Showing posts with label wellbeing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wellbeing. Show all posts
Sunday, February 19, 2017
Stress as Illusion - Dealing with Stress Toms vs Stress Tigers
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Stress - for me that’s the “i HAVE to get this DONE!!!” Everything else falls before the necessity of this sudden, total imperative. GRRR ARRRGH. You know?
On reflection, as i somehow pause in the midst of one of these exact “i have to” moments (that’s gone on for almost my entire weekend) -i begin to think, you know, a lot of my stress seems to be convenient. It reminds me of the four quadrants for assessing what’s important to do - and what is not that Steven Covey made popular.
Very little, Covey says, is important and urgent: like our child is being rushed to the hospital and so we have to break an appointment.
Lots, says Covey, we let be urgent but it’s not important. Not really. Not such that it has to be attended to right now - which means other stuff - perhaps even important, but not urgent stuff - gets pushed to the side. Again. Sound familiar?
Thing is, i have other stuff to do that is actually important, but feel like i can’t do those other things till i get this one sorted. My focus also becomes intense, like if i look up, it will all fall apart; the “don’t bug me” walls go way up. Someone’s nice to me: i want to growl at them. Somehow this task has become the mission critical one. Is it?
As i pause right now, to ask this question, to confront myself, i find myself having to ask: is the problem i’m dealing with really that life or death that it affects the quality of life i have with those around me? Um. ok it feels that way, but that’s not the truth.
Sometimes it’s just easier to be in this reactive place than to pull back, breath and think more about what’s actually important, needs doing, but doesn’t have the “crisis” excuse wrapped aroung it to get it done. And heh, the stupid thing that does feel like a crisis has another feature: as it becomes an absolute time sink, it can also run out the clock of the day too so that other important thing that’s less interesting on the stack but actually more necessary to do gets delayed - again.
Let me step back: i’m not saying that stress isn’t real. The physiological response to something that sends up all those fight or flight responses - that makes me feel i have to respond to this “threat” right this minute - the very hormonal stress response is real. But i’m good, it seems, in allowing a wee stress trigger to dominate my action.
That is, the thing supposedly triggering the urgent “must do” stress response isn’t a tiger threatening to eat me.
It really isn’t that urgent such that if i don’t fix it, RIGHT NOW, drop everything else, i can’t get any of the important but not urgent stuff done.
Nope, i’m playing a role here in translating a kitty that’s spooked me - maybe even a nasty spraying tom kitty - into a tiger with big sharp teeth - and i’ll tell other people: there’s a tiger!! must get tiger!! get out of my space - when really it’s the tom in the corner.
To ask: what’s important today that this Stress Tom, is deflecting - and most important: has it interfered with me being loving with the folks i only get to go around life with once?
If it’s not really urgent and it’s screwing up my limited time with the folks i love or the things that are important (like a workout that can reduce all those hormal stress responses or doing some work that will add real value in an ongoing way to my life), then i need to find another solution.
For instnace, it may be to stop the stress tom activity and go make some tea for the family and re-engage there, try to talk about the rest of our day, or figure out where i can get some movement - and see if the solution to the Stress Tom doesn’t just manifest.
One way to get this practice is just to check in. If you'd like to try a practice session, for instance, while you're reading this, you might ask first, what is my trigger to know i'm in stress? Next: Am i having one of these moments? When was the last time i had one of those moments? Checking against the quadrants was that a real Tiger - something Urgent and Important - or was it just a stress Tom - Urgent-feeling, but not super important?
My experience, these kinds of reflections help build up the patterns our brains need to be able to (1) recognise these situations more quickly (2) fire up the options we want more quickly to deal with them - to put the cat out, as it were.
Does this process resonate?
Let me know how you identify and cope with your stress tom's
Good luck!
mc
@mcphoo Tweet Follow @begin2dig
On reflection, as i somehow pause in the midst of one of these exact “i have to” moments (that’s gone on for almost my entire weekend) -i begin to think, you know, a lot of my stress seems to be convenient. It reminds me of the four quadrants for assessing what’s important to do - and what is not that Steven Covey made popular.
Stress as Urgency Illusion
The four quads are important/not urgent; important/urgent; Not important/not urgent; not important/urgentVery little, Covey says, is important and urgent: like our child is being rushed to the hospital and so we have to break an appointment.
Lots, says Covey, we let be urgent but it’s not important. Not really. Not such that it has to be attended to right now - which means other stuff - perhaps even important, but not urgent stuff - gets pushed to the side. Again. Sound familiar?
The Techno Trap - stress illusion example
Here’s an example for me: something started happening on a computer network that affects how i can access the content i use to keep parts of my life moving, and i feel i need to get it fixed right away.Thing is, i have other stuff to do that is actually important, but feel like i can’t do those other things till i get this one sorted. My focus also becomes intense, like if i look up, it will all fall apart; the “don’t bug me” walls go way up. Someone’s nice to me: i want to growl at them. Somehow this task has become the mission critical one. Is it?
As i pause right now, to ask this question, to confront myself, i find myself having to ask: is the problem i’m dealing with really that life or death that it affects the quality of life i have with those around me? Um. ok it feels that way, but that’s not the truth.
Sometimes it’s just easier to be in this reactive place than to pull back, breath and think more about what’s actually important, needs doing, but doesn’t have the “crisis” excuse wrapped aroung it to get it done. And heh, the stupid thing that does feel like a crisis has another feature: as it becomes an absolute time sink, it can also run out the clock of the day too so that other important thing that’s less interesting on the stack but actually more necessary to do gets delayed - again.
Stress Tom vs Stress Tiger
So stress, it seems, can be a useful illusion. Useful if i am actually being fearful and want to procrastinate.Let me step back: i’m not saying that stress isn’t real. The physiological response to something that sends up all those fight or flight responses - that makes me feel i have to respond to this “threat” right this minute - the very hormonal stress response is real. But i’m good, it seems, in allowing a wee stress trigger to dominate my action.
That is, the thing supposedly triggering the urgent “must do” stress response isn’t a tiger threatening to eat me.
It really isn’t that urgent such that if i don’t fix it, RIGHT NOW, drop everything else, i can’t get any of the important but not urgent stuff done.
Nope, i’m playing a role here in translating a kitty that’s spooked me - maybe even a nasty spraying tom kitty - into a tiger with big sharp teeth - and i’ll tell other people: there’s a tiger!! must get tiger!! get out of my space - when really it’s the tom in the corner.
So how deal with the Stress Tom (not Stress Tiger)?
Part of the process for me - once i actually get to a pause - has been running the reality check of this supposed urgent thing to do against the Quadrants to find out if what the issue is, is truly urgent or just irritating?To ask: what’s important today that this Stress Tom, is deflecting - and most important: has it interfered with me being loving with the folks i only get to go around life with once?
If it’s not really urgent and it’s screwing up my limited time with the folks i love or the things that are important (like a workout that can reduce all those hormal stress responses or doing some work that will add real value in an ongoing way to my life), then i need to find another solution.
For instnace, it may be to stop the stress tom activity and go make some tea for the family and re-engage there, try to talk about the rest of our day, or figure out where i can get some movement - and see if the solution to the Stress Tom doesn’t just manifest.
Three Steps to Disengage From the Stress Tom Illusion
In sum,- STEP ONE: ID YOUR TOM TRIGGERS: practice recognising i’m having what for me is my stress response. For me that’s anything where i’m saying to myself or others “i have to do this." Usually, that's just not true. And even if it is, what did i do to get there?
- STEP TWO: STOP & REALITY CHECK - Once i hit an "i have to" - the challenge is to disengage from that " i have to" and check it against the quads for true urgency value against true importance value.
- STEP THREE: RECONNECT - If i have a stress tom in front of me - when assessed against the quads, the best way to move it from Tiger to Tom is do something else asap that will re-engage with what’s important, like go be present to someone i love, or go do some push ups.
One way to get this practice is just to check in. If you'd like to try a practice session, for instance, while you're reading this, you might ask first, what is my trigger to know i'm in stress? Next: Am i having one of these moments? When was the last time i had one of those moments? Checking against the quadrants was that a real Tiger - something Urgent and Important - or was it just a stress Tom - Urgent-feeling, but not super important?
My experience, these kinds of reflections help build up the patterns our brains need to be able to (1) recognise these situations more quickly (2) fire up the options we want more quickly to deal with them - to put the cat out, as it were.
Does this process resonate?
Let me know how you identify and cope with your stress tom's
Good luck!
mc
@mcphoo Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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Friday, November 19, 2010
Apple iPad review - finding a health niche: bathtub reading
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Have you been thinking about an iPad
, or already taken the plunge? If you've been vascilating, i hope this post helps with some baseline cogitation.
Preamble: Why this item on a health blog? Because the tools we use affect us, and also help
construct our sense of self. Technology also mediates social connections. If you're skeptical, consider the role of the iPhone
(or other previous life must-have objects) and look at how people check out what phone folks have - are the iPhone'ers or Evo'ers or something else?
(no, i still don't have a cell phone; i know: rare).
These devices are not only functional, but in this dance of who has what, and the discussions that emerge - as well as the contacts they facilitate, they make space for interaction, sometimes for interaction that would not otherwise occur. A colleague and i were talking just the other day about how kids who are different than their peer groups no longer feel quite so isolated at school: they can connect with larger peer groups of similar odd balls, geeks, and the geniuses of tomorrow via asynchronous communication channels, like social networking. It's not all evil online.
And, as i've argued before, interacting with folks around us is a huge part of well being - just a reminder, i think the biggies for health are movement, nutrition, recovery (including sleep) and social interaction.
Apple iPad Experience
Ok: what i'd like to touch on in this article is a wee bit about the iPad experience - including the rationales of students, colleagues, researchers, and folks in airport lounges - for its context of use. See if any of these map to your experience.
