"Cardio" vs. High Intensity Interval Training.

Or LISS (Low Intensity Steady State Cardio) vs. HIIT Simply put, "Cardio" is bad for you.

It make you produce a stress hormone called Cortisol, which in turn break down muscle and make you gain fat. Also it usually pound the joints to dust since your muscles are too loose to absorb the impact. all in all, surely an inferior practice.

 In HIIT on the other hand your muscles absorb the shocks of the movement and take away unnecessary and floppy load off of your joints. Hence, muscles get stronger. The body secrete androgen which are helpful hormones that help build muscle and burn fat in addition for increasing libido (so that after your workout you are in a more positive social mood).

Heart rate go higher then in the low intensity version, which improve cardiac vascular systems to a much better extent. And you can instal better patterns of movement that can help with other skill work, since the many repetition performed are that much more controlled.

 For further information and comparison between the two, click here: "http://www.simplyshredded.com/cardio-for-fat-loss-high-intensity-interval-training-cardio-vs-low-intensity-steady-state-cardio.html

Government

Don't know about democracies and dictatorships anymore. 

What I see is catabolic governments that explicitly don't represent their people, instead rob them and exploit them, and are on a perverted financial decline as a whole.

I see governments that claim to be anabolic, with a record of being disproportionally anabolic, but are now in a plateau, the past growth created many weak links as a result, and produced many injuries that halt the past growth. A continuous plateau is destined to decline unless the weak links are addressed, injuries fixed and a more responsible balance achieved, which would allow for a healthier growth.

And I see places where people seem to feel represented by their government, feeling that their representative are being transparent and genuinely care for the well being of the population which in part returns the affection, and the environment which is part and parcel of that harmony.

Cellular health

For many of us it is hard to perceive, but our body is a colony of cells.


It is similar to this Coral from my fish tank. Each circle that you see in the coral and in every coral is a single organism, the hole in the middle is used for consumption, breathing and excrement. Together these organisms form a colony (Each organism is made of living cells on the cellular level, and they in turn all have different tasks in the contribution of the livelihood of our organism).


At home I grow lots of colonies of coral, fish, as well as my own body.


For many of us it is hard to imagine, but our arms, livers, and other various organs are a living colony of organism, ones that can express themselves to a similar extent of other life forms we encounter, only that our own body is there to support our personal livelihood.


For better or worst in our culture we have been perceiving ourselves separately from our bodies thinking that the state of our body doesn’t have much to do with our personality and the capacity of our intellect.


That perception doesn’t take into account the fact that we have a set of cells that allows our spiritual self to express itself though our body. Those are nerve cells and the center of command, our brain.


When our bodily organs degenerate, the same happens to our brain and nerves. We wouldn’t necessarily lose the ability to talk, or compute, or use other functions of it. Same like we don’t easily lose our ability to run or hold things.


It is a biologic adaptation that once we intensely use one of our functions, our body will support its growth even if that is on account of another body part failure. Still that function will be less then optimal in that case.


Many of us have lost the ability to squat, sprint, jump, or perform other vital actions that used to be crucial for our survival, and you can make your own calculation as to our brain functionality. We might be keeping it functional to an extent, but is it as adaptable as it should be?


There are many things that effect our livelihood, be it money, care for our dear ones or communities. All of these have the capacity to better the conditions of living colonies of cells, and therefore better the conditions of those who govern them.


And I say, don’t just worry about those who govern. I make it a point of bringing the animals around me to as much life as possible by understanding how their biology works.


There is a problem to life, while spirit is all one, every living organism is feeding on other organism since the dawn of creation, that could be looked at as a moral contradiction but if you think about it enough you will find that it is not!


I do the same with the people I surround myself with, increasing their livelihood by education regarding our eating habits and the system that feed our cells, and on the effects of various movements on the adaptation of these mute organisms that follow our instructions for good or bad.


And of course I make it first priority to take the best care I can of my own self, which sadly is much more then what I see most people do even though it defy any good judgment to me.


I see good people looking in the wrong places, not knowing how to start thinking about these concepts, living at mediocrity with themselves. 


All of that could be changed and this is how.


Now prove me wrong or get to it!


Amir Solsky 


www.FundamentalsOfMovement.com

Strategy In Training

The road to physical achievements is riddled with fear of failing to achieve objectives. With every successful practice, meal or decision, we enforce our faith in succeeding and arriving to our destination. Investing in a commitment to a long term strategy of practice, nutrition, and education help pounding that fear to further away territories.

