Olympic Fast Friday

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - learn some Chinese for the Olympics.

The Olympic ceremonies start at 8:08 p.m. on the 8th day of the 8th month in 2008. Eight is an auspicious number for the Chinese. Whether you agree or disagree with politics in the world, use learning about someone's language as a step to peace:

First lessons include "bei" - north, and "jing" - a capital city. Then you see that Beijing means Northern capital.

Here is some Olympic Chinese:

• Click labels below for posts on each topic.
• Find posts on your favorite topics: Click and bookmark the new Fitness Fixer Index.

Labels: fast fitness, mind, Olympics, swimming

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Fast Fitness - Handstand Rows

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - rows to strengthen the upper body, practice balance and neutral spine, and avoid lower disc injury from bad forward bending.

Readers have been writing in, excited about doing handstands for the first time or improving the handstand they do to get whole body functional fun exercise. My student Danielle demonstrates:

1. Hold a handstand, either using Easy handstand or Step Up To Handstand. Don't overarch the lower back (overarch is pictured). Instead of overarch/hyperlordosis, hold neutral spine in handstand.
2. Shift your weight to stand on one hand. Grasp a hand weight in the other hand
3. Do rows, and any variety of arm free-weight movements that you want to improve.

There is no need to bend over forward to do rows. It does not train functional posture, and unequally squeezes lower discs outward, which adds to degeneration and herniation forces that are common during bad daily sitting and unhealthy bending. You don't need more unhealthy things while exercising.

• To understand herniation forces on discs from bad forward bending, click: The Cause of Disc and Back Pain and Disc Pain - Not a Mystery, Easy to Fix

• To understand the damaging force on the lower spine of bad backward bending (overarching, hyperlordosis): Prevent Back Surgery

• To reduce overarching/hyperlordosis during handstand: Fast Fitness - Fixing Your Handstand to Neutral Spine.

Labels: arm, balance, disc, fast fitness, handstand, lordosis, shoulder, strength, wrist

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Fast Fitness - Handstand Dips

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Dips upside down holding a handstand, for shoulder and arm strength, balance, agility, and fun.

Readers Dave, Nine-Volt Terry, and others asked about dips. You don't need weights and equipment to increase strength. Body weight can be used in many fun ways. Fitness Fixer has shown how to do an easy handstand, then last Friday featured a short movie to learn a regular handstand - Fast Fitness - Step Up To Handstand.

This week - use the handstand for more:

1. Hold a handstand the way you are safe and comfortable.
2. Bend your elbows to lower toward the floor like a pushup, then push to straighten.
3. Increase how deep you can dip and how many you can do and push back up again.

These dips are safer for the anterior (front) shoulder than conventional dips which are done by leaning or hanging on hands while upright, and bending elbows behind you to lower and raise. They can work like a Safer Overhead Military Press. Make sure you don't have glaucoma or uncontrolled high blood pressure before doing these. Breathe and stay relaxed instead of tightening.

To increase skills, work until you can do handstand dips without a wall.

Labels: arm, fast fitness, handstand, shoulder, strength

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Fast Fitness - Step Up To Handstand

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - learn to lift up to a full handstand, for shoulder, arm, and wrist strength, balance, agility, skill, and fun.

Previous posts showed how to step up to an easy handstand by putting one foot up high behind you on a wall or surface. Here is how to learn swinging up to full handstand:

1. Stand close to a secure surface.
2. Plop both hands on the floor about a foot from the wall and swing one leg upward
3. Use momentum of putting hands down and swinging leg up, to swing the other leg upward to the wall.

• Mr. Sosaku at right holds the finished stance.
• Helen, center shows swinging up straight, bringing both feet to the wall.
• Kimberly shows the beginning - placing hands and getting the idea of lifting legs upward.

Let your feet come to the wall and straighten your body, so that you do not curl your back against the wall. Work to increase strength and balance, so that you need the wall less and less, eventually holding straight handstand without the wall. Note the hand weight on the floor. Future posts will show weightlifting with one arm while in handstand on the other.