The Coders. My favorite rationale for the iPad so far have been two of the researchers working on a project with me at the U. They said that having an iPad 3g would let them keep working while they were in transit, and the form factor makes it easier to use in such spaces than pulling out a laptop. They do spend a lot of time on the road for short hops, and at bus stops. Are they constantly coding at these sites? No. But they are both obsessive about what they do, and they really will be absorbing whatever is going on in the environment on the web, following up on resaerch papers etc, anytime, anywhere. They don't even seem to mind the typing on the glass experience. Bottom line: university research doesn't pay nearly as well as corporate research. If an ipad helps these guys be more productive and HAPPY, then i'm happy - and so are the folks funding our work because these guys always deliver the results they promise.
The Semi-Business or Tourist Travelers. An increasing number of higher end travelers are pulling out iPads at airline lounges and on even short haul flights. These folks say that they have desktop computers back home - or even laptops - but for the particular trip - their computer requirements are such that simply checking their mail and browsing the web is sufficient. Why carry a full laptop? And the glass keyboard? No one's favorite, but felt to be sufficient for their requirements. And for one group of travellers from New Zealand to America, the opportunity to have even more entertainment choices - including games and one's own tunes along with videos - make it a fabulous communication + entertainment device.
The Every Possible Device'ers. Most of my colleagues who work in computing have of necessity just about every kind of computing device under the sun. And so of course they picked up an iPad. Do they use it? Where before many who also have desktop computers in their office used to carry laptops to meetings or lectures quite a subset are now taking iPads to these contexts. Weight and ease of use is often sited as the rationale.
Intriguingly, some of these folks STILL carry a full laptop back and forth from work to home. They've just added weight to their backpack in order to travel with mutliple devices. Why? Especially if they don't have a desktop machine, they need their laptop for main work. The iPad, they suggest, lets them keep their laptops all plugged into external displays and devices, and locked to their desks, while they just grab the iPad to head to meetings or class.
The Readers. One of the interesting arguments for the iPad has been its use as a reader. The iBooks ap is connected to Apple's book store for easy access to eBooks, and it's also easy to drag PDF's onto the iPad when it's hooked up to a computer. That's refreshing (this feature works on ipod Touches and iPhones, too).
Here's the thing. Even for this 2lb device, trying to read one handed is not 
entirely problem free. If one is standing up with this thing, holding it in one hand gets tiring fast. Best angle is lying back on a couch, and balancing it in one's lap. Compared with the weight of say the Kindle
, or the sony reader
, the iPad is a PigPad.
Likewise, Kindle made hay over the summer of how easy its digital ink display is to read in direct sunlight, and how easy on the eyes its passive screen is for hours of reading - delivering a more paper-like experience. And they're an nth of the price of the iPad. So if all one wants is a virtual near infinite digital paperback, why not a kindle or reader?
The advantages of the iPad, it's advocates contend, is that one can do SO MUCH MORE with an iPad than JUST read. One coach buddy, Kira Robert Clark aka the Fight Geek loves the fact that the iPad has a colour screen, so he can read his graphic novels and comics in their full online glory. Kira's said he's really happy with the reading experience, too.
The Unsure. Some of my other colleagues who have iPads or access to them are, like me, uncertain about the role in the world of what seems to be an oversized iPhone. One colleague said it's best uses so far have been (1) t to bring out at dinner parties for friends to check out and have a play with it as a conversation starter, (2) to use to serve a portable slide show about a person recently deceased. Folks passed around the iPad at the person's wake to reminisce as the video played. A fairly niche application perhaps?
The Tub. In my own case, i used one of our groups loaners for a couple weeks. My goal had been to use it to read all the research papers i download - but a biggie part of reading such papers is the ability to mark them up. I did not encounter a decent annotation tool for pdfs that did not create new images or unsharable mark up. Dam. And with the adobe/apple hate fest on, it's unlikely we'll see an ipad acrobat pro
any time soon. So my biggest hope for the iPad died a sad and lonely death.
The best use i found for the iPad, though, happened by accident. From time to tiime, just to relax, i love taking a hot hot tub and reading. I get some of my best insights this way. Things come together in a good soak. I thought what the heck and put a chair beside the tub, a towel on the chair and the ipad on said chair.
With dry hands and arms, i decided to have a go at YouTube. It was awesome. I confess i can think of no better way to watch youTube videos than this. It was a gas going through bits of movies, tunes, help items. And then, le piece du resistance. I've no idea now how it happened, but i somehow found my way to videos about the iPad itself, including an amazing parody of the original release
Maybe some day posit science will port its awesome software to help elder cognitive function to the iPad - now that would be awesome. There's already at least one story of how it's helping in therapy for disabled.
Bottom Line? Personally, i'm not an iPad user. For my needs the best thing that ever happened was the
second (not the first and not the latest) rev of the MacBook Air
- a full computer, lightweight etc etc. My inbetween device for tunes and related is an iPod Touch
. And heck, these iPod things even have some kind of retina display now, along with FaceTime and half-assed camera for back of the napkin idea grabs anywhere, anytime.
But again, based on the majority of folks i know or whom i've encountered who think these iPads rock, those of us who scratch our heads about the iPad are in the minority. That may even be a little bit sad to be what must be out of it.
So, if you think you're in one of the above tribes, by all means, i hope you find a path to the iPad soon (thank you Amazon for making that option so effortless).
If you are not, well, i'm sure there's a place for us, too. And if you don't have a cell phone either, well, that's something we probably shouldn't raise in mixed company, anyway.
All the best.
Related Posts
 |
| iPad as Obelisk from 2001 |
, or already taken the plunge? If you've been vascilating, i hope this post helps with some baseline cogitation. |
| iPhone 4 - what else? |
Preamble: Why this item on a health blog? Because the tools we use affect us, and also help
construct our sense of self. Technology also mediates social connections. If you're skeptical, consider the role of the iPhone (or other previous life must-have objects) and look at how people check out what phone folks have - are the iPhone'ers or Evo'ers or something else?(no, i still don't have a cell phone; i know: rare).
(any excuse to embed this video, but it does rather make the social point, no?)
These devices are not only functional, but in this dance of who has what, and the discussions that emerge - as well as the contacts they facilitate, they make space for interaction, sometimes for interaction that would not otherwise occur. A colleague and i were talking just the other day about how kids who are different than their peer groups no longer feel quite so isolated at school: they can connect with larger peer groups of similar odd balls, geeks, and the geniuses of tomorrow via asynchronous communication channels, like social networking. It's not all evil online.
And, as i've argued before, interacting with folks around us is a huge part of well being - just a reminder, i think the biggies for health are movement, nutrition, recovery (including sleep) and social interaction.
Apple iPad Experience
Ok: what i'd like to touch on in this article is a wee bit about the iPad experience - including the rationales of students, colleagues, researchers, and folks in airport lounges - for its context of use. See if any of these map to your experience.
The Coders. My favorite rationale for the iPad so far have been two of the researchers working on a project with me at the U. They said that having an iPad 3g would let them keep working while they were in transit, and the form factor makes it easier to use in such spaces than pulling out a laptop. They do spend a lot of time on the road for short hops, and at bus stops. Are they constantly coding at these sites? No. But they are both obsessive about what they do, and they really will be absorbing whatever is going on in the environment on the web, following up on resaerch papers etc, anytime, anywhere. They don't even seem to mind the typing on the glass experience. Bottom line: university research doesn't pay nearly as well as corporate research. If an ipad helps these guys be more productive and HAPPY, then i'm happy - and so are the folks funding our work because these guys always deliver the results they promise.
The Every Possible Device'ers. Most of my colleagues who work in computing have of necessity just about every kind of computing device under the sun. And so of course they picked up an iPad. Do they use it? Where before many who also have desktop computers in their office used to carry laptops to meetings or lectures quite a subset are now taking iPads to these contexts. Weight and ease of use is often sited as the rationale.
Intriguingly, some of these folks STILL carry a full laptop back and forth from work to home. They've just added weight to their backpack in order to travel with mutliple devices. Why? Especially if they don't have a desktop machine, they need their laptop for main work. The iPad, they suggest, lets them keep their laptops all plugged into external displays and devices, and locked to their desks, while they just grab the iPad to head to meetings or class.
The Readers. One of the interesting arguments for the iPad has been its use as a reader. The iBooks ap is connected to Apple's book store for easy access to eBooks, and it's also easy to drag PDF's onto the iPad when it's hooked up to a computer. That's refreshing (this feature works on ipod Touches and iPhones, too).Here's the thing. Even for this 2lb device, trying to read one handed is not entirely problem free. If one is standing up with this thing, holding it in one hand gets tiring fast. Best angle is lying back on a couch, and balancing it in one's lap. Compared with the weight of say the Kindle, or the sony reader, the iPad is a PigPad. |
| Twilight on iPad |
The advantages of the iPad, it's advocates contend, is that one can do SO MUCH MORE with an iPad than JUST read. One coach buddy, Kira Robert Clark aka the Fight Geek loves the fact that the iPad has a colour screen, so he can read his graphic novels and comics in their full online glory. Kira's said he's really happy with the reading experience, too.
The Unsure. Some of my other colleagues who have iPads or access to them are, like me, uncertain about the role in the world of what seems to be an oversized iPhone. One colleague said it's best uses so far have been (1) t to bring out at dinner parties for friends to check out and have a play with it as a conversation starter, (2) to use to serve a portable slide show about a person recently deceased. Folks passed around the iPad at the person's wake to reminisce as the video played. A fairly niche application perhaps?
The Tub. In my own case, i used one of our groups loaners for a couple weeks. My goal had been to use it to read all the research papers i download - but a biggie part of reading such papers is the ability to mark them up. I did not encounter a decent annotation tool for pdfs that did not create new images or unsharable mark up. Dam. And with the adobe/apple hate fest on, it's unlikely we'll see an ipad acrobat pro
any time soon. So my biggest hope for the iPad died a sad and lonely death.The best use i found for the iPad, though, happened by accident. From time to tiime, just to relax, i love taking a hot hot tub and reading. I get some of my best insights this way. Things come together in a good soak. I thought what the heck and put a chair beside the tub, a towel on the chair and the ipad on said chair.
