In which Katy Bowman tells Stephanie Domet that honestly, she’s not surprised she had a felt advent calendar instead of one with chocolates.
OVERVIEW:
00:52:00 - Why talk about squat? (Jump to section)
00:08:15 - Let's Move! Squat style! (Jump to section)
00:12:12 - Joy, Butt Fibers, and Belgian Chocolate? (Jump to section)
00:13:39 - Movement Advent 2017 (Jump to section)
00:14:39 - Podcast Break - Where to Hang out With Katy and Modeling Wellness (Jump to section)
LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:
*Use discount code ANNIVERSARY for $5 off Movement Matters in paperback or ebook for all of November.*
Nutritious Movement on Facebook
Nutritious Movement on Instagram
Sign up for Katy’s newsletter at NutritiousMovement.com
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
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STEPHANIE: Well hey there. Welcome to the Katy Says podcast. This is the another in a series of special episodes we're calling Between the Lines: where Katy Bowman and Stephanie Domet explore the deeper messages in, and connections between Katy's books.
KATY: I am Katy Bowman, biomechanist and author of Move Your DNA.
STEPHANIE: And I am Stephanie Domet, a chronically curious writer and radio journalist. And we are doing something a little different in this episode: taking our conversation off the page and talk about squat, Katy?
KATY: Mm. I love 'em.
STEPHANIE: You do 'eh?
KATY: I do.
STEPHANIE: We're gonna find out more about that ...
KATY: Yes I do. End of discussion.
STEPHANIE: And we're done. Thank you for listening! For the last number of years, Katy, you have put together a little advent calendar for your followers. This year it's all about the squat. Why did you choose the squat?</div
KATY: Oh, gosh. That's a good question. This is my, I think it's my fourth year. I did a walking one, and then I did an upper body one, and I did a core strength one. And so this year, this year I wanted to do a squat. But it's actually also a little bit different than a regular advent because you know, I'm thinking movement permaculture and Movement Matters so much and the difference between movement and exercise - our theme that I'm keeping really close to my - they're in my vision. They're in the word choices that I'm using all the time. So I'm thinking about them a lot. So it's an advent where not only do you get the exercises, you get the exercise first and then the next day is how to, like some real, I shouldn't say real. It's all real. A non-exercise way of integrating that movement into your life around this period of time. So I'm trying to up, not just a ton of moves, bam, bam, bam. It's like, here's moves and here's where they go. Which is a whole other level of teaching, right? It's not just do a move but show how a move can be integrated back into your life.
STEPHANIE: Right. That kind of stack your life sense of maybe you don't have an hour to work on your hip openers and your squats, but if you're, you posted a video recently before you went to New Zealand of you trying to clean the floor in your home. Getting ready to go.
KATY: Yeah.
STEPHANIE: And just basically squat walking around.
KATY: Well, I can use a mop, right? I'm gonna clean the floor regardless. It's the same amount of time. So I can either use the mop which has been designed to reduce movement - to make it so that my arms just tense and hold the mop. You know, to make it all shoulders. And my ankles and my knees and my hips aren't really doing anything. Or I can just grab a warm rag and just squat all over the place and clean it up. And I found it was actually faster. Not only was it faster than using a mop, it didn't require that I had a plastic mop. And I got to do basically the exercises for my hips and knees and ankles and shoulders and back, while I was cleaning the floor.
STEPHANIE: Right. Hashtag #stackyourlife.
KATY: Stack your life
STEPHANIE: You and I talked a while back about calf stretch and why that was so vital. It appears in all your books. What can you say, similarly, I guess, about the importance of squatting?
KATY: Well, squatting is another... it's important because it's one of those - not everyone does every single move. Even if we were talking about humans, throughout human history, there were moves that I'm sure were regional or seasonal, but, you know, everyone was gonna squat down to go to the toilet at least a couple times a day. I feel pretty comfortable putting it into that group of moves that would make a regular appearance as being kind of an essential movement. It's also the movement that most people struggle with the most. Because chair sitting and not using those ranges of motions, it's kind of is a use it or lose it situation. So it's actually not a squat advent. It's a squat prep advent.
STEPHANIE: Ah!
KATY: Meaning, the squat is coming. But more towards the end. So we're gonna be working our way up towards it which means you're gonna be moving the pieces...
STEPHANIE: Or down towards it. Sorry, it was irresistible to me...
KATY: It depends on the organization. I haven't decided. We might even go around it a couple of times. That we're gonna be taking out the individual pieces of the body to kind of work on them. But also show you that a squat is a category of a lot of different things. So you'll find something kind of for everyone in there. Certainly, we all have ranges of possible movement because of our structure or our lives or our days, so I always try to think about that as much as possible to make sure that everyone can find something to do for themselves as they look through this advent. So it's just, it's an integral piece. It moves a lot of you, right? It moves your ankles, knees, your hips, your back, your pelvic floor. It actually moves your whole spine and your shoulders and your head and you've got balance that you have to deal with. So it's just a fast, complex movement that I think a lot of people have symptoms of a lack of particular input. So the payoff of doing even a portion of it is particularly high. So I often tend to pick movements where they're easy nutrients for people. You know, like, the calf stretch is, "hey this one thing that I did really filled in a lot of movement nutrition things for me. Where I noticed a lot of symptoms and lack of movement go away from the small investments." I think the squat's another one of those.