More on handstand:

• Don't let your back sag or overarch when holding handstand- Fast Fitness - Fixing Your Handstand to Neutral Spine
• Step backward to easy handstand - Fast Fitness - Easy Handstand for Balance, Upper Body Strength -The Movie and Fast Fitness - Easy Handstand (still photos and full description)
• Using a Handstand for More Than an Exercise - Real Life.

Labels: arm, balance, fast fitness, handstand, strength, video/movie, wrist

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Fast Fitness - Improving Mental Fitness Through Language Study

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - a fun, quick, free resource to improve your vocabulary in many languages:

1. Click www.travlang.com/wordofday/
2. Listen to native pronunciation of the Word of the Day in a list of languages.
3. The same page has a free registration link, or click www.travlang.com/wordofday/register.html to e-mail you the Word of the Day each day it comes out. Choose as many languages as interest you from the list. Change your free subscription any time.

Speaking and learning language, exercises several brain centers and widens world view and skills.

Labels: fast fitness, mind

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Fast Fitness - Freedom for All on the 4th of July

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Remember freedom for all people and for Earth on America's Independence Day.

1. Reduce toxic waste from discarded batteries. Jacqueline Meier of Switzerland is creator of the Clean Planet Association. Part of this work is the Clean Kaïlash Project.
2. Donate blood - Blood Hero.
3. Build a school - Three Cups of Tea.

Click Independence Day for Fitness for ideas for personal freedom from bad foods, drugs, injuries, and physical and mental pain.

The Fitness Fixer wishes everyone a happy 4th of July.

Labels: fast fitness, holiday, mind, spirit

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Fast Fitness - Children as Leg Weights

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Train children's balance and grip strength, use your legs, and have family fun.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Labels: children, endurance, fast fitness, feet, hand, leg strength, partner exercise, performance enhancing modality

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Fast Fitness - NoCost Hand Strength and Rehab Equipment

Here is Fast Friday Fitness -hand exercise without rehabilitation equipment.

One of the exercises against repetitive strain syndrome is to exercise the muscles that open the hands. There are expensive commercial devices you can buy for this. One consists of a special glove with weights and pulleys to resist your ability to open your hand. Or you can:

1. Hold the fingers of one hand closed with your other hand
2. Open the hand against the resistance of the hand holding it closed
3. Do as many as comfortable. Repeat with the other hand. Vary intensity and number.

If you want to go high-tech, put a rubber band around the fingers instead of using your other hand. Push each finger in a variety of ways.

Labels: fast fitness, fix pain, hand, repetitive strain, strength

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Fast Fitness - Fixing Yoga Warrior and Lunge Exercise to Neutral Spine

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - quickly change your posture to change your luck on Friday the 13th. Hyperlordosis (swayback posture) seems to be unlucky - it causes lower back pain. You can do this in seconds to make a certain change to healthier spine for yoga or practicing the lunge. If you don't believe in luck, you're lucky. It's just good posture and simple anatomy.

Reader David from Belgium demonstrates in this 20 second movie that he made for us:

1. First ten seconds - he steps into a yoga pose called Warrior pose, but allows overly arched lower spine. He also demonstrates leaning more weight forward of center line, which is a different issue.
2. Note how the belt line tips downward in front and the lower spine overly curves inward - more than a normal curve.
3. At second 11 he levels the hip to bring the posture to neutral spine. Then he kindly demonstrates overarching when raising the arms further. Instead, hold neutral spine and raise the arms from the shoulder, not the lower back.

To prevent shoulder impingement when raising arms, keep shoulders down and back, don't just chin and neck forward, keep them gently in. A forward head posture compresses the rotator cuff when lifting arms. See Safer Overhead Military Press.

I never expected repeated requests to see how to do neutral spine in different activities. It is the same. Just apply the same neutral spine and that’s all. I thought one post would do it, but will post each activity readers ask about. I am aware that there are yoga and fitness places which teach to overarch the spine as part of the move. Teaching swayback does not seem to be as helpful as teaching neutral spine. Changing lunge and Warrior pose to neutral also improves the stretch to the front hip muscles of the back leg. Lucky.

Labels: fast fitness, fix pain, holiday, impingement, lordosis, neutral spine, posture, video/movie, yoga

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Fast Fitness - Figuring Heart Rate Training Range

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - How to know what heart rate will give you a cardiovascular training effect.

