Here is Friday Fast Fitness - learn how to use your abdominal muscles for what they need to do in real life - hold your spine in neutral position, even against resistance:
Lie flat, face up. Legs out straight, as if standing up. Hold a weight a few inches above the floor with arms outstretched, elbows by your ears.
Lift the weight a few inches up and down, using your abdominal muscles to prevent your ribs from lifting up and to keep your back from leaving neutral position.
Keep your lower back close to the floor. This is the key to making this into an effective and functional abdominal retraining exercise. Also prevent the weight from touching the floor (don't drop baby on head).
This video was made by David from Belgium with his baby Aiko, born one year ago today, Feb 27th 2008. Happy Birthday Aiko!
Click the arrow to run. If the video does not load, here is the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k4zDwce7bE
Watch how David bends well with heels down and upright body to pick up baby Aiko, and gets up again without using hands.
Press your lower back toward the floor and feel your abdominal muscles working strongly. The point of this retraining drill is to have fun learning to hold your spine stable against resistance, learn how to reduce an overly large lower back arch using the floor as a guide, then transfer that knowledge to standing and lifting overhead. This is how your abs are supposed to work in daily life when standing - to prevent the spine from overarching (overextending backward).
For more on using neutral spine in real life see the third expanded edition of The Ab Revolution™.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these 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 evaluation. Top students may apply to certify throughDrBookspan.com/Academy.See Dr. Bookspan's Books. ---
On the web, Grand Rounds is a collection of the best on-line medical posts from the week. A different host works each week to find and list the best posts. Thank you to this week's host Peggy (Dr. P) for doing the hard work of collecting and featuring our posts. Regarding my post, she recommends that for Hamstring to Quadriceps Ratio injuries, "If you’re going to kick someone, don't hyperextend!"
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When I was in the military, we ran. A lot. Every day. I love to run fast. When we ran, we sang. What did we sing? What they told us to sing - How much we loved to run. How much we loved everything about the military. Why? It kept us from saying what we were thinking. Military cadences have long been used for physical training. These are the Jody Calls.
The origin of the Jody Calls is usually given around World War II, but chanting, sea shanties, group mantras and hymns, and others have been known for centuries. It is generally thought that group unison music reduces perceived exertion, allowing greater effort toward the common goal.
I am a career physiology researcher in extreme environments. That means I spend much time directly testing humans to see what they can do, then how to make them better at it. Doing experimental and research work personally, makes it easier to know if what you hear about fitness is true, or just another of countless repeated myths. Even doctors learn from books that are often not primary sources, just repeated by someone else who learned it in school, repeated from a non-primary source.
In the military, and since then, the Jody Calls interested me. I wanted to know if chanting and singing really make the work of running easier, or just make it seem easier, or perhaps even use more oxygen and is actually more work than running without singing. I did many laboratory experiments on Jody calls.
Some of the experiments I conducted involved running troops on treadmills at different speeds, with specially fitted masks, so that they could chant into the mask, or just breathe regularly for control tests. I collected their expired air (what they breathed out) and analyzed it for oxygen usage and carbon dioxide production, a measure of the work of running. I compared oxygen usage with chanting and without.
Why are U.S. military chants called Jody Calls? There are many stories, usually involving a civilian character named Jody or Jodie, who stayed home when you left… you left… you left… right… left….
Below, hopefully sound file will appear. Turn your computer sound on, and click the arrow to listen to one stereotype call of the U.S. Marine Corps:
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, or in the Fitness Fixer Index.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Use you brains and hand motor skills to install it on your bicycle wheel with your kids, or family, or a friend, or alone.
Get more exercise pushing against the generator while making the power for your bike headlight or safety light.
Beside powering a light for your street bike, think of exercise machines. It seems wasteful to use treadmills and stationary bicycles that require electric power to operate. Encourage manufacturers to make equipment of all kinds that run on self-generated power, and gyms to stock them.
Use shaker and wind-up flashlights instead of battery flashlights, hook up a bike to run the television, or a treadmill to power a capacitor to run lights - power to and from the people.
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, and archives at right. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right.
On the web, Grand Rounds is a collection of the best on-line medical posts from the past week. A different host works hard each week to find and list the articles. This is different from the Grand Rounds in a hospital, which is a lecture for doctors about a patient or topic.
Thank you to this week's host Nurse Kim who did the hard work of collecting and featuring our posts.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, and archives at right.
The target Feb 17th date for changing to digital television signal in the U.S. has moved to June. Numerous informational broadcasts have been made to prepare the public. Would you have been ready?
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First Winner - International Academy of Functional Sports Medicine Logo Design
Monday, February 16, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
In January 2008, we announced the Logo Design Contest for the International Academy of Functional Sports Medicine. We are honored to announce the first winner, Alessandro Schiavone, Creative Director from Ravenna, Italy.
Sig. Schiavone's design will grace our awards division. His logo will appear on International awards each year to top people.
The International Academy gives annual awards to thank, recognize, and support those who help the world. Awards are conferred for those deserving special recognition for work, humanitarianism, teaching, developing programs, writing, and so on. It has been pointed out that awards each year will be called the Academy Awards :-)
Grazie Sig. Schiavone! Many good things behind the scenes are coming from this.
Other Academy logos still need to be designed, including Certifications, Fellow Advancement, and the main logo for the Academy itself. Contact us and send your designs and ideas to be included in this exciting and far-reaching project. See the Academy website for information.
--- Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal feedback. Top students may apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Partner 1 (white uniform) does biceps curls and other lifts using partner 2's weight.
