Walking this week - Good News - Habit of the Week - HOW

Those who exercise regularly have protection against "all cause mortality".  There is more good news, as usual, a small amount of exercise has been shown to be very beneficial.  So I am keen to share this information.  It has been recommended that 8,000 steps per day 3 times per week confers benefit.   

Remember those 10,000 steps per day that were previously recommended - 10,000 steps take a long time and aren't necessarily, based on evidence, I suspect it was a nice round number.  It has been found that 8,000 steps, only 3 times per week, can make a big difference.

So, no excuses.  The weather is more pleasant and three times a week is "do-able"

My phone counts my steps......

By the way, in my classes, the first half, that is the cardio section adds up to a whopping 4,000 steps. (it is the "8 seconds fast" I reckon)

Let's get moving.

Lift your heels - It is the easiest thing - Habit of the Week

When people  returned to class after the summer break they told that they had been faithfully doing that heel-lifting exercise that we discussed last year. 

The lower calf muscle is composed of particular muscle fibres that don't tire easily. So they have discovered that the simple act of raising and lowering our heels, while seated, for hours a day is not  fatiguing.  We can continue doing that for hours with no ill effects.  The cost is low and the benefits are great.  This small action evens out our blood sugar spikes and therefore our insulin.   This exercise helps our metabolism and helps regulates blood sugar.  Muscle activity invites fuel (blood sugar) into the cells while inactive muscles resist insulin.

This is a fantastic YouTube clip from Andrew Huberman where he discusses insulin and glucose. It is  only 8 minutes. 

Take a look for yourself. This is well worth a look:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU4FbEplZQI&t=362s

Better Walking - Try Rucking - Habit of the Week - HOW

 An easy way to boost your walk is to carry are knapsack on your back*. 

In the fitness industry, it is called "Rucking" named after the rucksack.

It has been a tried and true fitness regime, lots of research has been done in the military.  We know what is the optimum weight we should carry, which allows people to train maximally training WITHOUT injury.

Rucking is the best of both worlds.  I have heard it described as a cardiovascular exercise for those who don't like running AND a resistance workout for those who dislike the gym. It is good for the posture.  We strengthen those postural muscles.

Humankind has been a hunter/gatherer. So men had to carry what they hunted and women had to carry what they gathered. We were designed to walk a long way and to carry stuff home. I have heard of people wearing weighted vests to spread the load and put force through the bones. Great.  I think a good backpack preferably with a waist belt would do very well.  

Importantly don't load up with too much. Start with a light load the first week or so and enjoy walking a little straighter. Then as you get used to it add some weight.  The USA army reckons not more than 50lbs.  Gosh.

*We discussed Rucking in the Sandgate class on Tuesday and ended up singing the "Happy Wanderer".  

  Not your everyday class

Here is a link

https://fitatmidlife.com/what-is-rucking/

Life in Balance - Balance in Life - HOW

 Habit of the Week

Let's practice our balance.  Very little is required to keep hold of the balance we've got.  There is evidence that as little as three times a week for ten minutes is sufficient.

Of courses, I have to tweak it..........  I like to do a little every day, just a few seconds every day really works wonders.  You will notice the difference by the end of a week.

Why bother? Our balance ebbs away insidiously. 

Working on your balance:-

• Prevents falls - if this were the only benefit, it would be worth it.
• Strengthen our legs
• It keeps us young and able to enjoy life
• Gives us confidence
• It is a new skill to practice

Let's make our balance practice a part of our daily routine..

Meditation - Who Knew? Habit of the Week.

 I recommend a YouTubed. from "Big Think"  This has been an eye opener for me.  This video clip has so much interesting content that I could only watch it in chunks, so I  could digest it all.

Firstly it discusses the misconceptions in meditation namely what it is not.  Then it goes on to talk about the evidence and the science that backs it up. then how to get started.

• This might very well be the next revolution in health.  Consider other recent ideas new understanding of the importance of gut bacteria, 
• the new concepts of neuroplasticity, 
• the importance of weight bearing exercise and high intensity interval training. 

Walking - Why not kick up your heels - HOW

Our habit of the week is to push off from our heels when we walk or run.  When we do this, we recruit the correct gluteal muscles, which are the muscles we evolved to walk with.  we’ve been walking this way for millennia

The Primal Posture Course I did this year called this “Glide Walking”.  Esther Gokhale, the author wants us all to walk “as a series of forward propulsion, not falls”

When we walk we want to propel ourselves

1.     So, we use the mobility of the shoulders to swing our arms, especially to the back. (see week - shoulder mobility)

    Gluteus medius, but where?    

    These are the buttock muscles at the sides. Dig your thumbs into your hips you will feel them.

