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 - 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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Memorial Days

This weekend the United States observes the national holiday of Memorial Day, formerly called Decoration Day, a day to remember soldiers fallen in war.

Labels: holiday, spirit

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Tax Preparation Health

Taxes are due April 15th. Piles of papers, forms, schedules, receipts. Readers have asked how to be healthier while working at the desk, and how to keep their cool during tax preparation.

Several readers asked how to stop neck pain when looking down over deskwork. Reader John M, specifically asked "How do you suggest someone look down (to look at a chart etc at work) without pushing the (herniated neck) disc out more (or aggravating symptoms)?

Three photos above show tilting the neck forward and/or jutting the chin forward. Holding the head forward of the neck and body is a major source of upper back and neck pain. The "forward head" is hard on the soft tissues, the joints of the vertebrae called facets, and the discs of the neck, and is a major overlooked cause of "upper crossed syndrome." The forward head is just a bad posture, and easy to stop. It is not necessary to jut the neck or chin forward to look downward.

Check how you are sitting right now. Are you letting your neck hang forward, are you jutting your chin forward, or are you pushing or rounding your neck and upper body forward? Instead, keep chin in, loosely and gently. If needed, bring your chair closer in closer to the desk and lean the upper body back instead of rounding your lower back against the chair back and leaning the upper body forwad.

To look down comfortably - tip chin down in relaxed straight position instead of jutting the head and neck forward. That is healthy positioning for everyone - injured or not. No need to lean or hang the head or neck forward, or round your upper back to look downward.

More posts with quick techniques to feel better during desk work:

• Stretch upper body in your chair - Tax Stretch
• Stretch and relax upper body - Quick, Feel-Good Upper Back and Chest Stretch
• Stretch and relax lower body - Quick Relaxing Hip Stretch
• Stretch and relax your breathing - Do Breathing Exercises Work?
• Stretch and relax your spirit - Fast Fitness Friday - Strong Spirit.

Labels: disc, facet joints, fix pain, holiday, neck, posture, sitting, stress, upper back

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Equinox - An Exercise in Treating People With Equality

Today is the equinox. As the earth continues on its yearly path around the Sun, the center of the disk of the Sun passed over the Earth's equator at 1:48 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time this morning (March 20, 05:48 Universal Time). At the date of the equinox, night and day are approximately equal length all over the world (small variations for refractive effects). The Northern Hemisphere begins Spring, while the Southern Hemisphere begins the shorter days of Fall. Each day, for the next three months, days will become a few minutes longer and nights shorter in the Northern hemisphere. Our Southern Hemisphere friends will have longer nights each night until the Solstice in June.

Japan celebrates six days of the Spring equinox (shunbun no hi). Graves are visited during the week to reflect on looking forward and back. The six days are based on the six perfections: giving, observance of virtuous teachings, perseverance, effort, contemplation, and wisdom. Nowruz, in various spellings, is a major Spring observance among many Eastern religions. Nowruz comes from Persian words meaning "new daylight." Observances may date to at least 15,000 years ago. Diverse Indo-European cultures celebrated the Spring Goddess-mother and source of returning life. In the West, many observe the return of Spring and life with symbols of eggs, birth, passing, and rebirth.

The equinox is a fitting time to reflect on equality. That does not mean that everyone must get the same shoe size, but that you consider someone of higher or lower social rank with the same respect.

There is a story that at the end of the final exam of the finest MBA program in the country, was one question, "What is the name of the person who cleans the floors of this building?" Anyone not able to answer this did not get a degree that semester.

Do you say hello to the people who work so hard to make a beautiful place for you to learn and work? Do you care who they are? They are a special human being like you are. Learn their name. Say hello. See the difference it makes to them and to your world outlook.

Happy equinox.

Labels: holiday, spirit

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Fast Fitness - Leap for Balance on Leap Year

Here is Friday Fast Fitness for the intercalary year (Leap Year) - Leap to develop ankle and knee stability, leg power, and balance.

