's strength. And it's also power jumping, you know, just being able to have a little bit of explosive or balance to your movement. So playing around with that a little bit is definitely something that you want to put in your movement diet. You know, we talk a lot about movement diet. You can get it back. The challenge is to do it in a stepwise way that doesn't leave you injured along the way. So so yes, you can get it back. And I'm trying to think of a couple of simple things you could do, like, for example, a jump rope. And I'm not talking like I injured myself jump roping too much. Right. Because was like, I'm not jump rope. What a great idea for your bones and your joints. But there is a tipping point where it's too much. So the idea of just doing like 25 jumps a day or twice a day where you're just getting a little bit of loading, that would help you prepare for a little bit of explosiveness. Because imagine if you're changing positions really quickly. What you're doing is you're asking parts of you that react fast like fast twitch muscles to step in and stop you from going continuing in that direction. You want to have a little even just hopping from side to side and thinking like, okay, I'm just going to jump to my right and jump to my left so I can, for some of you slow one foot to the other, maybe you start with a step, you know, like you just have to think about how to break it down into something that's manageable for where your body is. So I could go on and on like I used to teach, like I love teaching. A lot of my graduate work was in gerontology, which is a word that old people don't love, but I love that word. It's just this particular phase of life and to create things that were a little bit more ballistic, but to scale and I would work with people who are really frail. And one of the best things was balloon, the balloon toss game you play with your kids when they're little. Do you remember that? Like, did you ever fill up a balloon and you'd pop it and they like. Toddler would go running over to try to get it. I would do the same thing for frail, older adults because they had some time built in, but they could still work on catching and receiving and target and going someplace that's unexpected. And we would do it in a big, giant open room. So that's another thing is ball like being thrown a ball and catching it. And to have you have to figure out how to respond. These are all things that we want to maintain our ability to do.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, well, I was thinking about it. We went on a whitewater rafting trip I went with my oldest daughter in Utah. Was this five day rafting trip down a river and you had to climb in and out of the raft. There was all sorts of stuff you had to move over. And I asked, what was the oldest age of a person who has gone on this trip? And she said 91 was the oldest age but needed a ton of help getting in and out. And you just really start to think about your quality of life. And I think I want to be able to do these things as I get older. And so just interesting to think about. And then I was on that water park and thinking, I can't run after my kids. I'm afraid I'm going to fall. So is there all this stuff about movement is so interesting. One of the things that you talk about consistently are like our breasts, our testicles. It's always in here. Good stuff to.
Katy Bowman No, they're always in here. Testicles are everywhere in my world. Just getting kidding.
Ginny Yurich And what? Okay, so let's start here, though. You see, menstruation is a movement. Yes. And you can use movement to help with painful periods.
Katy Bowman Yeah. I mean, again, it's just it's one of those things where our understanding of movement is really gen focused, weight loss focused cardiovascular fitness. It's really narrow. Biologically. Our bodies are used. They're built for a tremendous amount of movement. And I explain this most in Move Your DNA, which was an earlier book of mine, but it's sort of the flagship book, which is we don't really see that our bodies have never existed in a time where movement wouldn't be ubiquitous, like varied movement like this is a new place for a physical body to be. And there's there's not a lot of redundant systems, right? Like the calf hearts are activated by stepping. Humans have been stepping for a million years. And so what happens when you stop stepping all of a sudden? All these systems depended on that stepping. There's not time for this is like, oh, you're not going to be stepping. I'll just grow an extra tube in my organs. Like it's not like that. Yeah. And so we've got this old software in this modern world and the habits that come along with it. And so movement is really part of your physique, how your physiological system works. It's part of how all of these body parts like they depend on it, they depend on being fed through movement. And when you strip away the movement, you have issues that can arise in particular places. And in this case, my other graduate focus was pelvic floor issues of the pelvis, because they're they're becoming more prevalent. They're prevalent already and they're growing. And there's a lot of dysmenorrhea discomfort about around menstruation. It's like, well, how are you nourishing this part of your body through movement? Like, how is it going into this thing called menstruation? Like what's the state of the environment in which it's in? You know, I talk about blood flow to the area and actually I think it's an article that didn't. How your period works is an article that I didn't put in this book that you can find on my website that talks about blood flow to these organs and how they're dependent on.
Ginny Yurich And you said let's step aerobics was something that really helped. Is that corrected? No. Is that wrong?
Katy Bowman No. I mean, step aerobics just helps your worldview, as far as I'm concerned, as a 1990 step aerobics instructor.
Ginny Yurich So, okay, so you said movements of the lumbar spine and the hip joints are helping blood flow to the uterine arteries. Yeah.
