A Healthy Diet Improves Productivity

Finally, a way to make capitalist greed work for actual healthier living... Health News Article | Reuters.com

Decide to Be Healthy, Not Thin - Nubella

While I debate the claim that "two thirds of adult Americans are now overweight," this article from Nubella is definitely a step in the right direction...

Decide to Be Healthy, Not Thin - Nubella

On the Mountain

OK, well "mountain" is an exaggeration. Yesterday, I went to Blue Knob with new TBT convert Martin (a.k.a. "The crazy German"). While he was skiing the double-diamonds, I was snowboarding pretty much everywhere. The conditions were not perfect, but they were about as good as it gets in Pennsylvania. They had been making snow, so in some places there was powder, and chunky powder, and packed powder, and of course the occasional patch of ice (or "Eastern Hardpack" as Martin calls it).
I did a few initial runs on the intermediate hills, and then when those started to get crowded I went over the the black diamond trails. It was one of the few times that those runs weren't totally icy, so I really enjoyed the challenge of carving out the turns at high speeds. Then when start started to get crowded, I went to the terrain park.
I am far from an extreme boarder, so just hitting a jump is a challenge for me. There's a bit of ego and fear to overcome. I tried this one jump a few times, and I just could not seem to land it. I also tried a rail, and I fell the first time, but eventually got it. The jump I just couldn't seem to do.
It was getting late, so I went back to the black diamonds for a few more runs. I had a big wreck there; not on the black diamond hill itself, but on the trail that leads to it. This trail is about 3/4 of a mile long, and very flat in places. Since I'm on a snowboard I don't have polls to push myself over these flat sections, so I need to have a lot of speed over this trail or I'll stall out before the hill. But the trail was getting very cut up, and it was starting to freeze, and I hit a hole and went flying. I got up, brushed myself off, and hobbled to the start of the hill. One of my bindings had worked loose in the crash, but from where I was, I had no other option than to go down the hill. I actually made it through that with little difficulty.
When I reached the bottom, Martin and I decided to do one last run. He went to hit the moguls, and I went to one of my favorites, High Hopes. High Hopes is a very narrow, somewhat steep run that goes under one of the lifts. So you have to dodge the lift towers as well as the sides. It's fun. I got off the lift, tightened the bindings as best I could, and started. Somehow, in the other runs I had done on this trail, I failed to see this 2-foot or so shelf. This time my course was a little different, and suddenly I was right on top of this jump that I didn't even know was there. I had no way to bail out of it, so I just went for it. I did it perfectly. I don't even remember the rest of the run, I was so ecstatic.
I think the secret was just to relax, and not think about it so much. I let the jump come to me, and my body knew what to do. I just need to remember not to interfere.

Leg Extensions Kicked My Ass!

Yesterday was lower-body day. I was feeling good, so I took the weight up on my back squats. The last set were rough, especially combined with jump squats. I was a little fatigued after that, as I walked upstairs to do the last round of leg extensions.
That was rough, let me tell you. My ego told me that I didn't need to take the weight down. My practice quickly told me otherwise. I had a total breakdown of form, so I stopped, took the weight down, and then started over. I got through two more sets, with the elegance of my form just beginning to break down right at the end.
The calf raises afterwards were a relative breeze, though. And it was another excellent, much-needed break from a long day at work.

Upper Body Day

Yesterday was upper body day at the gym. As good as it feels to work out, mostly it was nice just to be out of work for an hour.

Here's a work-out tip: when doing pull-ups, have one hand over the bar (the traditional pull-up position) and one hand under the bar (the traditional chin-up position). Because of the uneven force you generate like this, your core gets engaged to stabilize your body during the exercise. Try it: you'll feel the muscles across the chest and abs working, in addition to the arms and shoulders.
Then do a second set with the hands reversed. That gives you an extra mindfulness boost to concentrate on which hand was which.

Went for a run

That wheezing sound you heard last night? That was me. I ran 5km on the track at Rec Hall, and they noise my rusty bellows were making over the first mile was quite scary. I had planned a nice, easy, 8-minute-mile pace. I did get that pace, and it was neither nice nor easy.

In other news, I am hoping that it stays winter long enough to go snowboarding this weekend. Think Snow!

NBC hates the Olympics

I had an epiphany yesterday. I was at the gym, and the Olympics were on TV. I wasn't really watching, just aware of it. Then, instead of continuing to show the games for which they had paid hundreds of millions of dollars, they instead decided to show the Daytona 500.