With dry hands and arms, i decided to have a go at YouTube. It was awesome. I confess i can think of no better way to watch youTube videos than this. It was a gas going through bits of movies, tunes, help items. And then, le piece du resistance. I've no idea now how it happened, but i somehow found my way to videos about the iPad itself, including an amazing parody of the original release
(here's the original commercial for comparison).
The Successes. I must confess that the ideas expressed in this video more or less reflect what my experience of this device has been. But heck, this is why one's own gut is not to be trusted on all things. 3 million ipads sold in 80 days, apparently. Fastest ever device to hit 1 BILLION dollars in sales (took four months). iPad as of August accounted for a whopping 4% of the platform used to access the internet, taking bites from Mac and Windows.
Elders and Geek Gifts. There's also considerable interest in the use of an iPad for elders getting into
the Net. Though i can't believe the glass keyboard is a winner, what do i know? Many seniors seem to like it. There's also the external keyboard option.
the Net. Though i can't believe the glass keyboard is a winner, what do i know? Many seniors seem to like it. There's also the external keyboard option. Heck there's even an iPad for Seniors for Dummies
book. In comparison with getting one's elders a full scale computer to stay connected, this device may help - but me? i'd check it out with the intended recipient first.
book. In comparison with getting one's elders a full scale computer to stay connected, this device may help - but me? i'd check it out with the intended recipient first. Bottom Line? Personally, i'm not an iPad user. For my needs the best thing that ever happened was the second (not the first and not the latest) rev of the MacBook Air - a full computer, lightweight etc etc. My inbetween device for tunes and related is an iPod Touch. And heck, these iPod things even have some kind of retina display now, along with FaceTime and half-assed camera for back of the napkin idea grabs anywhere, anytime.But again, based on the majority of folks i know or whom i've encountered who think these iPads rock, those of us who scratch our heads about the iPad are in the minority. That may even be a little bit sad to be what must be out of it.
So, if you think you're in one of the above tribes, by all means, i hope you find a path to the iPad
soon (thank you Amazon for making that option so effortless).If you are not, well, i'm sure there's a place for us, too. And if you don't have a cell phone either, well, that's something we probably shouldn't raise in mixed company, anyway.
All the best.
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010
How To Coach Nutrition for Health, Fitness and Body Comp Goals: do the Precision Nutrition Level 1 cert
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When is a PhD useless? Ok that's extreme, but if you listen to John Berardi talk about his nutrition coaching and his PhD, he says it's when it didn't help him do what he wanted to do: coach folks how to improve their nutrition and achieve their fitness, health and body comp goals:
Whether you're intrested in upping your nutrition know how for training others, or just want to know what a great coach would be able to offer, this course overview may be of interest.
Success: I've just completed the PN level 1 cert, and it's very good (and i'm v.happy, too. You know, yay i passed? happy dance time). One might ask, how would i know a good nutrition course if it fell on me since i don't hold either an RD or a PhD in Nutrition or Exercise Physiology myself? Well, here's the thing: i have a lot of reps designing and evaluating grad and undergrad courses in a number of subjects, and reviewing text books for publishers. Quality will out. The same stuff that makes a good course in one area, i've seen, pretty much makes a good course elsewhere too.
Also, in recognised training certs like the NSCA CSCS (which i do hold), there is a Big Component on bioenergetics, how the body uses nutrients for exercise, as featured in the text Essentials of Strenght and Conditioning
. That courses' materials are pretty comprehensive. Similarly there are excellent general course texts in Exercise physiology like the awesome 7th edition of McArdle and team's Exercise Physiology.
In both cases, the text material covers a lot more than nutrition. Meaning that, compared to PN's cert which is solely focused on nutrition coaching (with an eye on the need for exercise too), is better.
I still highly recommend doing the CSCS or related to get the foundational knowledge for those of us who mayn't be coming through a formal sports degree program, but for getting deeper into how to fuel someone's fuel to meet their health, fitness and body comp goals, more is needed. And the right more. Hence PN L1
In the PN cert, the course is delivered in two parts: nutrition fundamentals and nutrition coaching - all focused around health, fitness and body comp goals for the person involved. I take it that's a pretty unique emPHAsis.
Nutrition and Energy, part 1
The first half of the PN certification focuses on the usual stuff one might expect to be covered in a course about nutrition, like how carbs and fats and proteins are processed in the body, but for me, it's done in a more accessible while still not oversimplified way. It also has components that the trainer certs so far have not. For instance, it's chapter on Water Balance goes well beyond what i've found in any of the cert texts and several grad course texts. The explanation on hyponatremia (too much water) is fantanstic - and by the way, too much water in a practical sense means relative to sodium balance. Amazing and rather critical point. Likewise the case study on how to use water effectively over a ten day period to make weight for a competition. Nice practical wisdom.
Something else nicely done is digestion itself. Rather than just getting info on macro & micro nutrients, we get the big picture: what happens to a lump of food from the moment it enters the body till it leaves the body. Makes sense but you'll be hard pressed to find that in most units on nutrition or even text books on bioenergetics. Did you know that a hunk of food once it's moved from the stomach into the gut has a name? It's called the chyme. Before that, once masticated to be swallowed, it's a bolus.
Combined Play
That may seem like nice info but not essential. Fine. The thing that really gets me going about this course are the questions posed in the study guide to see if one has grokked what's going on in the material. They are so basic that one wonders why this stuff isn't a core highschool curriculum. We may not come with a manual, and there's lots of stuff we don't know, but there are some things over which there is a larger consensus. How do you do with these questions:
Above and beyond the nutrients, the vitamins, the phytochemicals, the authors are dead keen on people talking about, thinking about FOOD rather than macro/micro nutrients. "Because people eat food" and because food is more than macro/micro nutrients. Its got psycho- / sociologico- components, and these things are important for coaching real people who eat real food. Ah but we like to play with supplements, too, do we not? Well that's actually in the coaching section: how to understand when and where these might come into play.
Successfully Coaching Change, part 2
While this kind of clarity around digestive and absorptive processes especially relative to energy needs is fascinating and important, and i feel the better for having it, where the course sets itself apart is in how it maps out a process of coaching towards "outcomes based" goals. That is, goals that are meaningful, doable and especially, trace-able.
There is as much attention to this part of coaching as professional practice as there is to the nutrition theory. Here's a practical take away. Folks who have used PN know that measures it takes are not only the scale and girth, but also 7 site skinfolds. Actually getting readings at each of those skinfold sites can offer up information about what may be going on in the body if say, fat is being lost from all but one of those sites. How bout that, eh? I'd spend a lot of time going through the literature looking at the accuracy of one measuring technique over another and why and when 7point sf's are good; had not once come across the value of any of those sites for specific information. Wicked.
Oh and here are a few questions from the Coaching part of the program:
The coaching part of the program has mutliple key components presented in progressive sensible fashion, each situated within when someone would do what : from gathering info, to interpreting it, to using it to formulate a plan, to assessing when it's actually the program not client adherence that may need tweaking; how to tweak a plan. And more: how to anticipate and work with client issues around getting one with their new nutrition practice.
Course Approach: Athlete at the Center
I've said recently how i really like the model of coaching that puts the athlete at the center and then considers the athlete's needs (i use the term athlete in the z-health way where if you're moving you're an athlete). I've presented the 9S model (overview here) that includes categorizes those needs in terms of sustenance, suppleness, strength, spirit, speed, skill, stamina, structure and style. The job of a great coach is to be able to figure out what the athlete needs when, and how to offer those skills to that athlete in a way that the athlete can hear and use.
The Precision Nutrition Level 1 cert gives a coach an awful lot of those tools for the sustentance part of that coaching. It helps the coach
Course Materials:
Beyond the approach and deliverables of the cert content, this course just kinda sings of quality, thought and beta testing. From a pedagogy perspective, this course presents really well constructed, well considered material, from the content to the study aids (and there are copious study aids for various learning modes). Likewise the material has been used for a module in a masters program, so it's had high level students test it out. And students are not shy of sharing what they think of materials. Its apparently thrived in that environment.
If you're interested in checking out the program, PN has made a TON of material available to provide a clear sense of the course. If you sign up to the waiting list to do the course you'll see that what's on the label is what's in the tin. To connect you with some of those weigh points:
Text Book Overview. The table of contents for the PN Cert textbook is online here. That will give you a very clear idea of the material covered and assessed by the program in both bioenergetics and coaching parts. Because the material here is not a single module in a larger program as it is in various trainer certs there is space to go into the material in a meaningful and applied way and in significant but practical detail. It's just a great book.
Previewing the Coaching Methodology: If you'd like to get a flavour of the coaching methodology, there's a free, five day, 12 mins a day, mini course for trainers that PN has set up - and they provide the forms used for client assessment, too. I'm kinda stunned at how much material is given away in this wee freebie. If this mini-course speaks to you, then the cert will be right up your street. 6 forms of those used in the course for assessments are provided - that gives one an idea of the kinds of tools one will be able to offer a client to develop a meaningful assessment and build an effective outcomes-based program.
Likewise, if you'd like a sense of the bibliography that informs this approach towards client support, here's an overview of the coaching books Berardi recommends.
Questions to ask a prospective coach on Nutrition
Even if you're not personally interested in taking a PN cert, looking at the above will help get a handle on what a great coach will be able to do to work WITH and FOR you and your goals.
So if you're looking for a nutrition coach - someone to help you get going or tweak what you're doing, an easy thing you can do is just look at who's already listed with PN and go from there.
If you'er interested in someone who isn't listed, there are some questions you may want to ask:
Summary: Qualified
Last year i did a five day super intense course on nutrition and getting into some very intense topics in what's going on with inflammation, foods, diets and looking at the homeostatic and hedonistic attributes that contribute to why, effectively, change is tough. That course too spend a good deal of time on coaching practice with emphasis on motivational interviewing and approaches very much in sync with Berardi's above. We practiced these techniques a lot. I keep thinking what great synergies there are between these two programs.