STEPHANIE: Right because we talked about the calf stretch that you know somebody's who is experiencing headaches might find some alleviation of those from working with calf stretch and you're saying a squat, similarly, engages so much of your body that there might be things you wouldn't think are connected to your lack of say nutrient squat....
KATY: Right. I mean if you even thought about the things you're experienced as relating to your movement at all, which there are so many things that we don't. But then other things that are more obvious that we easily correlated to the overall movement of the musculoskeletal system. The squat isn't always as obvious. Because I think people think of the squat as something for their quads or something for their butt.
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: They don't think of it as a whole body movement.
STEPHANIE: Or related to digestion.
KATY: No, no, exactly. It's just gotten really tiny in our minds is what it's good for. My quads are fine, I don't need to squat and I'm like, "Well, maybe you do."
STEPHANIE: "Squats are a thing I just blast out at the gym, right? With some weights and..."
KATY: Yeah
STEPHANIE: Just for my butt.
KATY: Yeah. And we're gonna experience all kinds of different squats. So I'm gonna play with, I really want to dial it in that squatting is a category. And that includes going up stairs. Like going up and down stairs has an element of a squat in it.
STEPHANIE: Really?
KATY: Getting up and down out of chairs. Certainly. I mean what's a squat if it's like, isn't that just lowering yourself down closer to the ground?
STEPHANIE: Right, yeah, ok.
KATY: You're doing squats all day long. It's just that the range of motion for them is to the chair or back.
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: Almost everyone squats. If you're using a chair...
STEPHANIE: You're squatting.
KATY: You're squatting. If you're getting down into the chair and out of the chair, you're squatting. So that's already kind of broadens your mind to like, yeah, everyone's working out. Everyone is exercising and moving. It's just through a really tiny ranges of motion. So we're gonna play with that as our advent.
STEPHANIE:
That's awesome. Ok. Can you give me a preview? is there something we can do right now to get our squat on?</div
KATY: What do you mean a preview? I mean do you get to open up a box...do you get to open up and get a piece of chocolate. Were you one of those? Were you the one who if you had an advent did you go to 23 because no one would notice that went that far ahead and eat the chocolate out of.
STEPHANIE: I mean we never had a chocolate advent. We had one made of felt that my mom made that had a Christmas tree and we brought out the little ornaments and put them on the tree so there was no percentage in jumping ahead.
KATY: You should have seen my face when you said that it was felt. I actually had a ... oh!
STEPHANIE: I didn't even know they made them in chocolate until I was a grown up.
KATY: I one time bought, I once bought an advent ...
STEPHANIE: You won't be surprised to learn that I was the person in my family who always knew whose turn it was.
KATY: Uh, no I would not. I actually one time bought an advent just for the chocolate inside of it and just ate all of it.
STEPHANIE: Katy Bowman!
KATY: It's not, it was just sitting there and I was like, "Oh! Milk, Belgian chocolate sounds really good." And it was holiday prices so I think it was, you know, instead of spending a ton of money on Belgian chocolate, I just bought it and popped the chocolates right out.
STEPHANIE: No delayed gratification. No...
KATY: I was a grown up. I could do what I wanted. No. No. I didn't do that.
STEPHANIE: Well, I'm a grown up and I want to open a box a day ...
KATY: Ok. All right. That's your choice. Ok.
STEPHANIE: All right.
KATY: Are you ready?
STEPHANIE: I guess.
KATY: So, going up the stairs...
STEPHANIE: Yeah.
KATY: Everyone's got a couple steps maybe coming into their house. Even if you don't have stairs in your house. When you put your foot up...
STEPHANIE: Yep.
KATY: And you go to step, you look down while you're doing it. You might find that your knee travels really far forward to get the next foot up. So if you step up with your left foot, you plant your left foot on the step. And then you ride that leg forward six or eight inches...
STEPHANIE: Yeah.
KATY: If you look down, you'll say, "Oh my whole body is traveling towards the step>' And then your other foot comes. And put the next foot in front of you. So when you're taking the stairs that way, there's a tremendous amount movement of your body towards the staircase. Not necessarily up the staircase.
STEPHANIE: Right.
KATY: The forward motion can be handled by your geometry. If you just put one foot up and then step straight up. And then put your next foot up and then just step straight up, you would be using more of your back side. You would be squatting more using the back side to come up out of a squat versus using the front of your thighs or your knees to come up. So most people are trying to work on using less of their knees and building more instead muscle and strength on their backside. So one way you can make over going up and down those steps is to reduce that forward travel of your knee.
STEPHANIE: Ok.
KATY: So you're gonna practice keeping the knee fixed. Right over the ankle and then just step straight up as you come up the steps. So there's gonna be a lot of that. A lot of video I imagine. because squats and be pretty technical once you start playing with these subtle... managing your geometry in a really subtle way.
