New Release Books by Katy Bowman

There is a crisis of stillness in our culture. We know we need to move more, and yet we''re still not doing it. With frequent headaches, bunions, sore backs, aching knees, and more, we''re feeling the effects of a sedentary lifestyle. Even when we do move, it can hurt in unexpected ways. Sometimes one or two sore body parts stop us from getting the exercise and daily activity we want and need.The good news: We don''t have to feel this way!Rethink Your Position is a collection of short essays exploring how small changes in our positioning and choices can result in huge improvements in how our body moves overall and how it feels every day. Bestselling author, biomechanist, movement teacher, and leader of the Movement movement Katy Bowman specializes in making big ideas fun to read about. Here, she details how alignment matters-to every single part of our body.From lifestyle choices to exercises and changes in body alignment, Rethink Your Position takes a part-by-part approach to addressing common aches and pains and how to move ourselves for optimal functioning. She describes how to address "tech neck" with simple positional changes, how choosing different footwear can help stop "sneeze pees," how to hold our torso and pelvis so that our core muscles can get to work, and more.Some readers will bring the benefits of good alignment to their weightlifting, yoga, running, or exercise class. Some will bring them to carrying their child or grandchild, gardening, or just living day-to-day in a body that doesn''t hurt all the time. All bodies benefit from good alignment!This is a revisited, revised, and refreshed update of Bowman''s classic book Alignment Matters.

From biomechanist and bestselling author Katy Bowman comes her eagerly anticipated guide to getting kids--from babies to preteens--and their families moving more, together, outside. Our kids are moving less than any other generation in human history; indoor time and screen time have skyrocketed. As adults and kids turn more to "convenient," tech-based solutions, tasks that once required head-to-toe use of our muscles and bones can be done with a click and a swipe. Without realizing it, we''ve traded convenience for the movement-rich environment that our physical, mental, and environmental health depends on. Parents don''t know what to do! But there''s good news: While the problem feels massive, the solution is simple...and fun! Grow Wild not only breaks down the ''big ideas'' behind movement as a nutrient, it serves as field guide--how to spot all the movement opportunities we''re currently missing. Learn to "stack your life" for richer experiences that don''t take more time: Set up your home to promote more movement, naturally Dress for (movement) success Add snacktivities to your meals Plan dynamic celebrations Create a dynamic homework space Bring nature into your home and play And much more! Bowman, a leader in the Movement movement, has written Grow Wild to show where movement used to fit into the activities of daily life and more importantly, how it can again. The perfect companion to Bowman''s bestseller Move Your DNA, Grow Wild provides practical, everyday, nature-rich ideas on how to let kids move their DNA while doing things they''ll love. The book features: 100+ full-color photographs of kids and families moving Success stories from parents, grandparents, teachers "Study sessions" that make movement research more accessible to laypersons Written to all that work with children--parents, teachers, relatives, health professionals, and more A book to be referenced again and again as kids grow up! Grow Wild is necessary reading for a wide range of readers--anyone who spends time with children. Humans live in many places and there are countless movement opportunities wherever you live, you just need to know how to spot them. Children and their families can thrive by learning to move more inside, adventure more outside, and grow wild in any environment.

Humorous, fascinating, and science based, the bestselling first edition of Move Your DNA has been updated and expanded to include a comprehensive three-level exercise program. In layperson-friendly, terms Move Your DNA addresses the vast quantities of disease we are suffering from, identifying our lack of movement as the primary cause. Readers can use the corrective exercises and lifestyle changes Katy Bowman has created to help each of us transition to healthy, naturally moving bodies. Move Your DNA explains the science behind our need for natural movement -- right down to the cellular level. It examines the differences between the movements in a typical hunter-gatherer''s life and the movements in our own. It shows the many problems with using exercise like movement vitamins instead of addressing the deeper issue of our poor movement diet. Best of all, Move Your DNA contains the corrective exercises, habit modifications, and simple lifestyle changes we need to make in order to slowly mobilize our body to decrease pain and uncover our naturally healthy, reflex-driven selves. From couch potatoes to professional athletes, new parents to seniors, readers will love Bowman''s humorous, passionate, and science-based guide to restoring your body and reclaiming your life.

Don''t just treat your foot pain—strengthen your feet to prevent it. Back with an expanded edition of her popular book Every Woman''s Guide to Foot Pain Relief, biomechanist Katy Bowman has created a new version for both men and women in all walks of life. With updated material and new visuals that illustrate exactly how to strengthen and mobilize your feet, Simple Steps to Foot Pain Relief will show you how to change the way you move your body to prevent pain, heal your feet, and halt damage to the rest of your body. Bowman''s simple, accessible, innovative program will help you naturally address lower-leg and foot issues such as: - Hammertoes - Bunions - Plantar fasciitis - Poor posture and alignment Bowman walks you gently through exercises to strengthen your feet, what shoes you should (and should not) be wearing, and how these choices affect your overall foot—and whole-body!—health. Simple Steps to Foot Pain Relief will teach you how healthy feet work optimally and help you put your best foot forward on the path toward moving with greater ease.

