Fast Fitness - More Plank Chess and Success Photos
Friday, April 02, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - strong mind in a strong body - readers Paul J and son sent in their success playing their invention - plank chess:
Paul J writes:
"This time we played a complete game. "We had to hold the plank during our turn. "Once again my game was not going too well, and after about 10min I lost my balance moving my Knight. "Tonight I’ll work on shoulders so inclined plank and wall hand stands are in order. "I wonder if I can do a wall hand stand push up yet ….only one way to find out, right?" : )
Holding a plank 10 minutes is great work:
1. Hold your plank during your turn:
2. Your collaborator (remember, we are not opponents in life) holds a plank during their turn:
3. You hold a plank again during your next turn:
I have played tournament blitz chess (bullet chess), where moves can't exceed 15 seconds (or other brief time). I have played battle chess with martial artists in historic costume, fighting a short match for each move, with move completion only allowed upon winning. I have played Arpanet chess with military buddies, transmitting a move to another base, disconnect, go back to work, then stop any experiment on the burner to receive your collaborator's next move. I have tried (and tried) "total recall" chess where only a referee has tangible pieces while both players move only from memory. Plank chess from Paul J and son is a great idea.
Third photo helpfully demonstrates losing neutral, allowing a bit of sag for benefit of readers to see. Keep your plank neutral - Fast Fitness - Push Ups with Neutral Spine
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - great concentration, body strength and endurance for almost everything, healthful family fun, and improving your chess game, all at once. Reader Paul J wrote in with this:
"Dr. Jolie, "Have you and your husband ever tried to play chess and do the plank at the same time? "Well, my son and I tried last night and my plank failed first so I lost. "Plus, my opening moves were bad , so I ended up losing the game twice. "Not quite Chess Boxing, but easy to try at home. PJ"
Give a try:
Face the board. Hold a neutral spine push-up position called the plank.
Hold while you play, at least for your turn.
Winner can be determined by moves alone, or the player who maintains their plank.
Use this as a model for straight position while raising your arm to move your chess pieces.
Paul J wrote:
"I was thinking doing the plank for the whole game may only be possible by a few people. "However it should be possible to do the plank during your turn and the opponent gets to rest. "This encourages faster play (my original intent) and of course exercise and working at concentration."
I wrote back asking Paul J and his son to get some photos. While they do that, readers please try it and send in your own - of Chess, other board game you like, or other great ideas that you have.
Fast Fitness - Your Own Reality Valentine's Day Cooking Show
Friday, February 12, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Make Valentine's weekend fit, classy, and serene in the kitchen.
Instead of yelling, insults, and impatience that generates stress chemicals that damage heart and blood vessels, then serving that to yourself or family, serve health for brain, body, mind, and spirit:
Try the idea that meals are the process of making something nice, together or alone. Don't miss this healthy time. Meals don't only begin when you finish stressing it onto a plate.
It's not cool to bicker. Can you relate to someone without small talk and one-upmanship? Try real conversation. Or quiet and smiles.
Instead of focus on the product - rushing to serve polluted food and atmosphere - the preparing itself is a time for healthy body positioning, breathing as you cut and wash food, standing straight at the counter. Then you don't need extra time for meditation; your life is meditative.
Make your reality show for your meals the way life really can be. It takes the same time to stand well and smile as slouch. Cutting and washing goes more easily without tight shoulders and repeated unhappy thoughts. No stress-filled yelling, slouching, tightening your neck and shoulders to do the washing, cutting, and preparing. Alone or with loved ones, have a fun joke telling, singing, time of breathing and standing well, enjoying that you have food to prepare and a roof over your head to prepare it.
The Winter Olympic Torch lights today! See Wednesday's article, Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games 2010 or click the label Olympics for all Olympic posts.
For those who feel there are no coincidences, Happy Olympic, Valentine's, Fast Fitness, Lunar New Year.
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Three years ago, Merlene's closest friend died. Merlene, who is 74, lost all motivation. Because she was not exercising, she gained a lot of weight. This is where Ivy came in...
