Fast Fitness - Functional Agility, Flexibility, Strength
Friday, November 30, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - build balance, leg and hip strength, and flexibility as a lifestyle.
Lightly sit down on the floor and get up again without your hands.
Being able to rise from the floor is natural lifestyle movement, done in many places in the world by people up to the oldest years. My martial arts student Ms. Han demonstrates in the short mpeg movie. Click the arrow to run the video:
Thank you Prudence MD for hosting Grand Rounds 4.10 this week.
In a hospital Grand Rounds is a lecture on a teaching topic or specific case. On the web, Grand Rounds is a post that selects the best medical posts of the week.
Grand Round 4.10 included my post Grunting and Exercise, and said the post is "about an often debated issue in the gym where both sides could benefit by a little knowledge."
My mother is a Russian circus teacher. We recently went with her to a recital of a neighbor who teaches elementary trapeze arts. The performers, age about 10 to a women in her 50s, were having fun moving and pulling themselves up and down ropes, scarves, and hoops. It wasn't a polished performance or high technical ability. That wasn't the point. They were lifting their body weight, climbing, stretching, balancing, focusing, burning calories, learning safety and cooperation, exercising, developing arm, hand, wrist, and grip strength, and moving their bodies in functional ways.
Their over-dramatic costumes flopped over their faces when they hung upside down. One young performer wore fly-front long johns. They seemed to think they were great artists. True or not, they were moving, smiling, stretching, laughing, and exercising to do art and fun.
Check for fun safe programs near you of healthy movement of all kinds. Get the good they can provide of new fun ways to use your body and mind functionally. If they use traditional stretches and exercises to warm-up that are not healthful, change or skip them. These posts give ideas:
Thank you MexicoMedStudent for hosting Grand Rounds 4.09 this week. Grand Rounds is a lot of work for the person hosting. The web version of Grand Rounds is a weekly medical post that lists their choice for the best medical posts of the week.
MexicoMedStudent included my post Rocky Movie Computer Fight Simulation and wrote, "Jolie Bookspan at The Fitness Fixer shows how she performed martial arts movement analysis “old school” with high speed film years ago. Later, she returned to this area, except she was the model FOR a computer and even had her moves included in a video game. Cool stuff!"
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - aloe vera fresher and cheaper, and probably more effective than bottled, to help cell repair.
Cut a one or two inch chunk from a whole aloe leaf. Ethnic markets may be more likely to have some.
Remove the side spines
Peel the skin and scoop the cool gel. Be careful cutting the slippery insides.
Add a chunk when making fitness water and sports shakes, and rub the inside of the peel on your face and hands, or apply to cuts and small wounds. Dries without stickiness.
Aloe is promoted as aiding cell growth and repair, as an anti-inflammatory, and helps move slow digestion on through. Promotes fitness inside and out.
"How good it is to have friends visit from afar" - The first lines of the Analects of Confucius (Confucius is the Western name of Chinese scholar K'ung Fu Tzu)
Every year at Thanksgiving, some of my students are far from home or without a family to visit. We invite them to come to our little house for a warm meal on cushions by the fireplace.
Several want to come until we tell them the food will be vegetarian and we sit on the floor without Western-style furniture. They suddenly remember an uncle in Boston they can visit. This year we're pleased that a former student is flying from Japan to visit after studying with us here years ago.
This is the link to last year's Fitness and Health as a Lifestyle for Thanksgiving to help holiday lifting, carrying, cooking, cleaning, and preparations. Here are more easy fun Thanksgiving fitness-as-a-lifestyle ideas:
Sitting on the floor with good positioning is healthier than in chairs, and gives a built-in hip stretch. Done in rounded positioning, it is the same as bad sitting in chairs. Use Quick and Easy Strength and Balance Exercise.
Vegetarian and vegan food makes a full, healthy, good tasting Thanksgiving feast. It does not have to be strange or spartan. Avoid unfermented soy in powdered protein drinks, bars, and textured vegetable protein. It is not as healthy as promoted. Real food gives protein, and is healthier. See Is Your Health Food Unhealthful? and Get Muscles for Christmas.