Several formulas calculate exact heart ranges and "target heart rates." There are a variety of commercial (expensive) heart rate monitors. Arguments in sports medicine continue on which is the right formula and if heart rates in water or at elevation can be calculated the same way. These issues will be covered in posts to come. For now:

1. Your body is smart. Heart rate generally follows "perceived exertion." If you feel your running or other exercise pace is moderate, your heart rate is likely to be at a moderate training range. If it feels light, then heart rate will likely be too low to give much training effect.
2. Find something you enjoy enough to continue more than ten minutes at a time.
3. Keep a pace that you feel is moderate to hard, depending how you like it.

If your running or other exercise pace feels moderate, it is also moderate for your cardiovascular system. If it feels hard, your heart and body and mostly likely working hard for your current level If it feels light, then it is too light to give much training effect.

Labels: aerobic, circulation, endurance, fast fitness

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Fast Fitness - Get in Shape with Good Deeds

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - get in shape with true fitness:

Labels: fast fitness, performance enhancing modality, strength, weight loss

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Fast Fitness - Sprouts Inside and Out

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - easy, good tasting, healthful food you can grow yourself in your kitchen. Sprouting seeds can be fun to do with children to teach them many things about food, responsibility, biology, and more. Mung beans are a good easy bean to start with:

1. Spread a bunch of dry beans on a plate. Add enough water to wet the beans. Leave out on a sunny counter.
2. Rinse beans and plate daily, and return beans to the plate with fresh water.
3. Within a week, you will have fresh sprouts.

Sauté lightly in a pan with balsamic vinegar, a slight amount of olive or grapeseed oil, and season with any variety of healthful spices that you like - curry, pepper, fresh lemon, etc. Scramble the sprouts into whatever vegetables or other good food you are cooking.

If you eat the sprouts when they are barely sprouted, it will taste nuttier. If you wait until the sprouts have grown long, they will taste more like greens.

Sprouted sunflower, clover, broccoli, radish, lentil, mung bean, and pea sprouts taste good and have many vitamins and disease-fighting phytochemicals. Sprouting seeds and grains reduces the amounts of phytates in the food, which in turn, increases absorption of minerals like calcium.

The post Junk Food Through Your Skin? told how sprouts contain sulphoraphane, which activates cancer-fighting enzymes in your own cells throughout your body, making sprouts healthy not only when eaten, but when used as part of homemade sunscreens.

Labels: cancer, children, fast fitness, gardening, nutrition

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Fast Fitness - Fixing Your Handstand to Neutral Spine

Last week's Fast Fitness showed a movie of how to step up into an easy handstand and get back down. This week shows a common pitfall - letting your lower spine sag under gravity - and how to fix it and hold neutral spine.

My student Dennis, Olympic medalist in wrestling, demonstrates:

1. Step your foot up behind you high onto a wall, then the other.
2. For the first 5 seconds of the movie, Dennis allows the lower spine to overarch (increase the inward curve) under the pull of gravity, a bad posture called hyperlordosis. It is not the normal inward curve, it is an easily changed bad posture.
3. At second 5 he changes the tilt of the hip and lower spine back to neutral spine. The action is like doing an abdominal crunch to bring the spine and torso just forward enough to be straight.

This technique practices the muscles and positioning for straight standing, making it better than just a handstand. If you want to gain abdominal strength, using neutral spine uses those muscles. An important difference in Fitness Fixer exercises is that they are not only exercises alone. All the techniques I developed are supposed to be used to train muscle function and positioning for when you stand up and walk away.

Use neutral spine, not only for handstands, but all you do. Examples are in Prevent Back Surgery.

Labels: abdominal muscles, arm, fast fitness, handstand, lordosis, lower back, neutral spine, posture, strength, video/movie

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Fast Fitness - Easy Handstand for Balance, Upper Body Strength -The Movie

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - a quick, safer way to try a handstand. Standing on hands has many health and strength benefits and can be easily practiced in this way.