Ivy from New Zealand, frequent success story contributor, wrote me in August about her neighbor Merlene:
"You will be pleased that I have a new lady under my wing so to speak. I lent her your book "How To Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs Or Surgery." Along with giving her advice she tells me that it has changed her life which pleases me."
I wrote to Ivy to ask her if Merlene would be comfortable telling us more on what she did, so others could try it too. Ivy replied:
"I encouraged her to walk again. At first it was difficult, she had difficulty breathing. I noted that she was walking flat footed and taught her to lift her toes. She complained of back pain - I showed her how to lie on her stomach and lift herself up on her elbows before getting out of bed in the mornings. She has now learnt to put her spine into the neutral position. Re her breathing, I showed her how to breathe deeply. She told me that she rolled her neck every day in a circle - she now does the trapezius stretch plus pectoral stretch instead.
"Instead of bad bending, she does squats and lunges while making the bed, doing the vacuum cleaning, going to the fridge and the like, plus gardening.
I checked in with Ivy a while later to make sure all was still improving, and gave her questions to ask Merlene so I could make sure all was well. Ivy wrote again:
"Today I visited Merlene and asked her some questions. She is stronger, breathing has improved, she is more flexible, can walk further, the back pain has improved immensely. She hasn't weighed herself yet, however, is hoping that there will be a weight loss when she weighs herself next week.
"She finds your books "How to Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery" and your Stretching Smarter book very helpful so I left them with her so that she can refer to them.
"She also tells me that your books along with my help and advice has changed her life for the better. She has lost that negativity and feeling positive about life again.
"Merlene is a very quiet, private lady so I try to treat her in a gentle way. She comes from another country and I gather that life has been very hard. She is so enjoying what she is doing. Most important is the fact that she trusts me plus she is very happy you are doing this article.
"Merlene is happy for you to use her name. Re the photo and title (of the article) she would rather it was your choice. "Hugs Ivy "
How to Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery and Stretching SmarterStretching Healthier, and others, on www.DrBookspan.com/books.
--- 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. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy.
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - a stretch to help relieve the ache of menstrual cramps and the same pain from uterine cramping after sexual relations:
Person with cramping lies on back, knees bent, feet flat on the floor or bed.
Partner sits at their feet, facing their knees, and gently cups the front of both thighs near the knees.
Partner leans backward, pulling the top of both thighs with them (yellow arrows in photo). Cramping person should feel a pleasant relief stretch in the lower abdomen (red arrow in photo). Repeat as needed.
The partner doing the cramp release can either sit closely, securing the cramping person's feet with their knees (as pictured), or sit further back. It is preference for how you can best and most comfortably do the stretch.
The cramping person's feet can be moved closer to their body to add a nice Achilles tendon stretch, or if the partner applying the stretch is not strong enough to easily pull back. This stretch works extra well on a soft bed when the feet can sink into the soft surface. Apply it slowly to not overdo.
See how this works for you and send your suggestions.
--- I make posts from fun mail and success stories. 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. Why not 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 certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy.
Don't let the vast potential of children go unmet. Go to the playground with them. Hang with them. Tumble with them. Play movement games with them. It's gaining priceless skills and health and the best aspects that childhood offers, not losing any aspect of childhood. Ask them to show you things.
Babies have a grasp reflex that allows them to hang with their fingers, with grip equal to world class climbers. Children have the brain elasticity to easily learn many languages without an accent, to move with strength and ability.
Don't strap children into the equivalent of wheel chairs (strollers) while you lift little hand weights. Lift the kids.
I teach many of the moves in this video in my yoga and other classes. Beginners can start them with good success, if they work and try. I have had yoga instructors who come my classes, curse and storm out at the first effort, whining that it is "haaaaaaaaaarrrrrd." They claim yoga makes them strong and loving, then throw tantrums, but that is for another story.
Click the labels children and partner exercise below this post, for Fitness Fixer ideas you can try (using your brain) so that children grow with all the joy, discipline, and strength of real health.
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Questions come in by hundreds. I'm bailing the ocean with a bucket. I make posts from fun mail. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Why not 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.