While standing to prepare food at the counter, put your shoulders back with chin loosely in and hip tucked to neutral - photo example in Fast Fitness - Homemade Sports Food. Then your neck and back will not hurt during cooking.
Even if you need to hurry to prepare and clean, remember to be happy that you are well-off enough to have things to prepare and clean.
Have kids help, rather than stressing to do everything alone while they miss the discipline, good habits, and exercise of helping you. Make it fun to be together.
Instead of hunching shoulders and rushing to get the cooking done, straighten, breathe, and use each stroke of washing and cutting as a meditation.
Get free bending and spiritual exercise by cleaning closets to donate clothing to warm someone in need. Every year Paul and I stand with a clothing bag in city alleys near the shelters. Extra large homeless women take Paul's extra large shirts and jackets. Squirrelly homeless men pick out my small jeans. They smile jagged-toothed smiles at their new clothes. We enjoy listening to their stories and sharing warm home-baked food with them.
Laugh until your cheeks hurt.
"Before eating, give thanks to the food" - Arapaho Native American proverb.
When possessions break, give thanks for having possessions, which is more than much of the world has. When your faucet leaks, give thanks that you have running water. When we lived in Asia, we walked down only two flights to a bathroom then climbed back two flights with a jug of water for cooking. People in many places in the world walk miles just for the privilege of digging for food and carrying heavy water pots back. That gives perspective on Westerners who easily eat much and exercise little, and believe only the most minor contributors to weight gain - Metabolism - How to Lose Weight and Save Money.
There are groups of mountain monks in Japan, who, after going to the bathroom, give thanks because everything worked. Learn to give thanks for all the little things and big things.
Get rid of an enemy this Thanksgiving. Abraham Lincoln explained: "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
We are fortunate to have food, and cushions, and a warm fire, and friends who visit from afar. Thank you readers for using my work to make your lives better. You are my gifts.
More on the exercise of living happily and giving thanks in Healthy Martial Arts.
Rich Tarpinian, IT systems engineer, musician, hockey coach, and vegan, fixed grinding neck pain, back spasms, disc pain, and tension-type headaches. He had not been comfortable sleeping in any position. Rich said the neck grinding and discomfort, "felt like it was never going to go away."
Rich writes:
"Thanks again for your help! Here's my update. I stopped cranking my neck around and the grinding stopped within the 2 weeks or so that you had indicated.
"I am controlling my body positioning, more aware, and have eliminated lots of neck tension even though I work at a computer all day. The anxiety I was having about disc problems, etc., has mostly been replaced with good knowledge, a feeling of control, and an ability to heal.
"Every morning (instead of sitting on the bed) I get out of bed the way you have recommended - why? because it makes sense. I don't sit on the bed and then try to straighten my body as I start to walk. I get up from the face down position in the already standing position.
"I've always had an interest in the mechanical aspect of how the body moves and what the sources of problems can be which is why, when I was pouring over information on the internet, your information regarding cause/effect relationships instantly caught and held my attention.
"I eat a pretty good diet - vegan with a good amount of raw foods, but had not paid much attention to posture and movement. I will now.
"As a side note, I coached hockey for about 8 years and played up until about 4 years ago. I had an opportunity to get back into some coaching recently but was really worried about the neck issues that I had been having for weeks. I also used to get a lot of back spasms when I played/coached. After experiencing the progress from your recommendations, which came just in time, I stepped confidently back on the ice a couple of weeks ago and have felt good given some expected muscle soreness that is now gone. The hardest thing was lacing up the skates but, once I was on the ice, I felt great.
"What you have done effectively is to empower people with the knowledge of how to find and return to the correct answers in order to maintain their own bodies. You've done that by providing reasons where needed, presenting conflicting information to show contrast, and using repetition to help solidify the important concepts."
"The key is that I now understand the causes of the problem and can, for the most part, manage the process when things start going wrong. As I cruised the internet looking at information, my anxiety meter kept rising - until I found your article on fixing the neck grinding problem which prompted me to read your other articles on sitting, lifting, etc. The article was immediately positive with a no strings attached approach to fixing and preventing the problem. My overcoming the neck issues is directly attributable to you."
