Exercise 101

Over the years i have read hundreds of books on exercise, a lot of them were contradictory, but many provided simple effective advice. The books i recommend are:
Anything by Scott sonnon (a genius)
The Systema Breathing book and the old guidebook (now out of print) any systema clips or articles on youtube
Any articles on HIT training, or the tabata protocol
Pace by Al sears
Relax into stretch or Super joints by Pavel tsatsouline
Pain free by Peter Egoscue

There are a number of themes that run through many of these books
here are just few:

1- Body control - To enhance health and physical ability you need to have a high level of body control. You might have heard of hindu yogis who can stop there heart, or people who can walk barefoot on coals or drink hot oil. All of these feats are accomplished by the power of the mind over the body. Something a bit more relevant to us however is - muscular tension - excess tension is detrimental to performance in any sporting pursuit or just in our daily life. A few ideas to become aware of your own tension or unconscious baggage are as follows:

- Circle every joint in your body from your toes to your neck and become aware of where restrictions exist.

- lay on the floor face up and try to relax any obvious tension in your body, then breath in through your nose and tense every muscle in your body, hold it for a count of 7, then exhale through your mouth and relax all of your muscles, repeat this a number of times and you will notice that with repeated effort, the resulting relaxation is deeper.

- try to shake any muscles that feel tired or tense. imagine you have water on them and you are trying to shake it off. Do this with any part of your body.

2 - Include high intensity training such as HIT training or the tabata protocol.
More and more research is now being done to illustrate the importance of high intensity training over low intensity training and the benefits that are being discovered are incredible.
Some include:
- Higher testosterone production
- decreased insulin resistance
- Higher amount of fat loss
- Decreased triglycerides

Here are a few links that discuss more about this:
http://www.alsearsmd.com/content/index.php?id=ha_366_-_get_your_gr
http://www.honewatson.com/11/10/tabata-protocol/
http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/tabataintervals.html
http://brn.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/3/177
http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/75/1/157

3 - Body symmetry and unity
Your entire body has to be in a state of homeostasis or balance physically and psychologically.
For this post we will concentrate on the physical aspect namely - posture.
The spines "s" curve is the centerpiece of a geometric construction based on parallel vertical and horizontel lines and 90 degree angles. These lines intersect at the 8 load bearing joints of the body: the shoulders, hips, knees and ankles. When a misalignment occurs due to bad posture habits, or over/underdevelopment of some muscles then other muscles start to compensate and this can be the start of chronic pain and many other physical and mental disorders.
So the main thing is - BALANCE. Train both sides of your body equally and train your back, arms, and legs in an equal way. The best way i have found is calisthenics, as they recruit more muscles and work on the stabilizing and core muscles to create a more stable, balanced physique.


Until next time
Stay healthy

Tom