Relaxation of Muscles DURING Exercise

I recently read Lynn Hill's book, "Climbing Free--My Life in the Vertical World." I found a page in it that describes something I am encouraging some of my clients to work on, and that is learning how to relax muscles that are not actively being used during certain moves (or exercises). This ability is always useful, but it is most beneficial when doing any activity that requires endurance, because by relaxing muscles that are not needed for the activity, you do not expend excess energy (on unnecessary muscle contractions)--and the energy you do have goes into only what is needed to complete a move or sequence of movements.

This means any muscles, not just the big ones! So, for example, even learning how to relax your hands and fingers, or you facial muscles, can help conserve energy that can then be used for the run or climb or long-distance swim.

Here is the quote from Lynn's book:

Planning on a midsummer ascent, I started training in early spring. I ran and climbed nearly every day, increasing the intensity of my efforts on a weekly basis. Because I was preparing to free climb a thirty-three-pitch route, I needed plenty of endurance and a high level of power; the most difficult sections of the Nose begin after nearly 2,000 feet of climbing. As I practiced going the farthest while expending the least amount of energy, I discovered a new consciousness in my climbing.

I learned to appreciate how subtle shifts in my attitude could greatly affect the quality of my movements. By focusing on maintaining a "soft grip" and a "relaxed face," I was better able to relax all the muscles not necessary for each movement. By observing my breathing patterns, I discovered that while reaching in stretched-out positions, it was helpful to inhale in order to gain extra lift, and conversely, while making powrerful or dynamic moves, it was helpful to exhale air in a quick burst or to make a karate-style grunt. I focused on maximizing the use of momentum in order to move quickly through awkward body positions or to jump between holds instead of wasting precious strength. Conversely, I practiced minimizing all excess movement to arrive at a "still point" before committing to a delicate move.

Throughout the months of training, I practiced an attitude of acceptance; no matter what the situation presented, I made an effort to remain patient and relaxed each step of the way. My intent was to pay attention to my intuitive sense and follow the natural intelligence of the body. When I made this shift in emphasis, my whole approach changed.

Gokhale Method

Flamingo Fitness Studio is hosting a studio viewing of a free online workshop in the Gokhale Method of back care. The workshop will be held on Tuesday, July 10th at 5:15 pm. If you are local to the Olympic Peninsula and wish to attend, please RSVP via email, or call 360-683-2082. If you are out of the area, you can click the following link and sign up for it yourself:
Gokhale Method Free Online Workshop

The founder of this method is Esther Gokhale, author of "8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back." Here is a link to Esther Gokhale's web site: Gokhale Method Institute

Give Your Brain a Real Workout

The following quote is from a fascinating book titled, The Invisible Gorilla--How Our Intuitions Deceive Us, by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons.

"In promoting Brain Age, Nintendo's website makes the following broad claim about how its products enhance brain function:

Everyone knows you can prevent muscle loss with exercise, and use such activities to improve your body over time. And the same could be said for your brain. The design of Brain Age is based on the premise that cognitive exercise can improve blood flow to the brain. All it takes is as little as a few minutes of play time a day. For everyone who spends all their play time at the gym working out the major muscle groups, don't forget--your brain is like a muscle, too. And it craves exercise.

As it turns out, the final science is accurate, but not in the way that Nintendo's marketers intended. They meant to imply that cognitive exercise is necessary to keep your brain functioning well. In reality, aerobic physical exercise is likely far better for your brain. Cognitive neuroscientist Arthur Kramer, a colleague of Dan's at the University of Illinois, led one of the best-known studies of how improving physical fitness can affect cognitive abilities. Their experiment, published in Nature, randomly assigned 124 sedentary but otherwise healthy seniors to one of two training conditions for six months: aerobic fitness, in which the subjects spent about three hours each week walking, and an anaerobic exercise condition, in which subjects spent the same amount of time doing stretching and toning exercises. Although both forms of exercise are good for your body and lead to better overall fitness, aerobic exercise more effectively improves the health of your heart and increases blood flow to your brain.

Not surprisingly, both training groups experienced the expected benefits to their physical fitness. The surprising result, though, is that walking for as little as a few hours a week led to large improvements on cognitive tasks, particularly those that rely on executive functions like planning and multitasking. The stretching and toning exercise had no cognitive benefits. Kramer's group also conducted meta-analysis of all the clinical trials of the effects of aerobic fitness training on cognition through 2001; the results confirmed a sizable benefit of this type of fitness training for cognition.

The benefits of exercise are deeper than improvements in behavior and cognition. With age, most adults start to lose some of the gray matter in their brains. (This could be part of the reason for the accompanying cognitive declines.) In another clinical trial, Kramer's group randomly assigned seniors to the same aerobic and anaerobic six-month training regimens just described, except this time, they first used MRI scanning to acquire a complete picture of each subject's brain before and after the fitness training. The result was astounding: Seniors who had walked for just forty-five minutes a day for three days each week preserved much more gray matter in their frontal brain regions than did those who had done stretching and toning. Aerobic exercise actually did keep their brains healthier and younger.

