Sustainable Fitness

If we loose the ability to bend over and garden then we loose the ability to eat.  Yes I know most people get there food from the grocery store.  However, as the food quality standards change, so will our ability to meet our nutritional needs.

The ability to do Primal Movements allows a person to be able to sustain their life by giving them the strength to grow and harvest food and take care of daily chores essential to being able to live and sustain their life.

Primal Movements are defined as movements that up sustain us from infancy throughout our lives.  They begin as reflexive responses in utero and develop into well coordinated complex movement patterns that are the foundation for giving us strength, function and good body mechanics.

These Include:

1. Rolling Over  2. Crawling  3. Squat  4. Push/Pull  5. Reach/Grasp  6. Lift/Carry 7. Stillness/Yield

Qualities Needed:

1. Endurance  2. Strength  3. Recovery  4. Focus

***Note: there is a wrong way to do these above movements

Common Daily Activities That Can Become an Exercise

Common Daily Activities That Can Become an Exercise
by Wendy Woods

I love my profession because my regular exercise program is still a part of my daily life routines.  This was true for folks that lived before gyms and desk jobs too.

People say "Oh you can't get a workout from cleaning or doing house chores!"  This couldn't be more false, especially, if you are using good body mechanics.  Using good body mechanics educates your body and increases strength and function every time you do the movement.  The problem is do you know when you have an opportunity to increase your fitness ability.

7 Daily Opportunities for Exercise:

1.  Sit to Stand
2.  Pick Up The Sock
3.  Carry It
4.  Get up From The Floor
5.  Roll Over
6.  Reach For It
7.  Stairs

Most of us overlook these important 'transition movements'.  Instead we drive, use our arms to stand, lurch or throw our bodies in our attempt to "take the easy way out" and lose our ability to perform the daily movements with good form.

One of the first things I teach my clients is how to sit down and stand up in a beneficial way, increasing longevity and decreasing possible injury over time.

Awareness Practice- How do you get into your car?

Sitting risks: How harmful is too much sitting?

What are the risks of sitting too much?

Answer

from James A. Levine, M.D., Ph.D.

Researchers have linked sitting for long periods of time with a number of health concerns, including obesity and metabolic syndrome — a cluster of conditions that includes increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels.

Too much sitting also seems to increase the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer.

One recent study compared adults who spent less than two hours a day in front of the TV or other screen-based entertainment with those who logged more than four hours a day of recreational screen time. Those with greater screen time had:

• A nearly 50 percent increased risk of death from any cause
• About a 125 percent increased risk of events associated with cardiovascular disease, such as chest pain (angina) or heart attack

The increased risk was separate from other traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as smoking or high blood pressure.

Sitting in front of the TV isn't the only concern. Any extended sitting — such as behind a desk at work or behind the wheel — can be harmful. What's more, spending a few hours a week at the gym or otherwise engaged in moderate or vigorous activity doesn't seem to significantly offset the risk.

Rather, the solution seems to be less sitting and more moving overall. You might start by simply standing rather than sitting whenever you have the chance.

For example:

• Stand while talking on the phone or eating lunch.
• If you work at a desk for long periods of time, try a standing desk — or improvise with a high table or counter.

Better yet, think about ways to walk while you work:

• Walk laps with your colleagues rather than gathering in a conference room for meetings.
• Position your work surface above a treadmill — with a computer screen and keyboard on a stand or a specialized treadmill-ready vertical desk — so that you can be in motion throughout the day.

The impact of movement — even leisurely movement — can be profound. For starters, you'll burn more calories. This might lead to weight loss and increased energy.

Even better, the muscle activity needed for standing and other movement seems to trigger important processes related to the breakdown of fats and sugars within the body. When you sit, these processes stall — and your health risks increase. When you're standing or actively moving, you kick the processes back into action.

Create a Balanced Exercise Program

Many people approach exercise from a fight or flight survival approach.  No blame, this is our current education model.  I watched chickens the other day.  One dominate chicken, when it came time to receive food, pushed all the other chicken out of the way.  In essence the dominate chicken was a bully.  This dominate chicken is living from a pure survival mechanism in the brain which was established by a older evolutionary part of our brain.  Not bad, just out dated. 

Creating a balanced exercise program is all about the Approach, Process and Recovery.  If one of these is off, then we will not experience exercise as beneficial and we will be less likely to enjoy and maintain an active lifestyle.  

