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Fast Fitness - Concentration Training
Friday, March 26, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - improve concentration and focus, for mental and physical tasks at once, a true mind and body.
"Side note on plank and thinking. I have been trying to recite a kata narration (the moves of a karate sequence) from memory during a plank and find it incredibly difficult to concentrate. At first it was just plan different and difficult, now it seems to get difficult after 30secs. (the memory verbal part) It’s like I can feel my brain trying to multitask, and misfiring.
"I suppose this is a type of stressful concentration training and is good for the brain. Makes me wonder what other psychological/physiological benefits there may be."
Speaking a sequence or other specific chain of events at the same time as directing your body to do unrelated sequences requires a collection of concentration and focus.
Hold a plank
Recite the directions to your school or workplace, the steps of your martial arts forms, or other sequences
While still holding your plank, recite the steps backward
It takes intense practice before physical movements become automatic while mental focus is directed separately. This is a fun, wise, important, and functional thing to practice and train. Training automaticity is never an excuse to text and drive. The difficulty of this training drill demonstrates why it results in so many accidents.
Coming soon: Taking this to the next step for more physical concentration training
Winter Olympics 2010 Ends, Paralympics 2010 Begins, Next Olympics in 2012 and 2014
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada ends Feb 28th, 2010. Then the (10th or X) Paralympic Winter Games run March 12 to March 21, 2010.
The 2010 Paralympic Torch Relay begins in Ottawa, Ontario on March 3. Unlike the Olympic flame, the Paralympic flame has no traditional starting place. Approximately 600 torchbearers will carry the Paralympic Flame until reaching the 2010 Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony on March 12 at the BC Place Stadium, in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The 2010 games are the second time Canada hosts the Paralympic Games.
Thirty nations will compete in five sports:
Alpine skiing
Biathlon
Cross-country skiing
Wheelchair curling
Sledge hockey
The next Winter Olympics will be the 2014, XXII (twenty-second) Olympic Games in Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The next Summer Olympic games will be the 2012 Games in London. The International Olympic Committee approved adding golf, rugby, and women's boxing for the 2012 program. Karate did not make the vote to be in the Olympic games.
--- Read success stories and send your own. See if your answers are already here - click Fitness Fixer labels, links, archives, andIndex. Subscribe free - updates via e-mail or RSS, upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
This weekend we will attend the Black Belt Hall of Fame event hosted by the Eastern USA Martial Arts Association. Paul and I are honored to be invited back this year, and receive awards for Instructor of the Year. I will teach a workshop on Stretching Smarter for Martial Artists.
Why stretch smarter? Many standard stretches work to increase flexibility but don't improve martial arts or other sports, and aren't good for the joints.
Martial artists and other athletes often develop injuries from years of bad stretches. It's understandable to put yourself in harm's way to carry children and elders from a burning building, or suffer cold and hypoxia rescuing a stranded mountaineer. It's silly to injure yourself doing stretches and exercises you think are for your health. In martial arts you can harden your body to withstand blows through difficult and uncomfortable training, but it isn't the point of martial arts or other sports and activities to beat up yourself. I cover the difference between toughening the body and injuring it in the seminar and in my book Healthy Martial Arts.
My workshop teaches functional flexibility - changing your body to work better in real ways needed for daily life and fighting arts.
The hall of Fame event is by invitation only. Contact:
Executive Director Soke Kanzler Eastern U.S.A. International Martial Arts Association 1 (800) 456-3872 EUSAIMAA@aol.com P.O. Box 9642 Pittsburgh Pennsylvania 15226 USA
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer - Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal feedback. Top students may apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Reader Success With Functional Fitness Training - Stronger Ankles, Better Balance
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is a good start to October. I had invited readers to send in names for my group Functional Fitness Training program (tentatively named FFT) and success stories using it. Reader Paul J sent in both. He wrote:
"I don't think I can come up with a better name than FFT.
"Some ideas….let's see,
"Simple Training Big Benefits. (The toe balance training is great; I suppose a success story is in order.) Bookspan's Basic Training. Bookspan's Body Basics. Basic Fitness Training Basic Functional Fitness Jolie's Joint Jewels (That has a nice ring to it, it might be good for something like a list.) Functional Physical Training.
