Reach. Extend. Bend. Stand. Carry. Pull. Lean. Twist. Sit. Push. Hold.

The ability to perform any of these should not be taken for granted; no one a luxury, each one probable in the course of a day. Only two are awarded at birth; the conscience and the body. In matters of virtue, most seek to nourish the conscience by use of the conscience; prayer as a means of better fulfilling one’s purpose. The virtues of love, forgiveness, healing, compassion and others can be enhanced by prayer, providing vast returns. This kind of prayer is practiced by billions each day.

There can also be physical prayer; actions of a body practiced to better enable the virtues of movement, and connect with one’s ability. That investment in regular action can provide both intimate internal, as well as cascading external returns – just like conscience prayer. Move with confidence. Direct your body without fear. Live with ability, and be poised to give more of yourself to family and to your community. To connect with one’s body in this way is to be closer to fulfilling one’s purpose and potential. I believe this in a literal sense.

Statistics tell us those who practice exercise are a great minority in comparison to those who practice conscience prayer. In the current era there are many genres of exercise practiced world wide. I will not say that any one form of exercise is better than any other. That should be left to the individual. Today I only suggest that traditional strength training, seemingly on it’s way out of the modern exercise agenda, is an exceptional way for individuals of any age to connect with, and to expand their capacity for movement – to body-pray.

Strength training offers many secondary values; improved flexibility, enhancement of athletic performance, slowing of bone density loss, decrease of blood pressure, improved balance, ability to shape and tone the body, and much more.

As a vehicle of prayer, the primary benefits of strength training I speak of are derived from two elements; range of motion and capacity. Combine range of motion with capacity, be it done with free weights, machines, dumbells, or bricks, and one can not help but live inside of, and better identify with their body. When one slowly and deliberately extends a loaded muscle or a group of muscles, concentrating on how these muscles feel throughout the extension and subsequent contraction, one experiences a very intimate connection between mind and body – a literal inventory of that which enables us. This can be grounding and poetic.

There are those who will suggest that exercise today is better done out of doors and not in gyms. Others propose that since strength training devices; barbells, machines and the like were not around 100,000 years ago, they are not relevant for human beings. Others still will suggest there are better forms of exercise to connect with one’s body; the ancient yoga, the well-thought Pilates, the in-vogue endurance and cardio classes, martial arts, running, etc. They all make great cases too, though not exclusive ones. I have been a practitioner of all of these and none, in my opinion, offer as much utility and benefit to the human experience as proper strength training practiced in moderation. My strength training is how I know I’m the physical me.

“I extend and contract under load, therefore I am.” Rene Descartes, 16th century fitness trainer, philosopher, and mathematician.

Where human priorities were once completely instinctive, they are now largely manufactured and clearly this will never turn back. This is our time, and this is our place – we should make the best of our options and opportunities. In no way am I suggesting that strength training be one’s exclusive outlet for exercise – there is so much more out there than the dirty old gym. I do much more physically in the course of a month than just lift weights; kayaking, trail hiking, running, stretching, yoga, and more. I am saying that, as an investment in prayer, strength training is unique, and has an amazing return value per moment of effort.

Historians 200 years from now may shake their heads in disbelief that gyms, barbells, Nautilus machines, and dumbbells ever existed, or needed to exist. This may be true. Those same historians though, will also shake their heads in disbelief at the notion of cars, manicured green lawns, neck ties, trash bags, recreational drugs, hedge funds, television, Krispy Kremes, labor unions, and prejudice – but that doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone from embracing these.

This is my time, and this is my place. Since the weight room exists in my here and my now, I accept it, and will continue to use it as one sanctuary for my body-prayer. Be well. rc

We all have them. Sometimes it starts from the moment you open your eyes in the morning, when those first streams of light hit your eyeballs and all you can do is squint and pull the sheets back over your head.

Other times it creeps up on you as the day goes on. It can leave you feeling flat, annoyed and generally unmotivated.

The “Hump” Day has got to be one of the most frustrating things to deal with, especially when your trying to accomplish fitness and health goals.
It’s even worse when you have hump days in succession. Days can really become a blur and trying to motivate yourself to get off the couch or even more drastic, onto your bike can take some serious will power.

