Kelly Starrett > Quotes

“When you can, avoid sitting, or even open up a direct attack. Set your phone or watch timer to go off every hour so that you get up out of your chair, mobilize for a minute or two, and then (if you have to go back to sitting) sit down with your butt and stomach muscles turned on and engaged.  ”
― Kelly Starrett, Ready to Run: Unlocking Your Potential to Run Naturally

“the cold, hard truth is that exercise will not reverse the potentially harmful and irrefutable effects that too much sitting has on our bodies.”
― Kelly Starrett, Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World

“We need to walk because walking gets everything flowing in our body. It’s how we nourish all our tissues, how we decongest, how we stimulate the body to release waste.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“Women and men who sit more than six hours a day are, respectively, 37 percent and 18 percent more likely to die before people who sit less than three hours a day.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“Do what you can, but don’t do nothing.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“Neutral feet start in your trunk, so really go after those tight hips:”
― Kelly Starrett, Ready to Run: Unlocking Your Potential to Run Naturally

“The shorter the event, the more speed and power required, the more warm-up.”
― Kelly Starrett, Ready to Run: Unlocking Your Potential to Run Naturally

“Vital sign 2: breathe easy (page 52-53)

How well you breathe has a direct correlation to your body mechanics, helping you move more efficiently, avoid injury, and feel less musculoskeletal pain. In fact, when people come to us with persistent back and neck aches, the first thing we look at is how they're breathing.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“we had to solve the same set of physical problems related to sitting—tight hips, low back and neck pain, shoulder restrictions . . . the list goes on and on. It”
― Kelly Starrett, Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World

“It’s simple, but it’s not easy, and the first thing you have to let go of is the belief that all you have to do (or all you can do) is hand your credit card to a physical therapist, a podiatrist, or a salesperson at a running shoe store and expect someone else to fix the problem.”
― Kelly Starrett, Ready to Run: Unlocking Your Potential to Run Naturally

“You hate to cultivate the mindset that anything that is not a braced neutral spinal position is probably going to kill you.”
― Kelly Starrett, Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance

“For all these reasons, Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey, MD, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, has variously called physical activity “a little bit of Prozac and a little bit of Ritalin” and “Miracle-Gro” for the brain.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The 10 essential habits that will help you live a longer, healthier life

“Mobility” is a kind of wonky term that refers to something quite beautiful: the harmonious convergence of all the elements that allow you to move freely and effortlessly through space and life. Everything is in sync—your joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, nerves, brain, and the vasculature that runs through the body.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“Bohr’s discovery led to the practice of increasing CO2 tolerance. The longer you can hang on to carbon dioxide in your system, the more oxygen you’ll be able to utilize, and the more oxygen you’re able to utilize, the more energy you’ll have available for whatever it is you want to do.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“PRESCRIPTION 5 Low Back and Trunk   This prescription can be used to treat these symptoms and restrictions: Abdominal pain Compromised breathing Hip extension range of motion Hip pain Low back pain Sciatica Spinal rotation, flexion and extension range of motion   Overview Methods: Contract and relax Pressure wave Smash and floss Tools: Small ball Large ball Small bouncy ball or under-inflated soccer/volleyball Total time:  14 minutes   This prescription is great for treating low back pain and supporting the hardworking muscles of your trunk. We’ve established that poor spinal mechanics and sitting can cause adaptive stiffness and irritation in the discs, ligaments, and muscles around your spine and trunk. And when that happens, low back pain is often the result. Although there are other contributing factors to consider, like previous injuries, arthritis, obesity, and stress, we would argue that one of the leading causes of low back pain and trunk-related problems stems from poor posture, prolonged sitting, and a lack of basic self-maintenance. Having spent the majority of this book outlining a protocol for preventing and resolving the issue from a mechanical standpoint, let’s turn our attention to the maintenance side of things. This prescription targets the muscles that are responsible for keeping your spine braced, as well as the muscles that may get stiff when you move poorly or sit for too long.”
― Kelly Starrett, Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World