The 'Approach' is our warm up or how we begin to sense our body in motion.  Listening to the parts and how they are coordinated together. Sensing our areas of tension or weakness.  What parts of us are playing and which parts are out to lunch? Are we having a fun experiencing of our strength and ability to move and challenging ourselves? Or are we beating ourselves up, programing more self defeating thoughts and creating more suffering?

The 'Process' is the choice of what exercise we do, why we do it and how.   The choice of what exercise to do is the beginning of creating a completely personalized program that is like a fingerprint, total unique.  A balanced, truly, personalized exercise program is based on how you feel first and for most.  Run experiments.  Do a movement, notice the results.  If the movement is done well you will be able to notice the benefit. Aches and pains are not normal, they are signs and symptoms that something is wrong.  We all know lots of exercise "moves" but what do they do?  Slow down and notice your journey before its too late.  

The 'Recovery' is where we analyze the results of our exercise. Integrating and balancing the tensional matrix of our body back to a feeling of relaxed whole-ness .  This includes reestablishing parasympathetic function with breath and stillness, stretches, foam rolling, dynamic integrated movements like Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, and Tai Chi/Qi Gong.

Have Fun finding your Kinesthetic Delight!

Wendy Woods

What is Being Mindful

According to the Rick Hanson, being mindful is simply having good control over your attention.  Your attention can be placed where ever you want it to be.  When your attention is steady so is your mind explains Hanson.  With steady attention your mind is not hijacked by what ever pops into your awareness. Monkey mind is the traditional critical term to for skittish attention.

"Attention is like a spot light and what it illuminates streams into your mind and shapes your brain.  Gaining control over your intention is perhaps the single most powerful way to reshape your brain and thus your mind. You can train and strengthen your attention just like any other mental ability, Hanson.

Methods for deep contemplation, concentration and mindfulness are included in all traditions.    Typically one practices focused attention where your attention becomes absorbed in a something such as the breath.  Absorbing your attention completely on your breath for 1 breath cycle and then increasing up to 10 will help to train your attention.  Try this and notice what your mind does.  Are you able to hold your attention on the breath or do thoughts come in and interrupt the process?

Incorporating mindfulness into your life with not only enhance your physical fitness program but every other aspect of your life.  

Rick Hanson is author of the Buddha's Brain: Th Practical Neuroscience of happiness, love and wisdom.

http://www.rickhanson.net/  

The Lactic Acid Myth

DOMS or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness is a term that describes the muscle soreness experienced 36-48 hours after any significant increase in effort, range or duration of effort. According to Lloyd Mills it is a multi dimensional problem. The Four Main causes for DOMS: 1st Hyaluronic acid built becomes a tissue and joint irritant and stays in the joint until the joint is compressed and moved again. 2nd Metabolic Creatinine build up. It takes 72 hours for Creatinine to be urinated out and during this time the body has lessenergy or ATP deficiency to repair tissue, causing a nutritional deficiency. 3rdProprioception adaptation of the nervous system from low intensity to high intensity. We tell the body to do an intense activity and it resets the intentions of the nervous system preparing the body to do the activity again in the future. When the muscles don't get the same stimulus the muscles begin to get less stimulus and is unable to repair and organize or create homeostasis of the tissue 4th MicroTrauma- Overuse of muscle fibers can damage contractile fibers. This stimulates repair process that tells the cells to have a little inflammatory process, irritating nerves even more.

How to Avoid DOMS: 1st Do a good warm-up and ROM every 3-4 hours for 72 hours after an intense workout. 2nd Make sure there are no nutritional issues that relate to poor circulations, blood sugar levels, medication side effects or mineral deficits.

Clean Your Sinuses!

Those that live in an arid climate like Boulder, Colorado are especially prone to developing sinus infections. The functioning of the mucus membranes of the sinuses are severely compromised in a dry climate. Meaning they are less efficient at clearing out irritants and maintaing a barrier of mucous to protect the body from getting an infection.

Most sinus infections or “colds/allergies” can be avoided if proper integrity of the nasal passage is maintained.

To avoid a trip to your doctor and using harmful antibiotics and other medications that have a host of negative effects on the body, use nasal irrigation. Many more up-to-date doctors are recommending cleaning the nasal passages as a number one way to defend against colds, allergies, and sinus infections.

There are several types of nasal cleaning devices available. I would recommend a syringe type system because it can get into the higher nasal passages and it is easier to use. I bought mine at Pharmaca in Boulder but most grocery pharmacies carry a nasal cleaning product.

Hydration with water and electrolytes/salts and a low sugar and low inflammatory diet can also help you to avoid sinus problems.