An Owner's Manual for Your Body | Juliet and Kelly Starrett
Kelly and Juliet Starrett, authors of "Built to Move," discuss how physical fitness and mobility are crucial for happiness. They introduce 10 tests and 10 practices to improve daily movement, nutrition, sleep, and breathing, emphasizing integrating these into everyday life rather than relying solely on formal exercise.
Deep Dive Analysis
12 Topic Outline
Introduction: The Link Between Physical Fitness and Happiness
Guests' Background and Motivation for 'Built to Move'
Critique of the 'Fitness Industrial Complex'
Democratizing Health: High-Performance Lessons for Everyone
The Sit and Rise Test: Assessment and Practice
The Importance of Hip Range of Motion
The Benefits of Walking and Daily Step Goals
Balance Tests: The Old Man Balance Test and SOLEC Test
Nutrition Philosophy: Moving Beyond Diet Wars
Essential Nutrition Recommendations: Protein, Fruits, and Vegetables
Sleep as a Keystone Habit and Tracking Insights
Breathing: CO2 Tolerance Test and Practice
5 Key Concepts
Mobility
Mobility refers to the ability to move your body freely through your environment without pain and to perform desired physical activities. It is a personal and wide-ranging capacity that people universally seek to maintain throughout their lives.
Fitness Industrial Complex
This term describes the vast, trillion-dollar industry focused on fitness and the commoditization of exercise. The guests argue that despite its growth, this complex has largely failed to make the majority of people more durable or healthier, leaving many behind.
Lymphatic System
Often called the body's sewage system, the lymphatic system is responsible for clearing waste products, proteins, and broken-down cellular material. It is a passive system that relies on muscle contraction, particularly from movement like walking, to drain and clear waste effectively.
Keystone Habit (Sleep)
Sleep is identified as a foundational habit from which all other health habits, such as nutrition and movement, stem. Prioritizing and optimizing sleep can lead to positive ripple effects across other areas of health and well-being.
CO2 Tolerance
This concept relates to the body's comfort level with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the system. Improving CO2 tolerance through specific breathing practices can enhance breathing mechanics, diaphragm function, and shift breathing away from shallow mouth breathing.
9 Questions Answered
Physical fitness is linked to happiness because if your body is in pain or you are experiencing mobility issues, it is highly likely to negatively impact your overall happiness and well-being.
The 'fitness industrial complex' has largely failed to translate high-performance principles into accessible, scalable practices for the majority of people, leading to worsening public health metrics despite significant investment in fitness products and services.
Maintaining hip range of motion is crucial because in cultures that incorporate more full-range movements, there is a lower incidence of lumbar disease, hip arthritis, fewer joint replacements, and reduced fall risk in the elderly.
Walking helps decongest the body by activating the lymphatic system, provides opportunities for sun exposure and social interaction, aids in mindfulness, and accumulates non-exercise activity fatigue that contributes to better sleep.
Research indicates a 50% reduction in all-cause mortality at 8,000 steps, making it a more attainable and equally beneficial goal for most people compared to the 10,000 steps number, which was originally a marketing scheme.
People can accumulate steps through short bursts throughout the day, such as taking walking meetings, going for 10-minute walks after meals, or incorporating more movement into everyday household activities.
The recommended approach is agnostic to specific diets but emphasizes meeting minimum protein requirements, incorporating more whole foods, and consuming a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, aiming for 800 grams daily.
The minimum recommended sleep duration is seven hours, as research indicates most people get six hours or less, which can negatively impact body composition, overall well-being, and contribute to chronic pain.
While tracking sleep can provide useful initial data, such as revealing that people commonly lose about an hour of sleep per night through wakeful cycles, it's not necessary on an ongoing basis once these fundamental principles are understood and habits are established.
18 Actionable Insights
1. Integrate Movement Throughout Day
Reframe physical practice to occur outside of formal exercise by seeking opportunities to improve mobility and movement in daily activities, like sitting while watching TV or putting on shoes, to aggregate into a more capable body and brain.
2. Practice Floor Sitting Daily
Spend at least 30 minutes a day sitting on the floor in various positions (e.g., crisscross applesauce, long sit, kneeling), especially while watching TV or working from home, to improve hip range of motion and overall movement capacity.
3. Target 8,000 Daily Steps
Accumulate at least 8,000 steps per day, as research shows a 50% reduction in all-cause mortality at this level. Break up your walking into short bursts, such as 10-minute walks after meals or walking meetings, to easily integrate it into your busy schedule.
4. Practice Balance Daily
Improve balance by integrating simple practices into daily routines, such as standing on one leg to put on socks and shoes (Old Man Balance Test) or balancing on one leg with eyes closed while brushing your teeth (SOLEC Test), to reduce fall risk and maintain physical capacity as you age.
