One Minute Medical School on the Flu

Paul Ingraham highlighted this great YouTube channel a few days ago:



That was the first time I've been told what the H and N mean in the flu classifications.

Floor Living

One of the topics that I fine fascinating is that of getting older.   More specifically the idea of getting older while maintaining physical function: it is one thing to be old but something totally different to be old and capable of doing things for yourself.  There was an interesting piece on the radio the other day about a Greek island which has a lot of very healthy and active old people.  They were trying to filter out what accounted for their health - it looked like a complex of things: good quality food, wine, physical activity, low stress and lots of social interaction.

Anyway, that is off topic.  Well a bit off topic.

The other day I posted about a study that linked mortality to how capable an individual was of sitting down and standing up.  A commenter there pointed me to Phillip Beach's Muscles and Meridians, in which he discusses several floor- or ground-based "archetypal postures," and recommends "erectorcises" to practice getting up from them.

Intrigued I bought the book (that is the beauty and temptation of an Amazon account and a Kindle).   It is a really interesting book.  I've not really got into the meridians or the contractile field stuff, but the centre section on archetypal postures is fascinating.

The book proposes that we can reduce the incidence of musculoskeletal distress cheaply and effectively by taking three steps:

• We need to spend more time on the floor - in the natural postures of sitting, squatting, kneeling
• We need to be good at standing erect from the floor - this is a basic skill requiring a host of muscles to coordinate in work together
• Our feet need functional rehabilitation - shoes are sensory deprivation chambers!

If you want to preserve your mobility, and that of your clients, start with simple exercises that involve the floor to standing transition.

LEARN TO RETUNE

The Contractile Field model helps us to understand movement. The opposite of movement is rest; one without the other is nonsensical. At rest we assume natural Archetypal Postures. The archetype is the original pattern or model from which copies are made; the best example or prototype of that class of objects. Archetype used in the context of human movement refers to postures that emerge from, and are embedded within, the interaction of many joints and many muscles. Losing access to our Archetypal Postures is a biomechanical peril.

We sit on the floor in many postures that are our birthright, postures that our modern society neglects to value, instead preferring chairs and sofas. Rising from these Archetypal Postures to our full upright bipedal posture uses deeply embedded patterns of movement.

LEARN THE METHODS OF ERECTORCISE

To stand up from the floor is a movement sequence we mastered as children. Regrettably, in our busy lives this mastery has lessened over time until the normal act of rising from the floor becomes awkward and uncomfortable. Our musculoskeletal system needs the exercise of erecting to stay in good moving health. I call these the Erectorcises and the ability to relearn and reintroduce these exercises into everyday life provides some protection from degeneration and dis-ease.

Archetypal Postures and the Erectorcises are key insights derived from my work in Contractile Fields. If you want to achieve your sporting ambitions or to age gracefully you need to include this concept in your life. Learning why and how to value floor based rest and erecting from the floor with grace and facility will be of lifelong value to you.

Note: Erectorcises are applicable to all but the most infirm but are not appropriate for those with joint replacements.

consistency

One concept that I keep coming back to at the moment is that of consistency.  I did a post last month in which I bemoaned our constant search for a secret or shortcut to muscle, health and fitness.  This quest leaves us open to being led astray by all sorts of gurus and marketing men each selling some new magic formula. If there is any secret it is consistency.  Just keeping going.  It isn't flash or sexy.  It is boring in some ways.

Identify the basics and just keep doing them.  Keep turning up.

At this time of year the gyms get full of new members and the pavements are thronged with new runners and powerwalkers.  The ones who will succeed in their goals are not those with special genetic gifts or those who have the best gear.  Those who will succeed will be those who are still in the gym, still on the streets 6 or 12 months from now.

Basic habits:

• sleep
• minimal stress
• good food (not too much)
• some resistance training
• daily activity
• rinse and repeat.

I post a lot of interesting things on here but I hope that they never distract from those boring basics.  Just keep turning up.


