Sublime

Our bones (which Levin refers to as “starched fascia”) are designed via the day-to-day management of forces, of our reaction to the ground (or pull of gravity towards it). We

Whether you move or not, your choice stimulates the cytoskeletons of all your cells in a way that signals “this behavior is what I do, so please adapt.” The current epidemic of osteoporosis—specifically loss in the wrists, ribs, spine, and head of the thigh bone—speaks volumes about how we move.

I go on and on about alignment, but I don’t want you to think it’s about aesthetics, or appearance, or even the macromechanics like muscle function and joint health. Even though it is about those things too. It’s really about the micromechanics. The fact is, if you are not aligned correctly, you are creating damage on the cellular level.

Functional biology, Mayr argues, is concerned with how questions: How does an organ function, or a gene, or a wing? The answers to these are proximate levels of explanation.

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.