It might seem counterintuitive, but the best thing you can do to preserve and maintain your mental abilities may have little to do with cognition at all. Training your brain directly might have less impact than exercising your body, particularly if you exercise in a way that maintains your aerobic fitness. The exercises doesn't even need to be particularly strenuous. You don't need to compete in triathalons; just walking at a reasonable clip for thirty minutes or more a few times a week leads to better executive functioning and a healthier brain. Despite Nintendo's claims that you need to exercise your brain, it seems that sitting in a chair and doing cognitive puzzles is far less beneficial than walking around the block a few times. Exercise improves cognition broadly by increasing the fitness of your brain itself. And doing puzzles does nothing for your longevitiy, your health, or your looks."

Read the book, and/or visit The Invisible Gorilla web site to learn about how our intuitions deceive us.

Strong Women Stay Young

This is a fabulous book I read several years ago, and I incorporate some of the exercises into my work. Author, Miriam E. Nelson's research revealed that strength training done (only) twice a week helped women increase their strength, improve their balance and flexibility, regain bone, and become leaner, trimmer, and more energized.

The link below is to a video news clip on MSNBC about Miriam's work and watching it refreshed my memory of her program. I thought I would share it with you all--enjoy! And remember: It feels good to be fit!

Strength Training Fights Height Loss in Older Women

Vitamin D Deficiency

One of my senior clients had a nasty ailment this spring. After antibiotic treatment and much rest, she found that she had lingering, nagging symptoms--the worst of which was lack of energy and a long-lasting lethargy. The other day she told me that she finally found out why she didn't seem to be getting better faster: she had a vitamin D deficiency!

Vitamin D is not actually a vitamin, but a steroid hormone produced in the body after direct exposure of the skin to ultraviolet B radiation in sunlight. Here in the Northwest, where our skin is not exposed to sunlight every day, it is not at all uncommon for people to have a Vitamin D deficiency. I personally take 10,000 IU of Vitaman D per day in the summer, and double that in the winter. Since beginning this regime, I have noticed that I have more energy and enthusiasm. It is also entirely possible that my bone density has increased due to this regime--plus a daily intake of calcium, a diet of fresh fruits and vegetables and only a little bit of animal protein and, of course, daily exercise! But I haven't had a bone density test to confirm these changes.

There are several risk factors associated with Vitamin D deficiency, and the symptoms of a deficiency vary, as described below:

• Depression--Low Vitamin D levels have been associated with symptoms of depression. Research has shown that adequate intake of Vitamin D3 reduces Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) during winter months.
• Muscle weakness--Muscle weakness due to vitamin D deficiency is predominantly of the proximal muscle groups and is manifested by a feeling of heaviness in the legs, tiring easily, and difficulty in mounting stairs and rising from a chair. There is some evidence to suggest that people with Vitamin D deficiency experience more falls, and more fractures, than those who are not deficient. This makes sense because a deficiency results in weaker muscles and more brittle bones.
• Cognitive impairment in seniors---Evidence suggests that seniors with low levels of vitamin D may be more likely to suffer from cognitive impairment. Vitamin D supplementation appears to help to slow mental decline. Additionally, vitamin D seems to have anti-inflammatory effects that may help keep blood vessels healthy, ensuring nutrient- and oxygen-rich blood flow to brain cells, and the presence of vitamin D receptors throughout the brain suggests that it may directly affect brain tissue.
• Diabetes--Epidemiological studies suggest a link between vitamin D deficiency during infancy and later development of type 1 diabetes. Vitamin D deficiency has been shown to impair insulin synthesis and secretion in humans, suggesting a role in the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Additionally, occurrence of diabetes in a population increases in relation to distance from the equator.
• Obesity--A study conducted at Uppsala University has demonstrated that obese people often suffer from serious vitamin D deficiency and poor calcium metabolism. The findings have been published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. According to the researchers, the problem is underappreciated by the health care establishment.
• Fatigue--Vitamin D has many varied effects on the cells in the body that can result in a variety of symptoms, including acute or chronic fatigue.
• Weakened Immune System--Most cells in the body contain receptor sites for Vitamin D and these include immune system cells. Vitamin D has been shown to enhance the activity of those cells, and to decrease chances of developing autoimmune diseases.
• Osteoporosis--Vitamin D regulates calcium absorption and calcium balance in the bones, and a deficiency of this vitamin results in weakened and brittle bones.
• Heart Disease--Higher Vitamin D levels have been shown to have a positive effect on cardiovascular disease, including blood pressure. One study found that older adults who were Vitamin D deficient were twice as likely to develop cardiovascular disease compared to those who had adequate levels.
• Cancer--Vitamin D deficiency has been shown to be highly correlated with many forms of cancer.
• Rickets--This is caused by lack of vitamin D, calcium or phosphorus, but since food manufacturers started fortifying milk and other foods with small doses of Vitamin D, it is not nearly the problem it used to be.