Now, my point here is not to denigrate the Daytona 500. I'm no fan of auto racing, but that's not what I driving at, if you'll pardon the pun.

No, what occurred to me is that NBC will do anything to avoid showing the actual competition at the games. You don't see them breaking away from the 500 to do a mist-lens, up-close-and-personal segment on Jeff Gordon. But that's all they do on the Olympics. They would much rather do an in-studio with Jerome Bettis than show, say, a complete 4x10km Cross-Country Ski Relay. (Speaking of the Bus, can you image if they had show a 3-minute on him during, say, the second-quarter of the SuperBowl, and then rejoined the game in progress?)

Somewhere along the line the TV folks got it into their head that no one will care about the games unless they have these intimate portaits of the athletes (a practice some of dubbed Kwan-ification). But guess what? You'll find out all you need to know about them by watching them compete. I'm not talking about winning and losing, either. Bode Miller, Shani Davis, and John Weir all showed us what they are made of.

What's more, the true drama of sports is diluted by the coverage itself. Instead of letting the intensity build, all momentum is lost by the constant cut-aways. When Marianne Timmer was waiting to see if her time in the 1000M Speed Skating would hold up, that was drama. I didn't need to see or hear anything about her to have an interest. I still don't know anything about her, but I wanted to see what would happen.

The games are so much less compelling when instead of seeing the competions we are instead subjected to talking about the competitors. Save that crap for your website, fellas! Better yet, don't.

Lower Body

I took the weight down on most of the exercises yesterday, and really tried to concentrate on form. The jump squats were a big challenge to get through, maybe even more so then the second round of leg extensions. I was well-trained afterwards, though: my gastrocs felt like they might pop.

Coughing Today

So I got on the stationary bike last night. The original plan was just to do about 30 easy minutes (zones 2-3). But the stationary bike is so boring. So instead I did sprint intervals. It was all I could do to get up to 85 rpm, and I was seeing spots at the end of the fifth interval.
It was some hard work, but it had the desired effect of loosening up my lungs. Of course, now I'm going to cough all day.

I've got a bad habit

When work starts to get stressful, I hunch my shoulders. I have been trying all week to remain mindful of that, and to let me shoulders drop. The results are mixed, but my shoulders are definitely sore.

Yesterday I returned to the iron gym for the first time in two weeks. I was weak in most things, but surprisingly I didn't have any drop off in bicep curls or triceps. My pull-ups were pathetic, but that might be dur to the aforementioned shoulder-hunching.

I did some yoga this morning, and this evening I am going to do some medium-high cardio. The plan is to squeeze the last of this fluid out of my lungs.

"Your Workout is Everywhere" -- Coach Ilg

Yesterday, much of the East Coast got buried under feet of snow. But here in Central PA, we got just a scant few inches. But it was enough for me to spend an hour shoveling. It's a nice little chore, really. Then I went to tiny Tussey Mountain for a couple of hours of snowboarding. It was OK, there was snow powder, with some exposed ice and some exposed grass. But at least I was able to go.

Then last night I played volleyball: our winning streak finally ended at 16 games.

Recovery continues

Have you ever tried meditating while fighting a lower respiratory infection? Well, it's easy to focus on your breathing, that's for sure. What's not so easy is getting a deep breath without coughing. Through focus, I was able to breath in just to the edge of coughing, and so I got in about 10 minutes of zazen yesterday morning.

The rest of the day, however, was filled with nasty, "productive" coughing. Which I guess is a good thing, purging the evil humors from my lungs. Cleansing, baby!

Sick Days

My left lung is about half the size it should be. It's a birth defect. I never let that be an excuse for my athletic performance. It's nothing that can't be overcome with some extra work and willpower. And any real warrior knows that the true measure of performance is not whether you won or lost, or what our time was, or how many points you scored. The true measure of your performance is whether or not you finish knowing that you could not possibly have done any better than you did. Besides, the left lung is supposed to be smaller anyway, right?

But, if I get any kind of respiratory infection, it totally knocks me on my ass. So for the past week I've been home, in bed or on the couch. I'm finally back to work today, but I'm not quite ready to resume working out. Well, I did take the dogs for a brisk walk this morning, which sparked a painful coughing fit. But by the end of the week I should be back at it.

Control Your Anger

Reuters.com discusses research showing that "anger appears to raise the risk of suffering an injury." Health News Article | Reuters.com

Just goes to show the importance of mindfulness and meditation.