Tag: fitness

Fitness, Health, Inspiration, motivation, Ongoing Education, Training & Competition, Wellness

HEART AND HANDS – Chapter 2 SST

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“The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps – we must step up the stairs.” –Vance Havner

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HEART & HANDS

“One Hollows The Clay And Shapes It Into Pots:

In Its Nothingness Consists The Pot’s Effectiveness.” 

By “hollowing the clay” of our bodies to shape them to our desired forms, we open the heart and open the hands, literally and figuratively. We reach in each direction of a stretch because our bodies have become huddled and contorted, compressed and distorted by our daily deeds.

What we do with the “clay that shapes the pot” varies according to our talents, ambitions, vision, instruction and application. We are created equal, barring background, deformities or handicaps. We all have the same flesh and bones that are our substances. We each have our own specific, genetic make-up which makes us physically look the way we do, shapes our muscles, and determines the length of our limbs and the strength of our hearts.  This is the “nothingness” we begin to shape into something greater.

We open the heart, letting calmness and fresh air to enter and expand its chambers. The fats and processed foods constricting its essential movement and basic operations are allowed to release. The pressure on the organs from bad posture, endless sitting, slouching and gravity itself is changed when reaching high, bending low and stretching out flat on the floor. The “nothingness” there is the space between the arms and legs, between the chest and neck and tailbone as the flat earth grounds you and calms the vibrations of the body to a noticeable hum that lulls the body into the “ahh” you are, laying flat on the floor, mimicking Da Vinci’s perfect proportions as you expand in every direction by laying motionless. You arch your body to receive this “nothingness” which really becomes the “effectiveness” your body needs.

Opening the heart and hands to the challenges of the body in exercise movements forms the clay of our flesh. What is taken away, in terms of extraneous equipment and entertainment, are further distractions from the centered focus one needs in exercise. By taking away, we gain.  By using our hearts and our hands we are freed to new levels of improved movement.

We take what we have, and through activity, nutrition and environment we develop our abilities and talents.  We hollow the clay and shape the pots that are our lives. We add more muscle here, take fat away there, add strength, flexibility, and balance and by this gain speed, endurance, power and longevity. Our “effectiveness” comes from developing what we have to begin with.

The effective “nothingness” is the ability to stop thinking during competition and allow the body to perform automatically.  If balance, footwork, stability, strength and flexibility are practiced consistently, play becomes play.  The neuroskeletal system responds to the stimulus put upon it, compensating at various angles, planes and leverages with speed, force and focus.

We all begin with the same set of tools; our bodies that we were born with, our brains and hearts to become whatever we set out to become, and our hands and legs to get us wherever we move toward. We each have “Heart and Hands.”

START WITH THE HEART

The first thing to identify us before birth is the ultrasound of our heartbeat. That is all that defines us. It identifies us as a human in our mother’s womb. That is where we started. The Latin origin for the word “Core” is “Heart”.

As we begin any exercise program or workout regimen we should also start with the heart to make sure it is strong enough to handle the stress we plan to put before it. By learning to target and train the heart for ultimate efficiency, you can increase many areas of the whole physical system by concentrating on just one. The stronger the heart, the stronger the whole system you can build around it. If it is weak, so too will you be.

The benefits of beginning a cardiovascular program are numerous. The first goal is to raise your heart rate through aerobic exercise. Walking exercises your lungs and circulatory system, bringing more oxygen and blood to the brain and heart tissue, which improves mood, alertness, and stimulates the release of endorphins, the “feel good” hormones. By releasing endorphins it combats depression and elevates mood in general, along with well-being and self-esteem through accomplishment, confidence and self –sufficiency.

Walking is also the most available form of exercise, it can be performed virtually anywhere, has the lowest incidence of injury and enhances mobility. Anyone can do it, from the obese 8 year old to the ailing 80 year old. It keeps blood pressure normal, enriches the heart and arteries, lowers cholesterol, increases bone strength and burns excess calories in the most beneficial, least taxing way.

Other positive side effects are that sleep improves and the nervous system gets a workout by stimulating balance and stability when moving your arms rapidly in a rhythmic, cadenced tempo. Once this simple exercise is incorporated into a daily regimen, it often leads to other forms of cardiovascular training.