I’ve been in a bit of a hump phase lately. It started during my holidays and even though I promised myself to get on my bike this morning, I managed to find plenty of excuses not to ride.
Admittedly, my car did die on the weekend and my mechanic was due this morning but still, I should have made the effort.

My whole day has been pretty lazy and although I have eaten sensibly, I didn’t get any exercise and that’s not good.

This afternoon I decided that enough was enough and grabbed the dog and went for a nice long walk. It was nice to get out and suck in some fresh air. Better still, I think it got me out of my hump phase. Fancy that ;)

So the point of this post? If you are having a hump day my best advice is to just put it to one side, get on your bike or open the front door and go for a walk. You will be amazed at how quickly you feel better.

I am a big fan of Roy Cohen from Emerge Fitness. We have very similar views on health and fitness and he is one of those trainers who really does inspire his clients to be fit and well. Weight loss is not his priority but being healthy is.

Roy has given me permission to use any of his articles on IndenialHealth.com and this one in particular really hits the nail on the head, so to speak.

Plain and simple today. I have pasted an email (below) that I sent to a client the other day — a client who needed a jump start with her attitude, eating, and her perspective. rather than her usual workout, we sat down and had a come-to-fitness-Jesus meeting. Perhaps you too can use these bullet points to take aim at that which threatens you and your fitness objectives :-) Here goes:

Dear XXXXX,

I want to recap, with bullet points, some of what we discussed this morning, in hopes that it will help reinforce your choices in the coming weeks and months. I’m also adding a few things which we didn’t discuss, but may serve your cause:

* Don’t expect change overnight with the scale. Weigh yourself no more than every 3 weeks or so, allowing ample time for true weight loss to be reflected.
* Set 1 or 2 realistic goals; 5 pounds per month is a very realistic goal. Another possible goal; dessert just once per week. Goals can also be what not to do, just as much as they can be things you wish to achieve. Consider an external goal; a 5k walk, 3k fun run, something like that, which will put your fitness and eating in the front of your daily psyche. www.active.com has many of these local events listed if you wish to choose one.
* Prioritize your evenings. Strive to make the hours between 5-9pm the most fit hours of your day. These hours are where more fitness goals come undone than any other time of day — this is where success is lost. Plan your evening time, your meals, and your attitude according to your fitness, health, and weight loss goals.
* Let wine be for Fridays and Saturdays only. Enjoy lemon water, caffeine free green tea, or just plain water as your evening social drink. Wine (all alcohol) leads to a false hunger, which causes you to crave sugars — plus, in a more relaxed state from the alcohol, you are more likely to rationalize and subsequently head those cravings.
* Journal your food. Don’t be a calorie counter so much, just journal to maintain an awareness of how often you are eating and what choices, good and bad, you are making.
* Let your daily calorie stream decrease as the day goes on. Eat, snack, and do so all day, but let your daily calories start big, after fasting overnight, but taper your calories down slowly throughout the day so that your largest meal is breakfast, lesser calories at lunch, fewer still at dinner, but with (healthy) snacking included along the way — yes, even 100 calorie packs of cookies.
* Walk early. Set up your attitude, and your fitness psyche early, by walking early — immediately grounding yourself and connecting with the idea of exercise and fitness. Also, walking early (in a fasted state) will help you burn bodyfat more efficiently.
* Especially this time of year, if you are attending a holiday party, establish one rule above all others; don’t start eating or drinking until you have been at your party for 30 minutes. This step alone may save you hundreds, if not thousands of calories during the holiday season.

These are just some of the things which can help get you over the hump. No spa/boot-camp/fit-camp time needed here, nor any jump start. You can be the creator of your own jump start, and in turn, drive your own ship — that is empowerment.

Always here,

Roy

Thanks again Roy :)

I have been really good about exercising lately. It’s becoming routine now and I’ve not missed any of my planned sessions.

It occurred to me today while doing my interval training that the key to success is discipline. I really don’t know why it’s taken me so long to figure it out really.

Motivation is still an important part of getting fit and healthy but I can recall many occasions where it has totally failed me, usually when I was sitting on the couch eating popcorn or chips!

