Strength Of A Spiral news and notes

Take the One Week Mindful Eating challenge.

2010-09-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

"When it's time to shoot, shoot. Don't talk." - Tuco from "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"

A beautiful Saturday morning and I awoke deciding I wanted to go out for a nice egg & potato breakfast. I headed to one of my favorite breakfast places, ordered, got my coffee, sat down and immediately pulled out my "smart"phone to read the news. I have definitely gotten into the habit of being online, reading the news, while I eat. My food came and I started eating, still reading the news. Part way through my meal, I realized that I had specifically wanted to have a tasty breakfast but here I was, not paying attention to the food I ordered.

"This is the greatest moment of your life and you're off somewhere missing it!" - Tyler Durden from "Fight Club"

So I put my phone away and sat and ate my meal. The funny thing was it took a few bites then the tastes suddenly woke up tremendously. It was as though my mind needed a few beats to come back to full awareness of all the senses. But the rest of the meal, the eggs with salsa, the potatoes, the coffee... it was all very delicious and I'm glad I remembered the reason I wanted to go out to eat.
There are many studies that focus on caloric consumption increasing if you are eating while watching tv:

Dr. Mirkin
Natural News
Mary Ann Liebert Inc.

Watching tv while eating inhibits your body's ability to gauge caloric consumption. But on a more sensual level, does watching tv or being on the internet (which is just as prevalent and no more beneficial) affect your body's awareness of taste? I'd like to see someone do a study of this kind and I'm sure it can be done by asking questions about the awareness of the content of the food.
In the mean time, I have decided to commit to eating with no screens on in front of me. No tv, no computer, no smart phone. To paraphrase Eli Wallach "When it's time to eat, eat. Don't look at a screen." I challenge you to do the same. Start with a single meal to test your taste. Place your meal in front of your tv or your computer. Half way through your meal, turn it of. Do the flavors in your food suddenly jump out at you. Are you now really enjoying your meal? Does your satiety increase? Now, commit to ONE WEEK of mindful eating. Sit and eat your meals, all three (you do eat three full meals a day, right??), without any distraction. Nothing bombarding your eyes and dulling the rest of your senses. Do you notice how good your food tastes now?
We are already bombarded with irrational amounts of stimulation every day. Calm the nervous system and take some stress off with this very simple tool. Eat mindfully. Enjoy life.

The benefits of working out with kettlebells

2010-07-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

Kettlebells probably showed up in your gym within the last 2 or 3 years. However, they've been around for quite a long time. If you look up images for old time strongmen, you'll see many examples of kettlebells being used by strongmen like Sig Klein all the way back in the 1920's. Over the last decade, through people like Pavel Tsatsouline and Valery Fedorenko, kettlebells have exploded onto the American gym scene. While looking brute and primitive (neither of which is meant as in insult) kettlebells are not the exclusive domain of massive grunting World's Strongest Man competitors. All other physical factors considered (injuries or other pathological constraints) they are great for anybody, of any body size & type and any age.

One of the greatest benefits of a kettlebell workout is the total body conditioning kettlebell exercises give. Unlike gym machines, cable machines, barbells or dumbbells, there are almost no kettlebell exercises that are isolation movements. Take the most basic kettlebell exercise, the two handed swing. The primary force of the movement comes from the hips, as would happen in a jump. However, you're also holding a heavy bell, which adds in your back, arm and shoulder muscles. Also, since the lower body and upper body have to coordinate their activity in order to do a proper swing, the core is intrinsically involved. Every limb is involved and the torso is powerfully and actively engaged. The kettlebell swing really is a near perfect exercise.

The functional transferability of kettlebell exercises is another great benefit. In the real world, you will rarely be attempting to move or lift an object that is centered perfectly in line with your forearm the way a dumbbell or barbell generally is when lifting weights. What is much more likely is the object you're trying to move is away from your center of gravity and your attempt to move it will shift your center of gravity. Think about picking up a child. Not only can you not keep the weight of the kid directly in line with the bones of your arm, but kids wiggle around and continuously affect your center of gravity. The form of a kettlebell, a heavy weight with a displaced handle, puts the center of gravity of the bell away from your center of gravity. Even with a kettlebell directly overhead, the handle may be in line with your structure (arms/spine) but the majority of the mass is off center. When doing a swing, the mass of the bell is moving in a circular movement around your center of gravity and never in line with it. This requires your body to find stability with a changing center of gravity (your center + the kettlebells center).

