<p>Embodied cognition maintains that there is a deep and significant relationship between the body and mind. But what exactly is the nature of this relation? According to body-centrism, the relation is one of profound constraint: the body makes a special contribution to the mind. Extended functionalism, in contrast, suggests the relation is looser: the body matters to the extent that it contributes to the functional or computational properties of the mind. The trouble is that these two accounts appear to offer competing conceptions of the body’s role within mental activities. I call this the ‘pressing problem’. I argue that a focus on mechanistic explanation can help resolve the pressing problem insofar as it points to important constraints between functional and structural properties within embodied systems. I show that further attention to mechanistic thinking can help to better understand the nature of embodiment.</p>