"Well, what do you think, any keepers?"
Readers - votes? The "Basic Functional Fitness" name has the advantage (as does "Bookspan Functional Fitness") of the initials BFF, young person lingo for "Best Friend Forever."
Paul J. continued with his success story:
"I have been doing your toe balance training and have noticed some interesting things. Before I learned your toe balance training I would usually stand on one foot to put my sock on and had decent balance from martial arts, but felt my ankles were weak. I even bought a BOSU and it may have helped, but you have to be on it, to get a benefit from it. I remember the first time I tried your technique and how quickly my right foot tried to roll out.
"Thanks to your simple do-anywhere training my ankles are stronger and my balance is much better. The other day stepping out of the tub I had such an odd sense of stability when standing on just my right foot, I looked at my ankle. My general balance has improved too. I have a folding bike with 20” wheels and for the past 3 years hands free was a very bad idea, just the other day it was quite easy. All though to some this may still be a bad idea, it was done in a nice low traffic neighborhood.
"May your favorite physiologist have a fun Friday afternoon. : ) "
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy.
Want mind and body? ChessBoxing is a sport from Germany that combines "the number one thinking sport with the number one fighting sport." Fighters go 6 rounds of chess and 5 of boxing in 11 alternating rounds. ChessBoxing decision is by checkmate or knockout.
Competitors must have an ELO chess rating of 1,800 or above and have fought a minimum of 20 real boxing matches. (Elo rating, named for creator Arpad Elo, is one of several chess rating systems.)
Click the > arrow to watch a short video of ChessBoxing.
ChessBoxing origin is attributed to cartoonist Enki Bilal from his 1992 novel Froid Équateur. Dutch artist Lepe Rubingh was inspired by it to hold a live tournament
ChessBoxing spokesman Bill Schneider says, "The most difficult part of the game is making the transition from the ring to the board. “Your pulse is not a problem, but the adrenaline certainly is. It makes you want to play a far more attacking game of chess than you ordinarily would, and that often leads to mistakes.”
--- Before asking questions, see if your answers are already in labels and comments under posts, links in posts, archives, and the Fitness Fixer Index. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy.
My husband Paul and I had trained in the martial arts together since our teens. Years later, we were both black belts, teaching martial arts. One day I asked Paul what was his life dream. He told me he wanted to train in Japan. I found work there teaching at a medical school, getting the chance to do some interesting comparative orthopedics, found a place to stay with people we had once helped, and arranged to train at the Japan Karate Association, the JKA. Eleven days after arriving, we suddenly had no more place to stay, and were standing on the street needing to immediately speak more Japanese than karate and medical words.
We landed on our feet, getting a small apartment in northern Tokyo, and training daily. We were invited to the training camp of a Japanese living treasure, and left our little place to head south.
After the training camp ended, we traveled in the coastal areas of the renowned Diving Women of Japan. I had heard of them since I was very small, studied them in graduate physiology classes, and wanted to know if the stories were true.
We were invited to stay with the Ama diving women in several villages. "Ama" literally means "sea woman" in Japanese. When you spell 'ama' you use two kanji characters, 'sea' and 'woman.' In Japan, they are more properly called Ama-San; "San" is an honorific suffix. The Japanese have long held these professional diving women in high regard for their hard-working life.
The SeaWomen have breath-hold dived in chilly waters for perhaps thousands of years to harvest shellfish, seaweed, and other food. They were the major providers for their villages. At one time, the Ama-San were the world's largest fleet of commercial divers. Now there are few left. The youngest are in their 50's. The oldest working divers are now 70 and 80 years old, and even older. The daughters move to the cities, not wanting to train in the cold waters with their mothers to become Ama-San. Soon there may be no more.
In the West in the 1960's and early 70's, there was a sudden scientific interest in studying the mammalian dive reflex. Many studies centered on the Ama. Scientists wanted to study how deep they dived and for how long, to measure slowing of heart rate and redistribution of blood from limbs to the core, representative of the dive reflex. Studies were also initiated to estimate oxygen saturation and decompression stress. It was often conceded that the real interest in the Ama was because they dived nearly naked.