While kettlebells are an excellent tool for your workouts, I highly recommend taking a few sessions with a certified kettlebell instructor. Safe lifting and swinging is of utmost importance. You want to benefit and improve your body, not damage it. Any sort of power lifting, which kettlebells fall under, has a risk of injury without proper form. For example, a kettlebell swing does not involve a squatting motion. I can't emphasize this enough. The root exercise of a kettlebell swing is a deadlift, not a squat. If your trainer doesn't understand this, find another trainer. Kettlebells aren't the same as dumbbells and if you meet a trainer who hasn't been specifically trained by a nationally known and reputable kettlebell certifying organization, you'd do well to find someone who has. I see too many trainers showing their clients kettlebell exercises with form that clearly shows to me they do not know what they are doing and if you're going to pay a professional, make sure they are a professional.

Once you get a few sessions under your belt and your trainer is happy with your form, feel more than free to find outside sources for additional kettlebell exercises. There are many great sources for kettlebell exercises, one of my favorites is listed below. But just like anything else that matters, start at the beginning. Swing Away!

http://www.kettlebell-athletics.com/

The difference between yoga and GYROKINESIS

2010-07-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

Unquestionably, GYROKINESIS® is a much newer system than yoga. While yoga is an ancient practice that includes much more than the asana system, thought of by most westerners as the whole and total of yoga, GYROKINESIS® was discovered in the late 70s and put into a cohesive system form in the early 80s. The non-equipment work, GYROKINESIS®, originally called Yoga For Dancers™, predates the equipment of GYROTONIC®.
Very much like the physical form of yoga, GYROKINESIS® is a total body system of physical, mental and spiritual coordination and integration. If you've ever seen the GYROTONIC® logo, it is a simplification of a drawing made by Juliu Horvath to express the energetic awakening he experienced through the work he discovered, which later became GYROKINESIS®. Juliu was living a solitary life in the mountains of St. Thomas, in what could be called a hermetic retreat. His six years of retreat and self practice were the birthplace of GYROKINESIS®.
The integration of the breath and motion in GYROKINESIS® is arguably one of the most important aspects of the entire system (as well as in GYROTONIC®). In both systems, every motion has a specific breath that is inseparable from it. The motion and the breath are one. Of course it is possible to do the motions without the breath, but in the purest sense, you're no longer doing GYROKINESIS®. The same can of course be said of yoga. Complete integration of mind, body and spirit are the bedrock of both systems and if you take one piece out, like the breath, you're now doing an approximation of the totality intended. Every motion has a breath and the breath and the motion are united in duration and intensity. One does not follow the other, one is the other.
When properly committing yourself to a GYROKINESIS® practice, your goal is not simply a flexible, strong body. And the same can be said for yoga. In fact, yoga, truly, is not just about the asanas and pranayama. Milarepa was considered the greatest yogi in Tibetan history and no where in his autobiography does he describe doing anything that even resembles the physical form of yoga popular in the western world. Both in a proper yogic practice and in a proper GYROKINESIS® practice, the mind and body are being trained to be truly inseparable, the imputed differences between the two dissolving as your practice deepens, eventually culminating in what can be called liberation. In the majority of people who do hatha yoga in the west and people who do GYROKINESIS® classes, that union may never be realized. However, that doesn't diminish the shining light that both systems fully encompass.
In total, it can be said that GYROKINESIS® and yoga are cousins. While the physical execution of the two systems appears to be drastically different, to those with a trained eye and an attuned heart/spirit, they are two ways of achieving the same goal.

Now that's literally using your Noggin.

2010-07-07T14:38:00.000-07:00

Little did I know that Noggin is a protein that works in, where else, the brain.

Noggin - wikipedia entry

Well in a recent blog (yes, I'm using my blog to repost someone else's blog) in the New York Times, it has been discovered that exercise increases the level of Noggin in your brain. Why is this beneficial, well, instead of repeating, you can read the NYT blog here. So Noggin blocks the effects of BMP, another protein that inhibits your body from creating new neurons. So exercise increases Noggin in your brain, which blocks BMP, which means your brain can create new neurons, keeping you mentally agile and adaptable. To an exercise professional, that is amazing news. What a great perk to entice people to use personal training.
"Hey, wanna stay mentally sharp and nimble as you age. Come exercise!" I can assure you I'll be using that exact line in advertisements for a while.
One of the things that made me want to repost this article is found in the 7th paragraph. When researching the possibility that too much Noggin can over stimulate the adult stems cells, wearing them out and eventually preventing the growth of new neurons, the study's lead doctor indicates:

"Instead, he says, it seems that the effects of exercise are constrained and soon plateau, causing enough change in the activity of Noggin and BMP to shake slumbering adult stem cells awake, but not enough to goose them into exhausting themselves"