I am encouraging all of my clients, especially seniors, to ask their doctors to test them for a Vitamin D deficiency. Many of these symptoms, if truly due to a deficiency, are reversible with Vitamin D3 supplementation!

Prepare for the Unexpected

As promised, here are some things you can do to help prepare for the possibility of being sidelined by a physical limitation or disability. There is no way to predict how this might manifest--if it even does--and so some of these things may be impossible to do at that time. However, anything you do to increase your range of motion, improve your posture and balance, gain strength in your core and other muscles, and increase your body's ability to respond to the unexpected is going to be beneficial. So let's get started.

Maintain Good Posture

Whether you are standing, seated or lying down, it is important to maintain good posture. Why? Because good posture:

• Facilitates proper breathing.
• Improves your ability to concentrate and think clearly.
• Makes you look and feel better by improving your confidence and self-image.
• Helps you to avoid back pain and other health issues caused by joint damage, disc problems, muscle weakness or atrophy, and poor circulation.

Use Your Non-Dominant Hand

There are many simple things you can safely do with your non-dominant hand. Practice these now, because if you don't and you lose the use of your dominant hand, you are sure to find it very challenging to begin using your non-dominant hand under the pressure of having to.

• Brush your teeth every morning with your non-dominant hand, and your hair, too.
• Pour or push the plunger on the lotion and shampoo bottle with the opposite hand that you normally use.
• Use eating utensils and raise your drinking glass to your lips with your non-dominant hand.
• Clean dishes holding the sponge and dish in the opposite hands normally used.
• Practice printing, writing and signing your name with your non-dominant hand.

Change Your Habits
Notice your habits and experiment with changing them. For example:

• Get into, sleep, and get out of the opposite side of the bed than you are used to.
• Apply shampoo and lotion in a totally different pattern than you are used to. Also, take note of which direction you usually turn in the shower to rinse off, and then turn the other way.
• Instead of always putting a particular arm into your shirt first, put the other arm in first. Put the opposite leg into your pants first every morning, and then do the same with your feet when you put on your socks and shoes.
• Zip your pants, buckle your belt, button your shirt, and tie your shoes with one hand. First practice using your dominant hand, and then use your non-dominant hand.

Strengthen Your Core Muscles
Without a strong core, your body is like a spaghetti noodle that is cooked only in the middle: Weak! You have no foundation on which to carry the rest of your body. Call me for a private session, join one of my classes, or seek guidance from any number of reputable personal trainers in our area to learn how to strengthen your core muscles.

Improve Your Balance
Begin by performing some simple, safe exercises to help you improve and maintain your balance. Then challenge your balance 365 days a year. Do things that challenge your core muscles, your legs, your upper body, your vestibular system (inner ear) and your vision. Get help from a professional if you need it.

Improve Your Reflexes
Reactive training involves exercises and activities that improve our body’s ability to react. Just as I described in the previous article--"Use It or Lose It!"--how our muscles and central nervous system require use to stay in good working order, so to is it that our body requires practice to maintain good reflexes. Our reflexes diminish over time primarily because we do not do things that challenge our ability to respond. Since this article is about long enough, I'll save the ideas I have of some things you can do at home to improve your reaction time for a future article.

In the meantime, make it fun to experiment with these little exercises!

Use It or Lose It!

We can never really know when our lives will be quickly and permanently changed by forces beyond our control. We may suffer a stroke or heart attack, a car accident, a fall, or a progressive disease that affects our ability to perform even routine daily tasks. It is impossible to predict what might happen and to prepare for all possibilities. However, you don’t have to wait until something sidelines you to deal with the unexpected; you can change your habits and ways of doing things now. Practicing these things daily will help you better adjust--physically and mentally--to possible physical limitations in the future.

There is an old saying, "Use it or lose it" and it is absolutely true when it comes to the brain and body. If we do not walk, we will soon enough lose the ability to walk. Our leg muscles will no longer work and our central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord and all the nerves leading from them to the body) will no longer know ‘how’ to command the muscles to walk. When we walk, we are conditioning our muscles and continuing to ‘train’ our central nervous system. So when it comes to keeping the body prepared to perform, and capable of performing, practice does not just make perfect--it also makes possible the moves you wish (or are required) to make. You can walk now only because you have practiced walking your entire life! The more you do with your body, the more synapses in the brain you build that enable your brain to properly command your body to do (those things).

In a future post, I will describe some fairly simple things that you can do to help you prepare for the unexpected.