My student Dennis, Olympic medalist in wrestling, demonstrates in this short movie. Click the arrow to watch the movie:

1. Stand with your back about a foot in front of a wall, and crouch to put your hands on the floor (avoid slippery surface)
2. Put one foot high up on the wall, then lift the other foot up too
3. To get down, step one foot back down, then the other

To see step by step still photos and more explanation, click the post Fast Fitness - Easy Handstand where David from Belgium shows the handstand plus how to add a nice overhead hamstring stretch.


Keep breathing. Smile. Relax. Send in your own photos of trying this. Be safe and have fun.

Labels: arm, balance, circulation, fast fitness, handstand, shoulder, strength, upper back, video/movie, wrist

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Fast Fitness - How to Feel Change to Neutral Spine

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Use a wall to learn neutral spine while standing, to know how to stop a major source lower back pain during standing, walking, and running.

Many people learn pelvic tilts lying on their back in physical therapy or fitness classes. What does that do? Little. The purpose of learning the pelvic tilt is to know how to do it during real daily life so that you do not overarch (hyperlordosis) and create back pain. My student Dennis, Olympic medalist in wrestling, demonstrates learning a functional pelvic tilt (he is holding his shirt away with hand so you can see better - you can relax your arms at your sides):

1. Stand with your back against a wall. Touch heels, hips, shoulders, and the back of your head.
2. If you allow a large arch in the lower spine there will be a large space between lower back and the wall. Press your lower back toward the wall.
3. Don't touch or force your lower back to the wall. Just learn how to tilt the hip so that the lower spine comes closer to it and reduces in arch.

Use a wall often to practice, then the idea is to hold neutral spine without the wall during the rest of your day.

Reducing a large arch back to neutral stops the painful lower spine compression on soft tissue and facet joints during standing activities (and bad pushups and handstands).

• Another short movie that shows the same idea, without the wall - Friday Fast Fitness - Neutral Spine in 5 Seconds
• Another short movie - changing hyperlordosis to neutral spine while holding a pushup position - Fast Fitness - Strengthen by Changing Your Plank
• To learn why hyperlordosis causes lower back pain - Neutral Spine or Not?
  
• Still to come - changing hyperlordosis to neutral spine during handstands.

Labels: facet joints, fast fitness, lordosis, lower back, neutral spine, video/movie

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Fast Fitness - One-Legged Party Trick for Strength, Flexibility, Balance

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - have fun while building balance, flexibility, coordination, concentration, and leg strength.

1. Stand on one foot with a can or other small container on the floor in front of you
2. While balancing on one leg, bend to lower yourself toward the floor
3. Retrieve something fun from the floor with your mouth - no hands.

Labels: balance, children, fast fitness, hip, leg strength, leg stretch, lunge, squat, strength, stretch

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Fast Fitness - Sprain Prevention and Rehab Training

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - feel how your own muscles work to hold ankle position, so that you can have stable ankles without artificial shoe supports or bracing, which weaken the supporting muscles from disuse:

1. Stand with feet parallel and look in a mirror where you can see your feet, or just look down.
2. Rise to toe and hold
3. Keep body weight over big and second toe with straight ankle position as you remain on tip-toe. Don't let your weight shift over the small toes, allowing ankle to bend outward.

Click the arrow to see this short movie of my student Diana's feet, as she first allows rolling the ankle outward when rising to toe, then at second 3 in the movie, she uses ankle, foot and leg muscles to pull to straight neutral ankle position. She prevents outward rolling as she again rises to toes three more times.

Prevent rolling outward whenever you rise on toe or push off or land from a jump or step.

Developing positioning sense in the receptors of your ankles prevents the sprain-promoting position called inversion, and gains built-in foot and ankle muscle strength and stability. Nice foot stretch too. Practice balancing on tip-toe, and rising up and down without rolling outward every day.

Labels: ankle, balance, fast fitness, feet, fix pain, injury, sprain, toes, video/movie

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Fast Fitness - First Morning Stretch

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - straighten out first thing in the morning and help your back feel good.

Instead of sitting on the bed first thing in the morning, which loads the discs, try this:

1. Before getting out of bed, turn face down propped gently on elbows
2. Hold briefly
3. Get out of bed without sitting.

Don't droop your head downward, jut your neck or chin forward, hunch your shoulders, or fold back sharply at the lower spine. Find a low gentle position that makes your whole back feel good. The idea is to feel better and straighter, not strain, force, or make your posture worse. That would be silly.