The maximum heart rate is basically calculated as the number 220 minus your age, multiplied by 70-85% to find your optimal heart rate zone. There are other more precise ways to gauge optimum heart rate, but this is a simple formula that works. For example: a 30 year old would be 220-30 = 190. 70% of that would be 190 x .70 = 133 heartbeats per minute. To exercise in a higher zone, multiply by .80 for 152 heartbeats and let that be the upper levels per minute. The simplest way to check your heart rate is to count your pulse for 6 seconds and multiply that by 10, i.e., 15 pulses x 10 = 150 heartbeats per minute.

Keeping the heart in this zone for a 22 – 33 minute period will begin to show immediate benefits. If it’s too hard to sustain that rate, that’s all the more reason to keep working at it consistently, but at a slower pace. If it’s easy to achieve, try taking it to 85% of your maximum and attempt to sustain that level for 44 – 55 minutes. This is the cardio-effect. This is exercising the heart to handle the workload you plan to put on it with exercise and weights.

Start with the heart. A healthy heart will garner far-reaching effects by burning excess calories and conditioning the whole body to work more efficiently.  Exercising the heart in an aerobic capacity will put the body in motion as well as the blood. The less resistance the body has internally, by keeping a healthy heart system, the more performance you will get out of the graduated aspects of training.

This is the something from nothing the poem refers to; you may not be doing anything more than walking, but by doing it with a plan and concentrated effort, you are effectively causing the body to change by accepting or rejecting the exercise, and compensating further progress.

By beginning with the heart and hands we assure our bodies and minds of exactly what we start with. Going through a week of freehand exercises will get the body acclimated to exercise, will point out weaknesses, imbalances and strengths, and will incorporate a discipline that accepts no exceptions or excuses because the body and gravity are all that’s required to begin.

This is what Nike meant when it said, “Just do it” The effective nothingness is the ability to stop thinking during competition and allow the body to perform automatically. To shape yourself for a particular sport is to fashion your personal vehicle that drives you to your chosen destination.

USE YOUR HANDS

Use the equipment necessary for every sport and activity that you currently have and always will have, YOUR BODY.  Use your bodyweight as its own resistance when you begin a strength training program. Once you learn how to add repetitions and sets to a foundation based on good form, you’ll learn how to build a program that disciplines your body in every area, alleviating weaknesses and building strength upon strength for better athletic performance, better health, longevity and lifelong activity. And you’ll learn how to get all you need from the environment already available to you.

A step, a floor, a pull-up bar, a chair, a resistance ball, a track, a gym, a pool, a park, a playground all offer areas where a little knowledge, imagination, discipline and commitment can increase your level of fitness 110% from where it currently is.  Sometimes the simplest training can teach us the most about our bodies. A push up teaches us uniformity, balance, strength, discipline, pacing, endurance, stability and a way to see measurable gains on a timely basis. As long as you have your hands you can build upper body strength.

Deliberate, repetitive, identical, one-right-after-the-other–moves, train the muscles and also the neuroskeletal system. Begin with as many repetitions as you can, until you can perform 11 perfectly. By holding the contraction and extension fully, you’re sending serious signals to your nerve fibers. You’re giving your muscles a predetermined “groove.” The shape they take is determined by your will, vision and ability to concentrate fully in each repetition.

Fitness, Health, Inspiration, motivation, Ongoing Education, Training & Competition, Wellness

STRENGTHEN THE POSTURE and BALANCE THE SYMMETRY

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Flat GoldSTRENGTHEN THE POSTURE and BALANCE THE SYMMETRY 

Notice how many people are hunched at the shoulders, slouched in their seats, uneven in their stride, top-heavy or bottom-heavy. The population is getting more and more out of balance at younger and younger ages.

How can a parent tell his child to stand up straight when his own shoulders are hunched or has a back in posterior tilt because of an oversized potbelly?  Where are children supposed to learn to exercise daily when their gym teachers are 60, 70, 80 pounds overweight? How do you bring balance to lives filled with infrequent, non nutritious meals and sedentary excuses for play? You start by drawing a clear example, by leading rather than preaching.

Many people striving for fitness end up hindering their progress by a lack of balance. They should strive to balance their body symmetrically and increase their strength proportionately, in addition to enhancing lung capacity and endurance.