Katy Bowman So just the articulation of your hip joints overall, like how flexible you are through the hips and how much you move that particular area, moving your sacrum and the lateral hips that we talked about before all of these body parts are in forming. I mean, I think of it as like the warmth or like the blood flow of that particular area.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. So would step aerobics help or no, am I reading or.
Katy Bowman Yes. I mean, yes. So maybe, I guess in your mind you're like, oh, that's step aerobics. Yes.
Ginny Yurich Yes. You're talking about. Okay, so this is what I'm thinking about. So someone could exercise a lot. They could be a runner, they could be a walker, and they're exercising a lot, but they're not. What you're talking about is. Yes. And you said it. You said, although I move my legs a lot. I wasn't actually moving all of my leg parts, my hip joints didn't move much. And so then you have other exercises here that you talk about, helped with the pelvis and then in turn probably helped with period pain.
Katy Bowman Yes. So this is an issue that I'm trying to break down in the book, is you can be someone who gets a lot of movement. You can do step aerobics, you can be active in a lot of ways that involves your hip area. But if you came in and I put you through ten different moves, chances are there would be a lot of tension around the hips. Even though they're moving irregularly, they're not moving to a full range of motion. They get pretty stiff. And so like I'm very active using my hips and legs in. I am prone to cramps or other like dysmenorrhea type things. Yeah. Unless I do these particular stretches that deal with the tensions that have come about, maybe even from my preferred sports, plus the fact that I'm like everyone else, I still have to sit, you know, like I don't have to sit, but I, I work seated, you know, like I'm still I'm driving and I'm doing sorts of things that don't let my hips go through a fuller range of motion. So it's about breaking down your hips into something more than just hips. Yes or no? It's like, well, what's the internal and external rotation here? What's the degree of hip extension?
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. So interesting. So I read that a little bit wrong. What you're saying is I'm moving my legs. I'm a runner, I'm a triathlete, a step aerobics instructor, and yet my hips are still tight in some instances. And that makes a lot of sense. And so what you have in here, if people are interested, this is page 165. If people pick up the book, there's six or seven ideas of exercises in here that would help with the lumbar spine and the hip joints. So that's fascinating. Katy, we're running out of time here. Well, the testicles, you're talking about the core Master.
Katy Bowman Three Master cream. I don't know how. Cream Master Curry. Master Tomato. Tomato.
Ginny Yurich No. Yeah. So, I mean, that's interesting. People want to know about that. That's in there.
Katy Bowman Well, that's 1000 hours outside, right? If you have testicles and you get into really cold water and they move, what's moving them? It's the master muscle, Right? And the idea of the action of this muscle, which is really a temperature regulator or safety regulator. Right. It's it's cold. It has to pull the precious vital up towards the body to keep it warm. And when it gets really warm to warm, it has to relax and let things go right. There's a movement here that is trying to keep sperm essentially, you know, alive and in an optimal environment. And so there's all this movement. But it's one of those things, again, we sit we don't do a lot of the things that cause a lot of movement, you know.
Ginny Yurich Wow. And so that that movement could be under utilized. You're right. If you're always in the same environment, always in the same temperature. So it's good. Get your kids in the cold water. You know, you get.
Katy Bowman Hot and always in a warm environment, always warm where it's not. Not only that, muscles not moving, but the environment of the sperm is sort of like they can't always escape heat, you know, So just it's just one more thing. Like I'm not trying to solve all the problems. I'm trying to show the overlay of movement and its importance across a life. Yes, across a lifetime.
Ginny Yurich And what that does is it motivates readers to move more and to just think about it more. And it really does. I mean, I think about sometimes I try and take away my pillow and I mean all these things that you talk about and you try, well, one more because we're at the end of our time here, but this is going to come out right at the start of the school year. And this is when everyone gets sick and it becomes a thing really, four months. And the lymphatic system is such an important piece here. So can you talk about our movements in the lymphatic system and how we can help our health heading into the fall when a lot of kids tend to get sick at school and things like that?