Being disciplined needs to flow into other areas of your life to be able to continue exercising and doing all those important things necessary to be healthy.
I’ve found that planning my day is key to regular exercise. Sometimes things come up that throw my schedule into chaos but I have decided that when this happens, I just have to prioritize and if necessary drop something off my list. The one thing that doesn’t get taken off the list is exercise. I need to make sure that it continues to be a top priority.

The other great thing about being disciplined is that I feel better about myself. So it’s a win win situation!

I love finding new playlists for my workouts. For some reason, I get bored quite quickly with my music and like to have a variety of options on hand depending on my mood.

If you are looking to mix up your exercise playlist I can highly recommend heading over to Fluid Motion. I particularly like their latest playlist, Fluid Motion #3 Step/Walk. You can download directly from their site or subscribe via iTunes.

Fat chance you can get me to do that – that’s the constant refrain I hear each time I give my spouse the spiel about the need to exercise and get fit. Yeah, I know my chances to get him to turn over a new leaf are slim (you can see from the metaphors we use that he prefers the word fat while I go for the term slim), so I tried applying pressure on his friends and family instead. But all in vain; I should have known that there was no way that indirect pressure would work when the direct version failed. But this got me thinking; why do overweight people firmly deny the fact that they need to exercise if they want to stay healthy throughout their lives? Some reasons that I found common to my better (and much bigger) half and most others include:

• I need new equipment in order to exercise: At first it was a question of playing racquet ball where he needed new shoes and a new racquet. My spares just wouldn’t do. And when he finally splurged on the whole kit and caboodle, he played for all of a week, after which it was back to his first love – the PlayStation and the new flat, big screen television.
  I’ve heard this excuse from several others – the gym is either too expensive or too far away to suit their needs, they don’t have the right gear in order to exercise the way they want to, or they haven’t found the right partners or teammates to play with.
• I’ll put on more weight once I stop exercising: My response to this excuse – why on earth do you think of stopping even before you’ve started? Besides, you’re going to put on weight even if you don’t exercise because your lifestyle is sedentary. You need motivation to stick to your exercise routine, so take one day at a time instead of leaping into the unseen future. Once your journey to fitness has begun, use the fear of putting on weight if you stop to prevent you from giving up. Let that be your motivation if you have no other.
• It’s going to take ages before I start seeing results: No, that’s not exactly true. Most people need just a month or two to start showing the positive effects of exercise. Besides, you may not look slimmer anytime soon, but you’ll definitely feel much better, more energetic, and find yourself with more stamina. You won’t find yourself wheezing like an asthmatic after climbing just one flight of stairs or huffing and puffing keeping up when you’re asked to babysit your active 4-year-old nephew.
• I don’t have the time: Oh yeah, you do! How about all those minutes you spend glued to your gaming console and the idiot box? If you need those activities to relax, then wake up an hour earlier or get home sooner than you do from work.
• I’m not sure I can stand the strain of exertion: No one’s asking you to go all out and run 5 miles on your first day. Start slow, maybe by walking for 20 minutes a day. As you get comfortable with this routine, increase your pace and the distance walked. In a few months, you can begin to jog, for a minute or two at first, then slow down to a brisk walk. Alternate between jogging and walking – this interval training is extremely beneficial in reducing your weight, and the best part is that it does not tax you too much.

All said and none, no excuse is good enough to cut it when it comes to a question of good health.

This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of xray tech salary. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com.

New research has found that teenagers aged 13 to 16 who slept less than 6½ hours a night were up to three times more likely to have elevated blood pressure.

The study looked at the sleeping patterns of 238 teenagers and found that the duration of sleep directly affected blood pressure.

It appears that technology may play a role in sleep deprived teenagers with many texting, chatting online and listening to music all hours of the night.

I’ve heard that some kids have their tv’s on all night, this can’t be good for them. It’s so important that you encourage them to switch off their gadgets and get a good nights sleep. 9 hours is the recommended time.

It’s good to try and get your kids into a normal sleeping routine and their bedrooms should be quiet and dark. The dark part shouldn’t be too difficult, they seem to love living in dens!

Given all the technology we have in our homes now, it’s not hard to understand why so many teens are struggling to get the rest they need.

Elevated blood pressure can lead to a variety of serious medical conditions including heart disease, strokes and kidney damage.