“You'll be better able to climb and descend stairs like a healthy person as opposed to a broken runner who navigates steps like landmines.”
― Kelly Starrett, Ready to Run: Unlocking Your Potential to Run Naturally

“Walk around your house. We’ve heard about people, stymied by bad weather or poor air quality, who’ve set up obstacle courses in their homes just to get more steps in. Sure, you’re not going to rack up the miles, but it’s better than nothing. Or consider a treadmill. Al Roker, the Today Show weatherman, vowed to walk more after a prostate cancer diagnosis. To avoid New York City’s cold temps (and who better than a weatherman to know when to stay inside?), Al took to walking in place—a very good idea.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“thereadystate.com.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“EC Synkowski based the 800-Gram Challenge on a 2017 study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The researchers analyzed ninety-five studies and concluded that eating 800 grams of fruits and vegetables a day was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, some cancers, and, in fact, all causes of death. In particular, apples, pears, citrus fruits, green leafy vegetables, salads, and cruciferous vegetables (like broccoli and cauliflower) lowered cardiovascular disease and incidence of death; green and yellow vegetables and cruciferous vegetables were associated with lowering cancer risk. Research has long suggested that produce has a protective effect, not just against heart disease and cancer but also other maladies like diabetes and stroke.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“There is nothing wrong with stretching. It doesn’t do any harm, and sometimes it just feels really good to stretch. But as far as getting a lot of bang for your buck, stretching falls short because it doesn’t address all the aspects of the movement system. Stretching is fine; go ahead and stretch if you like it. But if you want to have less pain, move more fluidly, and be better able to recover from physical stress—whether it’s from hiking over grueling switchbacks or carrying the laundry up and down the stairs ten times in one day—mobilizations, not stretching, are your ticket to success.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“The premise of Built to Move is simple: 10 tests + 10 physical practices = 10 ways to make your body work better.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“Squatting is something we did naturally as children; as adults, it can feel challenging if you haven’t done it for a while.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“If you’re feeling stressed out, levels of cortisol and adrenaline in your blood will be high. But if you engage in some moderate physical activity, like a nice long walk, levels of those hormones will drop and you’ll likely feel better. The endorphins kicking in will lift your mood, too.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“THE TEST Stand barefoot on the floor in an open, uncluttered space. Close your eyes, bend one leg, and raise your foot off the floor as high as comfortable (it doesn’t need to go high). Stay in this position for twenty seconds, counting the number of times you touch your foot down. Switch sides. If you feel uneasy, stand next to a wall or in front of a sink.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“In fact, someone who ate one daily serving of vegetables was 50 percent more likely to have physical limitations than someone who ate just 2.4 servings. The association was that strong.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“Researchers observed that twelve- to nineteen-month-olds fell an average of seventeen times per hour. But falling when you weigh 25 pounds versus falling when you weigh 125 or 225 pounds is far less impactful. (That’s why we try to be really good at not falling.)”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“I recommend that you spend 10 to 15 minutes a day working on your mobility. And never take a day off.”
― Kelly Starrett, Becoming A Supple Leopard

“Joyce Shulman, who created (with her husband, Eric) a company called 99 Walks (99walks.fit).”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“Soon enough, MobilityWOD had morphed into our present company, The Ready State, and we were working on movement and mobility with all branches of the military; NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL players and coaches; Olympic athletes; university sports teams; Fortune 500 companies; individual CEO types; and thousands of others.”
― Kelly Starrett, Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

“The third and most notable problem with our current thinking is that it continues to be based on a model that prioritizes task completion above everything else. It’s a sort of one-or-zero, task-done-or-not, weight-lifted-or-not, distance-swum-or-not mentality. This is like saying, “I deadlifted 500 pounds, but I herniated a disc,” or, “I finished a marathon, but I wore a hole in my knee.” Imagine this sort of ethic spilling over into the other aspects of your life: “Hey, I made you some toast! But I burned down the house.”
― Kelly Starrett, Becoming A Supple Leopard