Alignment Matters: The First Five Years of Katy Says

I recommend this book to every single person. Katy Bowman is a biomechanist who has devoted her career to curating scientific research (she reads roughly 1500 journal articles, across multiple disciplines a year!) and educating the masses in an entertaining way. Her main message is: if you spend the majority of your time with your body in proper alignment (and what you think is proper alignment, probably isn’t), and get consistent movement, then you will minimize your risk in contracting a whole host of modern diseases including: foot, knee, back, hip or neck pain, osteoporosis, heart disease, fertility, pelvic floor disorder, dysmenorrhea, menorrhagia. I have bought a few of her videos, and in doing the exercises and paying attention throughout the day to how I stand and sit, I have significantly improved many issues. I will not go into details because it is a bit TMI that I don’t want to share with the entire internet, but suffice it to say that primarily calf and hamstring stretches relieved symptoms that seemingly had nothing to do with the calf and hamstrings. Starting from the feet and lengthening the proper muscles, allows for proper alignment that fixes problems higher up. The stretches she recommends are just slightly different than anything I have been exposed to (and I have a fairly wide breadth of knowledge and experience in regards to various fitness paradigms, etc). Those differences provide amazingly significant results. This book is a collection of five years of blog posts that have been grouped into related topics. I wasn’t sure if it was necessary to buy the book and spent a few weeks reading her blog [...] first. The book is more organized than the blog which makes reading related ideas easier and ensures that you don’t miss some stuff. Also there IS some content in the book that is not available on the current blog. Get this book, and her other book, read the newer entries on her blog, follow her on Facebook, watch her YouTube channel, listen to her interviews, buy some of her videos. All of it is immensely fascinating, often humorous, and most likely will make your quality of life significantly better now and in the long run. p.s. Amazon lets you buy the hard copy and get the kindle version for $2 which is really cool. I wanted a hard copy to lend to friends and family, but I prefer reading bigger heavier books on the kindle.

I read first Move your DNA and this book gave me deeper understanding of alignment. I have bought every single book written by Katy Bowman as I want to know everything possible about the subject. And I recommend this book to everyone who cares about their own health and the health of their family and friends. In addition to the important information Katy has a great sense of humor and I laughed aloud while reading this book. I am not native in English language but could understand everything in this book because it is so fluently written and scientific terms are explained.

As the cover says, this book is the first five years of Katy's blog: Katy Says. Originally intended for current and former students of Katie's Restorative Exercise program (now called Nutritious Movement), the blog itself doesn't have any linear structure. Katie writes about a wide array of topics in varying depths. One day you could be reading about the movement and structure of the hips, the next about the proper position to sleep in, the third how many muscles are below your ankles, and then again back to the hips for the fourth. Trying to read the blog straight through would be a mess. So, though the editor's kept the individual blog posts unedited, they tried to organize them first by topic and then in a way that gives the rough feeling of a beginning, middle, and end. The information she gives is incredibly valuable. I'm a massage therapist and have learned quite a bit about the body. She shifted my entire way of thinking about exercise, movement, and health. And yet everything she teaches made sense to me in a way where I felt like I should have known about it already. It's the logical conclusion when you step back and think about the body in the right light: not just the newest health trend but about thousands of years of human health. Most of the the problems I have with this book stem from the fact that it was a blog that was never intended to be a book. A lot of the information is repeated over and over again, and some of it not treated with the kind of depth it deserves. Katie is well read and highly educated. She backs up some of her points with different studies. And picks apart other studies that seem to disagree with her. And yet many topics are glazed over. Either her students know stuff that the general audience doesn't, or she just decided she wasn't going to write that long of a blog post that day. Still, the information at hand wins out. This book is certainly worth reading for what you will learn. She just released a new book called Move Your DNA. I'm hoping it will be the book (sans blog) that I was wanting to read.

Entertaining reading, knowledge-based, referenced science and help with my bad back, all in one! After trips to several doctors, diagnoses of various back problems and two physiotherapy sessions I started Katy's stretching exercises, thinking it couldn't hurt. In fact, it helps a lot and I am motivated to do the stretching every day because of this! Also, some good further reading tips and an interesting recommendation for a meditation course which I am thinking about. In short, something for everybody.

This would be without doubt the most useful, inspiring and informative book I've read about healthy movement! It has shattered a few myths, inspired me to make some significant changes to my movement habits that I was previously unaware of ( feet straight, feet straight if you want to get rid of those threatening, 'hereditary' bunions amongst other things) and helped a non scientist really understand the reasons why habitual movement and lack thereof if such a health problem. Katy writes with humour and clarity and is still able to give concise, accurate explanations of functional movement. I could write an essay, but I won't. Just read it ... :-)

I love everything about Katy Bowman - her knowledge and expertise and her down to earth no fuss and no pretencious approach! I also love that her book although dense with information and practicality are easy to carry along (no pretentious printing that would turn the into expensive coffee table books to brows through ) If you wonder where to start with your body work - start from Katy! and if yo wonder which of her many books first to buy - this one!

Well this is just a great book and I can't recall exactly how I found it. It might have been referred to within an article about knees pointing inward...anyway, I took a look and ordered it. I'm experiencing loads of alignment problems, tight muscles, imbalances all over the place and finding th wealth of info available too overwhelming. I have a great physio I thought this would be worth a look. It's just fantastic for dipping in and out of or you could start at the beginning and read to the end. It's organised as lots of blog posts arranged into chapters, each post with bite size bits of info, pictures where they are needed, a bit of humour and a really easy read for everyone to understand. You can just get on and put stuff into practice right away. If you want to study a particular body part then things are organised into chapters where you will find lots of 'blog posts' relating to that topic. It's also great just to flick through and read anything that catches your eye as it's very informative, not in the least bit jargony and very entertaining. Plus you learn great body tips so what more could you want.

I'm a yoga teacher and this book has changed my practice. I love reading books about the body as I feel that it makes me a better teacher. Plus I have a misaligned hip and SI joint issues after an accident. I feel I'm chasing corrections to my posture around my body as a consequence. I was already aware of correct spinal alignment and that psoas can affect the ability to stand straight and the reasons why we suffer from back ache but this book has brought my attention to a whole host of connected issues. This book has been a revelation. It's incredibly easy to read (very chatty and informal and funny) and she writes in a way that makes sense and the info is very easy to digest and more than anything USE! I'm more aware than ever of how I use my feet. I'm telling people to get out of heels now. Brilliant book. I think I might buy her others too. Love her.

There is no doubt that Katy Bowman knows her stuff very well, but the book is nothing serious but a rambling of her blog entries. It is really not the sort of book I ought to have spent money buying! What I invested was a hope that there would be practical exercises- which she has kept to a minimum and widely interspersed with chit chat chit chat- great disappointment. All along the way instead of offering useful suggestions, she recommends one to buying her DVDs and all sorts of other things. It seems more like a marketing device than an actual book! I am surprised that such books are even published- possibly because the writer has a brand value of her own.

As a physiotherapist, I practise a lot of the principles she teaches. But her perspectives on why we should move more naturally completely rocked my world. I always strive to return my patients to an improved level of functioning. I have a very goal-oriented approach. However, she made me question whether those functions are appropriate or good for one's health. I see movement and exercise so differently now. As a new mom, it makes me feel good to know I don't need to hit the gym 3-4x a week to stay healthy. I can move with my baby! I will also raise my baby to have much more natural movement. When I started my baby on these natural movement principles, she hit some major milestones immediately! I recommend her other book move your DNS as well