Similar thoughts from Amber

....................there is no magic to weight loss and fitness. I did this without gimmicks, without fad diets, without restricting foods or macronutrients, without spending hours in the gym, without starving myself, without pills and potions, without dicipling myself to any fitness or diet gurus. My results have been dramatic, but the steps I took to achieve them were not. The key to my success, and to yours, is consistency. Good habits, practiced consistently, over time. Its not low carb, or low fat, or crossfit, or clean eating, or raw vegan, or paleo, or zumba, or gluten free or any other fad-du-jour with promises of easy weight loss and ‘ripped abs in 30 days’. It’s consistency. If I could put consistency in a pill and sell it to you, I’d be a millionaire. Because consistency WORKS. The evidence is right there in my progression pics.

I think it throws some people for a loop that I’m showing you these pictures, but not using them as a marketing ploy to sell you a magic pill. People don’t quite know what to make of that. Before/after pics are almost always used as a marketing ploy to sell magic pills (or fad diets, or workout programs, etc). But there’s no magic pill here, no promise of fast and easy weight loss and ripped abs in 30 days. Just the truth: if you make healthy choices, consistently, over the course of several years, you will have results as dramatic as mine. You won’t look exactly like me, because you have different genetics, but you WILL have dramatic results. Your health will improve and your body will change. It’s true.

Interesting isometric for abs

from the article at Quick and Effective Ab Workouts, some of which I like:

“train as much as necessary (to improve, and to win), not as much as possible!” 

or

The Plank and Side Plank

One of the best isometric exercise is as follows.

For myself, I end a workout with a simple Ab-core torso exercise, called the plank and side plank (see image on left) I do a single 90 second hold for the plank, and 60 seconds each for the side plank.  Total time:  3.5 minutes.

 The average person can’t do the plank for 60 seconds!  So don’t settle for average!

and some of which I am not too keen on.

It’s the Calories, Stupid.

I thought I'd mark my return to blogging by taking the piss out of a certain Diet Doctor for his post It’s the Insulin, Stupid, who takes (and tweaks) Fig 7A from Hyperinsulinemia Drives Diet-Induced Obesity Independently of Brain Insulin Production.

At first glance, Fig 7A looks like a CIH believer's dream come true (apart from the words "High Fat Diet").

Hyperinsulinemia → Obesity.

Obesity is caused by too much insulin. Game, Set and Match to insulin.

Not so fast! Let's take a look at the rest of Fig 7.

Figure 7. Revisiting the Current Model of Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes(A) The most widely accepted model of the pathogenesis of obesity and type 2 diabetes posits that a high-fat diet leads to obesity and insulin resistance (there is debate about the relative order and causality of these). In this widely held view, insulin resistance then leads to hyperinsulinemia, which is followed by β cell exhaustion, and then type 2 diabetes. The accepted model is incompatible with our results that put the insulin hypersecretion genetically upstream of obesity.(B) Our data support a model whereby insulin levels must be kept low to maintain energy expenditure in white adipose tissue via the expression of Ucp1. Our data do not address the order of subsequent events after obesity (outside the yellow box), such as insulin resistance and/or type 2 diabetes, since they were not observed in our studies. In other words, the effects of insulin gene dosage on obesity are independent of sustained changes in glucose homeostasis or insulin resistance.

↑ Peripheral Hyperinsulinemia → ↓ Uncoupling Proteins (WAT) → ↓ Energy Expenditure → ↑ Obesity.

Obesity is caused by a reduction in energy expenditure. Game, Set and Match to The Energy Balance Equation. It’s the Calories, Stupid. In the mice in this study, energy expenditure is strongly influenced by insulin levels. In humans, not a lot. In humans, insulin can act as a stimulant and as a sedative.

I'm not an insulin denier as is obvious from my other blog posts. I'm still controlling my carbohydrate intake.
I'm not a food reward denier and I've been using food reward principles to lose some more weight.

The above post will probably annoy some people. Before wasting your time writing a comment, please note my Moderation Policy.