3.     Pushing our heals out the back when we walk.                                                                         This is the start of the correct action of walking. It is propulsion, rather than falling forward. So pushing the heals then pushing off the toes not only starts to recruit the gluteal muscles, it sets up good alignment,  

The problem is our modern gluteus fails to switch on, probably because of all our modern sitting in chairs.  The average adult is sedentary for 64% of the time – the desk job, the car, the couch.  This even has a name Gluteal Amnesia. 

So let's get to know our glutes.  Let's use them to propel ourselves forward by driving off with our heels as we walk.

My Chinny Chin Chin

We can even consider our posture from our chin's point of view - Leading from the chin, perhaps

Ideally our chin is angled gently down. By the way, I remember my nonno used to tilt his chin up and down to look through the different lenses of his bifocals.

However, it is not just collapsing the head down. We must place our head in the correct place - stacked up above our body.  The back of our neck must be elongated.  When we do this we are quietly switching on the core muscles of our neck.  

So for homework we will be practising "chin glides". This means gently  move your chin backwards.  Go ahead make a double chin.

• Standing with your back against the wall
• Start by lengthening the back of your neck - and keep it long.
• Retract your chin horizontally. Relax
• Repeat.

You  don't necessarily need to stand at the wall.  The car is ideal.  Every time you sit in a car seat, gently glide your chin so your head touches the headrest or at least, moves towards the headrest.

Here is a link to a YouTube regarding the chin glide from  Bob and Brad. It is a 5 minute video.  They call it a chin tuck...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OEJyVhVlAE  

and while you are at it 

This is excellent, too and it is a bit more recent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpVq1A-BrfI

Draw up the Golden Thread - Habit of the Week - HOW

This week our homework is to draw up an imaginary golden thread.  This thread runs from the earth beneath our feet up through our body into the neck and the crown of the head. The idea is taken from the discipline of Tai Chi.

When we pull up on the golden thread, our spine and neck automatically lengthen, but our shoulders and limbs stay relaxed - like a beautifully draped garment on a coat hanger.    This lengthening helps to line us up straight and gives more room for our organs.  It makes good posture AND breathing easier.

Habit of the Week draw up your Golden Thread.  Like all the habits, practice this 100 times per day - In other words,  whenever you think of it. By the end of the week you will have trained your postural muscles into a better position.  It will feel natural. 

Postural Habits all Click Together - Habit of the Week, HOW

As we start to implement our postural habits, we don't need to remember them all.  Our habits all work together, so if we remember one of them, we are easily able to practice many. Let me illustrate:-

While we are walking
For example, if our head is stacked above our body, it is easy to spread our chest triangle.  While we are there with our head in an easy neutral position it is easy to look into the longer distance for our safety sake.
With our chest triangle open and lifted, it is easy to swing our arms or roll our shoulders up and  back and down. Delicious!

While we are sitting

Why not stack sit, nice and tall, with our "behind" behind us.  This allows us to easily, place the head directly over the body.  A simple shoulder rolls puts our arms in the correct place.  

These are familiar habits. You know them as well as I do.  These habits make our movement and sitting more efficient i.e. less energy wasted. Beautiful posture helps reduce stress and aches and pains.  Our posture assists us in breathing better, and digestion.

Let's put our posture habits to good use. 

Where to look? Lift up your head, and turn to smell the roses. Habit of the week

Let's take our gorgeous upright posture out for a spin. 

About 6 year ago, I did some safety and self-defence training with a policeman, Phillipe.  This is his safety perspective.

When you walk take into account the long distance view, the middle distance and the immediate view -  all three.  You can do all that if you look into the longer distance, and use the peripheral vision for the rest.
He was an observation savant. His focus was incredible. He would,for example tell me to look around. I would notice that there was someone across the road, bravo me,  but then he wonder if I had seen what was in the person's left hand.
Did I not see that?  Me? no sorry. 
Just like when a bird flicks by, Don says "Did you see the golden eye on that bower bird?"  I say "oh, Birdie".

Anyway, keeping your line-of-sight up, not down, keeps you safer.  You notice more. 
So I tried it on my morning walk.  I can report that I definitely remembered my posture  I hadn't realised that when I am deep in thought or listening carefully, my head drops down. Then having lifted my head up, glided my chin in correctly, I noticed a lot more of my morning walk surroundings. In fact,  I felt secure enough to turn my head a few degrees from side to side as I walked.  A positive result. 

Swing your arms - Habit of the Week

Even though it is cold, let's uncross our arms and start revving up by actually using our arms. There are lots of benefits.

I have been experimenting on my morning walk.. I  have been purposefully moving my arms when I go up that dreaded hill, and the hill seemed easier.  Then.at the top of the hill, using more arm movement, once again, a bonus - I recovered better.

But why?

Circulation is improved.  The moving of the arm muscles assists the "venous return" - the flow of blood back to the heart relies on the pump of muscles, not thebeat of the heart.  So moving the arms is a way of ensuring more blood returns to the heart and the brain.

