Katy Bowman has been referred to in class a fair bit recently. Katy is a biomechanist by training and uses her science background to challenge our long-held ideas on exercise and movement.
One idea she challenges is that it’s OK to be sedentary a lot of the day and then ‘offset’ it by doing some exercise. The term Katy uses to describe this is ‘Active Sedentary’. People in this category aren’t getting much more movement than people who are sedentary all the time. Katy argues that we should be exercising less and moving more throughout the day. That is if we want to be truly active and avoid the risks associated with being sedentary so much of the time.
Another idea that Katy challenges is that we can get enough movement from doing just one or two sports. She suggests that practising a single sport uses a limited number of muscle groups, in limited ranges, and often results in injury. Katy’s view is that variety is more important and we should be trying to get more varied quality movement throughout the day to ensure parts of our bodies don’t get ‘sticky’ or stiff.
Thankfully Pilates gives us a lot of movement variety. However, just doing it for one hour a week puts us in the Active Sedentary category. Instead, we should be trying to sprinkle little bits of extra movement throughout our day in how we sit, move, wriggle, stretch and play (yes we can play at any age!). Katy calls this movement vitamins. It doesn’t have to mean finding more time in our day, just move more often and keep it varied.
Katy’s work is causing a bit of a mini-revolution amongst a lot of Pilates, Yoga and movement teachers. It just makes sense! Joseph Pilates was influenced by many schools of movement to find the best answers to the movement problems he found. I’m sure that if he was with us today, he would be extremely interested in what Katy has to say.
Katy’s work has also made me realise personally that for a long time, I’ve been an Active Sedentrist. But I’m in recovery now, trying to move more and move well throughout the day. I'm also trying to introduce more variety including putting up a slackline in the garden (super challenging but fun) and also trying to master the monkey bars for the first time!
Katy’s approach is called Nutritious Movement. The YouTube video below gives a great introduction to it. I also recommend reading one or more of her books like Move Your DNA or Alignment Matters or Movement Matters.
Exercise less, move more. It just makes sense.
One idea she challenges is that it’s OK to be sedentary a lot of the day and then ‘offset’ it by doing some exercise. The term Katy uses to describe this is ‘Active Sedentary’. People in this category aren’t getting much more movement than people who are sedentary all the time. Katy argues that we should be exercising less and moving more throughout the day. That is if we want to be truly active and avoid the risks associated with being sedentary so much of the time.
Another idea that Katy challenges is that we can get enough movement from doing just one or two sports. She suggests that practising a single sport uses a limited number of muscle groups, in limited ranges, and often results in injury. Katy’s view is that variety is more important and we should be trying to get more varied quality movement throughout the day to ensure parts of our bodies don’t get ‘sticky’ or stiff.
Thankfully Pilates gives us a lot of movement variety. However, just doing it for one hour a week puts us in the Active Sedentary category. Instead, we should be trying to sprinkle little bits of extra movement throughout our day in how we sit, move, wriggle, stretch and play (yes we can play at any age!). Katy calls this movement vitamins. It doesn’t have to mean finding more time in our day, just move more often and keep it varied.
Katy’s work is causing a bit of a mini-revolution amongst a lot of Pilates, Yoga and movement teachers. It just makes sense! Joseph Pilates was influenced by many schools of movement to find the best answers to the movement problems he found. I’m sure that if he was with us today, he would be extremely interested in what Katy has to say.
Katy’s work has also made me realise personally that for a long time, I’ve been an Active Sedentrist. But I’m in recovery now, trying to move more and move well throughout the day. I'm also trying to introduce more variety including putting up a slackline in the garden (super challenging but fun) and also trying to master the monkey bars for the first time!
Katy’s approach is called Nutritious Movement. The YouTube video below gives a great introduction to it. I also recommend reading one or more of her books like Move Your DNA or Alignment Matters or Movement Matters.
Exercise less, move more. It just makes sense.
