Alignment Matters: The First Five Years of Katy Says, 2nd Edition Paperback – September 1, 2016

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.

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.

No one has ever accused me of being an exercise junkie, but when I found the author's blog, www.katysays.com , my paradigm shifted--not to one of exercise but to one of movement and realizing that the ways that are easiest for me to work into my life (walking, bodyweight-bearing activities, carrying, squatting) also happen to be the very best and what my body desperately needs. Once I learned that not moving is depriving parts my body of blood, lymph, and electrical flow, and that my alignment affects everything from my shoulder pain to my chances of hernia and organ prolapse, I realized I both must and CAN do this. Alignment Matters contains some blog posts that are still online, but many others that aren't, and it's great to have them organized by theme and highlight-able. The book does preserve the chatty nature of the blog and none of the content is edited out, but I love this because, as knowledgeable as she is, Katy always lets you know she's working all this into a life with kids and work, like most of us. She sometimes gets sick too. She has to do laundry too. And just when you think she's off on a total tangent, she makes you see she was on point the whole time and briliantly and hilariously brings it home. If you're someone who needs to know not only what to do, but what's going on in your body to get motivated--or you're just fascinated by the ins and outs, this book is an eye-opener.

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.

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.

Great collection of articles from Katy Bowman. She really knows about allignment and reaches out to everyone (not just for yoga teachers). This is a must read for everyone i believe. Correcting our alligment can have a huge poitive impact on our lives and health no matter who we are, or what we do

If you at all care about how your body is going to feel in x years' time due to the way you are using it now, you have to buy this book. It's a compilation of blog posts, which are very entertaining and, more to the point, very informative. The posts don't take long to read and they will really make you think about how you stand, sit and move. If you haven't read any Katy Bowman, this is a great one to start with.

This is a brilliant reference for every person working in the fitness industry. I use it a lot to look up in, to use ideas from, to simply refresh my knowledge. So much research, up to date. Highly recommended. Also very entertaining, love it.