I find this fascinating, as the body has a similar mechanism at the muscle cell level when dealing with the energy systems of cells. In muscle cells, there is an organelle (a specialized sub-unit within a cell) called mitochondria. Mitochondria are the power plants of muscle cells. It is in the mitochondria that the cells produce ATP, which is a primary source of chemical energy within cells. Exercise increases the mitochondrial density within muscle cells, allowing each cell to burn more fuel, thus burning more calories. That is one of the reasons resistance training is just as important as cardiovascular exercise when trying to change your body composition (in other words, lose weight!). So, more exercise, more mitochondria, less body fat. Excellent! However, here is where the tie in to Noggin appears. After 4-6 weeks of sustained resistance training, the body will not increase mitochondrial density. So after those first 4 to 6 weeks, you've maxed out on how much fuel each individual muscle cell can burn.
To me, the fact that there is a mechanism, apparently not yet discovered, that prevents the body from producing endless amounts of Noggin, which would be detrimental, is a beautiful and amazing adaptation. It also makes me wonder that if the levels of Noggin which the body will produce due to exercise is constrained because too much Noggin is detrimental, does the body's mechanism for limiting mitochondrial density also a protective device. Can too much exercise induced mitochondria cause problems at the cellular level? I have no idea! But I am really geeking out on the correlation between the two systems of the body and am very happy to be continuously surprised and wondered by our physical human form.

Question & Answer session

2010-07-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

I often go onto fitness oriented message boards and answer questions. I thought I'd share a few of those here today and on an ongoing basis.

Q: I recently began a workout routine and have been doing my cardio mostly on the elliptical machine. Over the course of the last month, my endurance and stamina have increased along with the incline, resistance, and overall time of my workout on the machine.
My question is about the different pre-set workout programs offered on the machine. I am working out for weight loss and overall health and have been experimenting with different courses.
Is it better for fat burning/weight loss to do one of these programs or simply set the machine to manual and increase the resistance and incline as you can handle?
Again, I am just looking to maximize my workout(currently doing 60 min.)
Any suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks

A: Your best bet is to use interval training. It maximizes your time by never giving your body/nervous system a chance to adapt to your workout. If you're not varying your workouts on a micro level (within a single workout) and on a macro level (varying the workouts over time, scheduled by weeks) your body will get used to whatever you're doing. I find the most effective method of cardio interval training is to use heart rate based zones. Once you know your 4 heart rate zones, you need an 8 week plan of workouts. You'll do one specific workout each week then change your workout every week, following the plan.

Q: I like to think i have a pretty solid base of knowledge on lifting, but I have never dieted with the intention of drastically cutting down on fat with the seriousness that I have now.
So although i have used every rep range(2-5, 6-10, 12-15, etc), I was wondering if there is a rep range that would be best for keeping muscle mass while severely cutting calories...
Would sticking to 8-12 be best, or should I raise the weight and lower the reps, 4-6? Any ideas? Should i alternate my rep range often, sometimes doing 4-6 reps, other times doing 12? I'm serious about achieving a low body fat, but DO NOT want to sacrifice a lot of muscle in the process......?

A: Your rep range has nothing to do with your caloric intake. Your rep range is determined by what phase of training you're in and what your weight training goals are. For example, if you're goal is endurance strength, your rep range should be 12-16 reps. If you're goal is hypertrophy, your range should be 6-10 reps. For maximal strength training, your rep range should be 1-5 reps. However, if you're drastically cutting your caloric intake, now is not the time for either hypertrophy training or maximal strength training. Make sure you're not lowering your caloric intake too much, however. If you do, you stand the chance of your metabolism going down as your body tries to conserve its resources. Find out what your resting metabolic rate is (I recommend New Leaf testing). Then figure out what your caloric intake should be based on that and your physical activity levels. Don't make giant changes without a little research. Your entire goal could be compromised.

If you have any questions you'd like answered, please feel free to email me at mike@strengthofaspiral.com

Meditation for your health, both mental and physical

2010-05-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

I rarely bring up the idea of meditation to my clients. I'm Buddhist and my particular meditation practices are specific to my Buddhist training. However, the mental and physical benefits of regular meditation can't be ignored, as I know of the first hand.
On the mental side, we all know how the nature of our culture right now is a constant buzz saw of information overload, pressure to succeed and stress from personal and/or business lives. We have multiple email addresses, texts, phone calls, twitter, facebook, linkedin... it never ends! Then most of us go home and either get right back on the computer or sit on front of the television. Add to that the extreme noise levels of our cities and the addiction to coffee many of us have and you have a recipe for information overload on many levels. We need balance to maintain mental calm and happiness in our lives. Basic meditation is a great counter weight to the environmental overload.
On a physical side, many people live in some level of chronic pain. For the most part, our medical establishment goes the route of drugs, either prescription or over the counter. While these may mask the symptoms, they don't remove the cause of the pain. But more than that, many of these drugs have an adverse effect on our sleep, reducing REM sleep. These two studies look at the effects of sleep deprivation on pain;
http://www.websciences.org/cftemplate/NAPS/archives/indiv.cfm?ID=20066109
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15007400

