Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement

Generally, injury and therapy researchers miss (or at least fail to mention in their research) that level walking, performed at the frequency (or lack thereof) with which we have done it, is in itself a cause of injury. When we’re seeking therapeutic solutions to chronic issues of the foot, ankle, knee, hips, and pelvis, we mustn’t ignore the well-

Exercise (a repetitive intake of an isolated muscle contraction to fill a hole of missing strength) is often prescribed like vitamins (a capsule ingested to decrease a nutritional void).

While perhaps accurate in certain situations (like standing, for an hour, holding your tuba, in a marching band), chronic knee flexion is not optimal for the human knee. But knee flexion doesn’t only shorten the calf muscles, it shortens the muscles on the back of the thigh as well. Over time, this shortness can pull the pelvis into a posterior til

The ancestral model of movement says movement initiates reflexively via a desire to find food. In order to satiate biological hunger, movement was initiated in an organic way. When food became readily available without movement, our relationship with food and movement completely changed. Now we move as a response to too much food. This perspective,

Sarcomeres pretty much have one way of organizing themselves, so if you, through your habits, change the average (read: most frequented) distance between muscle attachment points, your body will grow (in a process called sarcomerogenesis) or cannibalize (in a process called sarcomerolysis) individual sarcomeres in the effort to return the remaining

While these adjustments (chest up, shoulders back) reduce the forward-displacing loads to the spine, they don’t actually undo the curve; they just hide it. And, even worse, adjustments made to facilitate a temporary visual improvement actually introduce new curves in the opposite direction and compromise the mechanical leverage of the muscles that

Cross-training is often recommended by exercise and therapeutic professionals because being strong or healthy in one specific way doesn’t transfer over to being strong or healthy in every way. For example, if you’re a kick-ass runner and you run all the time and you run easily and without pain, your body is probably very adapted to the tissue stren

Now, with your ribs down and the medial border of your scapula flush, take a look at your spine in a mirror. This is the curve of your thoracic spine. This curve is not altered by bringing your shoulder blades together, nor is it altered by lifting your chest. This curve is always shaped as it is right now. And it probably needs to be reduced, whic

I’m going to stop you here because the first step to radically improving your health is to let go of the notion that movement is exercise. To move your health forward with movement, it is essential to mentally rearrange the relationship between movement and exercise in your mind,