Rich first fixed his pain using my web site summary sheets. These Fitness Fixer posts also describe techniques used:
Two important stretches to do first thing in the morning and throughout the day to restore ability to sit, move, and stand without unhealthful neck position - Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain and Nice Neck Stretch
Having muscles soreness is not bad, it means you're out having fun. Make sure there is no pain or soreness in the joint. That is the difference. See Teen Dies After Using Muscle Soreness Rub
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - fix your plank (hold pushup position) to strengthen core and wrists, and train standing neutral spine posture. In yoga the plank is done in high and low positions called chaturunga.
A sagging inward curve to the lower back is not the normal curve, it is too much curve - pictured at the start of the MPEG movie below. Holding a plank with a sagging (overarched, hyperlordotic) lower spine "hammocks" body weight onto your spine joints called facets, adding to lower back pain, and does not use your core muscles. It is counterproductive as an exercise. Instead:
Hold a pushup position
Change sagging lower back to neutral by tucking the hip. Head up, neck as straight as standing.
Don't flop all weight on wrists. Press with hand and fingers, and use forearm muscles to reduce wrist compression and shift weight to surrounding muscles - see Stronger Pain-Free Wrists When Biking for ideas.
Reader David D. from Belgium sent this excellent movie. He pushes up into plank. You can also can start on hands and feet without pushing up. He first demonstrates badly overarched lower back, then changes to neutral spine in seconds 8-11 of the movie, then holds. When you do this you will immediately feel the effort shift to your abs. Use this instead of crunches for functional core training. If you push up from the floor, hold tucked neutral spine, not lifting upper body first.
(The exercise is not to do overarching and change to neutral - it is to hold neutral throughout.)
Grunting in the gym made recent news. A member was forcibly removed from a gym when others complained. The article told of factions arguing who was right if grunting and other loud vocalizations when exerting for exercise were helpful or needless annoyance.
Exercise is supposed to be healthy and build discipline of mind and body. Antagonism and disputes are not healthy for mind or body. Moreover, both sides have missed the point.
Breathing out, either quickly or slowly in coordination with effort can help. It can be done silently - by exhaling without vocalizing. You can have both, the exhale and the peace. This quiet but forceful exhalation practice is used in many high exertion fields from martial arts to warfare to meditation.
Fighting ninjas were legendary for both focused effort and silent tactics. No sense making a war cry until it was needed for its better purpose - to increase tendency to submission by the other party on the receiving end of the cry. In other words, to be scary.
For exercise, focused exhalation can increase acceleration at specific points of the move to increase power. For heavy moves, it can help lessen increases of pressure in the chest cavity and blood vessels, depending how it is done. Sometimes, people put so much pressure into the exhalation that they increase internal pressure instead of prevent problems. Done either quickly or slowly, it can be used to strengthen the move by including expiratory muscles. Often in martial arts and yoga classes, we (teachers) use noisy breathing just to remind students to breathe at all. It is a cue until they remember to breathe on their own (quietly) instead of holding their breath.
In the war dances and drumming in many countries, in martial arts, and in meditation arts, a concentrated exhalation coordinated with effort is variously called kiah, kiai, hihap, battle cry, and other terms. Each school is certain that their own different translation and beliefs about these terms is the "right one." The exhalation can be vocalized in a short yell, a loud breath, or silent. In group efforts, from martial arts to hauling sheets on tall ships, to chain gangs, to exercise classes, it helps unify mood or keep cadence. Done without coordinating effort, it is called yelling, and sometimes it is just vocalizing in corny ways.
More about breathing, the kiai exhalation, and exercise for any sport are in the book Healthy Martial Arts.
--- Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. Limited Class spaces for personal feedback. Top students may apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books. ---
Thank you Dr. Anonymous for hosting Grand Rounds 4.8 this week.
In a hospital, Grand Rounds is a lecture for doctors about a patient or topic. On the web, the weekly Grand Rounds is an electronic post that lists its vote for the best medical posts of the week.
The 2006 Sylvester Stallone movie Rocky Balboa featured a scene where a computer simulation estimates the outcome of a hypothetical fight. Can computers do that?