--- Questions come in by hundreds. I'm bailing the ocean with a bucket. I make posts from fun mail. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Why not try fun stuff, then contribute! Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
An old sports medicine joke says that if you pull a groin muscle, make sure it is someone else's. Here is less known info for Friday Fast Fitness - do you stretch in a way that groin pulls are more likely to happen to you?
When you lift one leg to kick, stretch, or step up, you can get the needed range from the upper leg muscles, or you can just round your back. Many people round the spine and roll the hip under (tuck too much) to make the stretch easier. They don't get the stretch from the muscles high in the leg, leaving the area tight.
In event of large or sudden kick, step, or slip, high forces pull on tight groin muscles. Varying degrees of injury can occur, or the tight area yanks the standing leg out from under and the person falls backward suddenly - seen in aerobics and martial arts classes, and funny video shows. Then the person hobbles around saying they don't understand it since they do their stretching, and articles get published that stretching doesn't work and no one know why.
Being so tight that your other leg comes forward with the lifted one, comes from bad stretching habits that allow hip and pelvis to round and tuck under too much:
When you stand on one leg and lift the other, don't bend at the knee and hip, pictured at left. Straighten your back with chin loosely in, not rounded forward. Hold pelvis upright without letting it tilt and round under you, pictured right.
Keep the standing leg normally straight (not locked straight, but not bent more than normal standing). Stand straight and relaxed (both at once). Don't force or strain. Breathe.
Feel more stretch in the front thigh and groin of the standing leg.
Check your stretching, kicking, and stepping. Check if you round your back and hip when taking the stairs, stretching while standing, and stretching lying on your back.
When lying on your back to stretch by lifting one leg, keep the other leg flat on the floor, not bent at the knee and hip. It is a myth that you must bend your knees when stretching legs to protect your back. If you must bend your knees to protect your back, how are you supposed to stand normally and move?
Prevent Stretch And Exercise Habits Promoting Tight Anterior Hip:
--- Questions come in by hundreds. I'm bailing the ocean with a bucket. I make posts from fun mail. Before asking for more, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Why not read and learn, then contribute! Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Fast Fitness - Better Standing Hamstring, Achilles, and Inside Leg Stretch
Friday, June 12, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - get a better stretch for the hamstring of the standing leg when stretching the other leg to the side:
When you stand with one leg stretching to the side, notice the leg you are standing on. It is common to stand with the foot turned outward and the hip rounded under you.
Instead, turn the standing leg to face directly ahead. Knee and toes straight forward. Not turned out, not even a small amount. Stand straight.
Notice the stretch move to the back of your leg.
My student Leslie is pictured above at age 68. I snapped this shot of her while she was waiting for one of my classes. The position of the foot on the standing leg isn't visible, but she is straight ahead. I had to snap the photo quickly before the club manager told us to stop.
Stand straight without leaning over, rounding your upper body, or letting your hip round under you. This is different from the way most people are used to.
The straighter you stand, the more stretch, while training the function of healthy posture - a functional stretch. You need to be able to lift one leg without being so tight that your back rounds and your hip rolls under. Think of stairs, kicks for dancing, aerobics, martial arts, stepping over things, stairs, much real life. If you are not only using bad mechanics for daily life, but training unhealthful tight mechanics with conventional bent over stretching, what are you accomplishing?
If you can't stand straight, lower your leg to where you can. There is little point stretching for health while practicing unhealthful ways.
What has happened in a year? She can now do 40 push-ups. We just don't have a video camera. While we get one, click the link to do your push-ups with her each morning while it is still only 30.
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, or in the Fitness Fixer Index.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - by special request of martial arts students starting my summer semester university class this Tuesday - Make a quick soreness relief rub at home:
Cut open hot red peppers and remove the seeds. If you have sensitive skin, use gloves.
Crush the seeds using a mortar and pestle. If you don't have that, try a mallet or any pounding tool. More seeds makes a hotter rub. Experiment sensibly. Crush in some pulp of the red pepper (or a green one) to add substance and color.