1. Leap forward, landing on the other foot with soft shock absorption. Don't land hard, which jars joints.
2. "Stick" your landing, without wobbling or setting the first foot down.
3. Leap backward to the original foot and place. Hold your landing steady. Try several leaps forward and backward, then change the leading leg and repeat.

When landing, keep ankle stable by preventing your foot from rolling to the outside. Info in the post No More Ankle Sprains Part II.
Train knee and hip stability by preventing your knee from swaying inward upon landing - Healthy Knees.

Labels: ankle, balance, fast fitness, feet, hip, holiday, impact, knee, leg strength, sprain

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Fast Fitness - Plyometric Partner Bench Press for Valentine's Week

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Have fun together as you strengthen arms, shoulders, chest, back, wrists, and core, while practicing neutral spine, speed, teamwork, and cooperation in a fun plyometric partner bench press.

1. Lie face up with both arms held upward to support partner (white karate uniform).
2. Partner rests shoulders on your hands and holds straight body position on toes (black uniform). Partner uses abdominal muscles to hold neutral spine without letting the lower back sag.
3. Push your partner up and down with your hands in a bench press motion. To add plyometric training, push partner strongly and quickly into the air (right). Catch them lightly, bending your elbows upon contact. Switch places and repeat.
   

Use common sense and springy light touch to reduce unhealthful impact in both partners. You can improve strength and speed without hurting joints and connective tissue. I will post more on plyometrics in posts to come.

Labels: abdominal muscles, chest, elbow, fast fitness, hand, holiday, partner exercise, plyometrics, speed, strength, wrist

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Valentine Family Exercise

Valentines Day is for everyone, not just couples. It is healthy to have active fun with family and friends too.




Monday's post Valentine Partner Pushups gives a fun partner exercise idea. Here are more variations for active fun with children and friends of many ages.








Babies and children love to move. They can hold their body weight. Get them started early. Don't let them lose this strength by making them sit still and eat. Get up from the table and play. That is Valentines Day love.






























I will cover how to do this partner handstand in a future post. Send in your own photos of fun exercise with family and friends.

Labels: chest, children, elbow, hand, holiday, partner exercise, spirit, strength, wrist

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Valentine Partner Pushups

Exercising in social ways is healthy. Valentine's Day is this week. This week I will post several ideas for fun active partner exercise. Start with this version of partner pushups, then have fun making up your own.


Pushups give full body physical benefit when done with neutral spine. Here are two posts that explain how to tell neutral spine while holding a pushup position and how to correct an overarching lower back (hyperlordosis) to neutral spine:

• Change Common Exercises to Get Better Ab Exercise and Stop Back Pain
• Abdominal Muscle Exercise - Better, Different, Not What You Think

This post has instructions with an mpeg movie demonstrating the fix to neutral spine:

• Fast Fitness - Strengthen by Changing Your Plank

This post shows a technique to learn how to prevent compressing your wrists, and better use of hand and arm muscles:

• Fast Fitness - Prevent Wrist Pain During Pushups and Cooking

Here are links to last year's Valentines partner exercises:

• Stretching With a Friend - Partner Pectoral Stretch
• Each One Teach One
• Exercising With A Friend - Partner Leg Press

Why make Valentine's Day only one day? Stay active with good people through the year for the health that positive social interaction brings.

Labels: chest, elbow, holiday, partner exercise, spirit, strength, wrist

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Another Happy New Year

Important festivals of new beginnings fall around this time of year. The Lunar New Year began this week. It is a big festival. It is New Year to many people. Lent began for Latin rite followers, and the Triodion that marks the Lenten start for Eastern Orthodox will fall on Feb 17 this year. This past week was marked by wearing ashes in several cultures. Ash is deeply symbolic of endings, transience, and transformation.


Ash begins black with substance and turns white with formlessness, a symbol explained last year in The Story of the Black Belt. Ashes are used to clean bodies and spirits. They symbolize wisdom that remains when all else is burned away. All things eventually become ash. Catholics wore ashes last Wednesday. Hindus used bhasma, the sacred ash, at the recent festival we attended to learn more about wound healing, told in this post - Thaipusam - Exercise of Body and Spirit.