In this movie, Stallone's heavyweight boxer character Rocky has retired. In one scene, Rocky is watching ESPN news, and is startled by a broadcast. It features a computer simulation depicting a fantasy fight, and predicts the outcome of how Rocky would have fought in his prime against the movie's present-day heavyweight champion Mason Dixon, spurring his return to the ring. A real pro boxer plays Mason Dixon's character - Antonio "Magic Man" Tarver is a southpaw from Florida, and former light heavyweight world champion.
Computer generated fights that generate real probable outcomes in real time 3-D are not yet possible outside the movie industry. What can real computers do?
An actual "fantasy fight" computer simulation was done in 1970. It was the SuperFight between Muhammad Ali and Rocky Marciano. Rocky (Rocco) Marciano was heavyweight champion of the world from 1952 to 1956. Muhammad Ali was three-time World Heavyweight Champion in the 1970s. Marciano and Ali fought in different eras and never fought an actual bout.
To make the SuperFight, probability formulas were entered into a computer. No drawings, just numbers. Ali and Marciano met in real life on a filmset to film numerous short segments showing possible parts of a fight. Marciano was already retired 13 years and wore a toupee. The short segments were then spliced together to match the already done computer outcome to make a movie that looked like a real fight or computer-generation of one, but was not. The predicted outcome had already been generated by computer, but the fighters and movie were the real people, not computer generated. The outcome may or may not have reflected actual ability of the fighters or the real outcome.
In the mid 1980s, I was investigating which differences in human movement determined injury potential and athletic performance. In one study, I wanted to know what made the difference between the punch of a black belt martial artist and the same punch by an athletic person without training.
In present day, a camera can be hooked directly to a computer, which picks up the locations of the person's joints at each point in time, generating a computer image of the person as they move in real time. Software automatically calculates, draws, and records the image on the screen.
Back when I did these studies, we didn't have any of that. I did it all manually. I filmed two subjects using 16mm high speed filming. An athletic man who had never done martial arts was subject #1. My husband Paul, who had earned his black belt a few years before that, volunteered as subject #2. I put markers over the center points of their major joints, and bands around joints which initially faced the camera but would rotate during the punch, so that the joint center would still be determined. Both executed a front reverse punch with their dominant arm. (Paul had to use traditional hyperlordotic position to match the untrained subject, rather than healthier neutral spine position, just for this comparison. We have done other studies comparing my neutral spine adjustment and found it to be a stronger punch - try it here.)
After waiting a week for film developing, I went into a darkened lab and used a film projector to throw the image of each of the thousands of frames, one by one, against a large computer digitizing tablet hung on a wall. I then digitized each joint point of each projected image, in each frame, of both subjects, frame by frame, with a digitizing Graf-pen. I sent data points from each frame by (300 baud acoustic coupling) modem to a text editor on a mainframe in another building at the University's new computer center. I wrote my own FORTRAN programs to generate data summaries and used packaged International Mathematical and Statistical Libraries (IMSL) cubic spline programs and subroutines for data smoothing. This was all to get each knee, hip, ankle, shoulder, wrist, elbow, neck and other filmed joint points into a computer to see exactly where and how fast they moved. Projecting each frame against the wall also allowed me to trace the subjects' outlines to make series of line drawings of their punch, and to make stick figures showing joint center placement. Here are some data and the actual drawings I made:
The untrained subject is at left. Paul is on the right. Paul is left handed so I had to reverse the images to make exact comparisons.
Below are comparisons of the angular velocity (left) and acceleration (right) of each subjects wrist, elbow, shoulder, and hip
Below are some center of gravity calculations
Not long after, with improvements in automating this process, action video games were flourishing. I was invited to a computer-generated imagery (CGI) development studio to be their "movement representation figure." They put the dots on my joint centers and filmed me using high-speed 3D computer graphics modeling as I did martial arts and tumbling moves. Not just one punch, painstakingly done, but jumping, spinning, flying all over the studio, and up and down walls.