For most people this first morning stretch works well. If it hurts your lower back, go to a lower position. If you flatten completely straight and still feel pain or pinching in the lower back, then how can you stand up straight without the same problem? Don't use this First Morning Stretch until you find why it is not comfortable. One common reason is front hip tightness. Try the Quick Relaxing Hip Stretch.

Labels: disc, fast fitness, hip, leg stretch, lower back, posture, stretch

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Fast Fitness - Fix Flat Feet, Pronation, and Fallen Arches

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - feel how your own muscles work to hold arch support, so that you can have healthy arches without artificial shoe arch supports or orthotics, which weaken the supporting muscles from disuse:

1. Stand with feet parallel and look in a mirror where you can see your feet, or just look down.
2. Pull outward until your arches rise and restore, and your ankles are straight
3. Use this as your new natural position, gaining built-in muscle strength and arch stability with each step you take.

Click the arrow to see the short movie made for us by reader David from Belgium. First he allows his weight to shirt inward, pushing his arch flatter toward the floor. Then at seconds 3 to 4 in the movie, he uses the outer muscles to pull to straight neutral ankle position. At seconds 8 to 9 he allows the arch to sag again, then simply restores and holds a healthy arch from second 13 onward.

You can have healthful arch position too. Legs and feet have posture that you can control yourself. Use your own muscles and get free built-in exercise and arch support all day, and stop painful poor positioning.

Labels: ankle, arches, fast fitness, feet, fix pain, posture, pronation, video/movie

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Fast Fitness - Easy Handstand

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - if you have been afraid to try a handstand, here is a quick easy way to have success. You will strengthen your hands, wrist, arms, shoulders, upper body, and core, practice balance, and get blood circulating.

1. Crouch down near a wall (avoid slippery floor)
2. Put one foot high up on the wall
3. Lift up the other foot

If you have uncontrolled glaucoma or high blood pressure, ask your care providers first.

• Click here to see a quick video showing how to change sagging spine to neutral spine.
  
• Click Quick and Fun Arm and Body Strengthener for more on the benefits, plus drawings and description.

Labels: arm, balance, circulation, fast fitness, hand, handstand, shoulder, strength, wrist

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Fast Fitness - Build Brains and Help People

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - instead of eating junk food and playing violent video games, try a fun game to build your English vocabulary and help impoverished areas.

1. A word appears with possible definitions.
2. Click your choice for correct answer.
3. For each correct definition, FreeRice donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.

If your definiftion is correct, the next word is harder. If incorrect, you get an easier word. In this way, FreeRice adjusts to your vocabulary level.

According to their site, FreeRice runs the site at no profit. The rice is paid for by the advertisers, and distributed by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). They give this warning: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance...

Put down your junk food. Feed your brain and the hungry.

Labels: fast fitness, mind, spirit

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Fast Fitness - Stronger Arms and Chest, and Core, Hip, and Leg Stability With A Friend

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - strengthen inner legs, thighs, arms, and core, while practicing neutral spine with a friend. Better than putting hands up on a bench or exercise ball My students Johanna (1) and Diana (2) demonstrate:

1. Partner 1 lies face up with bent knees
2. Partner 2 does pushups on Partner 1's knees while holding neutral spine, not letting the lower back sag and arch downward. Partner 1 holds legs stable and does not let knees wobble.
3. Switch and repeat.

• To see a short movie of how to change overarched hyperlordotic sagging spine to neutral spine for pushups, click Fast Fitness - Strengthen by Changing Your Plank.
• For photos to learn to spot hyperlordotic overarched spine and straight neutral spine, see Spotting Back Pain During Running and Walking - What Do Abs Have To Do With It?

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. Have fun moving and laughing with a partner.

Labels: abdominal muscles, balance, chest, elbow, exercise ball, fast fitness, hand, hip strength, leg strength, partner exercise, strength, wrist

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Fast Fitness - Relaxing Hip, Leg, and Groin Stretch

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - A nice stretch for inside leg and hip that does not involve sitting. It is called Rocket Ship:

1. Lie face down. Feel both hipbones to