Fast Fitness - Built in Upper Body and Core Exercise Carrying Children
Friday, May 29, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - get better exercise and stop aching back and shoulders when carrying children (or anything else) in backpack carriers or by piggyback:
Put on the carrier (and baby for a fun practice ride or use groceries, etc). Look sideways in a mirror.
See if you round your upper and or lower back forward. See if you lean your upper body backward under the weight. Notice if you increase your lower spine inward curve, are tilting the hip out in back to hold up the carrier.
Straighten upper and lower body segments. You will feel a strong pull on your abdominal muscles when you reduce overarching in the lower spine and prevent leaning the upper body backward. You will feel an upper back workout when you don't lean or round forward.
Use straighter positioning all you can:
It may be "natural" to try to offset loads by hunching and contorting your body, but it still hurts.
Overarching the lower spine makes carrying feel easier because it shifts weight to the spine joints (facets) and surrounding soft tissue, and off the ab muscles. Rounding forward feels easier as it shifts weight to the discs and off the back muscles.
Get more exercise and less joint trauma with neutral posture.
Looking downward with good neck dynamics: Holding healthful position does not mean never look up or down to see where you are going. It means to get natural, built-in upper body exercise, burn calories, and enjoy your time going places with the kids - Tax Preparation Health
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. 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.
RSS feeds are still going down - Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Back pain from lifting and carrying babies and young children is common. Rehab and PT programs commonly have people spend time (away from their children and other important things they need to do) to lift weight to strengthen back muscles.
Here is an idea - if weight lifting helps, lift the kids. Just lift them right, so that you do not get the back pain in the first place. It is not the lifting that causes the pain.
Good Kid Lifting:
Prevents pain,
Strengthens your muscles,
Gives built in exercise (functional exercise the way your muscles work),
Increases contact with your young kids, important to their development,
Improves ability to keep time with your children fun, healthy, and happy.
Readers asked me to make reminders for them about how to lift and carry their young children.
I created several different reminders on good lifting, bending, carrying. Fun T-shirts for kids are available in several colors and fabrics. There are bibs, singlets, and shirts for babies, and fun Back and Neck Saver reminders for grownups too.
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. 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.
For weightlifters who enjoy Olympic lifts, rows, cable cross-overs, curls, and all the other good stuff with endless heavy weight, you may like growing vegetables.
We have been tilling a vegetable garden from a rocky field at my Mom's. Seems her home was built on landfill. We had to sledge-hammer and pry concrete slabs - prodigious squatting, levering, clean-and-jerking, and hundred pound medicine ball throws over the just-built garden fence into a pile. Then lifting and hauling away the pile.
Carrying sand, earth, rocks, weed bales, tree branches as heavy as you can lift, over uneven rocky hilly earth back and forth from the truck, the field, and the new compost pile a hundred feet away for hours is functional weightlifting. Hours of repetition-maximum (RM) hoeing gives a harder abdominal, arm, and gluteal workout than it looks.
Healthline software still isn't uploading my own photos. At left above, a photo of a statue with too much lumbar curve/hyperlordosis to be healthy, but in general doing functional weightlifting. Use your muscles to prevent overarching like this when you swing a sledge, a kettlebell, or other weight. For Fitness Fixer posts on neutral spine and hyperlordosis, click the photo or here.
Over the winter while visiting home in Asia, my husband Paul and I went to a workman's shop. The store-keeps remembered us and smiled. The first time we went there years ago, they were so sure we were lost tourists, they took our shoulder and gestured at a restaurant. In the best Thai I could manage, I explained that Paul is a carpenter, has done forge metal work, and loves old-world tools, strong bamboo handles, and hand-hammered metal. They smile each year we return. In the US, we live in a crowded urban area with minimal bricked exterior in deep shade from surrounding buildings. Vegetable gardens don't grow. Paul wanted to plant my Mother's field - a brambled overgrown area.
In the Thai tool store, I explained with the words I knew that Paul was looking for a specific Thai tool, shaped like a backward shovel, that you use in overhead action, like a mattock (flat bladed pick).