Add oil to preferred thickness. Coconut oil is great, and becomes solid in cool temperatures. Or try sesame or olive oil, whatever is healthy and handy in the kitchen. Rub on sore areas.
Some commercial preparations contain petroleum products, like Vaseline, unhealthy for bodies like the Earth and you. Some contain methyl salicylate. Even though these are natural plant substances, poisonings and overdoses are common. Other soreness balms contain any number of toxic substances. Fresh, healthful hot pepper rub is quick and good.
**Wash your hands well with soap before touching your eyes or using the bathroom to avoid burning the touched areas. Be sure to remove hot pepper traces before handling contact lenses.**
Make sure it is your muscles that are sore from good honest effort, not joint injury:
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, or in the Fitness Fixer Index.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Partner 1 (white uniform) does biceps curls and other lifts using partner 2's weight.
Partner 2 uses core and whole body strength and endurance to hold straight positioning. Partner 2 can face up, down or sideways, in each case using appropriate muscles to maintain straight position. Breathe normally.
This Fast Fitness can be done with willing friends, children, pets, and furniture.
Partner 1 uses core and abdominal muscles to stand with neutral spine rather than leaning backward, and whole body strength to support weight of partner 2.
It is a myth that you must lean back to offset a carried load. You get intense and functional abdominal muscle workout by using them to pull you forward to neutral standing position.
I once used this exercise of holding straight horizontal position (partner 2's part) while helping out a friend who is a stage magician. I filled in for his absent assistant for the floating lady illusion. I was too tall for the apparatus. It usually holds your body out flat using struts reaching from head to thigh. It reached only to my midback. I wound up holding my weight myself, from hips to feet - high above the stage - while trying to look hypnotized. More on this, someday, in another post.
I make posts from fun mail. Before asking more questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Try fun stuff, then contribute! Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy. ---
Surgery for Knee Arthritis, Meniscus, Not Needed To Stop Pain, Restore Function
Monday, January 19, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Good news. If you don't like or want knee surgery for most arthritis or meniscus injury, you don't have to have it. Lack of need for surgery has been demonstrated over many years in rehabilitation populations, and in a mostly ignored older clinical study. Recent studies confirm you can stop most pain and restore function just as well without surgery through good physical rehab.
Millions of Americans undergo arthroscopic surgery for knee pain every year. Over the last 30 years, arthroscopic surgery has been routinely accepted and prescribed for knee pain without undergoing rigorous evaluation.
Even when a 2002 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) found that results of arthroscopic surgery for knee osteoarthritis were no higher than medicine and physical therapy alone, the surgical community "remained unswayed."
Dr. Brian Feagan, co-author of a study in the Sept. 11 2008 issue of the NEJM stated, "It really didn't change practice that much. That's why this second [study] was really important."
Feagan's randomized, controlled trial involved 178 patients, average age 60. All had moderate-to-severe osteoarthritis of the knee. Half underwent arthroscopic surgery plus medical and physical therapy. The other half used medical and physical therapy alone. After two years, both groups' scores on a measure of arthritis severity were about the same.
A second study also published in the same journal issue, found that meniscal tears are common in the general population and, "may not, in fact, be responsible for painful symptoms." That means that if you have knee pain, and have scans and imaging which show a meniscus tear, it may not even be the tear that is causing the pain.
"There's going to be a swing in practice," said Dr. Feagan.
Study authors stated that meniscal tears detected on MRI may confuse matters and lead to unnecessary therapy. This is a similar finding to back pain where patients with pain are shown to have a herniated disc, stenosis, or other finding, but the pain is not from the anatomical finding, but the same bad movement habits, slouching, and lack of good movement that make anyone hurt. Discs also often appear herniated, and spines compressed by stenosis on scans of people with no back pain. Don't base your treatment and future on a picture. Scans are not tea leaves.
Supportive and inflexible shoes are often prescribed in the belief that they restore healthy tracking, but studies show that these shoes increase knee load and tendency to arthritis. You may do rehab for the meniscus that shows up on x-ray, but still have pain that may only be from the from hard "supportive" shoes. You can "support" and align and stabilize your own feet and ankles and knees using good mechanics and your own muscles.
