Thursday, May 2, 2013
M'eye New Workout Reset: eye work as active recovery
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Two questions: Do you do "active recovery" as part of your workout practice? Do you include eye workouts as part of your practice? To the second question first: if you don't yet do formal eye workout practice, that may be based on a belief that our vision quality is fixed, or that change can only happen in the negative, and eyesight only get worse. Well why would this one part of the body be different than every other part where we are maleable/plastic and where deliberate practice helps performance? And if some stuff is fixed, there seem to be other parts of vision that are sufficiently cognitive and that can be improved through practice that our visual acuity can improve through work, given enough reps.
Indeed, here's a question: might glasses be seen as orthotics of the eye?
A critique of orthotics is that they use an appliance as a near permanent mechanism to address some "fault" in one's gait, rather than doing the movement work to address the issue (if it is an issue). The orthotic used this way assumes really that we are not plastic, that a chronic condition is fixed by perpetual appliance use; it is not imagined where the issue addressed at the foot by the orthotic may stem from and be addressed at another location or locations, and that chage is possible. Chat with someone with orthotics and see if they think their orthotics are temporary while they do work to improve their foot found issue or permanent. For b2d readers who may have done work to shuck the shodded way, can we imagine translating this way of thinking to vision work and self-spectacling. Can we now re-member our plasticity in vision. And will doing so make us stronger? Not just spiritually, but physically.
(aside - speaking of awesome plasticity - one of the curators at MOMA, Paola Antonelli, giving a talk at a human computer interaction conference said some neurologists are going against the efforts to reduce phantom limb syndrome in order to use those limb sensations to help better connect with various new kinds of prostheses - a sort of cyborg plasticity)
There are two other articles in this space: one shows that blood lactate is cleared by active recovery - to which i say, so what? This article was written at a time when blood lactate was still thought to be in some circles a contributor to muscle fatigue (ref 3, pdf), and not actually as is more the view now (see anything by brooks), another muscle fuel, so clearing it, not such a big deal perhaps; muscle recovery is more about calcium leaking etc etc. And proof in the pudding: another study that looked at post match performance this time by guys playing rugby had no physiological benefit (ref 4)- it didn't harm performance but that's not the same as saying it benefited physiological performance. It did have a psychological benefit, of helping athletes to relax in the post-whole-game context. Where i've been looking at active recovery is to explore this relaxation-as-recovery between sets when lifting weight. Especially on "heavy" days when my goal is more good reps; fewer fails on near max efforts.
Hence eye work. The main activity is in the eyes, and to have good eye responses means relaxing the eyes; relaxing the eyes seems also to have a soothing effect on the body, not to say relaxed to the state of cooked noodle, but toned down. It is to de-effort the body while deliberately practicing a skill, in this case, vision, which also requires de-efforting (overview of eye work relaxation practice here).
Prep for Next Rep. Eye work consequently seems super for real, between-set physiological recovery. Relaxing the eyes, getting clearer sight seems to correlate very nicely with readiness for next rep. I am keen to wire this up for repiration, muscle activation, heart rate etc, but raw checks, coupled with successful rep performance, and record of perceived exertion seem to suggest something good may be happening here.
I'll do my set, log it, and then look at a chart (or more recently (a) try to look THROUGH the chart, past the letters and (b) NOT try to translate the glyphs to letters in my head. That is to avoid saying that's an D that's a C) during my recovery and often wait for the chart to come into focus. Spending on the workout, recovery may be 30secs to three minutes. I don't put a clock on this, but when I log my set, I have a button that I hit to time stamp the set, so I'm fascinated by how recovery is felt in my body seems to correlate largely with expected times.
What has been interesting to see improvement is being able to read slides during presentations better. These are live tests of all sorts of things, from contrast to color to font effectiveness - as well as time: how quickly can i get a fix on the slide to read it before it's changed to the next slide? It's the fact that i have gone from not reading slides - letting them wash over me - to getting more from them - that gives me a sense that there is some cognitive adaptation occurring if not physical adaptation occurring.
Anyone, it seems, can do vision work and likely all of us can benefit from it, just as we do from active mobility. If you have 20/20 vision, why not go for 20/10? Or work on saccades speed? Saccade work is in no small part about target re-acquisition - which in turn can be a big part of sport performance. Like running down a field and having to look away from that frisbee in flight and then re-finding it to catch it. Focus change speed is also a good one.
If you want to explore this space of recovery, why not hang up a few charts - change the space between them - and use that recovery period between sets for doing some vision work?
Again, i've just touched on one aspect of vision training. I'll be keen to hear what you discover after a month of practice, not only in your sets, but in your daily vision experience.
Andersson H, Raastad T, Nilsson J, Paulsen G, Garthe I, & Kadi F (2008). Neuromuscular fatigue and recovery in elite female soccer: effects of active recovery. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 40 (2), 372-80 PMID: 18202563
Davis WJ, Wood DT, Andrews RG, Elkind LM, & Davis WB (2008). Elimination of delayed-onset muscle soreness by pre-resistance cardioacceleration before each set. Journal of strength and conditioning research / National Strength & Conditioning Association, 22 (1), 212-25 PMID: 18296978
Micklewright, D., Beneke, R., Gladwell, V., & Sellens, M. (2003). BLOOD LACTATE REMOVAL USING COMBINED MASSAGE AND ACTIVE RECOVERY Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 35 (Supplement 1) DOI: 10.1097/00005768-200305001-01755
Suzuki M, Umeda T, Nakaji S, Shimoyama T, Mashiko T, & Sugawara K (2004). Effect of incorporating low intensity exercise into the recovery period after a rugby match. British journal of sports medicine, 38 (4), 436-40 PMID: 15273179
Near Far drills: focus switching work
Eye Massage
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Indeed, here's a question: might glasses be seen as orthotics of the eye?
A critique of orthotics is that they use an appliance as a near permanent mechanism to address some "fault" in one's gait, rather than doing the movement work to address the issue (if it is an issue). The orthotic used this way assumes really that we are not plastic, that a chronic condition is fixed by perpetual appliance use; it is not imagined where the issue addressed at the foot by the orthotic may stem from and be addressed at another location or locations, and that chage is possible. Chat with someone with orthotics and see if they think their orthotics are temporary while they do work to improve their foot found issue or permanent. For b2d readers who may have done work to shuck the shodded way, can we imagine translating this way of thinking to vision work and self-spectacling. Can we now re-member our plasticity in vision. And will doing so make us stronger? Not just spiritually, but physically.
(aside - speaking of awesome plasticity - one of the curators at MOMA, Paola Antonelli, giving a talk at a human computer interaction conference said some neurologists are going against the efforts to reduce phantom limb syndrome in order to use those limb sensations to help better connect with various new kinds of prostheses - a sort of cyborg plasticity)
Plastic Vision
If thinking about eye practice is new, let me tell you about how/where I put eye practice into my workout space: it's my new active recovery between sets.A New Active Recovery
If you do strength work in particular and have longer recovery breaks between sets, what are you going to do? Some work suggests that keeping moving between sets - not just stopping cold - is a great idea; or likewise after some physical activity, do some kind of warm down to "recover". So called active recovery. The jury is out it seems on the benefits of active recovery: after a soccer match, active recovery didn't do much for elite women players (ref 1, below) but keeping the heart rate up between sets of resistance training seemed to help eliminate DOMS (ref 2, below). Not a huge endorsement of active recovery, is it?There are two other articles in this space: one shows that blood lactate is cleared by active recovery - to which i say, so what? This article was written at a time when blood lactate was still thought to be in some circles a contributor to muscle fatigue (ref 3, pdf), and not actually as is more the view now (see anything by brooks), another muscle fuel, so clearing it, not such a big deal perhaps; muscle recovery is more about calcium leaking etc etc. And proof in the pudding: another study that looked at post match performance this time by guys playing rugby had no physiological benefit (ref 4)- it didn't harm performance but that's not the same as saying it benefited physiological performance. It did have a psychological benefit, of helping athletes to relax in the post-whole-game context. Where i've been looking at active recovery is to explore this relaxation-as-recovery between sets when lifting weight. Especially on "heavy" days when my goal is more good reps; fewer fails on near max efforts.