The software automatically generated a mathematical, "wireframe" 2-D representation of my three-dimensional form. From it they animated a wild female warrior action figure for their fighting/mission genre arcade and video gameplay. They also used skeletal animation for when I would morph (on-screen) into various animal forms. I never got royalties but it was fun.
More:
This is a big fun topic. For more, click the label "martial arts" under this article.
I can write more about motion capture analysis of various sports if anyone is interested.
The Great Muhammad Ali has been diagnosed with "Pugilistic Parkinson's syndrome" of tremors, muscle rigidity and slowness - with the possibility, still not fully determined, if due from the damage of a boxing career. See Rocky IV and Head Injury.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories using Fitness Fixer methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal feedback. Top students may apply to get certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more with Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Fast Fitness - Strength, Abs, Balance, and Ankle and Leg Stabilization
Friday, November 09, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - quickly increase functional stabilization of the knee, leg, and ankle while increasing overall strength and balance.
Anyone can lift weights, but can you do it balancing on a basketball? Get started by standing on one foot:
Do your regular lifts, curls, presses while standing on one foot (and then the other). Breathe.
Notice the leg you stand on. Don't let the arch of your foot flatten toward the floor, or knee roll inward toward the other leg. Hold knee, ankle, arch inline, using your muscles. See Arch Support Is Not From Shoes.
It reduces exercise to sit, even on a fitness ball. It is more exercise, more functional, and better balance training to stand on one foot than to sit. You sit all day already.
Be safe, be excited about having fun doing functional movement, be happy.
Thank you for the many e-mails. I am sorting through the piles. Readers are sending success stories, long and short, of improving their lives and fixing injuries and the moves that produced them. They changed their mindset so that exercise is not something you change clothes and go "do" - if you can make time - but all the ways you sit, bend, reach, lift, and move all day in real life, using muscles to hold the positioning that prevents body aches and joint wear and tear, and comfortable easy movement. They are now getting fresh air, sunshine, balance, and real exercise going to work or grocery shopping on a real bike or walking on real ground, instead of driving then rushing home or to the gym to "do" exercise, illogically spending money on an artificial machine, exercise cycle, or treadmill. Instead of thinking they have to lose weight first to try things, they are using daily movement to be able to exercise for the first time without injury. They are saving money and health, eating real food instead of processed unhealthful "sports food."
Yoga instructor David from Belgium first asked about fixing knee pain and fallen arches in the comments of the post Thank You Grand Rounds 3.51. Since then, he quickly applied the posts I recommended and fixed his pain, no longer needed shoe orthotics, sent photos of new progress, asked about other injuries from yoga, changed how he teaches yoga, given his students my techniques, started making short mpeg movies for us (see the first here), and is translating my work into Dutch for his web site and students. I look forward to more collaboration. Watch for wonderful posts to come.
There have been a small number of e-mails from readers applying techniques in ways so "unclear on the concept," that some posts may turn out to be Readers Inspiring Stories of What Not To Do. All for the greater good, learning, and health.
If I can't get to everything in the comments I will make posts for you, don't worry. I read and want to get to them all. The top number of requests for posts, so far, are how to stop shoulder injury from swimming, baseball and weight lifting; low back pain from swimming, baseball, and golf; separating truth from advertising in orthotics and shoe inserts; more healthy sports food; rowing; sports drugs; hamstring injuries (often from the usual bad stretches); plantar fasciitis; knee pain from rowing, yoga, and walking; wrist pain from pushups and handstands; healthy sitting; and many requests for martial arts and self defense for body and mind. If you have other requests, let me know. Until I post each specifically, start with:
Shoulder - use for all overhead reaching and lifting
Lower back - learn the concept and apply to all sports
Fitness has become unhealthy. Healthful natural, comfortable body movement has become foreign as more people think that exercise means artificial sets of repetitions on a machine or using equipment. How are you sitting right now reading this? Pull chin comfortably in, instead of jutting forward or down. Stand up, breathe a grateful breath, and walk away from the computer for a few minutes contemplating a new, healthy fun life of natural movement. Print out a post of something that will make your own situation happier. Lie face down on a comfortable surface, propped slightly on elbows to read it. If you can't lie comfortably that way, that signals tightness that makes daily movement unhealthy and uncomfortable. I will post about that too.