Poor knee stability increases risk of developing arthritis, and increases wear on the meniscus. Studies tracking results for years following surgery are finding that surgery "adds no benefit over rehabilitative training alone." That means you don't need the surgery to fix or prevent possible future arthritis.
--- I make posts from fun mail and success stories. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Why not try fun stuff, then contribute! Read success stories of these methods and send your own. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Fast Fitness - High Core Strength For The New Year
Friday, January 02, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - a quick fun one to fulfill New Year's Resolutions for increased strength of body and core. Strengthen almost everything with this fun move that my students affectionately call "peeing dog" -
Hold a straight pushup position. Keep elbows slightly bent, not locked.
Lift one leg straight out to the side, as if over a bicycle. Hold as long as you can. Jump to switch other leg out to the other side.
Hold neutral spine throughout (pictured at center). Don't let lower spine or neck droop under your weight (gray shirt second from right). This post shows how - Fast Fitness - Strengthen by Changing Your Plank.
Send your photos or short movies of your successes doing this. Coming soon - an even more fun and challenging maneuver once you can do this one.
Photo is from my workshop at the 2007 International Black Belt Hall of Fame.
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This weekend, we will be at the International Black Belt Hall of Fame. Top martial artists and their students attend from all over the world.
I will teach a seminar on Stretching Smarter. Research is increasingly showing that conventional stretching is often not preventing or helping heal injuries. My seminar covers state of the art changes to stretch methods to restore function rather than doing artificial movements for arbitrary range of motion. Stretching Smarter workshops for the general public and medical personnel are planned for the Spring of 2009. Through cooperation of the International Academy of Functional Fitness, we hope to have certifications in place. See information on workshops on my website CLASS page.
Grandmaster Kanzler and Kim Harper and staff work tirelessly all year to make each year's Hall of Fame event. Photos are still not posting to show Hall of Fame training and the seminars. Hopefully will follow. For now, it's a martial arts visualization exercise. Paul and I were inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame several years ago and have been invited back each year as teachers. I am back in a white do-gi (karate training uniform). I left karate years ago to compete, train, and teach in other styles. This year, Paul reopened our karate dojo (training hall) after many years. I have returned to karate as his student. Check the CLASS page if you want to study karate with Paul at the new center. Scroll down to the karate class description.
I won't have e-mail for a few days to answer questions. Several posts are having technical trouble posting my replies to comments anyway, as part of overall temporary difficulties with the Blogger. Blogger needs a rest too, why not. I am preparing some of the reader questions as posts to come.
The Hall of Fame event is by invitation only. To attend or stop by and say hello this weekend, contact the International Headquarters of the International USA Martial Arts Association, 1-800-456-3872. Tell them I referred you.
---
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Beijing Olympics & Martial Arts Class Teach Common Sense Cooperation
Monday, August 11, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
The opening ceremonies of the Beijing Summer Olympics were a quiet, powerful reminder of mutual cooperation as path to strength, beauty, and peace. Thousands danced in metaphor for healthy society - that we cooperate to create a masterpiece, and each individual is significant. Responsibility and support flow both ways.
Paul and I were in China in 2001 for a martial arts competition. I hope to post training stories with some of the motivating photos from there. Discipline and eagerness to do good were all around us. We haven't been back to China yet, although we live in other areas of Asia for part of each year. In many places where we live there, human, animal, and machine-powered vehicles of every description overflow the roads, in all directions at once, often with no traffic lights or signs to guide. Both lanes may flow in either or both directions at once. Turns occur any place needed at the moment. Problems are infrequent because people are taught cooperation from early age. It is an Eastern philosophy, way of life, discipline, and virtue. Words are not needed. Westerns who are not aware that cooperation and thoughtfulness is taking place mistake this highly evolved order for disorder. When tourists see someone coming their way, they may not not cede way or cooperate, but insist that others are in their way. Traffic accidents frequently involve tourists.