Quickly, excitedly, word went from the store-keep, to her friend in the next shop, to the next, and next:
"Man who good to Mother of wife!"
The coconut telegraph was happy. We bought two heavy tools, called "job" in Thai. Both had thick lovely bamboo handles. One was giant sized for Paul, the other for me. Fun getting them through flights and US customs.
Mom had asked a local man what it would take to clear her field, and he told her a blowtorch, a machine plow, three men, and a week. Paul and I cleared it in one day in early April with a digging stick and the Thai hoe-shovels. The ground was half frozen. Six, or so hours massive exertion - first clearing brush and tall grasses, then hours of half-squats to seize handfuls of stalks, standing back up to pull them with grip strength. Then excavating slabs of concrete and discarded materials with a pry bar, the Thai digging tools, and bare armed weight lifting.
The packs of seeds we had scattered in assorted flowerpots, pans, shoeboxes, and containers sprouted over just a week into tiny plants - broccoli, cabbage, pea, hot and sweet peppers, strawberries, eggplants, and assorted spices. We have been learning about complementary planting - plants, just like people, who are better and healthier with specific other kinds of plants so that chemical fertilizer isn't needed. We are learning about plants that repel pests, instead of using insecticides.
We got a rain barrel to reduce water bills. We attached an old broken hose. The holes made it a natural soaker hose. We poked more holes and arranged it around the garden for drip irrigation. We don't know the water quality of either the rain or from the tap. We will send six dollars and a soil sample to an agricultural university for testing. Maybe other toxic things are in that landfill that we don't want the vegetables absorbing. Maybe commercial food factories have the same problem. Many things to learn.
Weeks pass squatting and sitting well to plant seedlings, still hitting buried rubble. More lifting and hauling. Each night we are too tired to worry or think anything bad. We are barely were able to lift hands and feet. I consider what people for thousands of years have been doing just for subsistence farming, day after day, year after year. I thought of Fitness Fixer success story Ivy and her story - Farm Work, Lifestyle Exercise, and Preventing Overuse Pain.
We thought we planted everything, then found a half pack of pea seeds left. Paul mentioned we didn't have one more container for them. I laughed, "we didn't have a pot to pea in."
Ideas:
If you're a tough vital strong person, or want to be, dig a garden.
If you don't have anywhere to dig one, hook up with some nice elder who wants one, a community group, Habitat for Humanity, or someone who doesn't want to exercise like this but still wants a garden.
Contact your community to see about organizing parents and children out in sunshine for functional exercise doing good for all.
If you only want one hour a day of hard total body fat burning muscle building exercise, only plant a small vegetable garden.
No need to buy fancy tools, use what's handy.
If you don't want to exercise so hard, try a single pack of seeds in some potting soil in almost any container on a sunny windowsill. A chance to get the vegetables you like.
Fancy individual peat pots and seed starters aren't essential; a simple pack of seeds can get you a pan full of fragrant oregano, said to be very healthful. It gives a gasp of wonder (to me) when seedlings actually sprout.
Before the 2008 election, a video appeared by Roger Doiron (I don't know him, just liked the video). He asked the next President to grow a garden. It did come true. Here is his viewpoint of getting your own garden started, showing various bending, occasionally good:
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. 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.
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. 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.
Readers, patients, and students have asked me for years to write down for them about good lifting and bending over babies and children. I wrote articles and books. I did experiments in the lab. They still said they couldn't remember. So I made something for all of you. You can give these to everyone in need for Mothers and Fathers days, coming up, and all year.
Here it is, quicker and easier than reading the books:
If the photo does not appear (blogger is having troubles) click this link.
I designed singlets and one-piece suits for infants, T-shirts for toddlers and children, various sizes and colors.
One student had asked me to write down and hang the information around her neck so she would have an easy way to remember all the time. So I made a bib too - for the baby - so she could see it each time she bent to feed and lift.
I was surprised people wouldn't just remember on their own to live in a way so important to their health. But they kept coming back asking for me to tell them again. I am drawing the various concepts and putting them on daily items as funny reminders. I will show them in future posts if readers are interested.