In the North, February is a harsh month. Through the cold and dark, the first plants begin to bud and animals show growing signs of spring births to come. The first signs of returning life inspired the February 1st Imbolc festival of Brigid (the Bride) a Celtic goddess. The Church later replaced this festival with Candlemas on February 2, dedicated to the Virgin Mother Mary. Both festivals are marked by candles and fire, a mark of the coming end of winter and the return of crops. Shinto followers celebrate this as Setsubun Sai.

To help your New Years resolutions (or remind you to start) here is a link to a post with labels that will give all posts on the label topic:
New Year's Resolutions Made Easy.

Here is the link to last year's greeting and post:
Happy Lunar New Year.

February New Year celebrations are traditions times to clean the house (and your mental house). When cleaning and getting your garden ready, you can easily prevent back pain that comes from increasing the small inward curve of the lower back: Using Abdominal Muscles is Not Tightening or Pressing Navel to Spine. Use healthful bending with the half-squat, full squat and lunge with front knee over foot. Here is why it is so important.

Happy New Year to all.

Labels: holiday

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New Year's Resolutions Made Easy

For all the things you look forward to doing in the New Year, here are the links for all Fitness Fixer posts so far.

The system does not yet keep a sidebar or other list of all post labels, so I made one for you as a holiday gift. You can bookmark or permalink this post to use in the future. Let me know links that need fixing, and missed labels. Any posts I add with these labels should automatically become included.

Look for labels with your New Year wishes. Click the label and all posts with that label will come up at once. Print and take with you

There will be new posts on new topics too, with new labels. A great New Year.

abdominal muscles

Achilles stretch

aerobic

aerospace

aging

altitude

ankle

arches

arm

arthritis

balance

biking

breathing

cancer

celiac

chest

children

circulation

cold

colds/flu/infectious

computer

diabetes

digestion

disc

drugs

education

elbow

endurance

exercise ball

facet joints

Fast Fitness

feet

fix pain

forensic

gait

gardening

hamstring

hand

heat

hip

hip strength

hockey

holiday

hyperbaric

iliotibial band

injury

knees

leg press

leg strength

leg stretch

lordosis/ hyperlordosis

lower back

lunge

martial arts

massage

neck

neutral spine

nutrition

orthotics

osteoporosis

Parkinson

partner exercise

performance enhancing modality

plantar fasciitis

posture

pregnancy

pronation

pulmonary edema/oedema

readers inspiring story

rowing

running

sciatica

scuba

shoes

shoulder

side

sitting

sleep

smoking

soreness

speed

spirit

sprain

squat (full squat and half squat)

strength

stress

stretch

surgery

swimming

toes

upper back

walking

warmup

weight loss

wrist

yoga

Labels: education, holiday

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Grate Christmas

Readers have been asking about overeating, drinking, not having time to exercise, and overstressing on the holidays. Is it unavoidable? How can you resist things that are bad for you. Of all times to mark an occasion that is meaningful to you, that marks endings and new beginnings of a new year, celebrates thanks, a rite of passage, a national day of remembrance, a day marking something holy to your highest beliefs, the reflection of a new things coming, that day is the time to be free of baggage. Of all times to do simple, healthful actions for yourself and others, this is the time.

After the fuss of the holidays, then what? After the smiles and gifts, where are happy times? Where are your resolutions? The rest of the year is also the time to check in on loved ones, sweep the floors of a shut-in, and do healthy actions. At a funeral, everyone is there helping. The next week, the survivors sit alone. On Western Christmas, cars stop at the steam grates to give mittens and treats to the homeless huddled to keep warm. The rest of the year, cars pass without stopping.

On Christmas, most of the grates are empty as the city programs sweep up homeless for day-long programs. Each year before and after Christmas I cook thick vegetable soup, bake fresh loaves, pack up, put on my Santa hat, and head out into the weather to the grates.