When I teach martial arts classes in the US, I teach beginning students something that startles them. If a blow is coming toward you, don't stand there and get hit. Move out of the way. Some students first insist on trying to bat my arm/leg/head out of the way with theirs. I tell them not to do that. If two arms hit each other, whose will win, theirs or the other person's? You don't know? Better to get out of the way instead. What if it is an incoming baseball bat. Or weapon. Or an opponent you have gravely misjudged,even if they only seem to be an old lady. In Zen the concept is called, "Don't be there." In common sense it is called "duck." Some beginners insist the air is theirs to stand in and they want to meet an incoming object with their body. Instead of ducking, or at the least, deflecting it without damage to any party (or maybe training some discipline and arm hardening techniques), they throw their arm up to meet mine, then depart class cursing and exaggerating to administration that they broke their arm, and that they were right to deliberately disobey the teacher who was teaching a valuable lesson called, don't hurt yourself or others. In class, I give the students a moving drill. They practice a specific footwork drill to keep them moving. I walk around the class - right in their way, one student at a time. They are confused. Some try to push or hit me to get me out of *their* way. Some try to stand still to resist, but get deflected off balance. This continues until one student remembers the point of the lesson. They get the smart idea to go *around* me. The message - polite, cooperation. No confrontation. No hitting someone in your way, or believing no one owns the ground but you. Just smile and say excuse me. It seems to be a titanic message to some.
Click the arrow to watch group traffic cooperation in this short movie from a street in Vietnam.
Paul and I are comically (to locals in the street) co-occupying a tiny front basket of a bicycle rickshaw. Locals routinely travel by pedicab, but our height and Paul's epic shoulders blocking the driver's view and feet at the same time caused so much merriment by on-lookers that it won us many new friends that day. The driver looked to weigh no more than 100 pounds (45 kilos), pedaling a steel bicycle weighting at least 200 pounds (90kg). In another post I will tell of Paul's and my ride on an Olympic bobsled on an actual competition track. A professional driver took first seat of the 4 man sled, and we put Paul in second seat, as it was the only place for his long legs. For new readers, Paul is almost 7 feet tall (2 meters, 13cm). We were supposed to have a 4G ride (4 times the usual pull of gravity on earth), but Paul's giant feet, it turned out, prevented the driver's elbows from moving enough to steer the 15 sharp turns. We got quite an extra ride - the wildest the driver said he ever had. To be continued in a future post on g-forces.
China posts to come - Athletes are afraid of the squat toilets, why some Chinese citizens wear masks, Eastern societal practices that promote physical health through advanced age, answers to reader questions that pile in, and more on Olympics and human potential.
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"Hello, I'm writing as someone who has incurred a training-related lower back injury and who has great interest in your words on hyperlordosis. I am hoping that you might shed some insight on how to achieve a neutral spine while doing "kettlebell swings." This is the exercise that has caused me back pain, and I would love to return to working out with kettlebells, but am not sure how to do so without creating too much lordosis. Any ideas? I appreciate any assistance you can provide and thank you for your contributions! Take care, Dan L"
Throughout history, people have lifted and swung weights of all kinds of shapes. Kettle bells (also called kettle balls and many other names) are usually ball-shaped weights with a handle. A variety of sizes is shown in the photo, above, along with a medicine ball for comparison.
Kettle bells were long used in various martial arts and cultural festivals and contests before being rediscovered for modern weight lifting. In general, you lift, swing, and move them to do various weight lifting exercises. Kettle bells are weights. Benefits of kettlebells are the same as lifting and swinging other kinds of weights.
The photo above shows injurious lower spine posture of the person lifting or swinging overhead, called overarching, swayback or hyperlordosis. His upper body tilts backward relative to the lower spine. There is too much inward curve, pinching and compressing the lower spine. You can even see this pinched fold in his lower back. This poor posture is a common cause of lower back pain. People who chronically over-arch this way often feel they need to bend over forward to make the pain stop. However, using neutral spine and not allowing the slouch while lifting overhead would stop the cause in the first place - right photo below.
Recent kettlebell devotees have made a small set of lifts, and limit swings to mostly vertical swings up and down between the legs. However, a wider range of movement and more function can be trained. Great benefits are possible using weights with handles for functional core stability training, as below.
