Announcing My New Book: Healthy Movements for Human Animals

First chapters coming soon to Substack

I have some exciting news. After several years of research and writing, I'm ready to introduce my third book project: Healthy Movements for Human Animals: An Evolutionary Perspective on Exercise.

The book is about primal movement patterns like squatting, crawling, hanging, climbing, jumping, rolling, carrying, and reaching. Each chapter addresses a different movement, provides exercises showing how to explore the movement, and analyzes the movement from both evolutionary and child developmental perspectives.

Rather than waiting another year or more to publish the completed book, I've decided on a different approach: I'll be serializing it here on Substack.

This means you’ll get to read chapters as they are written, engage with the material, and even help shape the final version through feedback. Once the book is complete, I will refine the content and release it as a formal book on Amazon. As a thank you, anyone whose subscription payments during serialization equal the print book’s price can request a free digital copy.

The first chapter will arrive in your inbox next week, with new chapters following each month.

What This Book Is About

Healthy Movements for Human Animals makes two key arguments:

1. Primal movements provide the greatest return on investment for exercise. They offer the highest benefit-to-cost ratio in terms of fitness, health, ease of access, safety, transfer to functional activities, and intrinsic meaning.

2. Evolutionary and developmental perspectives offer profound insights. They build a big-picture framework that helps us make sense of conflicting exercise advice, separate evidence from myth, and focus on what truly matters.

Each chapter provides practical exercises for a specific primal movement (e.g. crawling, squatting, hanging), along with insights from:

• Evolutionary biology: How the movement pattern evolved over time and why it was favored by natural selection.

• Developmental sequence: How and when children naturally acquire the movement.

• Hunter-gatherer anthropology: How the movement relates to the daily lives of people living natural lifestyles.

• Function: How the movement forms a building block for physical activities used in everyday life or sport.

The final chapter is about combining these movements into an overall fitness program, and prioritizing the movements based on your needs and interests.

This book isn't about pretending to be a caveman! Nor is it about ignoring the benefits of modern gym-based workouts or more conventional approaches to exercise. Instead, it's about forming a big-picture perspective that helps you make sense of an otherwise overwhelming amount of detail concerning how to exercise. And about giving you some fun and effective ways to expand your movement practice.

For more detail on the contents, see the draft Table of Contents at the end of the post.

How This Will Work on Substack

• Monthly releases: I'll publish a new chapter approximately once a month, each exploring a different primal movement in depth.

• Bonus content: Paid subscribers will also receive additional material that won't make it into the final book, including video demonstrations of exercises and answers to reader questions.

• Subscribe for access: The first chapter will be free, with all subsequent chapters available to paid subscribers only. If you are already a paid subscriber you are all set.

• Images: For the serialized chapters, I'll include basic photos demonstrating the exercises (likely just me in my basement). The final book will feature professional photos of someone better looking and more athletic.

• Regular content: I'll continue to post about other movement and pain science topics, though somewhat less frequently.

• Final publication: Once all chapters are released, I'll refine the content based on your feedback and publish the complete book. Anyone whose subscription payments during serialization equal the print book’s price can request a free digital copy.

How You Can Get Involved

• Subscribe: Become a paid subscriber ($7/month or $70/year) to access all chapters and supplemental materials.

• Provide feedback: Share your thoughts, questions, and experiences in the comments section to help shape the final product.

• Spread the word: If you know others interested in these topics, let them know. Note that you can earn a free month of access by referring ten people.

Thanks for being part of a community that values thoughtful, evidence-based and playful approaches to movement and health.

I am very psyched to get started. The introduction will arrive in your inbox next week, with Chapter 1 ("The History of Human Movement") following a few weeks later.

-Todd

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Proposed Table of Contents

Introduction - An evolutionary and developmental perspective on exercise for performance and health. And some caveats about naturalistic fallacies.

Chapter 1: The History of Human Movement - The evolution of movement patterns from fish to amphibians to primates to humans. And some parallels to infant development.

Part One: On the Ground - The most primal movements

• Chapter 2: Rolling - Primal postural training.

• Chapter 3: Crawling - The foundation of locomotion, core stability, and coordinating the arms with the legs.

• Chapter 4: Sitting (on the ground) - The only static stretching you need.

• Chapter 5: Squatting - Triple extension and the fundamentals of pushing with the legs.

Part Two: In the Trees - Mobile shoulders, upright spines and four hands

• Chapter 6: Reaching - The foundation of coordinated mobility.

• Chapter 7: Hanging and swinging - The fundamentals of pulling.

• Chapter 8: Climbing - Pushing and pulling with the upper and lower body.

Part Three: On Your Feet - The challenges and benefits of bipedal locomotion

• Chapter 9: Walking - The best exercise for humans.

• Chapter 10: Jumping - Ballistic triple extension.

• Chapter 11: Running - Born to run? The fundamentals of aerobic endurance.

• Chapter 12: Pursuit/Avoidance - The fundamentals of agility.

Part Four: Using Tools - New jobs for free hands

• Chapter 13: Lifting and carrying - Putting the free arms to work.

• Chapter 14: Throwing - A uniquely human skill.

• Chapter 15: Tool use - Connecting the hands and the mind.

Chapter 16: A Primal Movement Fitness Plan - Movement as nutrition, identifying deficiencies, and developing a balanced movement “diet.”

Appendix: A discussion of theoretical issues like adaptation, trade-offs, evolutionary mismatch, and naturalistic fallacies.

Suggestions for additional content are welcome!