Looking Ahead from "theory" to praxis. Now PNL1 is what PN calls the "theory" side of their certification process. At a chapter a week, it's about a 16 week course. Some folks doing 2-3 chapters a week, it's faster. There's an invitation-only Level 2 which is a practicum and it's 6months long. It hasn't started up. But based on how much further ahead i feel with just this "theory" on nutrition coaching, i am prepared to be gob smacked by what the Level 2 practicum will require and provide.
I've worked with folks before on nutrition planning. I've felt good about my work with folks and their progress. Right now, with this cert, i have to say i feel WAY better. I have better tools, resources, knowledge to enhance the skills i have and offer way better support.
Excellent course, highly recommended. If you're looking for a great cert to add effective practical nutrition coaching to your practice, this is an awesome course. Even the exam is great - with an 80% pass rate. Really engaging. How often does one say that about an exam.
Likewise, of course, if you're looking for good nutrition coaching, the PN certified directory is a great place to start. G'head, call me.
Related Posts
Precision Nutrition: personal nutrition benchmarking. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Enter the Precision Nutrition Level 1 certification, designed by Berardi, the co-founder and chief science officer of Precision Nutrition, and Ryan Andrews, RD and director for education at PN (and interviewed recently here at b2d). Its design fills a considerable gap in the nutrition coaching space for health, fitness and body comp success. Why? because it covers not only nutrition fundamentals, but then devotes the same amount of energy to how to apply and coach that esoterica in a way that is meaningful for people who eat food.Ultimately, I went to study in the Exercise and Nutrition Lab at the University of Western Ontario, and wrapped up my grad work in Exercise Physiology and Nutrient Biochemistry. But really, I never learned what I set out to learn — exercise and sport nutrition coaching.
John Berardi, PhD, CSCS
Whether you're intrested in upping your nutrition know how for training others, or just want to know what a great coach would be able to offer, this course overview may be of interest.
Success: I've just completed the PN level 1 cert, and it's very good (and i'm v.happy, too. You know, yay i passed? happy dance time). One might ask, how would i know a good nutrition course if it fell on me since i don't hold either an RD or a PhD in Nutrition or Exercise Physiology myself? Well, here's the thing: i have a lot of reps designing and evaluating grad and undergrad courses in a number of subjects, and reviewing text books for publishers. Quality will out. The same stuff that makes a good course in one area, i've seen, pretty much makes a good course elsewhere too.
Also, in recognised training certs like the NSCA CSCS (which i do hold), there is a Big Component on bioenergetics, how the body uses nutrients for exercise, as featured in the text Essentials of Strenght and Conditioning. That courses' materials are pretty comprehensive. Similarly there are excellent general course texts in Exercise physiology like the awesome 7th edition of McArdle and team's Exercise Physiology. In both cases, the text material covers a lot more than nutrition. Meaning that, compared to PN's cert which is solely focused on nutrition coaching (with an eye on the need for exercise too), is better.I still highly recommend doing the CSCS or related to get the foundational knowledge for those of us who mayn't be coming through a formal sports degree program, but for getting deeper into how to fuel someone's fuel to meet their health, fitness and body comp goals, more is needed. And the right more. Hence PN L1In the PN cert, the course is delivered in two parts: nutrition fundamentals and nutrition coaching - all focused around health, fitness and body comp goals for the person involved. I take it that's a pretty unique emPHAsis.
Nutrition and Energy, part 1
The first half of the PN certification focuses on the usual stuff one might expect to be covered in a course about nutrition, like how carbs and fats and proteins are processed in the body, but for me, it's done in a more accessible while still not oversimplified way. It also has components that the trainer certs so far have not. For instance, it's chapter on Water Balance goes well beyond what i've found in any of the cert texts and several grad course texts. The explanation on hyponatremia (too much water) is fantanstic - and by the way, too much water in a practical sense means relative to sodium balance. Amazing and rather critical point. Likewise the case study on how to use water effectively over a ten day period to make weight for a competition. Nice practical wisdom.
Something else nicely done is digestion itself. Rather than just getting info on macro & micro nutrients, we get the big picture: what happens to a lump of food from the moment it enters the body till it leaves the body. Makes sense but you'll be hard pressed to find that in most units on nutrition or even text books on bioenergetics. Did you know that a hunk of food once it's moved from the stomach into the gut has a name? It's called the chyme. Before that, once masticated to be swallowed, it's a bolus.
Combined Play
That may seem like nice info but not essential. Fine. The thing that really gets me going about this course are the questions posed in the study guide to see if one has grokked what's going on in the material. They are so basic that one wonders why this stuff isn't a core highschool curriculum. We may not come with a manual, and there's lots of stuff we don't know, but there are some things over which there is a larger consensus. How do you do with these questions:
- What are the two most important nutrient/energy stores in the human body? How are the responsible for survival?
- What does cholesterol actually do? Why is it important.
- What are ketones? why are they formed?
- What happens to carbs from mouth to cell?
- What's the relation of the fat we eat to our cells' membranes?
- In what ways can you estimate water needs for clients?
Above and beyond the nutrients, the vitamins, the phytochemicals, the authors are dead keen on people talking about, thinking about FOOD rather than macro/micro nutrients. "Because people eat food" and because food is more than macro/micro nutrients. Its got psycho- / sociologico- components, and these things are important for coaching real people who eat real food. Ah but we like to play with supplements, too, do we not? Well that's actually in the coaching section: how to understand when and where these might come into play.
Successfully Coaching Change, part 2
While this kind of clarity around digestive and absorptive processes especially relative to energy needs is fascinating and important, and i feel the better for having it, where the course sets itself apart is in how it maps out a process of coaching towards "outcomes based" goals. That is, goals that are meaningful, doable and especially, trace-able.
There is as much attention to this part of coaching as professional practice as there is to the nutrition theory. Here's a practical take away. Folks who have used PN know that measures it takes are not only the scale and girth, but also 7 site skinfolds. Actually getting readings at each of those skinfold sites can offer up information about what may be going on in the body if say, fat is being lost from all but one of those sites. How bout that, eh? I'd spend a lot of time going through the literature looking at the accuracy of one measuring technique over another and why and when 7point sf's are good; had not once come across the value of any of those sites for specific information. Wicked.
Oh and here are a few questions from the Coaching part of the program:
- Why is it important to know a client's previous exercise habits?
- What are five staple supplements for regular or occasional use?
- What are five strategies you can use when choosing supplements to improve the risk/reward profile?
- What are the most common food allergies in adults?
- When displaying professsional committment to your clients, what key factors should you keep in mind?
- When might counting calories be important to your client's success.
- What can you suggest to clients who lack social support?
- What's your client's limiting factor for making change?
The coaching part of the program has mutliple key components presented in progressive sensible fashion, each situated within when someone would do what : from gathering info, to interpreting it, to using it to formulate a plan, to assessing when it's actually the program not client adherence that may need tweaking; how to tweak a plan. And more: how to anticipate and work with client issues around getting one with their new nutrition practice.
Course Approach: Athlete at the Center
I've said recently how i really like the model of coaching that puts the athlete at the center and then considers the athlete's needs (i use the term athlete in the z-health way where if you're moving you're an athlete). I've presented the 9S model (overview here) that includes categorizes those needs in terms of sustenance, suppleness, strength, spirit, speed, skill, stamina, structure and style. The job of a great coach is to be able to figure out what the athlete needs when, and how to offer those skills to that athlete in a way that the athlete can hear and use.
The Precision Nutrition Level 1 cert gives a coach an awful lot of those tools for the sustentance part of that coaching. It helps the coach
- assess where an athlete is at with respect to nutrition and nutrition change right now
- it provides sufficient knowledge on nutrition and communication to be able to understand how to tune a program for that athlete
- if offers strategies to help guide the athlete through the change process.
- it affords a network of colleagues to connect about challenges in practice.
Course Materials:
Beyond the approach and deliverables of the cert content, this course just kinda sings of quality, thought and beta testing. From a pedagogy perspective, this course presents really well constructed, well considered material, from the content to the study aids (and there are copious study aids for various learning modes). Likewise the material has been used for a module in a masters program, so it's had high level students test it out. And students are not shy of sharing what they think of materials. Its apparently thrived in that environment.
If you're interested in checking out the program, PN has made a TON of material available to provide a clear sense of the course. If you sign up to the waiting list to do the course you'll see that what's on the label is what's in the tin. To connect you with some of those weigh points:
Previewing the Coaching Methodology: If you'd like to get a flavour of the coaching methodology, there's a free, five day, 12 mins a day, mini course for trainers that PN has set up - and they provide the forms used for client assessment, too. I'm kinda stunned at how much material is given away in this wee freebie. If this mini-course speaks to you, then the cert will be right up your street. 6 forms of those used in the course for assessments are provided - that gives one an idea of the kinds of tools one will be able to offer a client to develop a meaningful assessment and build an effective outcomes-based program.
Likewise, if you'd like a sense of the bibliography that informs this approach towards client support, here's an overview of the coaching books Berardi recommends.
Questions to ask a prospective coach on Nutrition
Even if you're not personally interested in taking a PN cert, looking at the above will help get a handle on what a great coach will be able to do to work WITH and FOR you and your goals.
So if you're looking for a nutrition coach - someone to help you get going or tweak what you're doing, an easy thing you can do is just look at who's already listed with PN and go from there.
If you'er interested in someone who isn't listed, there are some questions you may want to ask:
- how do you assess where i'm at and what my needs are?
- How do you refine goals?
- What is your style of coaching?
- How do you measure progress?
- how frequently do we meet?
- What materials will you provide me?
- How long will "it" take to get where i want to go with you?
- How will you assess that?
- What kind of tuning do you do on an approach, when?