Andreas Cahling at 60

When I was at my mum's house at Christmas I found some of my old bodybuilding magazines from the mid 1980s.  Looking through them it is fascinating to see what has changed and what is still the same over that period.  The top pro physiques are much more massive now ( more/better drugs), but the average natural amateur is not much different.  Nutrition knowledge has been al over the place, but the consensus is still in general terms pretty much what it was then: get enough protein and then watch your calories...

Anyway Andreas Cahling was on the cover of one magazine:

Apologies for the quality of the photo - the paper was too shiny.   That is Cahling on the saddle, with Johnny Fuller riding pillion.

Cahling was never the top level but he was a good competitor in the 1980s.  Well he is still at it!  At the age of 60 he just competed in the Master's Olympia.  He didn't do that well in the placings - younger more massive physiques dominated - but for a 60 year old guy he looked pretty good.  Drugs may well still be involved however......

He has been posting videos of his condition on his blog

sit down and stand up to predict mortality

The Get Up?

No not the Turkish Get up......

This is an interesting one that I came across today, mentioned on a podcast.  When I got home from my walk I did a bit of searching to find out more about the study.

The idea is that some researchers have found that those who can sit down and get up using no hands are likely to live for longer.  The more that you have to use other parts of your body - elbows, knees etc to help you up then the more mortality is affected....

The study is

Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality

Methods: 2002 adults aged 51–80 years (68% men) performed a sitting-rising test (SRT) to and from the floor, which was scored from 0 to 5, with one point being subtracted from 5 for each support used (hand/knee). Final SRT score, varying from 0 to 10, was obtained by adding sitting and rising scores and stratified in four categories for analysis: 0–3; 3.5–5.5, 6–7.5, and 8–10.
Results: Median follow up was 6.3 years and there were 159 deaths (7.9%). Lower SRT scores were associated with higher mortality (p < 0.001). A continuous trend for longer survival was reflected by multivariate-adjusted (age, sex, body mass index) hazard ratios of 5.44 (95% CI 3.1–9.5), 3.44 (95% CI 2.0–5.9), and 1.84 (95% CI 1.1–3.0) (p < 0.001) from lower to higher SRT scores. Each unit increase in SRT score conferred a 21% improvement in survival.

and the pdf of the whole paper is available. 

As functional as it gets

Thinking about it, in terms of longevity and mortality this movement is about as functional as it gets.  A fall is often the beginning of the end for old people.  If they break a bone it is bad but even if they do not, if they are struggling to get back on their feet then they can be in serious danger.

Here is a basic simple test of an essential skill.  Get onto the floor and get up again.  Can you do it?  Try it now.  It is an exercise in itself.

Try it using the minimum of bodyparts, without help from hands or elbows.  Yes it is a skill....but some skills are good to develop!

The way in which the test was applied in the study was as follows:

"Without worrying about the speed of movement, try to sit and then to rise from the floor, using the minimum support that you believe is needed."

Have a go at it now yourself.

Look beyond cardio

Offering an explanation for the close correlation between the test scores and survival, Dr Araújo said: "It is well known that aerobic fitness is strongly related to survival, but our study also shows that maintaining high levels of body flexibility, muscle strength, power-to-body weight ratio and co-ordination are not only good for performing daily activities but have a favourable influence on life expectancy.

Fitness is so much more than cardio / VO2 max.  Can you move well?  Can you stand and sit, lift, reach, carry, walk?  These require strength and coordination.  These skills need to be maintained as we age or else we are doomed to having people pick us up and wipe our behinds.

The video

A test or an exercise?

This was a test, but how about applying it as an exercise?  Or rather as a skill to develop and maintain as we age.   Treat this as part of your workout or at least part of your warm up.  Sit down on the floor and stand up a few times.

If you can't do this well then maybe you need to focus on some basics before you worry about the complexities of your exercise routine.

The TGU

Of course the TGU is perhaps a good move to practice as a skill, to help in this, although always skills are specific - in life you will not do this much....but you will always have to get up and get down.

Here Cotter would not score well because he uses his knee  ;-)