If your sport of choice requires club-speed, bat-speed, racquet speed or arm speed of any kind, than the surrounding muscles must be worked equally. Determine the speed and area of stride required for your sport. Running long, straight distances tax the body and its energy differently than short bursts of lateral or multidirectional movements. Mimicry of movement, such as weighted swings, are often detrimental to technique when overdone. All sports, played and participated in by all types and levels of athletes, gain unmatched athleticism when symmetry, strength and speed are garnered and gained through a balanced approach.

There are many people working to be fit, improve cardiovascular shape with marathon aspirations, become better defined or lighter and leaner, but the initial attention should go toward strengthening the posture and balancing the symmetry.  Posture is the vertical alignment of your carriage. The structural integrity of your skeletal system is enhanced through Pilates, chiropractic adjustment and strength training. They align the framework your flesh rests upon.

Symmetry is the top to bottom and left to right proportions. This is enhanced by yoga, massage and strength training. Pilates and chiropractic work the bones, while massage and yoga work the muscles. Strength training works both the bones and the muscles.

CONSISTENCY EQUALS RESULTS

If you make your workouts, cardio sessions and meal preparations with attentive frequency, you’ll gain consistent results in strength, shape and health. You will never make consistent gains with inconsistent effort.

If your schedule requires fast, easy meals, take the effort to have on hand the best types of foods, prepared with the greatest benefit for nutritional input, so that you’re adding to your health and energy rather than taking away from it. By choosing exercises that strengthen your weaknesses rather than always working “favorites,” you alleviate the weak links that sooner than later materialize as injuries. By consistently using proper form on every plane, your shape will have more depth and therefore more appeal from every angle, in addition to functionality.

You must make a plan and work that plan, with enough common sense to know when to back off and when to add intensity. It does no good to show up and lazily go through the motions. If all you have to offer is 20 minutes of concentration, put what you’ve got into it and go home. Attend to the details. Exercise with attention to equal intention and leave when it falters.

The body responds to consistent effort. Train it often, as scheduled, and gains will result.  Feed it in adequate amounts with rich, varied, whole foods and it responds with energy, alertness, slimness, longevity and a healthy immune response. Or, as too many are currently choosing, feed it with fat-laden, processed foods, poisonous tobacco, alcohol, soft drinks and empty calories and it responds as toxicity incarnate, with disease and debility.

If you train to become a better musician, you consistently work harder at practice and become a better player. An artist must create art by consistently practicing technique.  An athlete must consistently prepare their body to the best of its capacity for performance, to become better athletes.  That training never goes away.  Just like music lessons, or artistic training, the daily ritual of practice lifts the play to uninhibited, unrestricted performance.  Your body speaks a language and sometimes it shouts when it hurts and sometimes it whimpers when it’s beaten, but it always responds to the stress put on it by accommodating and preparing for the next time that load is put in front of it. Consistency equals preparedness.

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

The first step with Simple Structured Training is to Think. You should be conscientious of what your body is going through on a daily basis.

  • What do you want?
  • How soon do you want it?
  • How much are you ready to sacrifice to get it?
  • How much time are you willing to invest in getting in shape?
  • What equipment and facilities do you have to work with?
  • What are you willing to learn?
  • What are your ultimate goals?

It’s no different than anything else in life.  No one has anything new to offer.  These revolutionary products on infomercials are simply new ways of taking your money with century old techniques of achieving your goal, like walking!  Some books are full of cute phrases and new tags for old exercises, sit-ups are “Abdominal Abolishers.”

So many books and videos are started with promises like, “ In just 3 weeks…10 minutes…2 months, etc.”  What comes next? What happens after the 12-week workout – that wasn’t suited to your body style in the first place – is over, and you’re far short of the promised results?  Do you know anything more about your body? Or did you just follow painted footsteps around on the gym floor for 3 months?  If you’re here to stay, than so too should your workouts and some type of physical activity, every day.

POETRY IN MOTION

The flexibility, the balance, the strength, the dexterity, the resilience, the blind bravery of a child is everyone’s right. By ignoring your body through inactivity, by forgetting to play, you’re really killing yourself. All the things keeping you from exercise or play don’t compare to the benefits found with fitness. Every single aspect of your life, for all of your life, is positively affected when you put some thought and work into exercise and fitness.