Hence eye work. The main activity is in the eyes, and to have good eye responses means relaxing the eyes; relaxing the eyes seems also to have a soothing effect on the body, not to say relaxed to the state of cooked noodle, but toned down. It is to de-effort the body while deliberately practicing a skill, in this case, vision, which also requires de-efforting (overview of eye work relaxation practice here).
Prep for Next Rep. Eye work consequently seems super for real, between-set physiological recovery. Relaxing the eyes, getting clearer sight seems to correlate very nicely with readiness for next rep. I am keen to wire this up for repiration, muscle activation, heart rate etc, but raw checks, coupled with successful rep performance, and record of perceived exertion seem to suggest something good may be happening here.
What to Do?
So do what in the recovery break? My focus is on better faster focus at distance (seeing more clearly, consistently, faster, from further away). So what I do is hang up two different vision charts, side by side, scald for where I stand away from these charts in a room. |
| using an eye chart (c.o./ i-see.org) set up on an ipad when working out on the road. personally, i find hanging up paper copies scaled for 7' and 10' more flexible |
Improving Performance
Eye movement can help improve focus/visual clarity, in that the movement seems to help bring a chart into better focus, faster. To trigger such movement, I'll look at a line on one chart and look at a line or letter on a line in the other chart, doing a type of saccades work, going back and forth. I'll also use orientation, so align myself side on to the chart, and turn my head to the chart. What I keep noticing is that my head position has an effect on what my eyes are doing. Surprise, eh? But it's not a consistent effect. Sometimes tilting my head back seems to improve focus; sometimes it doesn't. What I wonder is if the quality of focus achieved is related to how effectively relaxed or recovered I may be. I don't know why these differences. But there they are.Many options, like many lifts; many ways to practice vision.
A quick note about vision practice. I'm describing one type, like one might work on few strength movements. There are a range of practices around vision like target acquisition, like practicing range of motion -- stretching the main six eye muscles by exploring focus change of near far or extreme ish ranges. Also Eric Cobb at a Speed course introduced a bunch of us to Contrast Sensitivity and more recently similar training of same. Yes there's even an app for that. I admit i haven't practiced with the app because i work out in a room that has daylight streaming in. In the UK, where it goes from cloudy to fleeting sunny, i do get quite a bit of contrast sensitivity work - no kidding - just from the dynamic lighting conditions both as time passes - so sun angle - and from changeable light conditions. If you want to see the difference light makes to visual acuity, give yourself a treat and make sure you try a snellen chart on white paper experience in bright sunshine. Amazing.Pain and Gain?
Something I notice from time to time and don't know what's going on with this, is that as the chart comes into focus - so seeing better - there will actually be pain in the eye, like an eyelash poking right in or across the eye, and I have to close my eyes to recover. I hate this. I hate losing that clarity. What is that pain? Is it change? Is it not enough warm up? What is it? Why is it? Doesn't happen all the time, and I don't yet have a pattern for consistently invoking this (this is not eye strain by the way, and my eye exams are fine: no monster hiding in brain or eyeball).Long term change?
What I've noticed from eye work practice is that I can perform seeing better, more effectively because I've learned that if I give myself time to focus, I can often see stuff, at least for longer periods, sufficient to do sense making.What has been interesting to see improvement is being able to read slides during presentations better. These are live tests of all sorts of things, from contrast to color to font effectiveness - as well as time: how quickly can i get a fix on the slide to read it before it's changed to the next slide? It's the fact that i have gone from not reading slides - letting them wash over me - to getting more from them - that gives me a sense that there is some cognitive adaptation occurring if not physical adaptation occurring.
Amazement: i can see clearly now - at least for a moment.
What amazes me still is that in my practice, I have these moments of utter clarity, alignment, pure focus. It's a beautiful thing, and I see lines on the chart that are smaller than ever. Wow. Easily. For moments. What is that? It shows me that I can see well. It suggests to me that something is happening with my brain and vision to be sure. What's happening is still er, unclear, to me. But it does happen, and my naive goal is to have that happen more and longer.Recap: Eye workouts as active recovery.
Recovery time in between workout sets seems tailor made as a space to carry out vision practice, whether this is for range of motion work, near far drills, or what i've been doing: working on visual distance/focus performance.Anyone, it seems, can do vision work and likely all of us can benefit from it, just as we do from active mobility. If you have 20/20 vision, why not go for 20/10? Or work on saccades speed? Saccade work is in no small part about target re-acquisition - which in turn can be a big part of sport performance. Like running down a field and having to look away from that frisbee in flight and then re-finding it to catch it. Focus change speed is also a good one.
If you want to explore this space of recovery, why not hang up a few charts - change the space between them - and use that recovery period between sets for doing some vision work?
Again, i've just touched on one aspect of vision training. I'll be keen to hear what you discover after a month of practice, not only in your sets, but in your daily vision experience.
Refs
Andersson H, Raastad T, Nilsson J, Paulsen G, Garthe I, & Kadi F (2008). Neuromuscular fatigue and recovery in elite female soccer: effects of active recovery. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 40 (2), 372-80 PMID: 18202563 Davis WJ, Wood DT, Andrews RG, Elkind LM, & Davis WB (2008). Elimination of delayed-onset muscle soreness by pre-resistance cardioacceleration before each set. Journal of strength and conditioning research / National Strength & Conditioning Association, 22 (1), 212-25 PMID: 18296978
Micklewright, D., Beneke, R., Gladwell, V., & Sellens, M. (2003). BLOOD LACTATE REMOVAL USING COMBINED MASSAGE AND ACTIVE RECOVERY Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 35 (Supplement 1) DOI: 10.1097/00005768-200305001-01755
Suzuki M, Umeda T, Nakaji S, Shimoyama T, Mashiko T, & Sugawara K (2004). Effect of incorporating low intensity exercise into the recovery period after a rugby match. British journal of sports medicine, 38 (4), 436-40 PMID: 15273179
Related b2d Posts
Vision clarity work: taking TIME to focusNear Far drills: focus switching work
Eye Massage
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Monday, April 22, 2013
Focus on Manual Skill or Action to Restore Slightly Shredded Soul
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This is the unexpected story of working to find a path to restore some shredded soul, not through power lifting masses of weights, or sprinting all out till wiped out, but through Sharpening knives, grinding coffee beans - both by hand - making espresso on the stove, latte art - all manual, all small tasks, small skill focus, all about practice of motor learning or just small motor actions as a quest to reduce stress right now.
