Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement

Clearly, the amount of time we allot to “exercise” is very small compared to the amount of time we are capable of moving our bodies, which is a hundred percent of our waking hours.

The government currently recommends three categories of movement—cardio, strength training, and stretching—which can be likened to the macronutrient groups carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Without a better prescription for what to eat/how to move, the moves we consume to meet our recommended daily allowance (RDA) become mostly junk. And, without co

My point is, everyone—even the hunteriest of the hunters—was a gatherer first. When hunter-gatherers are children, their job is to gather. All are successful in this way first. To go forward, we must go back to figure out which movement basics we have failed to practice and which tissue adaptations we still need. The beauty of these basics is that

Because DNA can be expressed differently depending upon how external factors impinge upon the cells within which the DNA resides, and because movement is one of these factors, the way we move has a direct bearing upon how our bodies are shaped—for good and ill.

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-

Every single thing our bodies do requires movement—initiated by our musculoskeletal system—to be performed with ease. Digestion, immunity, reproduction—all of these functions require us to move. You can eat the perfect diet, sleep eight hours a night, and use only baking soda and vinegar to clean your house, but without the loads created by natural

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

But as the trees have just shown us, genes are not that simple. Scientists have observed that a person simply having a particular gene doesn’t automatically create a particular outcome. This means, for example, that you and your neighbor could both have a breast cancer gene, but only one (or neither) of you gets cancer. The fact that identical gene

The loads we experience in today’s world differ hugely from the loads people experienced a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand years ago. Yet we blithely accept that our health issues—which so many of us share—are genetic. Genetic, a term we’ve internally defined as beyond our control. Whether out of convenience or ignorance, we have failed to ad