As children, we experienced exhilaration and jubilation often enough to make it a natural thing in our growing lives.  A drawing, a starred homework paper, a song, a cartwheel, a picture in the clouds, a hug, a fast bike ride home, a greeting from our dog, could each have been enough to trigger a feeling of that moment being more than ordinary life had to offer.  Sometimes we noticed it, and sometimes it went by like the wind we ran through, but those magic moments were there for us to experience, and the feelings associated with them can be conjured for years to come in various situations.

Through our physical natures we transcend earth and achieve the spiritual.  All athletes in all sports experience it at some time in their lives.  The best athletes achieve it most often.  There are many modes available for achieving this transcendence to the spiritual through the physical plane in competition. Dancers, artists, musicians, architects, writers and actors also experience this elevation by going deep within to bring out this magic, revelatory moment which inspires and awes others each time they’re reviewed. This synchronistic execution of performance meeting preparation is the definition of “Poetry In Motion.”

There’s a reason these “things” are called “feelings.” There’s a reason victory and defeat bring equal tears of emotion. We are physical beings in three-dimensional space working on limited time. It is our privilege, blessing and duty to make the most of it. With Simple Structured Training, you can make the “eventful” the “everyday.”

The poem by Lao Tzu, Show Simplicity, Hold Fast To Honesty, defines the essence of how Simple Structured Training should be approached, step-by-step, with clarity, vision and patience. Each age and culture have their own proponents of living the merits of an active life. From Socrates and Hippocrates to Tzu, Thoreau, Whitman, Lalane and Schwarzenegger, being in tune with our inner physicality accentuates the life lived on our exteriors, and resonates to those closest to us. As Einstein said, it is important to work only as much as it allows us to increase our leisure.

Life should be long. Give yourself enough time to find what works for you in keeping the physical aspects of your life working and intact. There is room for experiment. There is room for error. But there must be room for trial. I cannot help but stress how much an active life, especially one begun early, affects the way you look at everything from the simplest challenges, to the dreams and wishes you hold for your children.

Sporting events and our interest in them have grown tremendously. More schools have teams in more sports, with children specializing sooner in life. The Olympics add events annually. We have more food choices, more recreational outlets, more indulgences, yet more disease. Why not make your choices the ones that prove fruitful and beneficial to allow the longest, most abundant life possible across all aspects.

There is an Olympian in each one of us, whether we pursue that route or not, whether we’d even been to or seen an athletic event. As life courses through us, energy begets energy and the more we give, the more we get.

Fitness, Health, Inspiration, motivation, Ongoing Education, Training & Competition, Wellness

IT BEGINS AND ENDS WITH “YOU”

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IT BEGINS AND ENDS WITH “YOU”

Simple Structured Training starts with the equipment necessary for every sport and activity that you currently have and always will have – your body. People complain that they can’t get to a gym, don’t have the equipment, or can’t work out alone because they need a spotter or partner to assist them, motivate them, support them.

Simple Structured Training teaches you how to use your bodyweight as its own resistance when you begin a strength training program.  Once you learn how to add repetitions and sets to a foundation based on good form, you learn how to build on a program that disciplines your body in every area, alleviating weaknesses and building strength upon strength for better athletic performance, better health, longevity and lifelong activity.

Simple Structured Training works on the weaknesses hidden or ignored which hold you back from superior performance. It increases vertical and horizontal leap distances, directional mobility, and explosive power. Yet, it is simply a collection of exercises known by man for as long as they’d had a name for them. You must think of how you’re currently training, why you are training, and if that training is effective enough to help you improve in your sport and your life.

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Simple Structured Training asks you why and how you train in the first place. When you learn how your body works toward your respective activity, you begin to look at the movements you rehearse in practice so that performance becomes automatic on the field and reaction comes first rather than reflexion. This deep-seated mental acuity is key to making even the most simple work, play.

Simple Structured Training are a core group of exercises that everyone at every level should do. Balance, coordination, flexibility, strength, speed, agility, ability to recover, mental sharpness and physiological training are crucial at every age. As you train the body, you train the mind.  You begin generally, learn, grow, feed-back, get more specific, and refine goals to continually monitor your plan until you get to a level of maintenance that fits both your time and physical demands.