Katy Bowman''s Move Your DNA 9781943370108 (2014), which explores the difference between exercise and movement, caused a mini-revolution in health and wellness circles. Since mainstream media caught wind, Bowman''s furniture-free home, movement-based lifestyle, and scientific explanations of why we need to move have become staples in national health publications and online media around the world. But before Bowman became well known, she wrote down her ideas on movement and alignment in a blog called Katy Says. This revised edition of Alignment Matters contains the first five years of her posts, organized to function as a primer to alignment and better movement, and also to Bowman''s more complex books.

What if your lack of mobility isn''t due to your age, but simply the number of years you haven''t been moving well? Dynamic Aging presents a new paradigm in senior fitness: your age isn''t responsible for your lack of mobility; your habits are! In this powerful and effective guide to moving better, geared specifically for those 50-plus, biomechanist and movement teacher Katy Bowman details how readers can regain their balance, maintain their ability to drive, keep their feet healthy and functional, and regain mobility and reduce pain throughout their bodies. Bowman''s exercises are straightforward, require no special equipment, and include modifications for readers of all fitness levels. To combat the idea of being ''too old'' to make great improvements, Dynamic Aging is filled with stories and advice from four septuagenarians who have been following Bowman''s program for a decade, avoiding surgeries, eliminating pain, and regaining freedom and ease in their bodies they thought they had lost permanently to "old age." From hiking mountains to climbing ladders and walking on cobblestones with ease, each of these women embodies the book''s message: No matter where you''re starting, if you change how you move, you can change how you feel.

Barefoot enthusiasts say ditching your shoes is essential for optimal whole-body function. Doctors say minimalist shoes cause injury. Who''s right? What if they both are? In Whole Body Barefoot, biomechanist Katy Bowman explains how both sides are right and wrong by broadening the perspective of over-simplified "shoes are good" or "shoes are bad" arguments. Using evolutionary-based and biomechanics arguments, Bowman demonstrates that shoes, in a modern context, have purpose, but that the trade-off for protection can be reduced whole-body health if we don''t pick the right shoes for our body and skill-level.

If you could fit our culture of convenience into a petri dish, what would it look like?Movement Matters is a series of essays in which biomechanist Katy Bowman continues to explain the mechanics of a sedentary culture and the deep complexity of the phenomenon we call movement. By exposing convenience as a way of outsourcing movements, Katy''s groundbreaking work in the relationship between movement and nature expands to models that have evolved from thinking of the body as a single structure to considering it to be a cluster of a trillion bodies, and how those trillion bodies are being loaded by our habitat and how we move to interact with it.From movement nutrients to forest school to the problems with investigating parts, our culturally conditioned preference to be sedentary is explored from many angles.Thought-provoking, inspiring, and always entertaining, Movement Matters is a collection of essays conducting a deep exploration of movement and its role in science, community, work, and social responsibility. Deftly deconstructing sedentary assumptions that underlie much of our research into human health, Bowman works to reclaim our space in and responsibility to nature and ourselves.With essays on foraging, the nearsightedness epidemic, and the limitations of a parts approach to health, Bowman''s gaze is sweeping and incisive, always with the underlying message that moving is powerful and important, and perhaps the most joyful, freeing, and efficient form of activism there is.

If sitting is indeed the new smoking, then certainly we should quit. But is sitting really the problem, or is something else going on? Is getting better as simple as kicking over your chair and standing all dayin front of the same computer, under the same fluorescent lightingor is there something more to be learned from the data about how people work best? "Don''t Just Sit There" explains why swapping one static position for another isn''t taking a big enough look at the problem, and provides corrective exercise and lifestyle solutions to help you safely and effectively transition away from the conventional office set-upallowing you to reap the enormous benefits of moving more throughout the day while getting your work done. "Don''t Just Sit There" presents: How conventional office arrangements are capping our level of health and why this can''t be offset with a daily bout of exercise That sitting and screen-time are two different variables and should be treated as such Corrective exercises to sit, stand, and move better without leaving your office How to boost your creativity and energy levels at the office With clear, science-based explanations, Bowman lays out the issues created by conventional office environments, and describes in detail the steps necessary to transition to a more dynamic set-up safely and effectively. With over twenty exercises, this is a must-have for anyone hoping to increase their daily movement and improve their health without sacrificing their productivity.

Foot pain isn''t just pain—it''s a symptom of serious problems that will only get worse if you ignore it. One in four women in the United States is suffering from debilitating foot pain, which can affect the function of other body parts, from knees and hips to the pelvis and spine. But foot pain - and the underlying problems it reveals - can be eliminated. Every Woman''s Guide to Foot Pain Relief will show you how to not only prevent pain but how fix your feet and halt damage to the rest of your body. Through the scientific approach of biomechanics, which looks at the gravity, friction and pressure of our bodies, expert Katy Bowman offers an innovative set of exercises; her easy-to-follow program will help you to eliminate unnecessary foot and lower-leg pain. Bowman, a science advisory member for Earth Footwear, also walks you through the shoes you should (and should not) be wearing at different life stages—without sacrificing fashion. Every Woman''s Guide to Foot Pain Relief will teach you how a healthy foot works optimally and put you on the road to prevention and recovery. Katy Bowman, MS, is the creator and talent behind the Aligned and Well™ DVD program, the director of the Restorative Exercise Institute, and the creator of the Restorative Exercise™ DVD kits for Gaiam. She is a regular contributor and expert for national health, fitness, and wellness publications and TV segments.