Katy Bowman Yeah. So I was, you know, back to school is just almost becomes back to sitting, you know, you at summer time and it just seems so active and people are out and then you go back to sitting I mean back to school. So if you can try to before you go back to school, think of a few behaviors that you flushed out in the summer that you could work to maintain, to keep bodies moving generally more. That's going to help. So the lymphatic system, the lymphatic system runs throughout your body and runs everywhere. You're if you imagine a picture like everywhere your arteries go, you know, if you've ever been to body worlds, the lymphatic system is right there alongside that system. So it's. Equally prolific, and it's just where you process anything that needs to be cleaned up will say cleaned up through the body and the lymph nodes. These important transit centers of well-being or of just disease prevention, immune system, whatever you want to call it, they are clustered at areas of the body that have the potential to move a lot because just like the calf hearts are part of the cardiovascular system, your skeletal movement is part of your immune system. You moving your shoulders is part of how that lymph nodes are working under the armpit. They're not passive riders in your body. They are coworkers with the muscles in your body. Same thing. Hips are another one right at the head, right. You place that you've got joints that do a lot of movement and complex movements. You know, they rotate, they squish. Just imagine when you move your body, you're squishing and moving along what's processing in this area. So if you've ever had a pond in your yard or you've been to a park, or even if you just go out to nature and you see what's still water, still water gets mucky. Yeah, it gets mucky. Yeah. Movement is part of the filtration system on the earth and inside you. So you want to keep those parts moving. So I'll just tell you some of the things that I do for my own family is prioritize movement before school. And I can tell you that this is not an easy thing to do. Like I don't want to be like, just do that. It's amazing. It is amazing. And it's difficult, right? Because yeah, especially as you get into the winter months because you sort of get bogged down in staying up late and there's homework and there's there's all these things. Life starts getting in the way of movement. So if you can prioritize a walk to school or a walk to the bus or something like that, where you don't just roll out of bed and get right to sitting, that will start the process. And really how you begin moving is sort of how you it sets the tone for your day. Sure. We're actually toying with an AI and it's all about, you know, the flexibility that you have. Like we have a Y, a YMCA. So we're trying as a family of like what if two days a week We actually did this like early morning and I've I have a sixth and seventh grader. So it's going to be different with what you have. So there are sort of on the same page, what if we got up and we went to the Y before school? It would be like one day a week or two days a week where you're getting up at like six in the morning, 530 in the morning, and we go and we just swim or we like do whatever, you know, and play basketball. It doesn't matter. But like it's a special we've talked before about special like making things feel like special occasion out of the ordinary. That's the things that we remember most. Yeah. About our our lives or look back on fondly, I guess I should say, and then go to school from there. Like just try to create, flip it around a little bit where we couldn't possibly do that. How would we get breakfast? How would we get all these things done? It's like, well, just develop this. You know, you develop the system. You figure out we're going to have I mean, others say, like if you can be more flexible around certain things, like when I was dealing with like trying to get kids out the door and the kids don't the kids not want to eat in the morning. I got one kid that really wants to in the morning and one kid that would not want to eat until later. Sure. And I just was looking through this book about Hudson. Were they Hudson? It was a particular tribe that really subsists on very few things. And one of the primary foods for the this tribe is just warm milk. And I was like, Oh, I'm going to like make warm milk. And I put a little bit of ghee or some cinnamon on the top. And like, you went out with a glass of warm milk and that's not going to work for, you know, if you're vegan, that's not going to work for you and if you need something else. But I found that that just worked for us. It was great for the energy. It was like a little solution that allowed us to get more of these other things. So figuring out how to step out of like the rigid boundaries about how things are supposed to look, what a complete breakfast has to look like every single day, like developing some flexibility around that. At least some of the days is going to be the ticket to figuring out how to stay moving throughout the school year. How are you doing walking home? Yeah. What are you doing after school?
Ginny Yurich Whatever. Yeah. You walk to the library, you you drive halfway there and walk the rest.
Katy Bowman We have homework walks, homework walks after school, homework walk. Where they do their homework on the move. Let's do your spelling words. Let's memorize your play lines. Let's do math facts so we can do mental math. We can do all of it walking. So just write like homework does. It's the same mental flexibility. It's not like you have to be sitting down to do the thing.
Ginny Yurich Mhm. Katy, you are always fascinating. I'm always learning so much and you are always practical for families, for individuals and I'm always coming away from reading with your books, interacting with you more inspired to do these different things and to pay attention. So I appreciate it. The new book is Rethink Your Position, Reshape Your Exercise, Yoga and Everyday Movement one part at a time Available. Now, you talked about Move your DNA. Fabulous book. You talked about Grow Wild and all this. There's actually a bunch of other ones as well people would be interested in. I mean, the titles are fantastic. Talking about simple steps to foot pain relief. I mean, that's something that would be incredibly important. Talking about movement matters. Don't just sit there, whole body barefoot, alignment matters, dynamic aging. So lots of options there for people to interact with and they can find you at nutritious movement. Katy It's been awesome. I can't wait for the next one.
Katy Bowman Thank you for having me. All right.