What typically happens is that an athlete begins to favor the training he or she is stronger at, that which comes easier.  Some would rather run than stretch, without realizing stretching would allow faster and longer runs.  Some choose to strength train rather than run, not realizing the benefits of oxygen uptake on muscular endurance.  The athlete that gets by on talent and genetics alone survives for a while with intermittent peak performances spotted by occasional injuries. The well-rounded athlete, who focuses on training weaknesses to strengths, while strengthening natural abilities, usually enjoys the longest career by constantly learning and achieving and often passing on this wealth of knowledge by example to others.

When you’re tuned in to exactly how your muscles feel, you’re doing it for you.  If you’re going too fast and not concentrating on the movement, you’re doing it for a coach or condition, to just “get it done”.  Once you find yourself making it harder on purpose, pushing for extra reps, tuning in to how your body performs instead of taking motion for granted, you’ll know you’re hitting the upper levels of training. Going further, doing extra, paying attention and letting go reward the creative soul many times over. This “feel” is the basis of Simple Structured Training. 

INTENSITY

The understanding you’ll need to be a better athlete is to simply feel what your body is telling you and respond to it with more or less intensity. Is your heart beating too fast as you exercise?  Learn where your optimum heart rate should be for a given, desired outcome, then meet it, surpass it, or slow down.  Do your joints ache? Pay attention to form, stance, angle, leverage and body position and back off on the weight. Is your bodyfat too high? Lower your intensity around food, and definitely skip the extra repetitions! There are no great secrets left to this training game.  The major “bodybuilding,” “shaping,” “renewing,” and “longevity” magazines have the same articles with the same exercises they had 50 years ago.  They call it something else, wrap a concept around it, design new equipment and put a fresh-faced model next to it, but it’s still Jack and Jill doing six basic movements.

People who get on a treadmill for forty minutes, four days in a week, after being physically dormant for 4 years, not only begin in an unbalanced state, but are bound to get more mechanically out of balance without flexibility training or working toward their maximum heart rate.  Throw in some weight training with too little or too much resistance or incorrect execution, and you often have an injured athlete instead of a strong participant.  With this, the frustration factor goes up, interest goes down and apathy returns because “you’re hurt.”

Many people work at jobs requiring them to bend, lift, lean, hunch, squat, or sit for hours on end.  Some drive or travel daily, thousands of miles per year.  Ergonomics in the office often only means a wrist rest near a computer keyboard, or an adjustable chair, while repetitive stresses are taking their toll on joints and organs.  All areas of work, as well as play, can be enhanced by learning how to strengthen the posture and balance the symmetry.

Health, Inspiration, motivation, Wellness

Three (Wellness-Spoken) Women

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Here are three distinctive women who have helped me in the past year to improve my overall understanding of diet and nutrition for myself, my family and my clients, on a day-to-day level.

Ella

Ella

The first one is a podcast called, “On Air With Ella”; http://onairwithella.com/category/podcast/  whose supporting website is a wealth of health, fitness, nutrition information, recipes and support on the whole spectrum of wellness.

Ella brings noted guests and experts on a wide range of topics to discuss mental health, fitness, relationships and tips to improve your family’s health. Her show is definitely for the audience, with support materials and liner notes to tell you exactly where to go to find more on the things she discusses.

She asks intelligent questions, then gets out-of-the-way to let the guest impart on the knowledge of the chosen topic.  Her website, onairwithella.com  is well-balanced, with a mix of products, routines, recipes and in-depth, down to earth conversations. Ella strikes the best balance with solid questions, lists of products and information avenues to pursue and peruse on your quest for wellness.

Sara

 

 

Dr. Sara Solomon

Ella is the reason I’d found the second great site of Dr. Sara Solomon. She walks the talk on http://www.drsarasolomon.com. Dr. Solomon is a past IFBB Bikini pro and a bodybuilding.com sponsored athlete who brings fire and energy in an entertaining, yet clear-cut way to the average person aspiring to be above average.