Click the photo or go to this site for all the educational gifts designed so far - http://www.cafepress.com/AcademyGifts. Send your requests for other ways to have fun health built in to daily memory.
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Read success stories of Fitness Fixer methods and send your own. Questions come in by hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. 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. RSS feed currently not working, so click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
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. ---
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.
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. ---
Fast Fitness - Strengthen and Stabilize Upper Body and Core Without Increasing Neck Tension
Friday, October 17, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - learn how to use and strengthen arm, shoulder, upper body muscles, and abdominal and back muscles without hunching, tensing, and tightening:
Have a friend stand in front of you with arms crossed over their chest. Grasp their arms or elbows, like holding a steering wheel of a car or bike
While they resist, try to "drive" and turn the wheel right and left. Both of you keep the body upright and straight.
Notice if either of you hunch shoulders, tense the neck, or strain your breathing. Practice moving strongly without clenching. Keep breathing.
This can be fun to do with kids - they can "drive" you, then you can pick them in the air and "drive" them. To try this solo, hold a doorway, sturdy pole or pipe, or other hard to move object.
It is common to tense and hunch the shoulders and neck out of bad habit while doing arm strengthening exercises, and while using arms for daily life activities like driving, hanging up clothes and putting groceries on high shelves. Tightening leads to faulty muscle use, and increased blood pressure at the moment. These habits can contribute to headaches, bad postural and breathing habits, and poor mood.
Train relaxed habits instead of tightening muscles. Transfer relaxed good posture to daily movement.
More to train arms like these in the book Healthy Martial Arts - without special equipment or supplements.
Friday Fast Fitness - Partner Achilles Tendon Stretch
Friday, August 15, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is fast Friday Fitness - relax, have fun practicing stretching and cooperating with a friend, and have a nice - Achilles stretch:
Stand facing a partner at arm's length. Hold each other's hands or arms. Keep arms straight.
Each partner leans and pulls back with straight arms while bending knees keeping heels down on the floor.
Bend only as far as is fun and feels good. Keep leaning back. Keep heels down.
The point is not to squat to the floor, the point is to stretch the Achilles and learn healthy movement habits that you can use for real life. Keeping heels down when bending knees accomplishes the point. If someone is tight, they don't have to bend as far to get a big stretch. Raising heels loses the stretch and the point. Don't squat all the way with heels up, keep heels down.
Whenever you stretch, remember the point of a stretch instead of straining to an arbitrary endpoint.
What Is The Difference Between A Leg Press and a Squat?
Monday, July 14, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Is a leg press the same as a squat upside down? Both the squat and leg press bend and straighten the legs against resistance. But something special makes opposite forces on the joints.
The post Exercising With A Friend - Partner Leg Press showed a fun leg press without equipment using a friend for resistance, balance, and teamwork. Reader Nina left the comment on the post: "This could being done another way. Sit on a bench or sumthing (sp) else back-to-back with your partner. Interlock arms sitting straight with your backs pressed together. Rise up and down, and feel the pressure on your leg muscles."
What Nina describes is called a squat or half-squat. The exercise in the post is a leg press. Standing on your feet changes it to a squat.
The squat has opposite joint and muscle dynamics to the leg press. In the kind of leg press described in this post, your body is fixed, and the feet move away. In the squat, the feet are fixed and the body moves. The difference in which end is stationary creates different forces on the muscles and joints.
My students Lily and Biji demonstrate one way to do a fun partner leg press. Hold your body (and head) stable.
To do half-squats with or without a partner, it is usually better exercise and balance training without the bench. There is no need for equipment. Instead, use your own muscles to hold up body weight, rather than sitting or touching down to a bench between each raise. The squat is functional - meaning it uses your body the way muscles need for real life. The key is using the half squat for healthy daily bending instead of "bending wrong." Bending over forward unequally weights the discs of the spine. Over years of bad bending, you can accumulate enough small pushes on the discs to begin to break them down and push them outward toward the back. This is the process of disc herniation. It is not a mysterious situation or a disease process. It is simple mechanics. The resulting disc damage, slippage, herniation, is an injury that can heal, usually easily and quickly when you stop the injury process of bad bending during standing, sitting, and lifting.