This week is the 20th annual Eastern USA International Black Belt Hall of Fame event. Hundreds of martial artists and instructors will attend from all over the world. Soke John Kanzler and Kim Harper work all year to prepare each event. In the best spirit of the martial arts, they make a welcoming and healthful atmosphere of friendly learning. My husband Paul and I were honored to be inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame several years ago and have had the privilege to attend each year as teachers.
Seminar teachers come from all over the world. In the past there have been fearsome Russian techniques and calm Chinese ones. This year a grandmaster from Iceland will present on the national martial art of Iceland - Glima. The post Black Belt Hall of Fame - Black Belts and Black Tie tells about some of the seminars and events. The post International Martial Arts Association Weekend tells more about the Hall of Fame and their work.
Paul and I will be teaching The Ab Revolution core training, an entirely different concept in use of core muscles from conventional ab exercises. It uses no forward bending, which reinforces bad posture and is hard on the spine, and instead retrains all body movement using the abdominal muscles the way they actually function during movement in daily life and exercise.
A friend of ours will teach a seminar of a martial art that he developed. Sean Martin has developed a style he named Kagedo-Essensu, (Shadow Essence). Kagedo is a surprisingly effective new technique that does not require specific poses and positioning to master. I am a 4th degree black belt and spent years trying to understand some of the martial arts that claim to be "the weak over the strong," but when I try them I find they only work well if you are strong, or have no injuries, or learn painstakingly exact techniques. Master Martin has synthesized a highly workable system that, so far, anyone can apply quickly. For information about learning this effective technique, contact him at EPallack@gmail.com.
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Fast Fitness - Balance, Strength, Stretch, and Socks
Friday, November 02, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness with a new debut - web movies!
Fitness Fixer reader David D of Belgium has been making us many helpful mpegs. This one shows how to get several important physical skills and daily built-in fitness as a lifestyle by simply standing while dressing:
Stand with one ankle crossed over opposite knee
Put on your sock while balanced, safely.
If you want more, stay balanced and retrieve your shoe from the floor and put that on too. Stand to put on trousers and other clothes instead of sitting. The more you use balance, the more balance will develop.
Don't strain or force or round your back or make anything go pop. The idea is to learn to move in healthier ways, not unhealthy ones. The post Ancient Shoe Exercise for Hip Stretch and Balance explains more. Breathe. Have fun.
November 1 is World Vegan Day, and all of November is celebrated as Vegan month.
Vegans are vegetarians who don't eat, and often don't wear, any products from animals. The idea is no more unusual than not wanting to hurt, wear, or eat your pets.
Vegan living can be healthier than non-vegan, and vegan diet can fuel both endurance and strength athletes.
Vegans and vegetarians have been found to have lower body fat on average than non-vegetarians, and lower risk of diabetes. A new study by The World Cancer Research Fund making big news as "a landmark study" found that keeping slim is one of the best ways of preventing cancer, and that evidence is stronger than previously realized that eating meat, and processed meats such as ham and bacon, increase risk of colorectal cancer. The report makes 10 recommendations including getting exercise every day, drinking water rather than sugary drinks, and eating fruit, vegetables, and fiber. There is no fiber in meat, dairy, or eggs. Vegan meals can provide enough calcium to prevent osteoporosis.
Vegans may promote farm sanctuaries and work for better ways than vivisection (hurtful testing on animals). The argument isn't if you prefer that a child is deprived of medicine rather than test on an animal, the quest is for neither to suffer, and to find smarter, healthier ways for all. Significant examples exist of tests based on animal physiology that were ineffective or injurious when applied to humans in need.
Vegan bodybuilder Kenneth G. Williams is pictured above and at right. His web site is www.VeganMusclePower.org.
In the tradition of fighting monks, Chris Price is a vegan Muay Thai and mixed martial arts fighter. His web site is http://www.veganfighter.com/
Healthy Martial Arts - Healthier training for all sports, featuring vegetarian and vegan athletes. Chapters on strength, endurance, speed, balance, nutrition, performance enhancement, injuries, building the spirit and the mind.
