Friday Exercise: Plyojacks

Some days, the Amazing Stickie wants to push herself aerobically with some intervals.  An excellent choice for a 1-minute (or 30-second) cardio interval is the plyojack, the jumping jack’s stronger brother.

To begin, Stickie stands with her feet together and her arms over her head with her hands together.  Then she jumps her feet out wide, bends her knees and her waist, and touches her hands to her ankles.  She jumps back to the upright, “pencil” position and repeats the process until the minute is over.

Stickie, although she never truly regrets her workout choices, often feels that she may have made a mistake in choosing plyojacks when her legs and butt hurt about 20 repetitions into the process.  She uses her immense fortitude to stick it out, knowing that she will be stronger for it.  She also knows that if she needs to, she can always finish the interval with regular jacks if plyojacks prove more than she can handle.

Thursday Book Report: Muscles and Meridians

Muscles and Meridians: The Manipulation of Shape by Phillip Beach lays out a model for human movement called the Contractile Field.  It is one of a number of books that attempt to counter the tendency to view each muscle in isolation by presenting a systems approach.

Drawing from embryology, evolution, and traditional Chinese medicine, Beach discusses the ways our muscles, organs, sense organs, and fascia all work together to move our bodies.  He suggests an assessment system that takes into account what he calls archetypal postures, including the basic deep squat that is so prevalent in the non-Western world and so sadly missing in the West.  Additionally, he notes that we have deprived ourselves of a lot of sensory information by constantly wearing shoes.

Sometimes the most important exercises are the simplest.  Let’s practice getting down on the floor and back up.  Let’s kick off our shoes and feel the ground beneath our feet.

Berry good idea

I don’t believe in superfoods.  Besides, capes don’t taste very good.

I believe in food.  While it should be obvious what food is, it isn’t.

Food is fruits and vegetables, fish, meat, milk, cheese, eggs, grains.  The closer those things are to how they came out of the ground or out of the creature, the more food-ish they are.  (Yes, removing the dirt and sometimes cooking things are good ideas.)

Beware the boxes.  Beware the not-found-in-nature colors.  Beware the super salted, the super sugared, and the trans-fatted vampires.

Eat enough, but not too much.  Enjoy what you eat.  You’ll feel better.

Begon(ia), negative thoughts!

Fitness training, like magic, is the process of making the impossible into reality.  And, since I have yet to come across any spells for strength, endurance, flexibility, and the like, fitness requires skill, dedication, and a willing suspension of disbelief.

Is today the day that I make it through all three rounds of the circuit?  Is today the day that I break my record for squats?  Is today the day I manage to relax my eyebrows while planking?  Maybe.  It is much more likely if I let go of all the self-doubt, the voices that say I can’t.  Also the voices that laugh if I look funny while I try.

Fitness is practice.  Fitness is making mistakes and trying again.  Fitness is using magic (sometimes four-letter) words to keep going.

We all lift weights with our minds.

Sage, but not advice

Over the weekend, I got my back yard in order. 

Yes, in part it was a workout.  Both Brent and I lifted and carried big bags of dirt.  In real life, weights do not come with convenient handles or compact sizes that fit neatly between the arms.  Also, the truck has a high bed that presents challenges for a short person like me (sadly, one cannot train for increased height).

The fitness effects of the work, however, are larger than just plain sweat.  I planted tomatoes and peppers and basil and mint (and marigolds, to annoy the snails).  I will plant cucumbers for pickling.  I weeded around the blueberry bush, the blackberry vines, the peach and fig trees, and the new apple tree.  The rosemary and sage have overpowered the weeds in their beds through sheer exuberance.  Good food will come from my garden.

The patio cushions have been washed down and plumped up.  I have a new lounge chair; I’ve been threatening to get one for years and this is the year!  That means more time for the family outside in the sunshine and fresh air.  Dinner in the garden!  Reading near the herbs!  Napping next to the dog!

What else needs putting in order to enable a healthy spring and summer?  Let’s do it!

Friday Exercise: YTA

The Amazing Stickie likes a challenge.  She also likes the alphabet.  Sometimes she likes both together, on days when she decides to do YTA, named for the positions of the arms.

The basic starting position for the exercise is in a plank position on a stability ball.  Placing the feet against a wall is a good idea.  The ball then rests under the hips and belly.  Throughout the entire exercise, Stickie will keep her abdominals engaged to protect her lower back.  If she experiences lower back pain and cannot adjust her abdominals to avoid it, she discontinues the exercise until another day when her abs are stronger.

This exercise uses surprisingly light weights.  Stickie does not feel bad that she has to use lighter weights for this than pretty much any other exercise because she knows it is plenty challenging!

From the ball plank position, she extends her arms overhead into a Y shape.  Then she opens them out into a T shape.  Finally, she brings her arms down by her hips, turning her hands over so that her palms face the ceiling, into the shape of an A with no crossbar.

The dumbbells return to the floor in front of the stability ball and Stickie repeats the process for each repetition.  Three sets of ten are usually plenty.

Thursday Reading Report: Studies

As I mentioned last week, I am a little behind in my reading.  I did follow up on a couple of studies I heard about while I was at my Pilates training, however.

The first one, written by David Bissell of the Australian National University, is called “Understanding the impacts of commuting:  Research report for stakeholders.”  I think we all know that commuting causes stress, both mental and physical.  Reducing that stress requires many stakeholders to make changes.  Building appropriate transit options, due to the complex nature of the projects, presents challenges in that projects often take longer than political terms to finish.  Technology can both increase and decrease commuting stress.  Apps, movies, chats, and games can turn some commutes into much-needed recreational time, or continuous connection may mean that work is never done.  The small nugget that seemed most useful on a personal level was that people who found ways to make commuting into something positive by using the time to connect with friends and family or to decompress from work had better outcomes.  This is easier said than done.  Good luck!

The second one, written by Siobhan Schabrun, Edith Elgueta-Cancino, and Paul Hodges of the University of Western Sydney, is called “Smudging of the motor cortex is related to the severity of low back pain.”  I admit that the word “smudging” was what caught my attention.  There was a lot in the article about the technique used in the study, which is good and important for those who want to study more.  What interested me was that pain-free people tend to show activity in multiple places in the cortex while pain sufferers tend to have a single “peak” of activity.  In short, when there is an injury, the motor cortex fires everything at once.  Corrective exercise, then, needs to focus on retraining the body to isolate the muscles, allowing for more specific motor control, before reintegrating the muscles into smooth and efficient movement.

The take-away:  mindfulness is good for us.  It will help us reduce our stress and it will help us attain pain-free motion.