Often, working out sits in this place, but i feel a little too drained right now for that, except for light runs. Seems there may be a reason - or at least a good thing happening - neurologically - in finding practices that focus, soothe and restore.
Here's a possible connexion: - working on motor SKILLS (like juggling) [ref 1, below] or on abstract information gathering, like language learning [ref 2 below] seems to change the shape of the brain - in particular the grey matter around certain regions. These changes are positive - i've talked about them before in relation to thinking about holistic rather than just physical wellbeing. These studies highlight our plasticity - that we can constantly get better, more resilient.
To quote from the first study (juggling) from Nature, 2004
So if practicing a motor skill is also a soothing activity, perhaps this is doubly good for getting to a restorative place? Restoration, after all, is key to function.
Why this focus.- all because i find i cannot concentrate nor workout today.
I had watched the women's race of the marathon, and the start of the men's; went to lunch and then back over to the lab at MIT, where, on a skype with a colleague, i was told "heh, there's been some kind of explosion at the Marathon" - no way - maybe it's a gas thing.
We went on with our skype. When i got home that evening, we learned the news about the explosions being bombs.
On thursday night, when i got back home from the lab, i thought, dang, i've left my power cord over there, i'll head back - no wait, my card key's got a problem with the outside door - i'll get it in the morning.
This is the lab where i work when at MIT
I love this building. Those green awnings are where we head in and out of the place.
This is the same place - one of the less gruesome photos (source)- of Thurs night/friday morning
These are some of the alerts on campus April 18/19th as the City shut down (click to enlarge).
.png)
Back in the Familiar:
It also felt good to do something manual, focused, skilful, that has an immediate, testable result.
Then - staying manua,l but less skillful - this example is even more manual than i hit, but looks intriguing, no?
More Meditative; Less Skill; Still Manual
Here's an even more manual version of coffee grinding than what i did, but i could see how this would feel good on a slightly warmer day (zip to about 2:27 in on the vid)
If you truly wish to pause, have all the time in the world, and with to enjoy some lovely engineering - here's an example from Orphan Espresso where a grinder is machined and built by hand around the best burr in the business for grinding. Ingenious design solutions. If you're interested in why burrs rather than blades for beans, that's an interesting story, too. Stumptown, New York Roasters that do coffee for my fave Boston Coffee Place, Thinking Cup, has a nice explanation in Step One here
Wasn't that a totally awesome geek out on coffee meets machine intrigue? Wow.
And that's soothing.
I hope if you're feeling stressed you can be gentle with yourself (as per Gary's suggestion), pause and find gentle practices to restore your soul, too.
Thanks for letting me share this on going experience with you. IT's so odd to feel woven into the fabric of this experience. A fluke of timing. And now etched. Grind Grind Grind, working it in; letting it go. Breathing.
This is going to take some time....and one of the biggest challenges: me being ok with that. At least my brain/gray matter should be happier with that process.
thanks again to Amy van der Heil for her care via positive focus, and Gary Ralph Music for his care in just stepping out with a Good Suggestion.
This is the unexpected story of working to find a path to restore some shredded soul, not through power lifting masses of weights, or sprinting all out till wiped out, but through Sharpening knives, grinding coffee beans - both by hand - making espresso on the stove, latte art - all manual, all small tasks, small skill focus, all about practice of motor learning or just small motor actions as a quest to reduce stress right now.
Here's a possible connexion: - working on motor SKILLS (like juggling) [ref 1, below] or on abstract information gathering, like language learning [ref 2 below] seems to change the shape of the brain - in particular the grey matter around certain regions. These changes are positive - i've talked about them before in relation to thinking about holistic rather than just physical wellbeing. These studies highlight our plasticity - that we can constantly get better, more resilient.
To quote from the first study (juggling) from Nature, 2004
Our results contradict the traditionally held view that the anatomical structure of the adult human brain does not alter, except for changes in morphology caused by ageing or pathological conditions. Our findings indicate that learning-induced cortical plasticity is also reflected at a structural level.A recent study [ref 3 below] showed that stress reduction intervention work to reduce stress level also has grey matter structural changes, this time around the amygdala. You may have heard the expression "amygdala hijack" when dealing with fear/threat/stress - going all primal on ourselves rather than staying open and transcendent. Colleagues in neurology and business have been looking at how stress literally "eats" at the brain, too, in executives. Makes sense: if de-stressing builds up gray matter, stress could eat away at it. Ick.
So if practicing a motor skill is also a soothing activity, perhaps this is doubly good for getting to a restorative place? Restoration, after all, is key to function.
Why this focus.- all because i find i cannot concentrate nor workout today.
Event Horizons
For the past couple weeks i've been in Boston/MIT. Last week was a week no one expected.I had watched the women's race of the marathon, and the start of the men's; went to lunch and then back over to the lab at MIT, where, on a skype with a colleague, i was told "heh, there's been some kind of explosion at the Marathon" - no way - maybe it's a gas thing.
We went on with our skype. When i got home that evening, we learned the news about the explosions being bombs.
On thursday night, when i got back home from the lab, i thought, dang, i've left my power cord over there, i'll head back - no wait, my card key's got a problem with the outside door - i'll get it in the morning.
This is the lab where i work when at MIT
I love this building. Those green awnings are where we head in and out of the place.
These are some of the alerts on campus April 18/19th as the City shut down (click to enlarge).
.png)
Two colleagues who works in the same group volunteer to do radio support annually for the Marathon. They stayed in the first aid tent to help after the blast.
Context: Joy
On the Holiday Monday, just before the Marathon started, i'd ordered a marathon jacket from a fave regional sports store, because i loved the colors, was missing a windbreaker and thought, what the heck, it's a connection to the time and place, and support for this awesome event.
All over town the weekend of the marathon, runners were everywhere apparent. It felt great to be surrounded by this mix of athletes in such a public, democratic event. In the Boston Marathon, only times for one's age group and number of slots available are the determining factor. For less than 150, if you have a sufficient time, you're in. Apparently this year all the times of people in their slots were higher than the minimum so eligible people didn't get in - but at least that's skills based.
It's a pretty wonderful thing to see so many people moving it. Not everyone running on that saturday and sunday were marathoners; but you could tell that the atmosphere (and the clement weather) were adding that extra nudge to Be Human and Move as it were.
Post Event 1: Together, Tough, Resilient
All this past week post the blast, I think i'd been feeling ok - there's a kind of awesome toughness in Boston that people - at least those i encountered and folks at work - just refused to give into some F**** who set off these bombs. There is very much a town feeling. And energy. We take care of each other, and screw you for trying to hurt anyone of us - seems to be the vibe. Runners kept running during the week; work went on. A colleague, Amy van der Heil, kept us focusing on that positive energy in email responses and quiet conversations.
Post Event 2: More Surreal; Sense-making Shut Down
Thurs/Friday rather had an icicle effect on that resilience vibe. It's hard to imagine a bad scene like the marathon getting worse. It started to feel more like columbine and related than New York: two guys going Random, and taking out anyone in their path. No reason; no message. Town shut down to deal with this, finish it.
And then it was finished - more or less - focus on getting back home; on a plane this weekend. Tired. Fasting on the flight - short enough - no biggie; felt good to be a bit hungry.
Back in the Familiar:
Pause for the Jets; Going Manual Mode; Going Small scale
But today. Today supposed to be back in the zone, back at work: talk about hitting a wall. A kind colleague, Gary Ralph Music, suggested i just take some time; this is rather traumatic. Ya. Maybe that is a good idea. Pause to process. Thank you, Gary.