We know many of the guys. I make food for them the rest of the year, or we go in the convenience stores to pick up things for them when the store won't let them in. My dinners cast steam curls upward. They chuckled, "Heh heh it be Saaaan--tah." We squatted down with them and unpacked dinner. I gave out toothbrushes as presents. They smiled angelic toothless smiles. They asked me the weather report, which called for storms, but I told them it didn't smell like storms. The air smells different somehow when it is going to storm.

The photo is Paul who worked as a Western-style Santa when we helped at a center. Little girls ran to sit on his lap. So did big girls. Many men too. At almost 7 feet tall, Paul has enough knee-space for everyone.

Christmas is not over. Eastern Orthodox Christmas will be in almost 2 weeks, since the Julian calendar date of 25 December is January 7. Armenian Orthodox celebrate Jan 6. On lunar calendars, there are the Festivals of Light of Devali and hanukah.
The winter solstice, Yalda, Saturnalia, Karachun, Kwanzaa, Yule, "Mother Night or "Modresnach," and Shinto Tohji-taisai are also celebrated around this time. There are festivals of appreciation, such as the Purnima. Islamic New Year of Muharram will be January 10th.

Be happy, be healthy. Is it not hard. It is not expensive. It is not stressful. Breathe. Stretch. Happy Holidays.

Labels: holiday, spirit, stress, weight loss

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Kid Fitness Reading Maps

The solstice is here. The word solstice means "sun (sol) standing still."

Since the September equinox, the earth and sun have moved so that the sun now appears at the southernmost point it will reach. The northern hemisphere has the chilly shortest day of the year, and the southern hemisphere sees the longest day of summer. There it "stands still" before appearing to turn northward again.

Shinto and others celebrate the highest deity, the Goddess who is the Sun. Cultures around the world have traditionally marked this day with observances. It seems a good time to start a nice family activity of learning to read a map and the sky to find your way.

We live in the city and frequently see obvious out-of-towners who need directions. I enjoy stopping to tell them about the sights, sometimes guiding them where they need to go, or taking them to see fun things they didn't know about. One time, the two adults and young children didn't have the usual baffled look, just a map, a compass, and fingers pointing at the map and the air. When I asked them where I could help them get to, they replied they were locals working on spatial direction skills and map reading with their children.

They were teaching the children how to locate where they were and how to go to locations on the map. Then they walked to each place together, enjoying the sights and a day outside, developing their minds and bodies together. Intelligent, happy, active family interaction. That is fitness as a lifestyle.

All children (and adults) should know where they live and how to get back in case of emergency. They should know where help is, and where key people and places are.

Some locations to find using this key mind and body skill with your kids:

• Free library
• Police station
• Firehouse
• Local favorite museums
• Fruit market
• Shelters and project locations for volunteer work
• Finding their own home during any trip, near or far.

Readers, post your comments on beneficial places people should know how to get to, and family ideas. Many Fitness Fixer readers are pilots, navigators, military, search and rescue personnel, law enforcement, and the combination of all of those - parents. Let us know healthy ideas to find our way.

Labels: children, holiday, mind, partner exercise, spirit, walking

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Thanksgiving Health

Every year at Thanksgiving, some of my students are far from home or without a family to visit. We invite them to our little house for a warm meal on cushions by the fireplace.

We tell them the food is vegetarian and we sit on the floor without Western-style furniture. Some suddenly remember an uncle in Boston they'll visit. This year we're pleased that a former student is flying from Japan to visit after studying with us here years ago.

This is the link to last year's Fitness and Health as a Lifestyle for Thanksgiving to help holiday lifting, carrying, cooking, cleaning, and preparations. Here are more easy fun Thanksgiving fitness-as-a-lifestyle ideas:

• If you're traveling far for holiday visits, here is Exercise and Stretch for Long Travel Sitting.
  
  
• Sitting on the floor with good positioning is healthier than in chairs, and gives a built-in hip stretch. Done in rounded positioning, it is the same as bad sitting in chairs. Use Quick and Easy Strength and Balance Exercise.