Posture is improved, especially if you allow your arms to swing towards the back, as well as the front. Remember, the wind changes and you stay that way. Better to have your arms gently behind than hanging in front like a gorilla.

This effort of swinging your arms requires very little of our energy. 

Curious?  Well, what is the energy-cost of swinging our arms? 

I had a hunch. So I looked it up.  Very exciting news, indeed.

"Researchers found that normal arm swinging actually doesn't use much energy from the arm muscles. Simply walking causes the body to sway in a way that makes the arms move naturally, like a pendulum."

"So when you walk, your arms begin to swing naturally without much effort from your arm muscles. The natural movement of your arms also helps to offset a part of the force caused by your legs hitting the ground, keeping your torso and hips from wobbling and twisting too much. This results in your legs using less energy"

The article also says that keeping the arms still while you walk costs 12% extra energy.

I found a fun website Wonderopolis.     These quotes are from Wonder of the day #1538.

Here is the link;-  wonderopolis.org 

Lift Up Your Hearts - Habit of the week - HOW

This week we are lifting up the top part of our chest.  This makes the correct positioning a breeze - especially of the head and neck. 

This habit might just be a mood-changer, too.  Our mind can affect our body posture and the reverse is true.  Our body can have a positive influence on our state of mind - or a negative influence. It is part of our language - Don't be downhearted, how about downcast?. Alternatively we say, put a spring in your step.

An example of this wonder occurs when we fake a smile.  If we put your face into a smile position, say, by putting a pencil in our mouths sideways. Please allow the ends of the pencil to be outside your mouth.  The pencil causes this big smile.  It is not a sincere smile.  Afterwards, people report feeling better.  

So when we intentionally lift up our hearts our mood could lift as well.  

Arms behind your upper body

Here is a blog from 2015... 

 "I was watching one of the marvel comic Avenger films and there was Scarlett Johanssen in her black leather costume.  I noticed that at all times her upper arms were behind her body, no matter what she was doing.  Check out the movies for yourself sometime.
So switch on those "Scarlett" arms.  It looks great.  It helps line up the posture.  This week's habit, a postural cue, put your elbows behind your body and have Scarlett arms"

To update this with an idea from the Primal posture course that I did in Tasmania this year.

Roll each shoulder back in position, one at a time. Then turn your upper arms outwards.

Notice how this aligns and lifts your body.

Pull your posture up - from your bootstraps Habit of the week HOW

We have three arches in each foot. We can lose touch with those arches for many  reasons.  Our lovely shoes, soft carpeted floors, sitting all day may lead to lack of use of the arches of our feet. By the way, if you want to try the activity, it is helpful to take your shoes off.
We can re-ignite those arches by making our foot into a kidney bean-shape. Here is how. 

First, let's focus on the right foot. 

Start with your feet parallel, then shift the weight forward onto the ball of your foot
Keep the weight there and swivel your heal inwards a little.
Feel the tension through the foot and the lower leg.

Repeat on the left foot.

Now both.
Feel free to relax those muscles, between practices: - stamping your feet or marching on the spot will get blood flowing. 

Have another go
Sense how these activated muscles boost our posture.  Our strength and power radiate upwards, assisting all our postural cues.  

So arches switch on, 
Draw up the golden thread
Open the upper chest triangle, spread your dots
Melt your shoulders down the back
Angle the chin downward with a lengthened neck.

To picture a kidney bean-shaped foot, think, of a chubby baby's foot, or a grizzly bear's foot.
As easier starting place - curling your toes under - that will give you the vibe.
    

Stack your head above your body - Habit of the Week - HOW

We can stack the head above the body by organizing the neck.

This week's habit is to lengthen the neck by angling the chin downwards.  Thus the head is effortlessly carried above the body in good alignment.

Why

We need to be reminded  because when we are distracted, our heads creep forward.  Distraction can take many forms.  When we are concentrating on something, like singing or driving even watching TV.  Alternatively, when our energy is low, such as  feeling a fatigued. Our head comes forward and down.  

We pay a heavy price for this poor posture.  Even though it feels comfortable our heads are, in fact,  heavy.   It's just physics. The longer the lever (our neck), the greater the effort is required to hold the head (the load) up.

How

Imagine a line from your ear to the tip of your nose:- that line should angle downwards
The habits build one upon another.  

• It is difficult to stack your head above your body when your shoulders are hunched up and rounded forward.  
• It is impossible to melt your shoulders down the back without opening the upper chest "triangle". 
• There is no triangle without pulling up the Golden thread, elongating the spine and neck.