Which brings us to the manual work. Maybe that's more avoidance than process; maybe by focussing on the manual skills though, we push stuff otherwise in the pre-frontal cortex primary memory back into the parallel processor of sub-conscious activity where it can be processed faster, wordlessly. This is not denial? This is percolating till ready to get a verbalised ah ha perhaps.
Let me note that in the Stress Reduction/Amygdala reshaping work above, participants used something called Full Catastrophe Living (pdf of one chapter on meditation) that has been used by its authors since 1990 for numerous stress studies. Apropos, perhaps, pioneered at the Massachusetts General Hospital. In that intervention, people are meditating; doing "nothing" - so i am extrapolating to think that skills manual work, or relaxing, less skilled manual work, can still have de-stressing benefits.
First example: sharpening all the kitchen knives; practicing waterstone sharpening:
It also felt good to do something manual, focused, skilful, that has an immediate, testable result.
Then - staying manua,l but less skillful - this example is even more manual than i hit, but looks intriguing, no?
More Meditative; Less Skill; Still Manual
Here's an even more manual version of coffee grinding than what i did, but i could see how this would feel good on a slightly warmer day (zip to about 2:27 in on the vid)
If you truly wish to pause, have all the time in the world, and with to enjoy some lovely engineering - here's an example from Orphan Espresso where a grinder is machined and built by hand around the best burr in the business for grinding. Ingenious design solutions. If you're interested in why burrs rather than blades for beans, that's an interesting story, too. Stumptown, New York Roasters that do coffee for my fave Boston Coffee Place, Thinking Cup, has a nice explanation in Step One here
Wasn't that a totally awesome geek out on coffee meets machine intrigue? Wow.
And that's soothing.
Delight, Distraction, Percolation ... Restoration?
Just writing about these ways to soothe the soul, restore the body in doing something mildly focused and hands on has helped breath a bit. Get some space. Unwind. Un-tension a bit. Maybe tomorrow i'll press something; maybe i'll do something else. It's ok. Feeling a bit hungry, drinking coffee and green tea, also: ok.I hope if you're feeling stressed you can be gentle with yourself (as per Gary's suggestion), pause and find gentle practices to restore your soul, too.
Thanks for letting me share this on going experience with you. IT's so odd to feel woven into the fabric of this experience. A fluke of timing. And now etched. Grind Grind Grind, working it in; letting it go. Breathing.
This is going to take some time....and one of the biggest challenges: me being ok with that. At least my brain/gray matter should be happier with that process.
thanks again to Amy van der Heil for her care via positive focus, and Gary Ralph Music for his care in just stepping out with a Good Suggestion.
References
Draganski, B., Gaser, C., Busch, V., Schuierer, G., Bogdahn, U., & May, A. (2004). Neuroplasticity: Changes in grey matter induced by training Nature, 427 (6972), 311-312 DOI: 10.1038/427311a
Bogdan Draganski1, Christian Gaser2, Gerd Kempermann3, H. Georg Kuhn4, Jürgen Winkler1, Christian Büchel5, and Arne Draganski, B. (2006). Temporal and Spatial Dynamics of Brain Structure Changes during Extensive Learning Journal of Neuroscience, 26 (23), 6314-6317 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4628-05.2006
Holzel, B., Carmody, J., Evans, K., Hoge, E., Dusek, J., Morgan, L., Pitman, R., & Lazar, S. (2009). Stress reduction correlates with structural changes in the amygdala Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5 (1), 11-17 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsp034
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Wednesday, February 6, 2013
DIY Body Fixing (Groin Pull example): Give yourself time to work the problem
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Ever have an issue that seems to be with you for ages - it's a niggle, a nag, it's not painful but it's enough to through you off your game? Maybe you've seen someone about it, sorta had indifferent results, but mainly you just suck it up? After all - what's gonna get rid of it? Working the movement, not the muscle, that's what.
The following is the story of getting to a point of simply having had enough with just one of those problems - an adductor/groin pull recurrent tweak kinda thing. It's about having enough and saying dam it, let's just fix this. And doing so. Main take away: making the time to work the problem with a Movement based solution is like the joy one feels after banging one's head against a wall - it feels so good when ya stop. And so, to the particular case...
Perhaps you've had a tweak way up in the leg - right where it attaches to the crotch area? This area - usually referred to as the groin - most often means that there's something funny going on with a group of muscles in the inner thigh - the adductors.
The adductors have a variety of roles to play - one is that they bring the leg towards (and past) the midline of the body; the other is that they turn the top of the leg in or out depending on position of the hips, and another biggie is that they support the hips in bending forward. These are the muscles that we can feel come on if we lie on our backs, put a ball between the legs and say "squish that."
Indeed, if i'd had to describe it i would have said it did not feel like everything was hooked up. GOing back and forth, comparing where energy seemed to be going on the funky left compared with the fine right - something felt definitely out of whack.
I finally had had enough.
I had a workout day last week where i wasn't quite sure what i was going to do - supposed to be high volume leg work - and was just not into going through this again with the left side. So, cracked out the books and decided to debug this mofo once and for all. Inspired by a previous master class on shoulder debugging, i thought i must see how far i can get applying the same methods to myself.
Usually this is where a movement coach can help do the muscle testing, but i was on my own. It did seem that i could fire up the right glute, glute med and tfl more intensley on the right than the left.
Redo the movement - in this case a pistol - ya it seemed a bit better but not tweak free.
Now the challenge was to hold that position. and then work that position both manually and actively.
The manual part was to hold the area that was hinky to take it a wee bit out of commission and try the movement without it so much there. better? yes? ok. time to lie on side, relax and work the area. There's some great descriptions on doing this kind of work in Clinical Applications of Neuromuscular Techniques, Vol 2. [US Amazon || UK Amazon]
The killer solution in this that made the biggest difference was the hardest to do - psychologically - and this is what makes rehab the no fun bear that it is. In this case, it was: work the movement. Move into and out of where the discomfort is. Hold where the discomfort is; let go into where the discomfort is IN THE MOVEMENT.
In other words, not lying on a table leg out and manipulating, but actively going down into the movement (here the pistol, at a certain point past parallel - that's where the uglies happened) and explore there. My goal: hold that position, and wait it out to see what happens. Learn more.
Holding the position was in itself a challenge just in terms of being able to maintain the position - finding how i could hold myself in that place in the movement long enough without falling through the movement and without moving into pain rather than just discomfort. Sweating ensues. Kinda cool, from an observer point of view.
After a few of these sink-into-the-discomfort-and-hold reps, and the discomfort going down each time, i did partials that started just above, went through the ick to just outside of it. And the ick started to go further away. By the time i was done - and done was discomfort had largely moved out of the partials - i was able to do the same toe touching pistol full range of motion without the big red lights going off.
What i know is this combination of just working the movement with the tools i know [note on tools below] seemed to help address it. Working the movement; working in motion. To work the motion i likely did not need anatomy - just follow the discomfort - but i don't know if i would have had the same confidence to work that motion without some of that knowledge - to form hypotheses and test them.
The happy thing is i have hope: i have something to rep in. Likewise i have some proof of efficacy: i've just had a recent great discomfort-free heavy work session; i'm pretty sure i can keep working this system to get back there again and have it be increasingly sticky in the positive.