The photos above, of injurious overarched spine position (left) and healthy neutral (right) while swinging a heavy medicine ball overhead, are from the book Healthy Martial Arts. My black belt student Christopher demonstrates. This is a similar motion as swinging kettle bells overhead by the handle.
In the left photo, Christopher demonstrates the hyperlordosis posture that compresses the lower spine and is a major cause of lower back pain. He allows the hip (pelvis) to tilt forward in front and out in back, and his upper body tilts backward relative to the lower spine. In the right photo, he reduces the overarching to neutral spine. The belt line changes from tipped downward in front to level.
Keep neutral spine when lifting and swinging kettlebells and any weight overhead (right photo). Prevent the slouch of leaning your upper body backward and tilting the pelvis (left photo). Leaning backward and allowing the hip to tilt are often mistakenly done to "balance the weight" and make the lift easier. Leaning the upper body back and tilting the pelvis are not necessary to balance a load - your own muscles can hold the load, and in fact, that is the point of lifting the weights.
Overarching increases the small normal small inward curve (normal small lordosis) to a large curve (hyperlordosis). Hyperlordosis increases compression on the joints (facets) and soft tissue of the lower spine. The same overarching is the hidden cause of back pain in women who lean back and/or tilt the hip trying to offset the load of a pregnancy - Back Pain in Pregnancy - and Why Men Can Get It. Leaning backward and overarching are not helpful adaptations as sometime thought, are not unavoidable, and are not limited to pregnant women. Overarching (hyperlordosis) is a common bad posture, and an often missed source of back pain. It can be easily prevented by using your muscles to hold neutral spine. The post Prevent Back Surgery shows photos of hyperlordosis compared to neutral spine during many activities.
Bending over forward to swing kettlebells between the legs is another exercise where injury and back pain frequently occur. Good squatting technique reduces the problem. Often weight lifters spend much time learning and debating good squat posture, then bend over (injurious bad bending) to pick up and put down their kettlebells.
Neutral spine while exercising with kettle bells is the same as neutral spine during anything else - just hold your spine position. Neutral spine is not done by tightening or clenching any muscles. It is done by moving your hip and lower spine the same way you move your arm to scratch your nose - without tightening, just moving it to where you want it. Holding neutral spine is the same as not slouching your shoulders or not letting your mouth hang open - a voluntary use of your own muscles - built-in exercise.
Keep breathing, Have fun. You can swing weights of any kind in any variety of ways, to be stronger and healthier, without injury.
Learn neutral spine swinging kettlebells, babies, and all other fun weightlifting:
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.
Walk Lightly - Shock Absorption for Happier Joints
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
"Your tread must be light and sure as though your path were upon rice paper
"This rice paper is the test Fragile as the wings of the dragonfly
"Clinging as the cocoon of the silkworm When you can walk its length and leave no trace You will have learned" - Master Khan to Grasshopper in the 70's TV series Kung Fu
Walk, run, jump, and move lightly.
Movement is good for you. Muscles pulling on bones increases bone density. Vibration transmitted through the body from motion of running, dancing, jumping, and having fun is healthy, refreshing, and stimulates cell growth. A certain amount of impact from movement is necessary for health.
Banging down too hard with each step is not good for your body. It increases risk of joint pain and plantar fasciitis. I tell my students to stop jarring their joints without shock absorption when they walk and move and jump. One day, a student asked me "How?" Here are some things to try:
1. I asked the student to stomp his foot. Then I asked him to place his foot down lightly. That is how.
2. Use an analog bathroom scale. Step on heavily and see the numbers go up high. Then step on again lightly and see that the last number reached is a lower number. In sports medicine, we use force plates to measure ground forces when an athlete jumps or runs by.
3. While moving, make less noise. It doesn't mean to tip-toe. Walk and run with regular heel to toe gait, but lightly.
4. Try walking with a full-to-the-brim cup of hot coffee or any liquid. Don't tip-toe, just walk softly without spilling any.
5. Practice jumping in the air and landing softly. Bend your knees when landing. Increase the height of the jump, maintain soft landing. Work up to jumping down from increasing heights without making a sound, or much sound.