Summary: Qualified
Last year i did a five day super intense course on nutrition and getting into some very intense topics in what's going on with inflammation, foods, diets and looking at the homeostatic and hedonistic attributes that contribute to why, effectively, change is tough. That course too spend a good deal of time on coaching practice with emphasis on motivational interviewing and approaches very much in sync with Berardi's above. We practiced these techniques a lot. I keep thinking what great synergies there are between these two programs.
Looking Ahead from "theory" to praxis. Now PNL1 is what PN calls the "theory" side of their certification process. At a chapter a week, it's about a 16 week course. Some folks doing 2-3 chapters a week, it's faster. There's an invitation-only Level 2 which is a practicum and it's 6months long. It hasn't started up. But based on how much further ahead i feel with just this "theory" on nutrition coaching, i am prepared to be gob smacked by what the Level 2 practicum will require and provide.
I've worked with folks before on nutrition planning. I've felt good about my work with folks and their progress. Right now, with this cert, i have to say i feel WAY better. I have better tools, resources, knowledge to enhance the skills i have and offer way better support.
Excellent course, highly recommended. If you're looking for a great cert to add effective practical nutrition coaching to your practice, this is an awesome course. Even the exam is great - with an 80% pass rate. Really engaging. How often does one say that about an exam.
Likewise, of course, if you're looking for good nutrition coaching, the PN certified directory is a great place to start. G'head, call me.
Related Posts
Precision Nutrition: personal nutrition benchmarking. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Bendy bits should bend in full range of motion, speed and control, right? So what's this mobility/stability dichotomy?
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Mobility/Stability. I confess i don't get what's meant or how this increasingly popular distinction between mobility and stability came to be seen as useful. I'm prepared to believe it's my problem, and sometimes as writing helps me work out such issues, forgive me while i lay out where the gaps seem to be in my understanding of the framing of movement as mobility/stability rather than simply a notion of movement, and ability to control ranges of motion at ranges of speed.
Here we go: Of late i've seen a number of intelligent people assert with what seems like good reasons that some joints are seemingly a priori meant to be "stable" while others are meant to be "mobile." Consider the fist article in this set kicked off by Mike Boyle, a well respected and established trainer, called A Joint by Joint Approach to Training. In this pieces, and many related articles, work by Stuart McGill on the low back is cited: in particular, McGill's findings that flexion is the root of most low back evils, and that sitting is the worst place to be of all. This is pretty compelling stuff. Seems to make sense.
But then there are seeming contradictions within this: in his discussion of the knees, not the back, Boyle sites McGill's reason for low back pain that it isn't perhaps so *much* flexion, but overuse. When other stuff - like the hips - get stuck, the back pays. So in that sense - the lumbar spine and knees should be stable, but the hips should be mobile?
The problem i find in this is that the arguments seem to suggest that pretty much all the time the lower spine should be stiffened up and the thoracic spine and hips loosened up - for instance. Mike Boyle goes so far as to ask "is spinal rotation even a good idea" He quotes a lot of work by a physical therapist name of Shirely Sharman who in her view suggests that the abs are there to stop so much rotation of the lumbar spine then that's what they should be doing. Boyle's issue seems to be that too many trainers concentrate on lumbar stretching when, citing Sharman "rotation is even dangerous" at the lower spine. He points to sprinter coach Bob Ross who did isometric work with his spinters in the abs, abandoning other forms of spinal movement work and how that was a positive thing for results.
Ok, but what do most sprinters do? Run. In pretty much straight lines. So maybe holding the spine in line and upright for 10-30secs is a good idea. In that case. That particular sport-specific constraint doesn't come up.
Rather, Boyle says he's chucked a lot of exercises designed to extend trunk range and seems to find less complaints of low back pain in clients since doing so. And that's cool. I'm not sure, however, that that means that that work has made his client's backs more stable - it just may mean that stretching a body part beyond its comfortable range of motion is painful or causes neuroligical shut down by pushing inappropriately, and that stopping doing something that hurts will reduce pain?
In other words, i'm just not sure that eliminating a set of kind of questionable stretches is therefore "decreasing mobility" or "increasing stability" - it may just be avoiding inducing threat.
And as for rotational work, surely the lack of it is one of the greatest weakness of most of us who train especially or exclusively at lifting heavy things? We tend to stick to pretty a given plane of motion for a movement, and forget about diagonal and especially rotational movements.
One of the funest ab exercises is surely the russian twist (seated) or the Full Contact Twist with the bar stuck in the corner on the floor and the other end in the athlete's hands, arms extended, arc'ing back and forth?
Pavel Tsatsouline writes of the FCT in Bullet Proof Abs:
So for truly "functional" movement, isn't it better to train strength in rotation, as well as across a range of movement planes? In other words, why not focus on building strength across the entire range of motion of the joints so that we can be - as pavel puts it - bulletproof? And that bulletproofness seems to mean being able to rotate, bend and recover as needed - and as the joints give us the degrees of freedom to accomplish that movement?
The Kneee/ACL injury- not about stability or mobility? The ACL (and MCL) are the ligaments most often torn (or pop) in knee injuries. One might say that that's because the knees are not stable enough. Indeed, again Mike Boyle tends to make this case in his Joint by Joint article. But he also seems to move away from actually saying the knee needs stability by deeking out to say the problem is that the knees pay for lack of hip mobility. I'm not sure what the bottom line is here? He digresses into back pain rather than a discussion of the knee.
Gray Cook comes in to help in his Expanding on the Joint-by-Joint approach saying,
I'm not making a joke here or being sarcastic. I'm really not sure what "the knees have a tendency towards slopiness" means in terms of real movement. All those ligaments are actually loose? Or does that mean one's leg muscles in say a squat aren't firing so the knee comes in (the Valgus knee). That's not really a knee issue though, is it? That's poor form such that the person hasn't been taught to work a better squat pattern, or hasn't worked on what may be inhibiting a good squat movement? And so they're putting strain on their knees by failing to keep good position. Too much load, and absolutely perhaps issues in the ankle and hip and upper back that need to be addressed.
But i'm not really thinking about such a static movement as the squat. Really I'm thinking of the mighty number of girls who have ACL injuries in sports in the states these days. One theory (gathering momentum) has it that the girls who have ACL injuries showing up in basketball don't have a way to balance their increasingly higher (as going through puberty) center of balance. Intriguingly, the comments from the researchers is not to increase strength training (for more core or knee stability) but to increase their prorioceptive (body awareness) training.
The suggestion is not unlike studies on sensory-motor balance training with athletes to see if progressive balance work could help reduce ankle injury - another common problem for field and track athletes. They found that, effectively, progressively training for the sprain through this program helped the nervous system not go into panic, and predicted injuries would be less.
To take a lessen from martial arts as well where one practices for the fall pretty regularly, how much attention is given to working with an athlete on end range of motion work - not just balance work but what might be loaded balance work at the place where we rarely go in our training - that end range where recovery from a sudden lapse or accident is hard and where injuries occur? Is that augmenting mobility, stability or does it matter?
I go back to Boyle and Cook on the knees and back to their facesaying that these joints tend towards slopiness, and yet McGill (quoted by Boyle) saying no no, the low back in people with pain have stronger extensors than those without. So there's a lot of muscular strength around the low back already. The spine is *not* weak here (and by extension, one would say not sloppy if so much strength can be turned on?)
What's Going On? Where is this taking me? I'm hoping that Gray Cook's new book Movement will anser a lot of these queries. I'm looking forward to getting it, because right now the mobility/stability dialectic seems more problematic than helpful - at least to me. Here's why - and here's where i struggle with this as a model.
All the joints in the body have a pretty much well-scoped ranges of motion, right down to what the usual degres of movement are in each one. So why not simply be able to move all of these joints in these ranges of motion with strength and control as demanded by whatever that movement is - especially at the most vulnerable end ranges of motion?
Movement vs Mobility/Stability? Why not talk, therefore, just about "movement" (as Cook's book title suggests) rather than "mobility/stability." Is the question not really can one, for instance, hold a position for one particular movement or relax it for another? The knee needs not only to support the hinge with strength and power in say a basketball jump shot, but also needs to support the roll in with equal aplomb from standing to the ground - either when making a lunging tennis shot, or losing one's footing on a football pitch or simply getting pushed or in a fight getting from standing to knees to grapple quickly?
Perhaps there's an historical context i'm missing - Boyle talks alot about the "last decade" with too much stretching going on in the trunk and so life got too caught up on flexibility? Dunno, as i own i missed that part of the discussion not being in the space at that time. But maybe that's not it, either, as Paul Chek's Movement that Matters
and his "primal patterns" seems to have been in play since at least 1999 (ie the last decade, plus), and that is likewise focused i think on movements?
Mobile when? Stable when? But again, i'm not claiming expertise of that period - it's a genuine question - it's just that i can't find the value add in framing our bodies as there's supposed to be stability here and mobility there, and if we get this thing more stable and that thing more mobile (implicit seems to be "all the time") then everything is Functional. Mobile when? Stable when? Are we talking averages? That on average of all possible movements, these joints are more often than not needing to be stable rather than mobile? And so we need to train for the average use case, rather than the range of uses?
Can you see why i'm a wee bit flustered? It's not a dichotomy that helps me when i'm working with clients to talk about stability or mobility because i guess i'm not sure what they really mean when put in operation. Our model reflects our practice, i guess, and i'm struggling with the mobility/flexibility as a model.
For me, mobility seems pretty good on it's own: mobility is the ability to voluntarily and actively control a given range of motion. For me, in my practice, it seems pretty important simply that we be able to control that movement through all ranges of motion, and all speeds, equally. If folks have restricted ankle mobility, not only does that potentially need to be opened up but strengthened as well. Strength and ROM seem to work together.
It then seems pretty important that if there's a gap somewhere we have the tools to be able to help find a way to address that weakness. And as Cook also notes, since the site of an issue is not necessarily the source of the issue, the source of a weakness may be, as we've seen above, proprioceptive rather than musclo-skeletal, too. In other words, mobility and enhancing control of mobility seems sufficiently descriptive of the kinesthetic. And beyond this, if we do accept the site is not the source of an issue necessarily, it seems we need to take into account whatever other systems may be operating on us. From somato-sensory, to affect, to nutrition to, anything that plays on the 11 organ systems in our body.