This effort at physical analysis to get to a good result took a couple hours. IF going to see a coach, it likely would still have taken that kinda time - but it was worth it to dig in and get to a solution point.
If working with a movement coach you trust, and dealing with a sticky problem, you may want to ask about booking a double or triple session - maybe getting a discount for that big a booking - in order to have the space to work the problem; to test and retest and get to a place where you have a MOVEMENT solution.
I stress a MOVEMENT solution because getting release on a table in a passive position is different than finding a solution for one's athletic activity - and that's where we want the solution to be - when we're doing the work we want to do. Does your person work muscles or movements? Just a question.
That said, i'm also very conscioulsy drawing on muscle activation techniques i learned in zhealth courses like strength and suppleness, neural activation techniquest from t-phase, and all the anatomy we did in the master trainer program. What becomes exciting is being able to explore a problem to work the problem, to bring in some extra knowledge, and get towards a solution. Manual work is awesome to help to understand an accute response. Active work is powerful to wire in the solution.
If you have a hinky issue that's gone chronic, talk to me - or, may i suggest, get a movement coach and MAKE THE TIME to work the problem
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Ever have an issue that seems to be with you for ages - it's a niggle, a nag, it's not painful but it's enough to through you off your game? Maybe you've seen someone about it, sorta had indifferent results, but mainly you just suck it up? After all - what's gonna get rid of it? Working the movement, not the muscle, that's what.
The following is the story of getting to a point of simply having had enough with just one of those problems - an adductor/groin pull recurrent tweak kinda thing. It's about having enough and saying dam it, let's just fix this. And doing so. Main take away: making the time to work the problem with a Movement based solution is like the joy one feels after banging one's head against a wall - it feels so good when ya stop. And so, to the particular case...
The Adductor Tweak
Perhaps you've had a tweak way up in the leg - right where it attaches to the crotch area? This area - usually referred to as the groin - most often means that there's something funny going on with a group of muscles in the inner thigh - the adductors.The adductors have a variety of roles to play - one is that they bring the leg towards (and past) the midline of the body; the other is that they turn the top of the leg in or out depending on position of the hips, and another biggie is that they support the hips in bending forward. These are the muscles that we can feel come on if we lie on our backs, put a ball between the legs and say "squish that."
Problem: Adductor Discomfort in Pistol Squat, Left Side
On and off for years, and esp. since last january i think, my left adductors would send up signals saying they did not like to do pistols. Not pain but discomfort to the point that it was a real trial working the left side.Indeed, if i'd had to describe it i would have said it did not feel like everything was hooked up. GOing back and forth, comparing where energy seemed to be going on the funky left compared with the fine right - something felt definitely out of whack.
I finally had had enough.
I had a workout day last week where i wasn't quite sure what i was going to do - supposed to be high volume leg work - and was just not into going through this again with the left side. So, cracked out the books and decided to debug this mofo once and for all. Inspired by a previous master class on shoulder debugging, i thought i must see how far i can get applying the same methods to myself.
First Check: what's the complement (or antagonist) muscles?
In the case of the adductors the glute med and TFL both move the hip in opposition to the adductors. Super. Hypothesis: perhaps these guys are a bit off line, and so bringing them back online - ensuring they're firing is a good idea.Usually this is where a movement coach can help do the muscle testing, but i was on my own. It did seem that i could fire up the right glute, glute med and tfl more intensley on the right than the left.
DIY note: if you're not sure where these muscles are, something like a surface palpation guide - that helps identify the bulges in the skin against the muscles depicted in anatomy texts - is a great help. A couple i like:From this identification assessment, i ran through a bunch of simple techniques to bring these areas back on line - i hoped.
- Basic Clinical Massage Therapy: integrating Anatomy and Treatment - the book draws the muscles over the surface, as well as showing the surface view of the muscles. [US Amazon || UK Amazon]
Redo the movement - in this case a pistol - ya it seemed a bit better but not tweak free.
Second Check - anything tender here?
Doing some light massage as per recommendations around neuro-muscular training and trigger point stuff, just wanted to see if there were spots that on light exploration were not happy to be worked manually. There were. Compared with the right yup these guys were sending up signals. Was also getting a wee bit from the vast.med area, too. Interesting, eh?Third Check, where IN THE MOVEMENT does it hurt?
My next task was to find not so much where in the muscle/tendon area there was some manual touch based ick, but where in the movement there was a problem. For this exploration, i used a pistol variant i learned from Kenneth Jay - to put the non-stance foot toe-touch on the ground - taking some of the balance work out of the pistol. AND THERE IT WAS - oh wow! did i find a very special place that fired up like a christmas tree of unhappy signals.Now the challenge was to hold that position. and then work that position both manually and actively.
The manual part was to hold the area that was hinky to take it a wee bit out of commission and try the movement without it so much there. better? yes? ok. time to lie on side, relax and work the area. There's some great descriptions on doing this kind of work in Clinical Applications of Neuromuscular Techniques, Vol 2. [US Amazon || UK Amazon]
Fourth Check: Work the ick in the Movement
But wait, there's more!The killer solution in this that made the biggest difference was the hardest to do - psychologically - and this is what makes rehab the no fun bear that it is. In this case, it was: work the movement. Move into and out of where the discomfort is. Hold where the discomfort is; let go into where the discomfort is IN THE MOVEMENT.
In other words, not lying on a table leg out and manipulating, but actively going down into the movement (here the pistol, at a certain point past parallel - that's where the uglies happened) and explore there. My goal: hold that position, and wait it out to see what happens. Learn more.
Holding the position was in itself a challenge just in terms of being able to maintain the position - finding how i could hold myself in that place in the movement long enough without falling through the movement and without moving into pain rather than just discomfort. Sweating ensues. Kinda cool, from an observer point of view.
 |
| using the 20kg kb as a counter weight to let me get into the ick position and hold it longer than i could if i just tried to hold it for as long as i could. When the hold/ick rather lets go, come up and work down a little lower each time and then explore eye position. holding down here with eyes left and UP made a surprising difference. this work also then becomes a little faster, a little less hold, more working through the specific partial of the whole movement. |
Higher Up and Further In: Adding Visual Activity.
I also did some eye work while i was down in that position and holding it - near far drills and the such like - to bring on more systems actively while i'm sorta static otherwise. This is me re-applying something Eric Cobb had suggested last year when we were trying to work through this problem in a limited amount of time then: the idea was get down to the bottom of the pistol and stay there and do vision drills. Turns out this was largely a great idea - just not sufficient. The refinement i brought to it - after having more time to work the problem from square one, and arrive back pretty much at exactly this same point (validation or what?)- was that for me, now, working not just the bottom of the movement but exactly where and around the discomfort/weakness in the movement was turned out to be the biggest contributor to release from this issue.After a few of these sink-into-the-discomfort-and-hold reps, and the discomfort going down each time, i did partials that started just above, went through the ick to just outside of it. And the ick started to go further away. By the time i was done - and done was discomfort had largely moved out of the partials - i was able to do the same toe touching pistol full range of motion without the big red lights going off.
Fifth Check: real work
several days later it was another leg day. time to see if this worked; if the fix had stuck, functionally. I was still aware of the area up there in the gears (perhaps some DOMS) BUT the discomfort when doing weighted pistols just wasn't there. IT really wasn't there. I had the nicest left side leg work that i'd had in ages. Hope for the lag on the left in terms of load rises. Maybe a 24kg pistol is in its future too?ANALYSIS: WHAT ACTUALLY WORKED?