Partner 2 uses core and whole body strength and endurance to hold straight positioning. Partner 2 can face up, down or sideways, in each case using appropriate muscles to maintain straight position. Breathe normally.
This Fast Fitness can be done with willing friends, children, pets, and furniture.
Partner 1 uses core and abdominal muscles to stand with neutral spine rather than leaning backward, and whole body strength to support weight of partner 2.
It is a myth that you must lean back to offset a carried load. You get intense and functional abdominal muscle workout by using them to pull you forward to neutral standing position.
I once used this exercise of holding straight horizontal position (partner 2's part) while helping out a friend who is a stage magician. I filled in for his absent assistant for the floating lady illusion. I was too tall for the apparatus. It usually holds your body out flat using struts reaching from head to thigh. It reached only to my midback. I wound up holding my weight myself, from hips to feet - high above the stage - while trying to look hypnotized. More on this, someday, in another post.
I make posts from fun mail. Before asking more questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Try fun stuff, then contribute! Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy. ---
"Hi Dr. Bookspan: I would love it (as I'm sure countless others would) if you would produce and make available workout DVD's for healthy and safe weight lifting, cardio and yoga workouts. Since reading your material I've been dismayed at how many fitness DVD's are in my library that have potentially injurious exercises. Just a suggestion, and thank you for your time Sincerely, Sandra Kimble"
Hello Sandra, thank you for your nice idea. Be part of it. Using my methods, make a short mpeg video - 30 seconds is fine, showing how to change one injurious move to normal healthful movement, and how your use it for functional movement in real life.
Readers, come be a part.
I will post it as a success story on Fitness Fixer, my educational site that is available to all at no charge. My site is a large "wiki" DVD. It is available to the many in the world who cannot pay for DVDs. It is more than just a collection of random exercise videos, but explains the real science, with links to related articles, and how it is not just exercise but real function and better life.
Instead of getting a longwinded DVD of just old me, and having to pay, you get all the real-life successes - the real people who learned, were inspired, and made their lives better. You have no production or hosting costs, entry fees, and get your DVD without having to pay. I will do the work to put it all together and give you the credit.
It is fun for you, and a benefit to the world.
Check my Fitness Fixer for other movies so far - here is the link for all posts with movies: video/movie.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, and archives at right.
Fast Friday - Functional Oblique Abdominal Muscle Practice - Holding Straight
Friday, February 06, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - use your oblique abdominal muscles functionally - to hold yourself straight against resistance:
Stretch out on the floor. Turn to the side, standing on one hand and one foot
Hold straight as long as you can. Don't sag. Feel how to hold yourself straight and relaxed.
For more, raise the top leg. Keep body straight, instead of bending forward at the hip. Don't increase the inward curve at the lower spine when you raise the leg. Keep neutral spine.
Photo is of one of my students, Dr. Hanley Owen, a physician from Fairbanks Alaska, who took a workshop with me at the Wilderness Medical Society meeting 2008. Check my web site CLASS page for workshops this summer - DrBookspan.com/classes.
Instead of curling forward and sideways to exercise abdominal muscles, this drill retrains oblique abdominal the way you need them in real life - to keep you straight instead of slouching to the front or side when carrying shoulder bags and other loads, including yourself.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you. Click "updates via e-mail" - (trumpet icon).
Several studies have found that sunlight helped with depression and agitation in elderly people. It is likely that younger people benefit also.
Simple adjustments, not only in lighting, but scheduling daily outdoor activity and simple walks, may ease behavioral problems associated with dementia.
Click the label sunlight for ideas.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make articles from fun ones.
Sunlight deprivation has been found in a clinical study to cause profound negative change to portions of your brain associated with depression.
Further, "neurons that produce norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin, which are common neurotransmitters involved in emotion, pleasure and cognition, were observed in the process of dying."
Study source - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences March 25, 2008, vol. 105 no. 12 4898-4903
In the Northern hemisphere of the Earth, February brings deep wintertime, with short days, and greatly reduced light. For the last 30 years or so, each summer has brought warnings to stay out of the sun, practically zero tolerance for light exposure, urging hats, sunscreens, dark glasses. There also seems to be a sharp rise since then in incidence of serious diseases usually not seen in the young - soft and porous bones, depression, chronic body pain (fibromylagia and related), diabetes, and others. Sunlight seems to have several effects, one of which is helping the body produce Vitamin D. Lack of Vitamin D is now known to be directly linked to higher risk of lung cancer, Parkinsons disease, diabetes, high blood pressure. Vitamin D is available in food sources, however you can also take a prudent approach to getting the several different beneficial effects of the sun, many of which cannot not be gotten though a vitamin supplement.
Last summer Scientific American published a survey finding, "Americans are losing interest in going outdoors." As health providers, we need to see if part of that is telling people that staying out of the sun is necessary for health. We also tell kids to finish everything on their plate and sit still, two more practices, that on examination, translate into, "Practice and learn to be sedentary and overeat."
Try to get outside every day, even if cold (within reason). Bundle up, if you have to.
Get light in your eyes. This does not mean to stare at the sun and induce cataracts, but to get sunlight in healthy ways for the several different crucial mental and physical benefits.
Melanoma skin cancer is not confirmed from lack of use of sun screen - NYTimes article. For a post on balancing needed benefits of sunlight and stopping unwanted negative effects, click Junk Food Through Your Skin?
Click the label "sunlight" for posts that tell more of the benefits of sunlight.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these 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 evaluation. Top students may apply to certify throughDrBookspan.com/Academy.See Dr. Bookspan's Books.
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