Ella’s interview with Dr.Solomon on intermittent fasting http://onairwithella.com/025-dr-sara-solomon-intermittent-fasting/ was the best explanation for one the smartest ways to lose weight and keep it off. The method was pioneered by Paul Bragg in his book The Miracle of Fasting  on the benefits of fasting for spiritual and physical rejuvenation. I began the intermittent fasting program in February, fasting 2 to 3 nights per week, and lost over 22 pounds to date, by July1. My son convinced me to try it and since then, I have continuously lost weight effortlessly.

Dr. Solomon is very much into her own methods and programs and advertises them blatantly. Dr. Solomon hits with a barrage of products from her host sponsor, but is clearly comfortable in showing her results with lively video courses, books, and a host of supplements and products. Her energy and humor are contagious and by seeing her execute the methods she proposes, invites you to try them for yourself, daily, weekly, monthly. She teaches by leading the way with short, simple home-based routines and regimens.

VANIThe Food Babe – Vani Hari

The third life-changing savior in this trinity of fitness, wellness and food is Vani Hari and her site thefoodbabeway.com. Vani is globally focused toward the education of the public on her ongoing battles with food labeling; while uncovering big company cover ups in the food industries. Vani Hari is outward focused, very informative, and deeply analytical of what the food industry gets away with by means of the poisons our foods include. She tells it like it is and makes you seriously reconsider every single food choice you make.

She also has many simple recipes for foods the whole family will enjoy, from smoothies to pastries, to main dishes; with an emphasis on organic, non-gmo choices. I learn from this site every time I go to it for information. If you have a question about any of your food choices, answers are found here to not only save you time and money, but your overall health as well.

What’s so special about them?

So why do these three mean so much to me?

I admire their honesty in uncovering the unhealthy aspects of the models, companies, practices and products we try to emulate in fitness magazines and videos; from the joke of competitive beauty sports, to the contradictory health practices of said competitions and the hidden dangers of a bodybuilding lifestyle that everyone else seems to be so afraid to talk about.

I learned more from these three women about cultivating healthy attitudes and lifestyle over the past 6 months than I had from the countless years of false supplement claims and contradictory, “unhealthy” health practices by the proposed giants in the health fields;  those who continue to sell magazines and supplements while continuing to endanger the public for the sake of profits. The only healthy thing about the fitness industry is its revenue.

Ella, Sara and Vani are women with real issues that are the concern of every person, young and old, male and female, in regard to healthy living. Their concerns are with helping people to understand that looking and feeling good takes common sense, priorities, planning and thought; not thousands of dollars or hours. They understand what it takes to obtain and keep a respectable physique that pleases you first, not the critics, judges or food manufacturers. They know that it is done through diligence and consistency, not any magic formula. Food should be grown, not manufactured, eaten and enjoyed, not “consumed for fuel.” These women have helped to filter through the bad information and done it as women so often do, with a loud voice and a firm following.

The Proof Is In The Person

Look at any of their sites and you will see that they are not “in-season, off-season”; they look good all the time and don’t bounce from plump to perfect on a yearly basis. You can see that the things they advocate are things they use themselves, and share what is dangerous and why it is, as well. They are passionate about what they’re doing and that passion comes through as a gift to the reader/listener in a sincere manner. They love sharing the information and are generous in their resources. When they are wrong, doubtful or questioning, they’ll let you know that as well.

drannand, Dr. Ann

As a final suggestion, Dr. Ann,  http://www.drannwellness.com is a newsletter worth joining. She is also a doctor, mother, health advocate and down to earth informant for what we should be putting into our bodies and what we should keep out. Her weekly tips are family based and she encourages the “normal” things we like, from fruits and vegetables to chocolate, chocolate, and chocolate… Her site is well-organized and she offers many services and products. She has a full line of books, seminars, videos and guides to get you started or to continue your gathering of information on health and wellness.

Never Stop Learning

I have dedicated my life to fitness, health and wellness;  and I’m still learning something new every day, from podcasts, newsletters, websites, books and tapes (yes, they still exist, as do CD’s) and with as much time and effort as I’ve poured into learning new approaches, there are still questions, strategies and techniques I learn from. Check back here often, subscribe, add resources and look for new ideas for improving the health of yourselves and your families. SHARE THE HEALTH.