What does this mean, that the discomfort seems to have been addressed? Does it mean that my hypothesis that something wasn't firing was correct? that i got the muscles more coordinated to play nice together? That there was a visual issue past partial in the squat? I don't know. I don't know what happened. Maybe there was some fascial stretching going on in this too, or neural fatiguing or...What i know is this combination of just working the movement with the tools i know [note on tools below] seemed to help address it. Working the movement; working in motion. To work the motion i likely did not need anatomy - just follow the discomfort - but i don't know if i would have had the same confidence to work that motion without some of that knowledge - to form hypotheses and test them.
WORK PACKAGE: Now REP IT IN.
The add's on that side are not 100% - i just tried a pistol on my left and a bit of a tweak is peeking back, suggesting that other issues may be at play. So it's going to take reps. Again. Like my shoulder rehab that took thousands of light reps with a band in both the push and the pull direction to get the wiring of the brain pattern and tissue to remember how to do those movements without pain.The happy thing is i have hope: i have something to rep in. Likewise i have some proof of efficacy: i've just had a recent great discomfort-free heavy work session; i'm pretty sure i can keep working this system to get back there again and have it be increasingly sticky in the positive.
Take Away: "I need more time, Captain"
Patient Persistence; work the problemThis effort at physical analysis to get to a good result took a couple hours. IF going to see a coach, it likely would still have taken that kinda time - but it was worth it to dig in and get to a solution point.
If working with a movement coach you trust, and dealing with a sticky problem, you may want to ask about booking a double or triple session - maybe getting a discount for that big a booking - in order to have the space to work the problem; to test and retest and get to a place where you have a MOVEMENT solution.
I stress a MOVEMENT solution because getting release on a table in a passive position is different than finding a solution for one's athletic activity - and that's where we want the solution to be - when we're doing the work we want to do. Does your person work muscles or movements? Just a question.
Dialing In:
And one more thing: i'm not recommending you try this set of steps on yourself; i'm making no therepeutic recommendations whatsoever. I'm offering a view that it seems if we're patient, persistent and apply knowledge about the body and especially nervous system to work a problem, even something that's been going on for what feels like ages can be addressed. Right now.Notes on Tools:
Understanding a wee bit about anatomy/kinesiology - about where a muscle takes a limb around a joint - i have found to be extremely helpful in working a problem to resolve the issue.That said, i'm also very conscioulsy drawing on muscle activation techniques i learned in zhealth courses like strength and suppleness, neural activation techniquest from t-phase, and all the anatomy we did in the master trainer program. What becomes exciting is being able to explore a problem to work the problem, to bring in some extra knowledge, and get towards a solution. Manual work is awesome to help to understand an accute response. Active work is powerful to wire in the solution.
If you have a hinky issue that's gone chronic, talk to me - or, may i suggest, get a movement coach and MAKE THE TIME to work the problem
Related Posts
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Whole Food and Bifurcated Guilt/Pleasure: respecting the food chain by engaging the chain?
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Whole Protein - Whole Food - and Personal Denial. Recently i was in france where i had the pleasure of going to a fish market each day to bring home fresh seafood for lunch. What gave me pause is dealing with entire creature corpses. That experience somehow changes one's sense of food a bit, doesn't it?
Perhaps people who have hunted or fished their dinners are well familiar with this effect of holding something in one's hand that was so obviously alive and that must now be more or less dissected to be prepared for consumption. Makes one think about this notion of "whole food" perhaps in a somewhat different way.
Some of the catch at a fish stall looks no different than it does at the store: big steaks of halibut or salmon where there's very little in evidence that this was part of something resembling a fish, or to tell one slice from another beyond color. One vendor used the sword of the sword fish as a clever marker to indicate the cuts you see here are from guess what? a sword fish.
The rest of what's on offer at any of the fish mongers i visited however did look very much like the creatures themselves. Fish with eyes in front of their giant heads rather than at the side are some of the most disconcerting - looking very much like "what am i doing here? i never thought it would be like this" Very large snake like eels lie in buckets. Clams glisten and oysters piled up create entirely new if temporary rock formations. Are those shelled creatures still alive? Did that eel just aesphixiate? Does one bash it on the head?
WHOLE, WHOLE Creatures. While we brought home whole fish like brill - often one of the folks at the stall would have cleaned, gutted and beheaded the thing. The sense of whole creatureness was not quite as present. But then, i had the opportunity to bring home squids. This is a whole creature. I did not catch it - i do not know how it is made dead before being placed on crushed ice for sale, but it was certainly clear that this was the whole being. Eyes, body, mouth, tendrils. A carnivore perhaps itself. Did it aesphixiate? looking at fishing sites, they seem to suggest post catch just put the things on ice. So freeze and aesphixiate? I hate the enthusiam i hear in these sites suggesting it is "great fun" to go catch squid And then put them in a cooler. To aesphixiate. I dunno. I digress.
Back in fwance, the fishmonger put three squid i've pointed out into a bag to take home. There they are. Hardly take up any space at all. Relatively cheap protein, fresh. Very whole.
As said i didn't catch these creatures but i am now holding them, whole, in my hands to prepare for eating. It suddenly felt solem, which i suppose only shows both how seldom i deal with whole whole food of the once animate kind, and how removed i am just generally from the whole food chain.
Preparing squid has several parts - removal of the head lets one get at the body in order to remove a spine that is very much like a crushed clear plastic straw. With this removed, the guts are relatively easy to pull out with a finger from the body. The eyes and beak are also removed. Then the body is skinned, the fins removed to be scored a bit separately. The tendirls may likewise be prepared further - scraping off the suckers - and then the tube of the body is cut into the familiar rings seen in calamari.
There is something salutory about breaking down a squid in this way. This whole thing was in the sea recently; now it's in my hands; on the cutting board, these rings no longer recognizable as what it was - now it's in the fry pan, the plate, me.
Consider the Source I don't quite have a handle yet on the whole experience here, but i do think handling truly *whole* food of the post-animate kind is important. Or let me rephrase - it offers an opportunity to get grounded: today i eat the fish; tomorrow the fish eats me?
At least dealing with these squid, it was made very obvious to me what i was doing. Would that be different if that were the more visible case with the other omnivore acts?
Animal Ignorance How many of us know anymore from what part of a pig is the meat cured for bacon? where on the cow is the part that become ribeye? It wasn't till i was doing anatomy that i got my god, i'm eating leg muscle. I don't know what i thought meat was, but it put the quads and hamstrings in a whole different light.
i'm not saying anything spectacularly new: Michael Pollan has written about distance of ourselves from the food supply and has, i think also written about the experience of taking a creature from field to table. I understand there are boutique butchers where one learns to break down a carcas - i'm not sure if one actually has to kill and clean the beast - because a carcass ready for butchery just doesn't look like an animal anymore - think all those sides of beef that get punched in Rocky. No doubt there's likely some kill to clean to butcher boutique in California if nowhere else. And good for them. Bet it costs a fortune too. The privilege of getting close to a process that was just normal to some of our elders.
