Sea turtles are like tortoises, but swimmier

Patience is not my leading virtue.  Anything that can be done can probably be done faster, right?  What are we hanging around for?  And look!  There’s something shiny over there!

Some things, however, have to take their time.  Growing babies, for example.  Or growing babies into adults, for another.  Long division, poems, and Ikea projects also all benefit from careful consideration, concentration, and perhaps occasional swearing.  It turns out that mobility and motor control are two more of those things.

I have known for some time that a lot of strength builds during the eccentric, or lowering, phase of weight training.  Increasing the time a muscle is under tension adds fatigue and eventually strength.

However, I didn’t fully realize that slowing down movement gives the body time to smooth out the motion, to figure out how best to use its pathways, and to create feedback and feed-forward to develop better strategies.  Giving the muscles and the brain more time to work produces better results.

It is time to embrace the tortoise side of things.

Ooving right along...

I spent the weekend learning.  I got a new toy, the Oov, and a whole bunch of training about what to do with it.  I have only begun to process all the new data, but one thing in particular stood out.

The Oov, by design, takes away our ability to cheat in our movements.  Faulty strategies for movement just don’t work in an Oovy context.  This confuses the heck out of the body for a perceptible period of time and then it figures out a new, better way of moving.  The body is smart.  The Oov presents it with a whole new kind of puzzle, allowing it to grow in new directions and strengthening neuromuscular control.

What happens is akin to what Parker Palmer describes as “way closing.”  He speaks in a spiritual, vocational context about the Quaker idea of Way and its opening ahead of a person.  A wise person said to him that Way closing behind serves much the same purpose.  When we can’t do what we have always done, we have to do something new, find a new way to reach our goals.

What would we change if we couldn’t live our lives and move ourselves according to our usual patterns?

Friday Exercise: Brains

The Amazing Stickie has amazing abdominals.  She also has amazing brains.  She needs both to do this exercise, which, around here, is known as Brains.  It may have a real name, but she and I do not know it. 

To begin, Stickie lies on the floor.  Sadly, this is not the end of the exercise.  She has an exercise ball with her.  She holds it between her hands and her feet, both arms and legs sticking up into the air.  Then she lowers her right arm and left leg toward the floor, keeping the ball up with her left arm and right leg.  She does not let her arm and leg touch the floor because that would be cheating.  She lifts them back up into the air and uses them to stabilize the exercise ball.  She repeats the process, this time lowering her left arm and right leg toward the floor.

Many people are tempted to move the left arm and left leg together and the right arm and right leg together.  This is both harder and less effective.  Plugging into the brain to get the motion right is one of the challenges of this exercise.  Stickie finds that it helps to get set on one side and then simply keep moving.

Throughout the entire exercise, Stickie focuses on keeping her abdominals flat and spread out across her body.

If at any time she feels pain in her lower back, Stickie adjusts first by bending her legs rather than keeping them straight as she lifts and lowers.  If she still feels pain, she discontinues the exercise.  If she feels discomfort in her abs, of course, she keeps moving; that means the exercise is working!

Thursday Book Report: The Female Pelvis

As I have mentioned before, I really love Blandine Calais-Germain’s books.  The Female Pelvis is no exception.  She brings her formidable knowledge and skill to the task of analyzing a complex body system that undergoes incredible change over the course of a lifetime.  Everything is explained clearly and illustrated beautifully.  The exercises included are given in detail.

I wish I had read this book before the whole pregnancy and delivery thing, but I am glad to have it now.

Snake, rattle, and roll

Remember, toward the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Indiana Jones, having overcome giant rolling boulders, poison darts, and tarantulas, has one more obstacle between him and victory?  He says, “It had to be snakes.”  The one thing he really doesn’t want to face remains to be conquered. 

Sometimes when we deal with our bodies, it seems like it always has to be snakes.  We have one movement we just can’t beat.  We have one exercise that always remains too challenging.  We have that bum ankle/hip/knee that acts up and keeps us from the prize.  We become frustrated, discouraged, even scared.  We dread the inevitable time when the snakes have to turn up in our workouts.

One thing that can help is remembering all the things that are not snakes.  Indy did make it through all the aforementioned boulders, darts, and spiders, after all, just as we may easily survive the squats, presses, and curls that may accompany the terrible lunges or burpees or whatever Jabberwock-like exercise becomes our nemesis.

Another is to keep in mind that Indy beat the snakes.  It took time and courage.  He needed to call on all his boulder/dart/spider experience to find the inner resources to do it, but he did.  And we can, too.

I detect...

Fans of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot would not nominate him for any fitness awards, as heavy lifting with the little grey cells does not count.  His love of cuisine, dislike of outdoor sports, and fondness for spotless outfits also do not speak in his favor.  However, when we look at the mystery of our shrinking clothes, he may have some key training points.

For example, he collects the data.  What did we do?  Who was there?  What did we notice?  How did we feel?  What were the results?  He does not ask what we were supposed to be doing, or what we intended to do, but what we actually did.  Recalcitrant witnesses eventually admit that they did, in fact, go back for the second piece of cheesecake, or that they saw Granny do it, but denied it because they weren’t supposed to be in the hall surreptitiously texting that cute boy from down the street, the one with the motorcycle and the unfortunate haircut.

Then he looks at the patterns.  What little thing that was so ordinary that no one bothered to notice it made all the difference?  (Besides the fact that someone substituted poisoned mushrooms for chanterelles on the pizza…)  Was it that we no longer walked to the village to get our newspaper and so missed out on some healthful exercise?  Was it that we got extra excitement searching for the missing jewels?

Finally, he puts everything together into a plan.  Some time spent reflecting on all he has learned allows him to create a solution.  And soon the offending desserts can be locked away where they can’t do any harm.

Fitness grows on trees?

The Easter feast is behind us.  Maybe we resisted and left the chocolate bunnies and Peeps to the small people, or maybe we have our own little cache of foil wrappers hidden among the strands of plastic grass in our baskets.  This is not a lecture about candy.

Nope.  This is about renewal.  We have made it to spring, to Easter, to new life.  We have made it through winter to strawberries, sunshine, asparagus, and new flip flops.

We don’t have to be the same.  This is the season for growing.  Where would we like to flower?  What fruit will we produce?  If we cultivate endurance, strength, flexibility, beauty, that is what we can harvest.

Let’s go dig the garden.