Friday Book Report: Two Books! One with Pictures!

As I’ve said every month since Andrew Luck started his book club, I love it that he chooses a “rookie” book for his younger fans every month.  That is being a good role model, encouraging the use of brains as well as body.  As luck would have it (pun!), his March selection, Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth is about mindfulness.  This Caldecott Award-winning book obviously has lovely pictures, but also three lovely little stories a panda neighbor tells to the children next door.  Kids or adults who want some gentle ways to think about mindfulness will enjoy the stories and the panda-human friendship.

Luck’s April selection is a book I happen to have read when my kids were younger, the first in T.A. Barron’s Merlin saga, The Lost Years.  I have a weakness for Arthurian stories.  This reinterpretation asks how Merlin became the wizard we all know so well.  Young Merlin faces all kinds of challenges in a well-paced and interesting adventure.  Barron has written in other places about how story shapes our characters in real life.  This is a book that lives up to his own standard.

Read these books to yourself or to a kid and enjoy!

No bump on the head required

Where am I?  Fitness helps us answer this question, if not always the more existential Who Am I?  As we move our bodies mindfully, we build up the neural capacity to know where our bodies are in space.  The fancy word for this is proprioception.

We see it at work when we try to learn a new sport.  Our coach or teacher or friend keeps telling us to drop our shoulders or swing our legs or move our knees out and we react with surprise; weren’t we already doing that?  We had no idea what our body parts were doing.

One of the things that I like about Pilates is that most of the movements are slow.  This gives the body time to coordinate with the brain to build up a fuller picture of where all the parts are.  Yoga does the same kind of thing.  Of course, we can bring mindfulness to whatever we are doing, but sometimes it is useful to choose a practice that makes it easier.

Lift, but don't separate

Sometimes I talk about weight training and cardio like they are separate things.  They are, sort of.  But most cardio exercise works out to, at base, body weight exercise and anyone who has done heavy lifting can tell you that it will elevate the heart rate right quick.

This is good news for the time-pressed.  We don’t have to find an hour for cardio and an hour for weight training.  A weight workout with cardio intervals can do it all.  Do the heavy squats and the big bench presses.  Mix in some plyojacks or some sprints.  Go home tired and happy.

Listen!

I was talking with a friend over the weekend who has changed direction with her fitness.  The kinds of exercise she was doing before stopped appealing; meanwhile, her body let her know that it had other kinds of work in mind.  She actually listened to her body.  It’s working wonderfully well for her and the change shows not only physically, but psychically as the stress decreases.

Oddly enough, in the same conversation, I was saying that I was getting back to my usual exercise and that it felt great.  My body wants what it usually has and is somewhat politely requesting a return to the status quo.

What does your body want?  Does it want something new?  Does it want what it always wants?  The most important thing we can do in fitness is to listen to what the body says.

Monday Workout: With a Kettlebell!

This week we’re continuing to work with significant weight and cardio in combination.  The goal is to get our metabolisms moving!  If you have knee issues, please use good judgment in choosing whether to jump the lunges and in deciding between the overyets and high knees.

1 min cardio
(jump) lunges	20
fly	20
kb swings	20
kb overyets or high knees	20
barbell twist or Russian	20
pushups	10

Friday Book Report: Incognito

David Eagleman’s book Incognito describes the intersection of biology and consciousness.  He begins, “Take a close look at yourself in the mirror.  Beneath your dashing good looks churns a hidden universe of networked machinery.  The machinery includes a sophisticated scaffolding of interlocking bones, a netting of sinewy muscles, a good deal of specialized fluid, and a collaboration of internal organs chugging away in darkness to keep you alive.  A sheet of high-tech self-healing sensory material that we call skin seamlessly covers your machinery in a pleasing package.” (p. 1)  Obviously, he has a way with prose.

He explores, at a general level, the questions of philosophy, psychology, and biology, with excursions into chemistry and physics.  It’s all informative and entertaining.  We are led to reflect on what makes us who we are, and this is not an easy or comfortable process at times.  It’s a useful bunch of brain gymnastics with a side of soul-searching.

I personally found the section on criminal justice to be… odd.  Yes, his arguments about free will do have implications for how we deal with transgression and protection and rehabilitation.  He presents an interesting batch of proposals that make, if nothing else, an interesting thought experiment.  He is very invested in this particular experiment, however.  The overall feel of the discussion resembles that family dinner where someone makes the mistake of bringing up a particular conspiracy theory and Uncle Frank goes off the rails, again, even though he is totally reasonable on every other subject.

Overall, a good book and well worth reading!  Go brains!

What counts?

What counts as exercise?  We know that watching a movie doesn’t count.  We know that running a marathon does.  What about the stuff in between?

Like, say, gardening.  Well, it depends.  Sitting on our butts weeding for hours probably doesn’t count.  We’ll get dirty and possibly sweaty if it is hot and sunny, but most people don’t find their pulses racing while having it out with the dandelions.  If we’re digging compost into the garden beds, however, it probably does count.  Hefting the bags, shoveling, turning over the dirt and everything can get us good and breathless.

Same deal for housework.  Light dusting: no exercise.  Spring cleaning with rug beating, Goodwill-schlepping, and forty seven trips up and down the stairs:  exercise.

Bottom line:  if it makes you sweaty and breathless, it counts.  If you’re sore the next day, it counts.  Otherwise, not so much.