Getting Closer to Real: mixed feelings. I guess from my experience, i'm finding that it's one thing to read Michale Pollan talk about the value of getting to know one's food directly - especially the mobile kind. It's another to actually have the whole thing in one's hands, unmaking it. I felt vaguely horrible taking apart the squid while simultaneously enjoying the process of preparation - of being able to understand the anatomy in order to preapre the meat. It's like sensing both a hot and cold tap both on and not blending - it's very odd. Makes the pleasure of the meal of a slightly different flavour.
I find myself looking for WHOLE proteins in a new way - and wanting to challenge myself - rather than let myself off the hook , as it were, - anytime approaching post animate food sources. Eat less with more care perhaps?
How 'bout you?
Tweet Follow @begin2dig
 |
| squid in the sea (image source) |
Some of the catch at a fish stall looks no different than it does at the store: big steaks of halibut or salmon where there's very little in evidence that this was part of something resembling a fish, or to tell one slice from another beyond color. One vendor used the sword of the sword fish as a clever marker to indicate the cuts you see here are from guess what? a sword fish.
The rest of what's on offer at any of the fish mongers i visited however did look very much like the creatures themselves. Fish with eyes in front of their giant heads rather than at the side are some of the most disconcerting - looking very much like "what am i doing here? i never thought it would be like this" Very large snake like eels lie in buckets. Clams glisten and oysters piled up create entirely new if temporary rock formations. Are those shelled creatures still alive? Did that eel just aesphixiate? Does one bash it on the head?
WHOLE, WHOLE Creatures. While we brought home whole fish like brill - often one of the folks at the stall would have cleaned, gutted and beheaded the thing. The sense of whole creatureness was not quite as present. But then, i had the opportunity to bring home squids. This is a whole creature. I did not catch it - i do not know how it is made dead before being placed on crushed ice for sale, but it was certainly clear that this was the whole being. Eyes, body, mouth, tendrils. A carnivore perhaps itself. Did it aesphixiate? looking at fishing sites, they seem to suggest post catch just put the things on ice. So freeze and aesphixiate? I hate the enthusiam i hear in these sites suggesting it is "great fun" to go catch squid And then put them in a cooler. To aesphixiate. I dunno. I digress.
 |
| squid home from the market |
Back in fwance, the fishmonger put three squid i've pointed out into a bag to take home. There they are. Hardly take up any space at all. Relatively cheap protein, fresh. Very whole.
As said i didn't catch these creatures but i am now holding them, whole, in my hands to prepare for eating. It suddenly felt solem, which i suppose only shows both how seldom i deal with whole whole food of the once animate kind, and how removed i am just generally from the whole food chain.
Preparing squid has several parts - removal of the head lets one get at the body in order to remove a spine that is very much like a crushed clear plastic straw. With this removed, the guts are relatively easy to pull out with a finger from the body. The eyes and beak are also removed. Then the body is skinned, the fins removed to be scored a bit separately. The tendirls may likewise be prepared further - scraping off the suckers - and then the tube of the body is cut into the familiar rings seen in calamari.
 |
| squid unsquidded in preparation for cooking |
Consider the Source I don't quite have a handle yet on the whole experience here, but i do think handling truly *whole* food of the post-animate kind is important. Or let me rephrase - it offers an opportunity to get grounded: today i eat the fish; tomorrow the fish eats me?
At least dealing with these squid, it was made very obvious to me what i was doing. Would that be different if that were the more visible case with the other omnivore acts?
 |
| little left to resemble the whole creature now |
i'm not saying anything spectacularly new: Michael Pollan has written about distance of ourselves from the food supply and has, i think also written about the experience of taking a creature from field to table. I understand there are boutique butchers where one learns to break down a carcas - i'm not sure if one actually has to kill and clean the beast - because a carcass ready for butchery just doesn't look like an animal anymore - think all those sides of beef that get punched in Rocky. No doubt there's likely some kill to clean to butcher boutique in California if nowhere else. And good for them. Bet it costs a fortune too. The privilege of getting close to a process that was just normal to some of our elders.
Getting Closer to Real: mixed feelings. I guess from my experience, i'm finding that it's one thing to read Michale Pollan talk about the value of getting to know one's food directly - especially the mobile kind. It's another to actually have the whole thing in one's hands, unmaking it. I felt vaguely horrible taking apart the squid while simultaneously enjoying the process of preparation - of being able to understand the anatomy in order to preapre the meat. It's like sensing both a hot and cold tap both on and not blending - it's very odd. Makes the pleasure of the meal of a slightly different flavour.
I find myself looking for WHOLE proteins in a new way - and wanting to challenge myself - rather than let myself off the hook , as it were, - anytime approaching post animate food sources. Eat less with more care perhaps?
How 'bout you?
Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Saturday, January 26, 2013
What's you H2 Ratio? MOVEMENT - NUTRITION - RECOVERY - SOCIAL - MIND
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For holistic long term health, wellbeing and feeling of effervescent joy, it seems that we need to include deliberate practice in five areas:
MOVEMENT - NUTRITION - RECOVERY - SOCIALISING - COGNITIVE PRACTICE. What do you think? ring true? Perhaps you've heard it here first - i've heard three and four of these points before, but this five point framing of what we need to be optimal may be new-ish? Wouldn't that be nice if b2d dug up something new?
In any case: we're pscysho-social-physical creatures, yes? That's our history, our trajectory up from the swamp, oui?
So since we still have these evolutionary traces, that is, physical bodies that seem deisgned to run, and that mainly work best with social contexts rather than isolation, then to be healthy, it seems, we need to work all of them. Including the brain and including social practice.
An intriguing thing to me is that these systems - move, eat, sleep, socialize, ideate - reinforce each other.
We can socialize around deep conversation (express idea density, discussed here); we can move around together - game play and engage in strategy (especially excellent for couch potatoes who also want to lose weight) - play, move, socialize, skill/depth of practice - and of course eat and rest in between - maybe in groups.
Indeed, there's a truly fascinating book by Canadian scholar Stephen Cunnane called "survival of the fattest" (UK link || US link) that goes over the case that far from our brains growing as a result of tool use, our brains grew from play. And access to an easy shore-based food supply that made play possible. Theresa Nesbit pointed this book out to me, and i recommend it as a read (or interlibrary loan).
(Reminds me of tree planting - except we'd be too pooped to play games after a day of screefing. oh. and too pooped for deep conversation. so, maybe not tree planting.)
Movement Nutrition Recovery Socialising Cognitive Engagement
is around how to put together our approach to holistic practice.
When we put our training plans together, do we plan as well how we will recover? How we will socialise? How we will work on idea density? If not, why not?
Brain in Motion? While we may have strategies for post workout nutrition, do we have them for sleep? How do we balance socialising and cognitive engagement?
For instance, do we deliberately seek out challenging conversation? challenging books? (what Carole Goble calls "coffee" vs "wine" research paper reading for instance).
Do we practice various social skills like listening, empathy, active engagement? For introverts, this kind of practice is effortful, to be sure, but even extraverts can practice pulling back and being present to others. Or to learn the tempo of conversation and try to support the flow. And so on. Skills and practice everywhere.
Nutrition. Boy, this one i think i've done better in a holistic way than the holistic movement piece. Hmm. Hadn't thought of that. Why? maybe because food is so much more of a regular challenge. Every few hours: focus focus.