In both studies, sleep loss increased sensitivity to pain. If you're taking drugs that are affecting your ability to get full restful sleep, you may be fighting an uphill battle tied to a rock. Anything that can improve your sleep seems to be beneficial to your pain sensitivity. And obviously, a good night's sleep is great for your mental health as well.

A basic meditation:
This meditation practice is called "shamatha" in Sanskrit. It is as basic as meditation gets. Sit in a comfortable position, and if your body allows it on a cushion, in a cross legged position is best. Sit with your best, relaxed posture, hands folded on your lap. Maintain a soft gaze down towards the tip of your nose. You'll sit and breathe. It is really that simple. Your first level goal is to maintain mental quietude for 21 breaths, counting the exhales. As our brains are constantly spewing time lines, deadlines, lyrics to horrible songs, etc, your calm will be constantly interrupted from within. Any time your mind move away from your breath, refocus on your place within the room. If you can continuously think about, and feel your place in the room on the cushion, you'll be able to keep your mind calm and centered. Feel where you are in the room, how far you are from the wall in front of you, from the walls to your sides and from the ceiling. Continue to refocus on your breath and being physically in there here and now. Work up to 21 compete breaths without being distracted by your own internal dialogue and you're there.
Try to take some time to sit every day. The 15 minutes you spend on the cushion can be as big a benefit to your life as any exercise you're doing at the gym. Keep it up!

Stop drinking bottled water. It's not better for you and it's horrible for the Earth

2010-04-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

It's just a coincidence that I'm writing this a few days before Earth Day. The topic has been on my mind for a while.
I very rarely buy bottled water. Practically never. The environmental impact of producing and shipping water is ridiculous.
* Just on the matter of price, a gallon of bottled water can cost 10,000 times more than a gallon of tap water.
* Perhaps you've seen the Brita commercial which states that the number of plastic water bottles consumed in the United States each year could circle the Earth 9 times. That is insanity. Every one of those bottles has to be manufactured, and even if it is made from recycled materials, there is a carbon footprint to creating them.
* Then there is the transportation. For some reason, people have been lead to believe that they will be healthier if they drink bottled water from some far off locale where the water is "purer". But that means shipping full bottles of water thousands of miles.
* And finally there is the question of whether bottled water is even healthier for you. The EPA's standards for tap water are more stringent that the FDA's are for bottled water. That's right. You're more likely to be drinking safer water if it is from the tap.

Here is a great article I found laying out precisely the carbon footprint of 1 liter of Fiji water. Here is a quick synopsis of the costs of Fiji water:

In summary, the manufacture and transport of that one kilogram bottle of Fiji water consumed 26.88 kilograms of water (7.1 gallons) .849 Kilograms of fossil fuel (one litre or .26 gal) and emitted 562 grams of Greenhouse Gases (1.2 pounds).

It takes 7 gallons of water for you to get 1 liter of bottled Fiji water. What an unconscionable waste.

Personally I've had a sink top or faucet water filtration system in my home for at least a decade. At the gym, I keep a refillable bottle of water and use the water fountains, which are almost always filtered. Heck, I even drink from the water fountains of playgrounds when I'm playing tennis. Me & bottled water aren't friends. You shouldn't be friends with bottled water either.