As you read this, we have been traveling for work and are again on several days of flights back to Asia, with a few errands on the way. For the next two months in Asia, I will check in and post from Internet cafes as we make our way through work and travel on overnight trains and ferries. Here is the link to the post and photos from last year on our way back.
I won't have access to Internet or e-mail for the next week. If you have questions, I won't be able to receive them until after that. Check for posts already here on Fitness Fixer. The post New Year's Resolutions Made Easy gave a list of labels that access all posts with each topic. I drafted a post on long sitting that Healthline staffer Jerry will post for you on Wednesday, thank you Jerry.
If you send photos, send small jpgs so that my e-mail does not fill, and so that I can directly upload them without finding a graphics program to resize them for posts.
Later this month, at the full moon, we hope to be learning more about wound healing at the Thaipusam. Then back to the north to the Muay Thai Monks on Horseback, and training at several places in Thai Boxing.
On our travels through Thailand we hope to see our friends, including an eagle who adopted me.
These ladies are in their 80's and 90's. Last year we all went to the King of Thailand's flower exposition. They wore their best clothes. When friends arrived with their truck, the ladies easily climbed up the tailgate over the side of the truck bed. I thought Paul and I should ride outside and let them sit inside. The daughter took my arm and said, "No. She stronger dan yooou!" They explained that the Grandmothers had sat outside all their lives, and walked before they had rides.
We will stay for some time at a school that has become a home to us. The cook there, named Ahn, escaped from desperate conditions in Myanmar (Burma). Earning a few dollars a day in Thailand, working long days without time off, is riches by comparison. One year I got her a children's ABC book to learn to read English. I was thrilled when she took the arm of another Burmese helper and sat with the book, writing in page after page. She worked on it for days. She proudly presented it to me - translated all in Burmese. She thought I wanted to learn Burmese and spent her only free time to do this as a present for me.
A few years ago, before leaving the US for Asia, some of my students asked if they could donate to help her. About 150 students enthusiastically agreed. They signed a card, that we translated into Burmese. They all put money in a hat, totaling strangely, only about $50. I matched it to make a $100 gift. This is more than a month's salary for Ahn. We could give her much, put her niece through school, with so little.
I put it in a drab little purse and wrapped it as a present. Ahn graciously received the gift of what she thought was an ugly cheap bag. She smiled and thanked us and bowed low. I told her, "Look inside later." The next year, we found that she donated the entire amount to the temple to ask for blessings - for us.
At the same school, the Grandmother there is a feisty funny lady. We came to love her quickly and look forward to seeing her every year. She is in her 90's. I am not sure exactly, but maybe more than 95. She loves to joke and tease. In the photo above she is sitting at lunch that Ahn brought. She sits easily in full squat and rises easily.
Once as we were entering the school, she squatted down fully to rummage through her purse to get her keys. I tried to get her photo. When she saw me raise a camera, she bolted up and ran to a table with Western style chairs, and sat there, upright, with legs crossed and hands on her knees. She said she didn't want her photo "sitting like a farmer." Nothing I could manage to ask in my best Thai convinced her to let me show the world how strong and great she is.
Last year, while visiting them, the subject of Muay Thai came up, a martial art which is the national sport. She once ran a Muay Thai school. The next thing we knew, she was giving us lessons. I trained and competed in Muay Thai in the Netherlands and Thailand, and know that she gave us all a tough training. Then she grabbed her friend, a lady in her late 80's and sat her on the floor for a lesson too. Look how easily they bend and sit on the floor in this photo.
Here is a short movie of the last 30 seconds of her giving a lesson. Click the arrow to play. Watch how easily they both rise to a stand at the end. We hope you feel happy and inspired by her, and try it too. Last summer, she passed away, strong to the last.
Click the arrow > to play this video I took of her teaching:
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It takes intense practice before physical movements become automatic while mental focus is directed separately. This is a fun, wise, important, and functional thing to practice and train. Training automaticity is never an excuse to text and drive. The difficulty of this training drill demonstrates why it results in so many accidents.
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