Recovery/Sleep. Now here's one where i think i know more than i consistently practice. I do know my best training results however have come when being religious about getting to sleep with hours before midnight spent in sleep, and getting up around 5:30 to work out (much easier in the summer than winter!) Much of any knowledge i have about sleep in particular and relationships of foods/drugs within sleep has been spurred on by sleep scientist Stephan Fabregas.
Socialisation. As said, for an introvert, this is an effort. But practice helps. Best book i've read on this practice? There's lots of stuff around influence, influencing people, listening, having critical conversations All excellent stuff. Above and beyond anything, going back to a classic. Dale Carnegie. One tip that i haven't seen anywhere else: avoid contradicting anyone or criticising anyone. Oy! Now that takes practice.
Cognitive Engagement: Ideation. Being an intellectual is dandy. I have no problem having a good sized vocabulary and using it. IT's my job. But where do i push out of my comfort zone? Kind of like knowing that if there's an exercise we don't like it's one we should likely do, cuz that exposes a weakness, i think working the brain is sort of the same thing: we have to push limits to affect
There are subjects i find really challenging. So this year i'm making a promise to find the best sources (for me) to develop practice in these areas. Like finding the right trainer, the right textbook or the right instructor - at least for me - is key to me getting something.
We may have felt like we didn't have a choice of instructors in highschool but alleluia we do now. The challenge is slotting in hours now for that practice as well as these other bits.
Check out how many hours a week we spend
Ratios See - i don't know what the ideal practice ratios are. We know about workouts for at least a sense of health satisfaction (5 hours minimum). We know at least about sleep that there is good research for us to have 7.5hrs a night). But Play? is is as many hours playing as working out? more? What about socialising? twice as much as working out? half? What about deliberate cognitive practice? 1 hour? 3 hours?
Scales Do we have other scales here? We can assess workout quality, and nutrition and sleep quality. How do we assess socialising/play/restoration qualities? Is vegging out with the TV after a hard day of work reasonable recovery? or would it be better health wise to read a book? or chat with friends on facebook?
So shall we get some data?
Here's to Movement - Nutrition - Recovery - Socialising - Cognitive Engagement -
Let's start to find out what we have vs what we need.
Related Posts
Tweet Follow @begin2dig
For holistic long term health, wellbeing and feeling of effervescent joy, it seems that we need to include deliberate practice in five areas:
MOVEMENT - NUTRITION - RECOVERY - SOCIALISING - COGNITIVE PRACTICE. What do you think? ring true? Perhaps you've heard it here first - i've heard three and four of these points before, but this five point framing of what we need to be optimal may be new-ish? Wouldn't that be nice if b2d dug up something new?
In any case: we're pscysho-social-physical creatures, yes? That's our history, our trajectory up from the swamp, oui?
 |
| Amsa-dong Pre-historic Village, Seoul Korea |
An intriguing thing to me is that these systems - move, eat, sleep, socialize, ideate - reinforce each other.
We can socialize around deep conversation (express idea density, discussed here); we can move around together - game play and engage in strategy (especially excellent for couch potatoes who also want to lose weight) - play, move, socialize, skill/depth of practice - and of course eat and rest in between - maybe in groups.
Indeed, there's a truly fascinating book by Canadian scholar Stephen Cunnane called "survival of the fattest" (UK link || US link) that goes over the case that far from our brains growing as a result of tool use, our brains grew from play. And access to an easy shore-based food supply that made play possible. Theresa Nesbit pointed this book out to me, and i recommend it as a read (or interlibrary loan).
(Reminds me of tree planting - except we'd be too pooped to play games after a day of screefing. oh. and too pooped for deep conversation. so, maybe not tree planting.)
Inclusive 5-point Plan Practice?
My growing question from this five point holistic health guide ofMovement Nutrition Recovery Socialising Cognitive Engagement
is around how to put together our approach to holistic practice.
When we put our training plans together, do we plan as well how we will recover? How we will socialise? How we will work on idea density? If not, why not?
For instance, do we deliberately seek out challenging conversation? challenging books? (what Carole Goble calls "coffee" vs "wine" research paper reading for instance).
Do we practice various social skills like listening, empathy, active engagement? For introverts, this kind of practice is effortful, to be sure, but even extraverts can practice pulling back and being present to others. Or to learn the tempo of conversation and try to support the flow. And so on. Skills and practice everywhere.
Challenge? How build the whole piece?
Movement. Certainly over the past while, i've been deliberate about physical practice - but not perhaps as thoughtful as i might be in terms of optimal, whole body training as opposed to strength goals.Nutrition. Boy, this one i think i've done better in a holistic way than the holistic movement piece. Hmm. Hadn't thought of that. Why? maybe because food is so much more of a regular challenge. Every few hours: focus focus.
Recovery/Sleep. Now here's one where i think i know more than i consistently practice. I do know my best training results however have come when being religious about getting to sleep with hours before midnight spent in sleep, and getting up around 5:30 to work out (much easier in the summer than winter!) Much of any knowledge i have about sleep in particular and relationships of foods/drugs within sleep has been spurred on by sleep scientist Stephan Fabregas.
Socialisation. As said, for an introvert, this is an effort. But practice helps. Best book i've read on this practice? There's lots of stuff around influence, influencing people, listening, having critical conversations All excellent stuff. Above and beyond anything, going back to a classic. Dale Carnegie. One tip that i haven't seen anywhere else: avoid contradicting anyone or criticising anyone. Oy! Now that takes practice.
Cognitive Engagement: Ideation. Being an intellectual is dandy. I have no problem having a good sized vocabulary and using it. IT's my job. But where do i push out of my comfort zone? Kind of like knowing that if there's an exercise we don't like it's one we should likely do, cuz that exposes a weakness, i think working the brain is sort of the same thing: we have to push limits to affect There are subjects i find really challenging. So this year i'm making a promise to find the best sources (for me) to develop practice in these areas. Like finding the right trainer, the right textbook or the right instructor - at least for me - is key to me getting something.
We may have felt like we didn't have a choice of instructors in highschool but alleluia we do now. The challenge is slotting in hours now for that practice as well as these other bits.
Reality Check: What's your H2 (Holistic Health) Ratio?
Something perhaps to try:Check out how many hours a week we spend
- in physical practice (with 5minimum being the ideal it seems for happiness in the bodycomp arena)
- in rest/recovery/sleep
- in socialising/play
- in deliberate attention to food prep and meals
- in deliberate cognitive practice
- whatever's left (like work?)- when we're not doing any of these practices.
Just one week - let's find out what we count as restorative, and when we might also get what Frank Forencich of exuberant animal in Stresscraft calls "Movement Snacks" - and what might also be rest or play or cog practice snacks?
Ratios See - i don't know what the ideal practice ratios are. We know about workouts for at least a sense of health satisfaction (5 hours minimum). We know at least about sleep that there is good research for us to have 7.5hrs a night). But Play? is is as many hours playing as working out? more? What about socialising? twice as much as working out? half? What about deliberate cognitive practice? 1 hour? 3 hours?
Scales Do we have other scales here? We can assess workout quality, and nutrition and sleep quality. How do we assess socialising/play/restoration qualities? Is vegging out with the TV after a hard day of work reasonable recovery? or would it be better health wise to read a book? or chat with friends on facebook?
So shall we get some data?
Here's to Movement - Nutrition - Recovery - Socialising - Cognitive Engagement -
Let's start to find out what we have vs what we need.
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- deliberate practice
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