Your body needs to practice both kinds of leg resistance to be good at both. Have fun building functional squatting into daily life instead of dong artificial squats in a gym, then bending wrong hurting your discs the rest of your day. Have fun doing leg presses balancing friends and family that move and squirm, instead of ignoring real humans to interact only with artificial stationary gym equipment. Get real fitness with real life.
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Train children's balance and grip strength, use your legs, and have family fun.
Have young children sit on your feet, and hang on (sensibly, parent's permission, and all that). Babies are born with a grasping reflex and are stronger than you may expect.
Do any variety of walking, marching, dancing, and range of motion, while standing, or sitting, while they act as natural strength and endurance trainers and floor dusters.
Teach sharing, enjoyment, physical skills, personal interaction, and all the good you can think of.
Outside of all the debates of whether leg weights are helpful or not, fun activity with your family can develop many strengths.
Fast Fitness - Stronger Arms and Chest, and Core, Hip, and Leg Stability With A Friend
Friday, March 14, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - strengthen inner legs, thighs, arms, and core, while practicing neutral spine with a friend. More exercise than putting hands up on a bench or exercise ball.
My students Johanna (1) and Diana (2) demonstrate the beginning of this move. Description of how to progress follows the photos:
Partner 1 lies face up with bent knees
Partner 2 does pushups on Partner 1's knees while holding neutral spine, not letting the lower back sag and arch downward. Partner 1 gets entry-level exercise hip and core exercise by holding legs stable and does not let knees wobble. Higher-level exercise is described below the photos.
To increase core and hip stabilization training for both partners, Partner 1 tilts knees slightly to each side while Partner 2 continues pushups. Try both moving continuously side to side, and holding legs stable at an angle. Do not twist your spine.
Healthy Youth Parties - Fun Exercise, No Junk Food
Monday, February 25, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Mike is a Fitness Fixer reader who fixed many injuries - impinged shoulder, hip pain, radiating pain down the leg, and bad nutrition from sports food that is really junk food in a sporty label. In December, he sent us his reader success story that I posted in A Whole Big Fix. In the comments of a follow-up post on the December 28 2007 Fast Fitness - Dynamic Partner Balance Challenge, Mike wrote,
"I'm going to use some of your partner exercises as breaks for my students. They will get blood moving, muscles exercising and coordinating, and they will probably giggle. These will be a nice break from sitting so long. Mike."
Mike kept his promise and sent this update:
"This whole year we have not had food at our class parties, with no complaints from students. We just play games involving social interaction. I have tried to have "healthy food parties." In the past, parents send boxes of food-like substances that say, "whole grains" on the sides but still are very processed, loaded with sugar, and have a lot of the nutrition processed out (like granola bars, sports drinks, and "fruit" roll-ups). So, it's easier just to not allow any food.
"The kids still have a blast instead of just sitting and stuffing their faces with cupcakes and cookies (I have 3 ten-year-olds who weigh over 135 lbs). We are taking exercise breaks. Mike"
Mike couldn't send photos of actual kids because of privacy and other issues, so I asked Mike if he would share some of the fun activities they do. He wrote:
"We just had our Valentine's Day party with cut up fruit. They were only allowed to put candy in the individual cards if they chose to, so we didn't have mounds of cup cakes and cookies. We had pineapple, apples, kiwi, two kinds of grapes, and oranges. No one complained. The kids played board games only, no electronic solitary games. They played games like Cranium, Jenga, Life, and Yahtzee, which encourage lots of dialog.
The same day we did an analysis of "Vitamin Water," which shows 13 g of sugar on the label. The whole bottle has 6.5 teaspoons of sugar in it, so I spooned 6.5 tsp. of sugar into a similar sized glass of water and dropped a multi-vitamin in it to show what they are paying for."
Readers, have fun getting ideas throughout the Fitness Fixer column, and send in your stories, and photos where appropriate.
--- I make posts from fun mail and success stories. 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. Why not try fun stuff, then contribute! Read success stories of these methods and send your own.For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy.
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