• Vegetarian and vegan food makes a full, healthy, good tasting Thanksgiving feast. It does not have to be strange or spartan. Avoid unfermented soy in powdered protein drinks, bars, and textured vegetable protein. It is not as healthy as promoted. Real food gives protein, and is healthier. See Is Your Health Food Unhealthful? and Get Muscles for Christmas.


• While standing to prepare food at the counter, put your shoulders back with chin loosely in and hip tucked to neutral - photo example in Fast Fitness - Homemade Sports Food. Then your neck and back will not hurt during cooking.


• Even if you need to hurry to prepare and clean, remember to be happy that you are well-off enough to have things to prepare and clean.


• Have kids help, rather than stressing to do everything alone while they miss the discipline, good habits, and exercise of helping you. Make it fun to be together.


• Instead of hunching shoulders and rushing to get the cooking done, straighten, breathe, and use each stroke of washing and cutting as a meditation.


• Get free bending and spiritual exercise by cleaning closets to donate clothing to warm someone in need. Every year Paul and I stand with a clothing bag in city alleys near the shelters. Extra large homeless women take Paul's extra large shirts and jackets. Squirrelly homeless men pick out my small jeans. They smile jagged-toothed smiles at their new clothes. We enjoy listening to their stories and sharing warm home-baked food with them.


• Laugh until your cheeks hurt.
  


• "Before eating, give thanks to the food" - Arapaho Native American proverb.


• When possessions break, give thanks for having possessions, which is more than much of the world has. When your faucet leaks, give thanks that you have running water. When we lived in Asia, we walked down only two flights to a bathroom then climbed back two flights with a jug of water for cooking. People in many places in the world walk miles just for the privilege of digging for food and carrying heavy water pots back. That gives perspective on Westerners who easily eat much and exercise little, and believe only the most minor contributors to weight gain - Metabolism - How to Lose Weight and Save Money.


• There are groups of mountain monks in Japan, who, after going to the bathroom, give thanks because everything worked. Learn to give thanks for all the little things and big things.


• Get rid of an enemy this Thanksgiving. Abraham Lincoln explained: "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"

We are fortunate to have food, and cushions, and a warm fire, and friends who visit from afar. Thank you readers for using my work to make your lives better. You are my gifts.

More on the exercise of living happily and giving thanks in Healthy Martial Arts.

Labels: children, holiday, posture, spirit, stress

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Happy Birthday Happy Halloween

Happy Birthday to readers who celebrate their birthday today, October 31. Also those with birthdays yesterday and tomorrow. Everyday too.

One reader with a special birthday today is Ivy who turns 71 - Inspiring Ivy. Ivy has been generously sending in stories for all to benefit, giving ideas for healthy exercise as part of normal daily life.


When I posted about Pearl who turned 97 last February and uses Bending Right for Fitness as a Lifestyle, Ivy wrote:

"I hope I can look as great as Pearl does when I reach 97, she is amazing. You will smile when I tell you that I did this fun test on the internet whereby you have to answer 34 questions re your health, what you eat, if you take medication etc. etc. The answer came back that I really was 45.5 years of age and I was going to live until I was 106.5 years of age.

"I had already told my kids that I am going to live until I am 96 and that it would be pay back time. I have now changed it to 106.5 years of age - my very words being "May God help you." Of course they laughed - I reminded them of the old saying 'Words said in Jest.'"

Happy Birthday! We made everyone delicious Internet birthday party and Halloween party food. Everyone come celebrate.

Happy Halloween and everyday. "Boo unto others" with good happy food, activity, and spirit. Celebrate everyday, by eating, moving, and living with fun, happy, intelligent, good spirit. Here is a Halloween poem to laugh:

Don't yell at us
Don't scream and shout
'Cause when we're scared
Our eyes fall out!

Labels: holiday, nutrition, readers inspiring story, spirit

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Mischief is Not Good Exercise - Halloween Ahimsa

The third harvest is here in the Northern Hemisphere. The Hunter's Moon is bright in the sky.

