Move Your DNA with Katy Bowman

Dr. Andrea Graves, an animal behavior expert, illuminates the profound significance of movement for animals and humans alike. Through personal anecdotes and scientific insights, Katy and Andrea delve into the essential role of providing enriching environments for animals to express their natural behaviors authentically. From discussing innovative approaches like creating "chicken jungle gyms" to exploring the ethical considerations surrounding AI integration in animal welfare, the conversation underscores the interconnectedness between movement, animal welfare, and environmental enrichment.

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.

Biomechanist Katy Bowman and her occasional co-host, Dani Alexander (an occupational therapist), explore the importance of grip strength for people of all ages. They discuss therapeutic interventions, such as weighted pencils and play-dough, to improve hand strength and sensory input. They also touch on the impact of weak grip strength on daily tasks and emphasize the need to incorporate grip-strengthening activities into everyday routines. Join Katy and Dani as they delve into the connection between grip strength, overall well-being, and maximizing our physical abilities.

Episode Overview:
0:00:01 Introduction and mention of previous New York Times features
0:03:31 Recap of a previous podcast episode on grip strength
0:06:18 Concerns about grip strength from a professional perspective
0:08:26 Therapeutic Interventions for Children
0:10:40 Play-Doh for Increasing Intrinsic Hand Strength
0:13:20 Thera Putty as a Therapy Tool for Adults
0:16:04 Importance of Hand Strength in Everyday Life
0:24:05 Creating Playgrounds with Obstacle Courses for Kids
0:27:04 Importance of diversity in hand use and overuse injuries.
0:29:30 The technicality of different hand grips and their importance.
0:30:39 Nourishing the Hands and Feet
0:32:08 Wondering about the absence of someone in the bathroom
0:34:30 Exploring the use of Therapuddy for hand strengthening
0:36:54 Multiple approaches to hand training and arm strength development
0:39:05 Assessing daily hand movements and seeking inspiration from others
0:41:09 Grip Translates to All Finger and Hand Movement
0:42:10 The Importance of Grip Strength in Daily Tasks
0:44:16 Decline in Strength and Its Impact on Therapy Norms
0:45:40 Lowering the Norms: A Frightening Shift in Fitness
0:48:51 The Transcendence of Movement: Beyond Individual Body Parts
0:49:41 A Salute to an Amazing Friendship

Biomechanist, Katy Bowman and her husband Michael discuss foot injuries as a natural part of life. Sharing their own experiences, they emphasize the need for adjustments in movement patterns and highlight the importance of staying active as we age. They also address the psychological aspects of injury and provide strategies for avoiding future injuries. Overall, the message is to embrace change, prioritize healing, and always listen to your body.

Episode Overview:
0:00:01 Welcome to the Move Your DNA podcast
0:00:26 Introduction: Focus on Foot Injuries
0:03:05 Injury as an Adjustment Period in Life Stages
0:10:35 Injury during a sprinting race on the sand
0:20:10 Aging and Decreased Cardiovascular Capability
0:24:12 The Importance of Maintaining Joyful Movement Amidst Injury
0:29:14 Embracing the Valleys: Optimizing for Surviving, Not Just Thriving
0:32:19 Finding Alternatives: Adapting to Injury and Changing Gait
0:37:43 Embracing Change and Moving Forward
0:39:53 The Framework for Troubleshooting Injuries

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 Head
0:07:58 Discussing Head Dents
0:11:56 The Dent Mystery: Seeking the Truth
0:21:12 Importance of varied positioning for babies' development
0:31:52 Strengthening tissues to handle increased load and shape changes
0:32:33 The Horns Phenomenon and Click-Bait Headlines
0:43:01 Natural selection and the success of sickle-shaped cells
0:53:15 Navigating the Challenges of Screens in Schools
0:57:56 Skeletal Development and Surgical Solutions
0:59:20 The Addictive Nature of Handheld Devices
1:00:40 Introduction and Background of the Conversation
1:03:36 The Nuance of Phone Use and Posture
1:09:20 Introduction and Greetings from Lynn Dung, Melbourne, Australia

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

At the very beginning of this year, Katy wrote an article: Focus Your Movement Resolution. She did that because she thinks a lot of people gravitate toward resolutions at the beginning of the Gregorian calendar year. So, let Katy share with you how to make those resolutions more focused - and therefore more helpful and effective.

2022 is nearly over and we will soon be moving on to 2023! This means it is time for Katy to do her "annual" end-of-the-year health recap with special guest co-host Dani Hemmat. The two of them reflect together on what they did to MOVE toward a better version of themselves in 2022. And then, they look forward at their goals and plans for 2023. And don't be fooled, they go way deeper than which trail they want to hike. 

For the next few months, many of us will be gathering with friends and family, sitting cozied up around a fireplace or a TV. And while there is nothing wrong with getting cozy, we already spend a whole lotta time sitting around pretty much the rest of the entire year. So, in this episode, Katy shares tips from an article she wrote all about the ways we can create dynamic celebrations. Put on your headphones and walk with Katy while she shares eleven ways you can layer movement back into your holidays.

In this episode, Katy is talking foot pain and minimal shoes with podiatrist Dr. Ray McClanahan. Dr. Ray attended Pennsylvania College of Podiatric Medicine and completed a two-year podiatric, surgical residency training in Portland, Oregon, at Legacy Health Systems and Kaiser Permanente as a Podiatric Physician and Surgeon.

We've got all these moving parts called feet--parts that need regular movement in order to keep being able to move--stacked beneath the weight of the entire body. That means we ask a lot of our feet because our feet bear the brunt of our body weight. And whether you’re new to movement, an athlete, a young adult or a goldener you must prioritize keeping your feet as strong as you can (perhaps through the use of minimal footwear). Why? Because a significant portion of your lived experience depends on them!

Kids are dynamic learning machines, but they have been placed in an ever-increasing sedentary educational environment. In this episode, Katy shares the small adjustments--to clothing, backpacks, and before and after school time---you can make that will help your kids get the movement they need.

If you have been listening to and following Katy's work for a while now and want to share what you have learned with the ones you love, this is the podcast episode for you. Big picture of movement in a world made for the sedentary can be tricky stuff to distill and explain to others. So this episode is for those folks who may be asking you why you’re wearing funny shoes, or how come you like to stand at meetings, or sit on the floor when hanging out.

Since that first walk in 2017, Ken continues to balance a daytime desk job with his on-foot passion: experiencing, illuminating, and preserving the numerous Black Heritage Trails in the USA so others do not forget the many steps that have been taken.

Support Johnston’s current Walk to Freedom project: gofundme.com/f/walk-to-freedom-new-york-to-canada

Learn more about Ken Johnston and his walks at ourwalktofreedom.com

Katy and a special guest (her husband) outline some furniture-free lifestyle steps to transitioning your body to less supportive sleep surfaces and also how to get more sleeping movements without going mattress-free or pillow-free. 

The definition of health is tricky but hopefully can agree on many elements of what it looks and feels like. On that note, in this episode, Katy and Pilar talk about why health is becoming more and more elusive and why our society is becoming synonymous with behaviors that lead to those deviations away from our physiological or biological needs that result in disease.