Built to Move - Kelly Starrett and Julie Starrett
In a fitness industry obsessed with intensity, personal records, and transformation timelines, Built to Move by Dr. Kelly Starrett delivers a much-needed reality check. This book isn’t about lifting more weight or chasing elite performance metrics. Instead, it asks a more fundamental, and arguably more important, question:
Can your body still move well enough to support the life you want to live?
Built to Move is Kelly Starrett’s most accessible work to date, designed for everyday people, aging athletes, and coaches who understand that longevity is the ultimate performance goal. If Becoming a Supple Leopard was a dense movement textbook, Built to Move is the practical, habit-based guide meant to actually change behavior.
What Is Built to Move About?
At its core, Built to Move argues that movement is a daily necessity, not an occasional intervention. Starrett compares movement to brushing your teeth — something you do consistently to prevent problems, not something you scramble to fix after damage has already occurred.
Rather than focusing on advanced mobility drills or corrective exercise jargon, the book introduces 10 movement “vital signs”. All basic benchmarks that indicate whether your body is functioning well enough to tolerate daily life and training. These include:
Sitting comfortably on the floor
Maintaining spinal rotation
Hingeing at the hips
Reaching overhead without compensation
Breathing effectively under stress
Starrett’s point is simple: if you can’t do these things, your body is operating with limited options and limited options lead to pain.
Why Built to Move Works Where Other Mobility Books Fail
One of the biggest strengths of Built to Move is its simplicity and realism. Starrett doesn’t prescribe hour-long mobility routines or unrealistic daily practices. Instead, he emphasizes small, repeatable actions that fit into normal life:
Short walks
Brief posture resets
Micro mobility breaks
Better sitting and sleeping positions
Intentional breathing
This approach makes the book incredibly practical. It’s not written for fitness professionals trying to impress peers. It’s written for people who are busy, stiff, tired, and overwhelmed.
A Coach’s Perspective: Why Strength Isn’t Enough
For strength and conditioning coaches, Built to Move reinforces a truth many already know but don’t always program for: movement quality underpins performance. Starrett doesn’t dive into force-velocity profiling or advanced periodization, but his philosophy supports the idea that athletes who move poorly are more fragile, less adaptable, and more injury-prone.
The book subtly challenges coaches to consider what happens outside the weight room. A perfectly designed training program cannot override:
eight hours of poor sitting
limited joint exposure
chronic stress
lack of daily movement variability
Starrett’s emphasis on the “other 23 hours” aligns strongly with modern athlete monitoring and load management principles.
How Built to Move Reframes Pain and Injury
Another standout feature of the book is how it addresses pain. Starrett consistently pushes back against the belief that pain automatically equals damage. Instead, he frames pain as a signal. Often the result of restricted movement options, poor load tolerance, or inadequate recovery. This perspective is empowering, especially for readers who feel stuck in cycles of flare-ups and fear-based movement avoidance. Rather than encouraging rest-only solutions, Built to Move promotes gradual exposure, improved movement capacity, and consistent practice. All ideas that are strongly supported by contemporary pain science.
Who Should Read Built to Move?
Built to Move is ideal for:
general population clients
aging athletes
parents and professionals with limited time
coaches looking for a resource to give athletes or families
anyone dealing with recurring stiffness or discomfort
It may feel basic for advanced coaches or those deeply familiar with Starrett’s earlier work, but that’s intentional. This book prioritizes compliance over complexity, which is exactly why it works.
Final Verdict: Is Built to Move Worth Reading?
Yes. Especially if your goal is to stay active for decades, not just training cycles.
Built to Move doesn’t introduce radical new theories. Instead, it delivers something far more valuable: a clear, actionable system for maintaining movement health over a lifetime. Starrett’s message is consistent and grounded . You don’t need perfect movement, but you do need regular, intentional movement exposure.
In a culture that glorifies intensity and ignores sustainability, Built to Move serves as both a reminder and a roadmap. If Becoming a Supple Leopard taught us how to move well under load, Built to Move teaches us how to keep moving when the lifting stops.
And that might be the most important lesson of all.