The last harvest of fall is a time of endings and beginnings. More than a commercial holiday of destruction and gruesome death, the approaching winter was historically a time to reverently mark departure of the living and life-giving fields, and be thankful for the harvests they gave. Revering of elders was observed in analogy.

The first and most important precept of thousands of years of yoga and martial arts is ahimsa. Ahimsa means non-violence, non-harm, non-destruction. Ahimsa was reaffirmed in recent times by the Mahatma Gandhi, and in the West by Martin Luther King, Jr. In all the classes I teach, I remind the students that ahimsa is something you incorporate in all your actions. Don't harm yourself by sitting in injury-producing bad slouching. Don't harm yourself with bad exercise. Don't harm yourself by destructive thoughts and actions. Don't harm yourself with unhealthful food and drink. Don't harm yourself by hunching your shoulders to stress through preparing meals, when you can relax your shoulders, straighten your back, breathe, and use each stoke of washing, cutting, and preparing food as beautiful meditation in the same amount of time. Don't harm others with spiteful words, deeds, and thoughts. Don't cause others fear or pain. Don't cause yourself fear and pain.

In many of the countries where we have traveled and lived, lovely short public service announcements occur daily with kind messages of doing good. Television and radio commercials are paid for with no other purpose than to give specific positive examples of helping each other for a better world. Where we have lived in the US, continuous messages of spiteful and worse behavior are common as entertainment.

Several centers in your brain process self-control. They need exercise like anything else. Studies of imaging these brain centers in people who overeat, showed that with retraining, the centers changed in level of activity when pictures of food were viewed. "Exercising self-control" is more than an expression.

Children, and even adults, need consistent positive examples. It is good and crucial exercise. It is easy to destroy, and takes (but also gives) energy to be good. Instead of "Mischief Night" tonight, do good. Instead of spending money on destroying property with thrown eggs and toilet paper, have fun learning a healthful recipe that you can enjoy for years to come. Learn to stand on your hands safely. Paint or draw a picture of a good wish. Talk about how it can come true. Design and construct inspired homemade costumes. Help the community. Volunteer at a shelter. Exercise your spirit. Develop a fun, beautiful positive public service announcement for your home, or a commercial project, that reminds to uplift spirit and behavior. Teach a child something. Don't wait until they are already doing bad. Teach them consistently, before they know to do either, so that they will more often know to choose good and why.

The average American spends nearly $15 on Halloween candy - more than $1 billion total on unhealthful refined sugar and hydrogenated fat candy - just for Halloween. This is not parental love. It is the same as giving them cigarettes or addictive drugs. Change that. Parental love is giving them beautifully functioning self-control brain centers. Halloween story and ideas in Exercise Common Sense Discipline - Turn Down Halloween Junk Food.

Positive behavior is too important to leave up to only the schools, the entertainment industry, the government, the Internet, the home. We all add ahimsa.

Many chapters of ideas for happy bountiful living are in the book Healthy Martial Arts.

Labels: aging, children, holiday, martial arts, mind, nutrition, performance enhancing modality, posture, spirit, stress, yoga

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World Vegetarian Day

"Vegetarians have the best diet. They have the lowest rates of coronary disease of any group in the country. [T]hey have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40 percent of our cancer rate."
—William Castelli, M.D., Director, Framingham Heart Study, the longest-running epidemiological study in medical history

From my work in sports medicine, I will add to Dr. Castelli's work that I see fairly consistent reduction in joint pain and other pain syndromes when patients stop known "inflammatory foods" including meat and dairy.


October 1 is World Vegetarian Day (www.WorldVegetarianDay.org). The month of October is Vegetarian Awareness Month. The purpose is for a happier, more aware and respectful, and healthier society.