5. Consume 800g Fruits & Vegetables
Endeavor to eat 800 grams (1.7 pounds or four large apples) of fruits and vegetables daily, including white potatoes and beans, to gain significant health benefits and reduce morbidity through an expansive dietary approach.
6. Meet Daily Protein Needs
Aim to consume 0.7 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight daily from various sources (fruits, vegetables, grains, peas) to build and maintain lean muscle mass, which is crucial for your body to thrive effectively.
7. Prioritize Community Over Diet
Avoid overly restrictive diets that remove you from your community or prevent you from enjoying meals with family and friends, as strong human connection and eating together are fundamental health habits.
8. Target 7+ Hours Sleep
Prioritize getting at least seven hours of sleep per night as a minimum due diligence, recognizing that growing bodies, healing from injury, changing body composition, or learning new skills often require more sleep.
9. Account for Sleep Wakefulness
Understand that it’s normal to lose about an hour of sleep each night due to wakeful cycles; if your goal is eight hours of sleep, you may need to allocate nine hours in bed to achieve it.
10. Limit Evening Stimulants
Improve sleep quality by cutting off caffeine intake by 12 or 1 PM and limiting alcohol consumption at night, saving it for when you are rested or celebrating, as both can significantly impact sleep.
11. Low Back Pain Protocol
If experiencing low back pain, implement a three-pillar strategy: learn how to breathe effectively, walk significantly more, and actively mobilize your hips to restore function and reduce pain.
12. Practice Nose-Only Breathing
Incorporate nose-only breathing during activities like walking or warming up for workouts to improve diaphragm function, expand your rib cage, and avoid shallow mouth breathing.
13. Practice Breath Holds While Walking
While walking, practice breath holds by taking a 10-second inhale, holding your breath as long as comfortable, and then recovering with nose-only breathing, repeating this cycle at the top of each minute to improve CO2 tolerance.
14. Mobilize T-Spine for Breathing
Perform soft tissue mobilization work on your thoracic spine (T-spine) to create more space in your torso, which enables more effective and comfortable breathing.
15. Track Daily Steps
Use your smartphone’s built-in pedometer to track your daily steps, as this is considered the most important and useful measure for overall health and movement.
16. Test Sit and Rise Capacity
Assess your physical capacity by attempting to sit down on the floor from a crisscross applesauce position and then stand back up without using your hands or knees, as this is a well-validated snapshot of future mobility and fall risk.
17. Test Body Oxygen Level
Perform the Body Oxygen Level Test by taking a big breath in, slowly exhaling completely, and then holding your breath for as long as you can; aim for about 40 seconds without feeling the urge to breathe to assess your CO2 tolerance.
18. Scale Floor Sitting Practice
If you’re worried about falling or find floor sitting uncomfortable, start by practicing going down to and getting up from a chair or coffee table, or use a cushion, gradually working your way to the floor.
4 Key Quotes
Humans are immensely tolerant. We can handle so much until we can't.
Kelly Starrett
Muscles and tissues are like obedient dogs. So the first order of business is exposure.
Kelly Starrett
If your diet has removed you from your community and made it so that you can't eat dinner with your kids or enjoy a meal out with your friends, to me, that's a gigantic red flag.
Juliet Starrett
We've made not sleeping heroic and we brag about not sleeping, but can you adapt or manage as effectively as if you were getting more sleep? And the answer is unequivocally no.
Kelly Starrett
4 Protocols
Sit and Rise Test Practice
Kelly and Juliet Starrett- Practice getting up and down off the floor regularly.
- Spend at least 30 minutes daily sitting on the floor in a variety of positions (e.g., crisscross applesauce, long sit, 90-90, kneeling), such as while watching TV or working.
- Allow yourself to move between different floor sitting positions as needed for comfort.
- If concerned about falling, initially practice by lowering yourself to a chair or coffee table before progressing to the floor.
Old Man Balance Test
Kelly Starrett- Stand on one leg.
- Reach down and grab one sock without putting your raised foot down.
- Put that sock on while still standing on one leg.
- Reach down again without putting the foot down.
- Put your shoe on and tie it while maintaining balance on one leg.
- Repeat the entire process with the other leg.
SOLEC (Standing One Leg Eyes Closed) Test
Kelly and Juliet Starrett- Stand on one leg.
- Close your eyes.
- Maintain balance for 20 seconds.
- Repeat the test on the other leg.
Breathing Practice while Walking
Kelly Starrett- While walking, take a 10-second inhale.
- Hold your breath for as long as you comfortably can (without passing out or crashing).
- Recover by breathing only through your nose.
- Repeat this cycle at the top of each minute during your walk.