STEPHANIE: Ok well this is great. I'll be up and down those stairs all the time.
KATY: Exactly. And also doing your holiday prep work if you have celebrations at this time, doing it on the floor. And integrating various squat positions for your toes and your ankles and your knees. If you're in community with children or animals or other people, how to use them as props. So you're kind of getting the connection. you know it's not just you and your exercise. It's you, again, playing, playing with your family during this time. Because I want to make it joyful.
STEPHANIE:
Sure.</div
KATY: My whole point is to add more joy. Not add more butt fibers. Like we want to have both those things at the same time.
STEPHANIE: Right. I mean it's more delicious than half price Belgian chocolates to be sure.
KATY: Whatever.
STEPHANIE: (laughs). It's perhaps as delicious.
KATY: Ok. I'll go with that.
STEPHANIE: If I want to devour all 24 days of this I can do that on Instagram?
KATY: Yes. So you're gonna follow... I will post on Instagram as well as Facebook so you can do one or the other. And maybe even both. Sometimes the write-ups vary a little bit or I'll post one extra piece on another one. But if you follow one or the other you'll get all 24 days. And then I always cull them. I know cull's not the right word. I collect them and I post them...
STEPHANIE: Collate?
KATY: Yes collate is a better word, into one single, it's not really a blog anymore but I just put them all on so they live on my website. So if you're hearing this right now and you cannot wait, you can actually go back and find all the previous advents and work through those anytime just as a way of like, "I'm gonna learn all cool core exercises." Or whatever. You can always go through past advents. So they'll make an appearance as one single document, but until then, if you want to open one a day, you're gonna do that on Facebook, Nutritious Movement facebook or Nutritious Movement Instagram.
STEPHANIE:
All right. And the advent begins December 1. As it should.</div
KATY: As it does.
STEPHANIE: As it does. So listen, we're approaching the end of the year and we're gonna press pause on Katy Says for a few weeks, yeah?
KATY: Yes. I'm going to, you know, I try to do this in the summer time. Take a break.
STEPHANIE: Yes.
KATY: And for me producing lots of things and lots of different venues if you will, if a podcast is a venue, it just really means that there's never a time to stop and not produce. Somethings always linked in. So I'm going to take the time to do the advent which will be my way of daily, contributing daily, to everyone's well being and then I will step away from some of my other duties. So I'm still putting stuff out there but don't feel overwhelmed during this period of time. And we transition to starting things fresh in the new year.
STEPHANIE: The better to eat the Belgian chocolate ...
KATY: Well that's absolutely going to be part of it.
STEPHANIE: And that's obviously implied.
KATY: Obviously.
STEPHANIE:
But of course, as you say, there's no shortage of stuff out there if people are still looking for ways to hang out with Katy you can check out old episodes of the podcast, you can flip through old blog posts at NutritiousMovement.com. You can find the last three advents and work through those. </div
KATY: It just goes on.
STEPHANIE: Yeah. It really does.
KATY: And the newsletters.
STEPHANIE: The newsletters.
KATY: So the newsletters are still a great way. I still, they're almost weekly and that's new content. It's not content that's duplicated in other places, so I'm still there every day. You're still gonna see me every day but this is just a kind of it'll allow for holiday vacation and also for everyone who produces. There's a lot that goes on in the background and so it's nice for everyone to be able to take a break.
STEPHANIE: Agreed.
KATY:[00:15:25] I was realizing NutritiousMovement isn't taking breaks. Like none of the staff is taking breaks because we serve everyone all over the planet 24 hours a day. So we are starting to schedule breaks to model wellness. You know, right?
STEPHANIE: Yeah.
KATY: That you can do this level of work and still be well. So we want to make sure that we're taking our well as well.
STEPHANIE: Love it. Very well then. Enjoy that break.
KATY: You too. And I will see you, I'm sure, as I always do. And everyone out there just taking a moment to say Thank you for listening and supporting and sharing and all the things that you do. And also to you, Stephanie, and to Dani wherever she is right now. And to Carrie, who does all of the production...
STEPHANIE: Editing mastermind.
KATY: Yes. And Annette who is one of a few people that have done podcasts for us over the last few years.
STEPHANIE: Some transcriptions. Yeah. It takes a village.
KATY: I'm trying to think. Did we forget anyone else? Debbie.
STEPHANIE: Debbie of course
KATY: ...who is getting it up and putting it out there. And Penelope my editor who is often suggesting topics and things. And Josie, designer...
STEPHANIE: Designer.
KATY: Who makes all the graphics. I mean it's a huge team of people who do a podcast. And that's just the people who we're remembering. I hope we're not forgetting anyone. You are appreciated. Not just recalled at this moment.
STEPHANIE: Not name dropped this minute.
KATY: Exactly.
STEPHANIE: It does take a village and Katy, I'm glad to be in yours.
KATY: Likewise. Thank you, Stephanie.
STEPHANIE: Thanks for listening to Between the Lines on the Katy Says. We will talk to you again in 2018.
Music.
VOICEOVER: Hopefully you find the general information in this podcast informative and helpful. But it is not intended to replace medical advice and should not be used as such.
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