So draw up the Golden Thread
Spread open the  triangle of the upper chest
Melt the shoulders down the back 
With a long neck, tilt the chin gently downwards

Melt your shoulder blades down the back Habit of the Week - HOW

When we are distracted, preoccupied, tense, or anxious. our shoulders creep or pop up towards our ears. Let me prove it. Just take a sharp intake of breath. Gasp, as if in a fright.  Did your eyebrows go up? Did your shoulders jump up? In these interesting times of wall-to-wall news, our shoulders might LIVE up in our ears. What a waste of effort! This week's habit is the antidote.  

Melt your shoulder blades down the back 

Whenever you are at rest, ensure your shoulder blades glide downwards and stay there.  This builds upon the last two habits.  Draw up the Golden Thread to lengthen and straighten the spine. Gently spread open your upper chest triangle. In other words, make sure you are in good posture. 

You can get there by a few different means.  You can try one of these three

1. Roll your shoulders first forward, up, back and down - leave them there or
2. Shrug your shoulders - lift them up and drop them down or
3. Turn your upper arms outwards.

Melting your shoulder blades down your back is an example of the mind/body connection at work. Holding our shoulders up might very well make us even more tense, and stressed. Whereas melting the shoulders down the back, may help to calm the mind.   

The dreaded rounded shoulders.

Left unsupervised, our upward-creeping shoulder blades may also contribute to rounded shoulders and dreaded head-forward position.  

So 100 times per day, whenever you think about it, melt your shoulders down the back.  Remember, our body adapts to the load we give it. The more we move particular muscles, the stronger they get. So with our shoulder blades melted down the back, if the wind did change, we'd stay THAT way. 

Spread your Triangle of Joy Habit of the Week - HOW

This week we are focusing on the upper chest area. If we imagine a triangle at the very top of our chest this way:-  One  dot at the front of each shoulder, and one dot at the bottom of the sternum.  This forms a triangle. 

If we shrink that triangle, lots of postural problems follow - for example, our shoulders become rounded and turned inward,  then it would be very difficult to lift or turn your head, our abs could become, let's say, more pronounced.
In contrast, by expanding our upper chest triangle, our posture becomes more positive, our ribs can move better as we breathe, our head and neck are more comfortable and are in their correct position. 

We could look younger, slimmer, and smarter.  

Spread your upper chest triangle a hundred times a day, every time you think of it.  And within a week, those postural muscles become stronger and posture will improve.

I am excited.

Habit of the week from Portugal

Attend to your neck tube

Imagine that some part of your neck can be represented by a tube.  You may choose your windpipe, or your oesophagus or your spinal cord.  Picture it as a piece of flexible tubing, like an exercise cord.  Imagine holding a piece of tubing at the top, and let it drape downwards. Relax and lengthen your real neck and, of course, drop your shoulders, too.

Now picture the tube stretching forward.  This represents the "head forward" posture, and thus putting a kink or bend in your imaginary tube.  This represents the posture when we tilt our chin upwards to lift our head..  No you don't.  Try not to shorten the back of your neck.

This week's habit, lengthen your own neck (tube).  It is a handy cue to better posture, therefore less neck pain.  So it keeps you looking younger, slimmer  and and smarter.

Draw the golden thread. Habit of the Week. - HOW

It's still too hot to seriously consider running around.  So this week's habit/homework is another posture shaper.
Draw the golden thread upwards.

Firstly you need to imagine a line the extends from the earth through the soles of our feet, up through our legs and body, finally through the crown of our head.  It needs to be a straight line.

Then by pulling upwards with thread, we not only improve the alignment of your body, neck and head, we lengthen.   This makes movements like  turning and twisting more easy. And, if we're lucky,  the more we move, the better we feel.
.

Mobilize and Stretch, Habit of the Week, HOW

Each week we try one thing.  One small practice to implement. It is like homework.  And the more you practise the easier it gets.

This week's habit is to mobilise and stretch your joints.  This is a beneficial, especially if you sit for prolonged periods, commuting, or computing, driving, studying, sewing or doing that cryptic crossword.

As we grow tired and stiffen up, pain may overtake us. One way to alleviate the pain of stiffness, in say, neck, shoulders, or back is to do small semi circular movements of the shoulders, and ribs. These movements bring extra blood flow to the area and can help stimulate joint fluid.  And ah! we feel better.

An example may include shrugging the shoulders, or hands on the shoulders and draw circles with our elbows.  Lengthen the back of our necks and gently turn our head from side to side.
And, of course, stretching.
Three big stretches stand out, i.e. most bang for your buck.  
One of the most valuable stretch is the calf muscle stretch.
Secondly, the hamstring stretch
Thirdly, the deep hip stretch.

We talked about these in class, we do them every week.  They keep hips, knees and backs healthy and in the case of the calf muscle help to restore chronically tight muscles, and thus help our feet and knees.

Habit of the week, Stretching and mobilising,  Big impact, little effort.