Hurting animals is unhealthy for all involved. In the spirit of healthy body and mind, this post gives four ideas:

1. Build your own health and benefit your exercise: food and recipes for better exercise training (regardless of your sport), and preventing disease and pain syndromes. Get the book Healthy Martial Arts


2. Enjoy healthy extra years: From the blog DiseaseProof.com - How Much Longer Do Vegetarians Live?


3. Free vegetarian starter kit, free newsletter, with materials in Spanish, to avoid cruelty to yourself, animals, and the Earth, one meal at a time - TryVeg.com


4. Reduce global warming: GoVeg.org reports on work published in NewScientist.com - It's Better to Green Your Diet Than Your Car (17 Dec. 2005). "You could exchange your "regular" car for a hybrid Toyota Prius and, by doing so, prevent about 1 ton of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year, but according to the University of Chicago, being vegan is more effective in the fight against global warming; a vegan prevents approximately 1.5 fewer tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year than a meat-eater does. The math is simple: You could spend more than $20,000 on a Prius and still emit 50 percent more carbon dioxide than you would if you just gave up eating meat and other animal products."

Feel encouraged. Being vegetarian or making occasional vegetarian meals does not have to involve any strange or expensive foods from specialty stores. You do not need any special pots or food processing equipment. It is a myth that vitamin supplements are necessary. Grocery bills can also be also far less expensive when you don't purchase meat (and don't substitute other expensive food that you do not need).

I will post easy-to-make healthful (real) food for athletes and exercisers, during October vegetarian month, and for Vegan month in November. NonVegetarians are welcome.

Labels: cancer, circulation, fix pain, holiday, nutrition, spirit

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Better Stretches for Swimming - Cook Strait Update

The September equinox was this weekend. At the moment of the equinox, the center of the disk of the sun crosses the equator. The northern hemisphere comes into Fall while the southern hemisphere begins Spring. For the day before and after that moment, the entire apparent disk of the sun passes the equator, and night and day are approximately equal length all over the world.

Japan celebrates three days before and after the equinox as a time for life reflection, looking forward and back. A Mid-Autumn Festival of the second of three fall harvests is celebrated in many East Asian communities around this time on a varying lunar calendar. The full moon closest to the Autumn equinox is the Harvest Moon, lighting long evenings of harvest work. The moon all during the month of the Autumn equinox is the Wine Moon, a good time for grape harvest, occurring (usually) around September in the northern hemisphere and March in the southern hemisphere.

With this equinox, the weather is warming in the Southern Hemisphere, meaning increased swim training for New Zealander 'Dr. Ernie' (blog name).

He is training to swim the 16 miles of the Cook Straight, introduced in May's post Sixteen Miles of Cold Water and updated in Getting Fitter in 50 Degrees.

Dr. Ernie sent the photo at left and wrote,

"This phase has been one of knuckling down. So here goes:
"Cook Strait Swim: Phase II
"Now it gets serious.....

"On June 6 I completed my last open water swim in Wellington Harbour in water temps of about 14 C: It felt really cold, the coldest I've experienced. The swim lasted 45 minutes and I noted that afterwards I didn't shiver at all -- a clear sign of acclimatization. I was advised by all to start serious swim technique and endurance preparation in the pool.

"I met with Phil Rush -- the man who has crossed the Strait seven times (including a double-crossing) and who holds the world's record for a triple crossing of the English Channel. He will be piloting the support boat for my attempt, which will hopefully be in February 2008. His advice: swim, swim, swim -- get up to 40 km/week by December (approx 25 statute miles or 21.6 nautical miles), and then be ready to take a 6-hour test in early January. In the test I will have to demonstrate that I can sustain at least a 3 km/hour pace for the 6 hours (a little under 2 miles per hour, a mid-training pace).

"Since July, I've been meeting with my coach, a former Olympian (I'll not mention his name until I've made it successfully across the Strait) and it's been hard going. But very necessary. What I assumed I could do on my own proved to be incorrect. For one, basic aspects of technique have been clarified and my entire stroke has been reworked in the past two months -- a good thing because I don't have a competitive swimming background and I've been doing lots of stuff to create drag. If' I' m to make it across the Strait I'll have to be extremely efficient. And I'll have to be able to keep up pace to stay warm. So my coach had done several important things: first, he's forced me to realign my body position, stressing posture, line and balan