For a bit of context, beyond the CSCS, RKC and Z-Health Certifications, i hold both the FMS qualification and the CK-FMS certification. One has to pass the FMS exam before getting to the CK-FMS quals. It's a fascinating course, and i'm looking forward to doing it again this fall because Gray Cook is teaching it with Brett Jones, and i'm sure two years after taking it initially, it will have evolved, and i certainly know a bit more than i did then, and Gray Cook has a lot of cool things to say. I am keen to learn more about this physiological piece. I confess anatomy is, to use Cook's phrasing again, the weaker link in my chain.
So i recognize i would benefit by being more au fait with kinesiology/physiology (hence more recent posts exploring things like the amazing shoulder, and kinesiology books used to assist practice with willing folk).
This article is not meant as a criticism of Boyle or Cook. I'm just saying, right now, i'm not grokking the mob/stab distinction. It seems to me both too extreme - these joints need to be mobile; these stable - and too unspecific - generally? specifically? Now maybe we're both saying the same things: have full range of motion and be strong in all ranges of motion and so be able to control all ranges of motion at all speeds. That would be cool. Then again, i'd say why not just say that? Since mob/stab can start to be heard as prescriptions: the thoracic spine MUST be mobile the lumbar spine MUST be stable.
I'm also saying that i agree with neurologists who talk about the somato-sensory system, and how that's just as improtant to be integrated into any discussion of movement, too.
So, as said, i'm perfectly prepared at this point to believe that the misapprehension is mine. That we are all on the same page. Just putting out there where i'm struggling. Perhaps some of y'all can relate, or have passed through this vale and come to a conclusion on the other side with more knowledge and insight. Look forward to meeting you there.
Best,
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Here we go: Of late i've seen a number of intelligent people assert with what seems like good reasons that some joints are seemingly a priori meant to be "stable" while others are meant to be "mobile." Consider the fist article in this set kicked off by Mike Boyle, a well respected and established trainer, called A Joint by Joint Approach to Training. In this pieces, and many related articles, work by Stuart McGill on the low back is cited: in particular, McGill's findings that flexion is the root of most low back evils, and that sitting is the worst place to be of all. This is pretty compelling stuff. Seems to make sense.
But then there are seeming contradictions within this: in his discussion of the knees, not the back, Boyle sites McGill's reason for low back pain that it isn't perhaps so *much* flexion, but overuse. When other stuff - like the hips - get stuck, the back pays. So in that sense - the lumbar spine and knees should be stable, but the hips should be mobile?
The problem i find in this is that the arguments seem to suggest that pretty much all the time the lower spine should be stiffened up and the thoracic spine and hips loosened up - for instance. Mike Boyle goes so far as to ask "is spinal rotation even a good idea" He quotes a lot of work by a physical therapist name of Shirely Sharman who in her view suggests that the abs are there to stop so much rotation of the lumbar spine then that's what they should be doing. Boyle's issue seems to be that too many trainers concentrate on lumbar stretching when, citing Sharman "rotation is even dangerous" at the lower spine. He points to sprinter coach Bob Ross who did isometric work with his spinters in the abs, abandoning other forms of spinal movement work and how that was a positive thing for results.
Ok, but what do most sprinters do? Run. In pretty much straight lines. So maybe holding the spine in line and upright for 10-30secs is a good idea. In that case. That particular sport-specific constraint doesn't come up.
Rather, Boyle says he's chucked a lot of exercises designed to extend trunk range and seems to find less complaints of low back pain in clients since doing so. And that's cool. I'm not sure, however, that that means that that work has made his client's backs more stable - it just may mean that stretching a body part beyond its comfortable range of motion is painful or causes neuroligical shut down by pushing inappropriately, and that stopping doing something that hurts will reduce pain?
In other words, i'm just not sure that eliminating a set of kind of questionable stretches is therefore "decreasing mobility" or "increasing stability" - it may just be avoiding inducing threat.
And as for rotational work, surely the lack of it is one of the greatest weakness of most of us who train especially or exclusively at lifting heavy things? We tend to stick to pretty a given plane of motion for a movement, and forget about diagonal and especially rotational movements.
 |
| Pavel Tsatsouline demonstrating the Full Contact Twist in Bullet Proof Abs |
Pavel Tsatsouline writes of the FCT in Bullet Proof Abs:
The best exercise for transferring the hip power into the shoulder, with a high interest yield, is the Full Contact Twist. This exercise was originally developed in the Soviet Union for shot put conditioning.
The then-nameless twist came to kickboxers' attention when a famous Russian shot putter failed to talk his way out of a mugging. This mild mannered man got annoyed when one of the attackers cut him with a blade. He ruptured the punk's spleen with a single punch.
Igor Sukhotsky, M.Sc., formerly a nationally ranked weightlifter and an eccentric sports scientist who took up full contact karate at the age of fort-five, popularized the twist among Russian fighters. This renaissance man noticed that the twist not only had increased his striking power, but also had toughened his midsection against blows by toning it up. Sukhotsky was so impressed with the Full Contact Twist, that he added it to his super abbreviated strength trainingIt's interesting that Sukhotsky came to the value of rotation - moving across planes of motion - in moving from a more linear sport of weighlifting to the more richly plane-crossing Karate. It's also intriguing that it is a life event - a mugging - that fostered interest in this movement.
routine which consisted of only four exercises: squats, bench presses, deadlifts,
and good mornings.
So for truly "functional" movement, isn't it better to train strength in rotation, as well as across a range of movement planes? In other words, why not focus on building strength across the entire range of motion of the joints so that we can be - as pavel puts it - bulletproof? And that bulletproofness seems to mean being able to rotate, bend and recover as needed - and as the joints give us the degrees of freedom to accomplish that movement?
The Kneee/ACL injury- not about stability or mobility? The ACL (and MCL) are the ligaments most often torn (or pop) in knee injuries. One might say that that's because the knees are not stable enough. Indeed, again Mike Boyle tends to make this case in his Joint by Joint article. But he also seems to move away from actually saying the knee needs stability by deeking out to say the problem is that the knees pay for lack of hip mobility. I'm not sure what the bottom line is here? He digresses into back pain rather than a discussion of the knee.
Gray Cook comes in to help in his Expanding on the Joint-by-Joint approach saying,
"The knee has a tendency toward sloppiness and therefore could benefit from greater amounts of stability and motor control. This tendency usually predates knee injuries and degeneration that actually make it become stiff."He also states
Knees are simple hinge joints. They’re supposed to flex and extend, and when they rotate too much or move valgus or varus too much, we start seeing problems with the knee. Does the knee need to be mobile? Yes, but once it’s mobile, it needs to be stable enough to stay inside the proper plane of movement where its functional attributes are possible and practical.Now Gray Cook is a knowledable phyiscal therapist who knows a lot about movement and how joints operate. He's also worked with a ton o' athletes and helped them restore function when others were ready to cut them open and write them off. So it's with respect that i wonder what's meant by 'mobility" with a "simple hinge joint"? What does a stable knee joint mean? That the femur stays attached to the tib/fib bones on the minisci? That it doesn't slide off to one side when it goes to bend? What?
I'm not making a joke here or being sarcastic. I'm really not sure what "the knees have a tendency towards slopiness" means in terms of real movement. All those ligaments are actually loose? Or does that mean one's leg muscles in say a squat aren't firing so the knee comes in (the Valgus knee). That's not really a knee issue though, is it? That's poor form such that the person hasn't been taught to work a better squat pattern, or hasn't worked on what may be inhibiting a good squat movement? And so they're putting strain on their knees by failing to keep good position. Too much load, and absolutely perhaps issues in the ankle and hip and upper back that need to be addressed.
To take a lessen from martial arts as well where one practices for the fall pretty regularly, how much attention is given to working with an athlete on end range of motion work - not just balance work but what might be loaded balance work at the place where we rarely go in our training - that end range where recovery from a sudden lapse or accident is hard and where injuries occur? Is that augmenting mobility, stability or does it matter?
I go back to Boyle and Cook on the knees and back to their facesaying that these joints tend towards slopiness, and yet McGill (quoted by Boyle) saying no no, the low back in people with pain have stronger extensors than those without. So there's a lot of muscular strength around the low back already. The spine is *not* weak here (and by extension, one would say not sloppy if so much strength can be turned on?)
What's Going On? Where is this taking me? I'm hoping that Gray Cook's new book Movement will anser a lot of these queries. I'm looking forward to getting it, because right now the mobility/stability dialectic seems more problematic than helpful - at least to me. Here's why - and here's where i struggle with this as a model.
All the joints in the body have a pretty much well-scoped ranges of motion, right down to what the usual degres of movement are in each one. So why not simply be able to move all of these joints in these ranges of motion with strength and control as demanded by whatever that movement is - especially at the most vulnerable end ranges of motion?
Movement vs Mobility/Stability? Why not talk, therefore, just about "movement" (as Cook's book title suggests) rather than "mobility/stability." Is the question not really can one, for instance, hold a position for one particular movement or relax it for another? The knee needs not only to support the hinge with strength and power in say a basketball jump shot, but also needs to support the roll in with equal aplomb from standing to the ground - either when making a lunging tennis shot, or losing one's footing on a football pitch or simply getting pushed or in a fight getting from standing to knees to grapple quickly?
Perhaps there's an historical context i'm missing - Boyle talks alot about the "last decade" with too much stretching going on in the trunk and so life got too caught up on flexibility? Dunno, as i own i missed that part of the discussion not being in the space at that time. But maybe that's not it, either, as Paul Chek's Movement that Matters
and his "primal patterns" seems to have been in play since at least 1999 (ie the last decade, plus), and that is likewise focused i think on movements?Mobile when? Stable when? But again, i'm not claiming expertise of that period - it's a genuine question - it's just that i can't find the value add in framing our bodies as there's supposed to be stability here and mobility there, and if we get this thing more stable and that thing more mobile (implicit seems to be "all the time") then everything is Functional. Mobile when? Stable when? Are we talking averages? That on average of all possible movements, these joints are more often than not needing to be stable rather than mobile? And so we need to train for the average use case, rather than the range of uses?