Get out of your comfort zone to make real progress

2010-04-05T14:42:00.000-07:00

In a previous article, I discussed habituation and the reason for performing your exercises with optimal form and breathing so you carry over those good habits into your outside world movements.
However, there are other aspects of habituation that are counterproductive.
There is a scientific training concept called "Specific Adaptation To Imposed Demands". It means that whatever you do with your body, if it is done regularly, your body will adapt to it to reduce the amount of effort needed to perform the same task. Without SAID we would never get any better at most of the physical activities we do, for work or for enjoyment. Want to run a marathon? It's never going to happen if your body doesn't adapt s those first 5 miles don't kill you every time. Same for performing a good tennis serve, driving as golf ball or cycling the Paradise Loop.
However, there is a flip side to this body mechanism. It means that unless you vary the way you're exercising, your body gets used to it and your workouts become less and less effective with each repetition.
You see this alot in the gym with people doing their cardio "workouts". They'll choose one piece of equipment and do only that equipment every workout, for the same amount of time with the same effort. No matter what your level of effort, if you don't mix it up, if you don't challenge your nervous system, your body will get quite used to it and you'll be spinning your wheels like a hamster.
But this also goes for any other way you train. I have a client who does lots of yoga and Gyrotonic but doesn't do any weight training. I decided to take her out to the training floor and do a weight training workout with her. The lightest weights were wiping her out. She kept saying "I can't do this." and "Oh, this is too hard." to which I responded "You're doing it right now." and "Good." Although she felt like she was in pretty good shape from doing yoga for such a long time, her muscles couldn't handle the most basic weight training.
Is she unhappy with me for making her do something she found very uncomfortable and not pleasant? I'll let her words to the talking:

Thanks, You are a good and conscientious trainer, constantly challenging me. Hard work.Thanks M.

She will grow stronger and her body will very quickly get used to the workout I made up for her. In 4 weeks, I'll be changing her workout. She'll hate doing it but she'll trust me and she'll be glad when her body feels and performs better at all times... all because I wouldn't let her doing what she was comfortable doing.

The importance of proper and appropriate breathing

2010-02-27T12:44:00.001-08:00

To breathe or not to breathe... it really isn't a question.

As I've said innumerable times to my Gyrotonic clients over the last 10 years, in my opinion (which is biased of course) no exercise system integrates breathing with motion as completely as Gyrotonic. However, does that mean that breathing should essentially be ignored in weight training? Of course not, especially if a Gyrotonic instructor, namely myself, is training in another form of exercise.
The key elements of integrating breath into motion when doing Gyrotonic can and should be melded into any other training. Here is a quick description of those key elements.
- The intensity and duration of the breath must match the intensity and duration of the exercise.
For example, if you're doing a boxing exercise like hitting the heavy bag, using the yogic ujai pranayama breath would be very inappropriate. Pranayama breath is a slow, extended exhale while your motion is a quick, explosive action. There would be a complete disconnect between what you're doing and how you're breathing. In this example, this disconnect could actually lead to injury to you, for reasons I'll discuss below.
- One motion, one breath.
-With a few exceptions, yoga classes & cardio vascular exercise, the most direct way to connect your breathing to your motion is to breathe once per repetition of the activity. For example, boxers use this concept when practicing jabs. A short quick breath with each jab. (Ask sean the rationale behind this)
Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth
While there is some possibility for variance with the exhale, inhaling through the nose is a no brainer. Your lungs are delicate organs and cold dry air can be damaging to them. When you inhale through your nose, the sinuses warm and moisten the air before the air reaches the delicate alveoli in the lungs.
With regards to exhaling, if you're doing an activity that the “one motion, one breath” concept doesn't fit, like cycling, exhaling through the mouth on every breath isn't a necessary focus. However there are physiological factors for exhaling through the mouth during weight training. Most of us know that the primary muscle for inhalation is the diaphragm. There is also a corresponding primary muscle for exhalation, the transverse abdominus. Whenever someone tells you to “suck in your gut”, this is the muscle you're primarily using. The transverse abdominus is also the primary muscle for stabilizing your lumbar spine. As it draws inward, it decreases the amount of space in your abdominal cavity, increasing the interabdominal pressure, which creates more internal stability. This is why exhaling through the mouth can be a benefit. If you're purposely focusing on both the inhale and the exhale while you're lifting weights, you're giving increased focus to purposefully using the transverse abdominus in your motion, which is going to increase the stability of your lumbar spine, decreasing the possibility of low back injury. This is why using pranayama breath while punching a heavy bag can be injurious. Without the purposeful use of the transverse abdominus during a powerful activity, you're trying to generate power without stabilizing your lumbar spine.
So, let's put this all together. When doing any weight training, including body weight training and core strengthening exercises (ABS!), exhale as you perform the effortful portion of the motion and inhale as you return to your resting position. For example, in a dumbbell overhead press, exhale as you push the dumbbells overhead and inhale as you lower them back down to shoulder height. Exhale through the mouth as you press, to increase usage of the transverse abdominus and inhale through your nose on lowering, to warm and moisten the air.
As I discussed in my post about habituation, if you continually focus on proper breathing technique while you're at the gym, your body will learn proper habits and your breathing throughout the day will improve in all ways. Proper breathing is of immeasurable benefit to your health, both physically and mentally for reasons too numerous to list here. But there is a reason yogis doing strictly breathing exercises. Do a small part for yourself. Focus on breath and feel the long term benefits increase daily.