Can you see why i'm a wee bit flustered? It's not a dichotomy that helps me when i'm working with clients to talk about stability or mobility because i guess i'm not sure what they really mean when put in operation. Our model reflects our practice, i guess, and i'm struggling with the mobility/flexibility as a model.
For me, mobility seems pretty good on it's own: mobility is the ability to voluntarily and actively control a given range of motion. For me, in my practice, it seems pretty important simply that we be able to control that movement through all ranges of motion, and all speeds, equally. If folks have restricted ankle mobility, not only does that potentially need to be opened up but strengthened as well. Strength and ROM seem to work together.
It then seems pretty important that if there's a gap somewhere we have the tools to be able to help find a way to address that weakness. And as Cook also notes, since the site of an issue is not necessarily the source of the issue, the source of a weakness may be, as we've seen above, proprioceptive rather than musclo-skeletal, too. In other words, mobility and enhancing control of mobility seems sufficiently descriptive of the kinesthetic. And beyond this, if we do accept the site is not the source of an issue necessarily, it seems we need to take into account whatever other systems may be operating on us. From somato-sensory, to affect, to nutrition to, anything that plays on the 11 organ systems in our body.
For a bit of context, beyond the CSCS, RKC and Z-Health Certifications, i hold both the FMS qualification and the CK-FMS certification. One has to pass the FMS exam before getting to the CK-FMS quals. It's a fascinating course, and i'm looking forward to doing it again this fall because Gray Cook is teaching it with Brett Jones, and i'm sure two years after taking it initially, it will have evolved, and i certainly know a bit more than i did then, and Gray Cook has a lot of cool things to say. I am keen to learn more about this physiological piece. I confess anatomy is, to use Cook's phrasing again, the weaker link in my chain.
So i recognize i would benefit by being more au fait with kinesiology/physiology (hence more recent posts exploring things like the amazing shoulder, and kinesiology books used to assist practice with willing folk).
This article is not meant as a criticism of Boyle or Cook. I'm just saying, right now, i'm not grokking the mob/stab distinction. It seems to me both too extreme - these joints need to be mobile; these stable - and too unspecific - generally? specifically? Now maybe we're both saying the same things: have full range of motion and be strong in all ranges of motion and so be able to control all ranges of motion at all speeds. That would be cool. Then again, i'd say why not just say that? Since mob/stab can start to be heard as prescriptions: the thoracic spine MUST be mobile the lumbar spine MUST be stable.
I'm also saying that i agree with neurologists who talk about the somato-sensory system, and how that's just as improtant to be integrated into any discussion of movement, too.
So, as said, i'm perfectly prepared at this point to believe that the misapprehension is mine. That we are all on the same page. Just putting out there where i'm struggling. Perhaps some of y'all can relate, or have passed through this vale and come to a conclusion on the other side with more knowledge and insight. Look forward to meeting you there.
Best,
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Head Shift: Why not look for More Time to Move rather than as Little as Possible?
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Maybe we should seek to move more rather than the least amount possible in a week. Maybe that's a much better place to be. Let's consider why that might help us out in so many parts of our lives, and the research that supports it. This proposal is set against popular approaches to fitness. Lots of folks celebrate ways for us to "take less time" to work out. After all, there's more to life than being in the gym. For sure. And i'm all for efficiency and elegance in all things. A stupid workout may just be a stupid workout: when you take an hour, make it a beautiful hour.
But what i've been thinking about really is that we are so wrong wrong wrong when we take what i'm increasingly seeing as the "brains with bodies" approach to movement: we seek to find the smallest slice of time during the week for our movement, like that's the least important part of our day, a chore to be got rid of. As exciting and necessary as flossing one's teeth.
But we are not just brains with bodies that like the neighbour's dog we are burdened with having to take for a walk once a day when they're on holiday. How many of us make excuses like we don't have time to move - to walk, to run, to pick stuff up and put it down, to play a game? Our bodies are often constructed culturally as burdens rather than collaborators in our life's work and pleasure.
And sure those "workouts in 6 mins" or 20 mins or whatever are all trying to get folks "at least doing something" - but again, maybe that's just the wrong message to be sending. In whose interests is it for us to be just well enough to keep going to work and not costing a health plan or workers comp for down time?
Movement is Smart(er) - no really.
As i do more work on movement and the way we are wired, it's increasingly clear that the opposite is true: we owe it to ourselves, cognitively and physically to find any time we can to move; in as many ways and at as many speeds as we can. When we don't use parts of our brains, the circuits re-route to what we do use. This is verified in the past 20 years of neurology.
We are use it or lose it systems. Our bodies adapt all the time. And this is systemic. What we don't use - like bone mineral density - gets taken away. Seriously, no joke. Likewise when we don't move joints in their ROM they start to osify or go arthritic in the unused portions.
The above use it or lose it paradigm may still be read as we are enslaved by our bodies and so we must find the shortest most optimal path to do the least amount of work to get the most benefit. And that, too, seems to be a way way wrong and unhealthy and unhelpful life attitude. Phooey, i say.
Consider this: life may be more fun and brilliant if we see our bodies as part of who we are.
Skilled movement practice, for instance, lights up our brains in MRIs. There is increasing evidence likewise that movement enhances intellectual performance. Studies done with kids show especially the earlier "exercise" starts, the greater the intellectual benefits [2007, 2009a, 2009b ]. But at the other end of the scale, movement has been seen to help elderly at risk of observed cognitive decline, recover function, too [2010a]. Likewise, general memory function endurance is assisted by exercise/movement, and enhances brain plasticity [2010].
Indeed, the studies have become so rife connecting movement with intelligence that there's even a popular press book out right now called Spark: How exercise will improve the performance of your brain
. The book summarizes a lot the findings and puts together cognitve enhancing exercise programs.
Inert = Loss of Comepetetive Edge
It seems pretty clear now that for those of us who are "knowledge workers" we are also actually doing ourselves a competitive disservice by staying as innert as possible, moving as little as possible - whatever that means. But again - that may sound like a threat, and the body/burden thing raises its head. We imagine scenes from Gattica and forced treadmill running and heart rate monitoring.
Moving, though, if we take it that that's what we're designed to do, is something we can do everywhere at anytime - or at least we can so imagine. In the work environment, there are desks that let us stand or sit; working at whiteboards that let us stand and walk around. These facilitate movement. And no i'm not a fan of treadmill desks. They may burn calories but can play havok with gait, visual and vestibular systems - juries way out and tending to no. Lord, if we got beyond the "calorie burn" as the only reason to move it move it, we wouldn't have to worry about desks.
Example of Action Work. A colleague of mine has only a standing desk in his office, and otherwise has many rehab balls (usually pretty squishy) for lounging. No chairs. He gets up in the middle of meetings and paces. He's also a dancer, not just a field leading computer scientist. It's great. That's movement. He bikes to work and his main moving gig is his folk dancing. That's healthy. Multiplanar movement. Awesome. AND HE ENJOYS IT - he loves to dance. It's part of his life; not something that he must do. He actually shapes his "real job" schedule around his weekly dance classes. And boy is he smart. Sharp sharp, that one. Connection? As we've seen, research suggests it helps.
I wrote about awhile ago how pick up games of five a side football were about the best blend of strength workouts one could get and got lots of comments from colleagues about how much they enjoy that kind of thing "when it happens" - maybe we need to make it happen.
Perhaps we need to fall in love with being in our bodies? Want to take them out on dates. Play dates. Learn to enjoy treating them/ourselves to what turns on the happy hormones and helps us feel better. Which is another cool thing: the more we move, the better we tend to feel overall - again, cognitively as well as in terms of general wellbeing. Stress gets blown off better; food gets processed better. We feel better about ourselves
Five+ Hours a week - to be happy with ones body?
John Berardi of Precision Nutrition has worked with hundreds (or thousands now) of clients for years. His take away has reinforced that folks who move it a minimum of five hours a week seems to correlate most strongly with greatest self-satisfaction with body image. My sense is increasingly that five+ hours a week correlates with more kinds of wellbeing than just body comp.
Now some of us can't imagine five whole hours a week just getting our body to move. We want to do the intervals or the whatever that are at most 3 sessions per week for 20 mins. And heck, i've written about working out for just 6 mins a week that has equivalent effect as hours of cardio, or elsewhere 660secs a week to show a considerable difference for overweight geeks. The theme is always "it only takes this teeny weeny amount to have an effect" - so why do more, right? Like we're off the hook then. I mean if all we need is 6 super intense minutes, the rest be dammed. We can get back to the screen.
What Systems Are Measured in Minimal Movement Studies?
But what's the effect? cardio vascular well being. Heavens knows that's important. But what about the rest of us? The respiratory and cardiovascular systems - the two most often discussed in health as part of "aeorbic fitness" - are only two of eleven physiological systems in the body. That leaves nine more to go. Consider the skin, skeleton, muscles, nervous system, hormones, lymph, sex, waste, digestion. What do they need? Turns out movement is pretty good for all of them.
To give one example, breathing is a big pump for lymph circulation and flushing. Exercise helps work breathing, so that has an impact on immune function. Movement, especially loaded work and c/v work, we know helps fascilitate nutrient uptake, and hormonal balance like insulin sensitivity. Stop/start movement like socer or weight lifting is great for our use-it-or-lose-em bones. Indeed we know that joints literally start to seize up from lack of movement in full range of motion, or develop pain conditions like RSI from overuse of one movement direction unbalanced by the others in that joint/muscle combination. It's amazing that we don't all keel over with *only* 20mins, 3 times a week of some kind of activity
Being Embodied Can be Fun
Brad Pilon made an observation on facebook lately
As an antidote, Frank Forencich at exuberant animal has an entire blog dedicated to movement/play. At the recent zhealth strength and sustenance course, we learned so many ways to move - including not moving but different forms of concentrics - or exhausting mircro movements - that it seems movement can be got from just about anywhere. And since one of the pay offs of movement can be endorphin rushes, finding any excuse to do it may just be the best thing in the world.
Also before the strength and suppleness course, we played frisbee at the end of the day. An hour of catch and a game of Ultimate each night and you've bagged your 5 hours without even thinking about it. The challenge is now to implement something similar back in Normal World.
Changing Perspective; New Discoveries.
Einstein is attributed with saying something to the effect that we can't solve our problems with the tools that created them. Easy for Mr. Paradigm Shifter I invented Relativity and topped Newtonian Physics guy to say, perhaps, but it's a salutory thought.
In this case, the fast food head space that wants what it wants now and for the minimal effort in order to go do something else - to not pay attention to what we eat; to not pay attention to how we move - is the problem, and trying to find a solution for our emotional (stress), physical and nutrional whiles with the least effort/time possible is entirely the wrong paradigm.
Maybe the paradigm shift is - what do i need to change to move the MOST i can during the day, the week, now? Related might be: What do i need to do to get the most pleasure from the best food today, to be present to being here as much as possible, to have the best rest tonight to concentrate the most i can on what i do now and later?
We're fully integrated, physical creatures, though our world is increasingly designed to shape us as brains with bodies. Abandoning that belief and moving towards the Movement Light as much rather than as little as possible feels and performs, it seems, a whole lot better - across all the rest of what we do, too, don't you think?.
Refs
Maybe we should seek to move more rather than the least amount possible in a week. Maybe that's a much better place to be. Let's consider why that might help us out in so many parts of our lives, and the research that supports it. This proposal is set against popular approaches to fitness. Lots of folks celebrate ways for us to "take less time" to work out. After all, there's more to life than being in the gym. For sure. And i'm all for efficiency and elegance in all things. A stupid workout may just be a stupid workout: when you take an hour, make it a beautiful hour.But what i've been thinking about really is that we are so wrong wrong wrong when we take what i'm increasingly seeing as the "brains with bodies" approach to movement: we seek to find the smallest slice of time during the week for our movement, like that's the least important part of our day, a chore to be got rid of. As exciting and necessary as flossing one's teeth.
And sure those "workouts in 6 mins" or 20 mins or whatever are all trying to get folks "at least doing something" - but again, maybe that's just the wrong message to be sending. In whose interests is it for us to be just well enough to keep going to work and not costing a health plan or workers comp for down time?
Movement is Smart(er) - no really.
As i do more work on movement and the way we are wired, it's increasingly clear that the opposite is true: we owe it to ourselves, cognitively and physically to find any time we can to move; in as many ways and at as many speeds as we can. When we don't use parts of our brains, the circuits re-route to what we do use. This is verified in the past 20 years of neurology.
We are use it or lose it systems. Our bodies adapt all the time. And this is systemic. What we don't use - like bone mineral density - gets taken away. Seriously, no joke. Likewise when we don't move joints in their ROM they start to osify or go arthritic in the unused portions.The above use it or lose it paradigm may still be read as we are enslaved by our bodies and so we must find the shortest most optimal path to do the least amount of work to get the most benefit. And that, too, seems to be a way way wrong and unhealthy and unhelpful life attitude. Phooey, i say.
Consider this: life may be more fun and brilliant if we see our bodies as part of who we are.
Skilled movement practice, for instance, lights up our brains in MRIs. There is increasing evidence likewise that movement enhances intellectual performance. Studies done with kids show especially the earlier "exercise" starts, the greater the intellectual benefits [2007, 2009a, 2009b ]. But at the other end of the scale, movement has been seen to help elderly at risk of observed cognitive decline, recover function, too [2010a]. Likewise, general memory function endurance is assisted by exercise/movement, and enhances brain plasticity [2010].Indeed, the studies have become so rife connecting movement with intelligence that there's even a popular press book out right now called Spark: How exercise will improve the performance of your brain
. The book summarizes a lot the findings and puts together cognitve enhancing exercise programs. Inert = Loss of Comepetetive Edge
It seems pretty clear now that for those of us who are "knowledge workers" we are also actually doing ourselves a competitive disservice by staying as innert as possible, moving as little as possible - whatever that means. But again - that may sound like a threat, and the body/burden thing raises its head. We imagine scenes from Gattica and forced treadmill running and heart rate monitoring.
Moving, though, if we take it that that's what we're designed to do, is something we can do everywhere at anytime - or at least we can so imagine. In the work environment, there are desks that let us stand or sit; working at whiteboards that let us stand and walk around. These facilitate movement. And no i'm not a fan of treadmill desks. They may burn calories but can play havok with gait, visual and vestibular systems - juries way out and tending to no. Lord, if we got beyond the "calorie burn" as the only reason to move it move it, we wouldn't have to worry about desks.
I wrote about awhile ago how pick up games of five a side football were about the best blend of strength workouts one could get and got lots of comments from colleagues about how much they enjoy that kind of thing "when it happens" - maybe we need to make it happen.
Perhaps we need to fall in love with being in our bodies? Want to take them out on dates. Play dates. Learn to enjoy treating them/ourselves to what turns on the happy hormones and helps us feel better. Which is another cool thing: the more we move, the better we tend to feel overall - again, cognitively as well as in terms of general wellbeing. Stress gets blown off better; food gets processed better. We feel better about ourselves
Five+ Hours a week - to be happy with ones body?
John Berardi of Precision Nutrition has worked with hundreds (or thousands now) of clients for years. His take away has reinforced that folks who move it a minimum of five hours a week seems to correlate most strongly with greatest self-satisfaction with body image. My sense is increasingly that five+ hours a week correlates with more kinds of wellbeing than just body comp.
What Systems Are Measured in Minimal Movement Studies?
But what's the effect? cardio vascular well being. Heavens knows that's important. But what about the rest of us? The respiratory and cardiovascular systems - the two most often discussed in health as part of "aeorbic fitness" - are only two of eleven physiological systems in the body. That leaves nine more to go. Consider the skin, skeleton, muscles, nervous system, hormones, lymph, sex, waste, digestion. What do they need? Turns out movement is pretty good for all of them.
To give one example, breathing is a big pump for lymph circulation and flushing. Exercise helps work breathing, so that has an impact on immune function. Movement, especially loaded work and c/v work, we know helps fascilitate nutrient uptake, and hormonal balance like insulin sensitivity. Stop/start movement like socer or weight lifting is great for our use-it-or-lose-em bones. Indeed we know that joints literally start to seize up from lack of movement in full range of motion, or develop pain conditions like RSI from overuse of one movement direction unbalanced by the others in that joint/muscle combination. It's amazing that we don't all keel over with *only* 20mins, 3 times a week of some kind of activity
Being Embodied Can be Fun
Brad Pilon made an observation on facebook lately
"Obesity. We concentrate on nutrition and exercise, but some other things are going on too. Did you know that 'sporting goods sales' have been steadily declining for the last several years? Why buy a soccer ball when you can buy fifa 2010? Hockey? that's what the Wii is for right? Bikes & skateboards? Too dangerous. There's excuses for it all, but still..lack of play time may be one of the biggest factors." July 23, 6:56 pm, 2010
Also before the strength and suppleness course, we played frisbee at the end of the day. An hour of catch and a game of Ultimate each night and you've bagged your 5 hours without even thinking about it. The challenge is now to implement something similar back in Normal World.
Changing Perspective; New Discoveries.
Einstein is attributed with saying something to the effect that we can't solve our problems with the tools that created them. Easy for Mr. Paradigm Shifter I invented Relativity and topped Newtonian Physics guy to say, perhaps, but it's a salutory thought.
In this case, the fast food head space that wants what it wants now and for the minimal effort in order to go do something else - to not pay attention to what we eat; to not pay attention to how we move - is the problem, and trying to find a solution for our emotional (stress), physical and nutrional whiles with the least effort/time possible is entirely the wrong paradigm.
Maybe the paradigm shift is - what do i need to change to move the MOST i can during the day, the week, now? Related might be: What do i need to do to get the most pleasure from the best food today, to be present to being here as much as possible, to have the best rest tonight to concentrate the most i can on what i do now and later?
We're fully integrated, physical creatures, though our world is increasingly designed to shape us as brains with bodies. Abandoning that belief and moving towards the Movement Light as much rather than as little as possible feels and performs, it seems, a whole lot better - across all the rest of what we do, too, don't you think?.
Refs
Castelli DM, Hillman CH, Buck SM, & Erwin HE (2007). Physical fitness and academic achievement in third- and fifth-grade students. Journal of sport & exercise psychology, 29 (2), 239-52 PMID: 17568069Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Eveland-Sayers BM, Farley RS, Fuller DK, Morgan DW, & Caputo JL (2009a). Physical fitness and academic achievement in elementary school children. Journal of physical activity & health, 6 (1), 99-104 PMID: 19211963
Chomitz, V., Slining, M., McGowan, R., Mitchell, S., Dawson, G., & Hacker, K. (2009b). Is There a Relationship Between Physical Fitness and Academic Achievement? Positive Results From Public School Children in the Northeastern United States Journal of School Health, 79 (1), 30-37 DOI: 10.1111/j.1746-1561.2008.00371.x
Baker LD, Frank LL, Foster-Schubert K, Green PS, Wilkinson CW, McTiernan A, Plymate SR, Fishel MA, Watson GS, Cholerton BA, Duncan GE, Mehta PD, & Craft S (2010a). Effects of aerobic exercise on mild cognitive impairment: a controlled trial. Archives of neurology, 67 (1), 71-9 PMID: 20065132
Berchtold, N., Castello, N., & Cotman, C. (2010b). Exercise and time-dependent benefits to learning and memory Neuroscience, 167 (3), 588-597 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2010.02.050
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