If you're not into over achieving is for a different story...
 

Art

All living things are expressive- artists, from flowers of plants to the human face, from the shape and state of our bodies to the way we move and interact.

Expressing our point of view and perspective on one end, expressing biological and physiological processes on the other.

We have the ability to take responsibility and conscience control over it or we could be the effect of it, not giving any thought to it and hoping that the end result would be graceful enough for the level and shape of the harmony with the environment we wish for.

Which ever way you look at it, higher discernment of that expression would put your resources to better use in way of allowing better freedom of harmony for those who seek it.

Health

It is very nice that people go to the gym and want to look good, what ever that means. But one thing seems to be forgotten.

Seems like doing that becomes a synonym with improving health but I don't see much conscious effort being assigned to health. Very little attention is given to nutrition by most, and all the working out has all sorts of damaging effects from pounding joints into dust to strength work that diminishes flexibility and mobility.

Real health shines brighter than exercising to look good. Consider your eating habits, reevaluate the efficiency and weak points of your practice, and consider health.

Life doesn't need to be detrimental to health, I could be good for you!

Safety in training

Over the time I spent in the fitness industry I couldn’t count how many times I saw that guy in the gym, at the beach, or elsewhere come up with all sorts of creative resistance work. Some times there would be interesting qualities to those, but mostly he would be a reason for mockery among the viewers.

Truth is that as obvious as this case is, it is hard not to justify the reputation that training has achieved, as far as the health benefit verses the risk of injury or creation of weakness and various wrong/overuse syndromes.

As a rule of thumb exercising should throw the body out of balance, where the body can eventually super compensate and find a new balance within a stronger structure. when the structure is weakened without getting stronger the work load isn’t a proper one.
With that said there are specific alignments for loading the body with resistance, and there is a lot of structural knowledge needed in order to do so safely.

Here is part of a conversation I had with one of my online trainees:

Me :
“Well performance on the squats, I would slowly lower you to a full squat as these are called half squat, that way you get to work the pelvic floor muscle and it has many other benefits over the half squats. that is as long as we don't lose form, form is the main thing.
As far as the Dead-lifts, I would avoid it for now, you are putting lots of pressure on your lower back (L3, L4, L5, S1) for the fact that your back is rounded at the bottom and your hip a bit protracted, it should be retracted.

I will give you a warm up mobilization routine that will help you articulate those hip angles.

When the Hip is retracted and the back extended, the erector spinae muscle takes the load. the way you do it most of the load falls on the disc, vertebrates and rest of the structure in a way that can cause disc issues.”

Tom:
“Hi Amir,

That's fair enough....I knew I wasn't quite going full range on the squats. I didn't honestly realize I was rounding my back on the deadlifts...but yeah, if we have to avoid those exercises for now so be it. I won't say I'm happy about it - I quite like doing them - but I am happy to take a step backwards in order to take 2 forwards, and obviously being able to do them with great form and most importantly safely is definitely two (or many more!) steps forward. “

Me:
“I wanted to see those lifts cause there are different approaches about the execution on them, some actually promote rounding the back at the bottom, especially with SLDL, saying if you don't have a problem in the back then it's not an issue.
I am sided with those who call this practice “hanging by your back ligaments.”, I believe that this movement is a natural one when it's unloaded, but loading your body this heavy I believe should only be directed to strong structure that is supported by the flexed muscles.
With that said I like dead lifts a lot myself, but I would just want to see proper back technique, one that I wouldn't have to worry could lead to issues.
Again, this is just commenting on the video of what you been doing, regardless of the program that i am putting together for you.
There are lots of ways to work these muscles, and I will choose the ones that would bring you to your goals the fastest, and it is good to change exercises in any how once you might got adapted to them.”

The lower back has an interesting structure, the disc between the vertebrates often compared to donuts where once flexed under some pressure could squeeze its content toward the spinal cord in various ways resulting in different issues that many people have unknowingly.

Sitting in a chair with the natural curvature of the spine will add %40 pressures on the lower back as the lower joints are not involved in bearing this pressure, where leaning forward will make it % 90 pressures and that even before loading your upper body with weights as you guys like to do at the gym.

And this regards only a few of the problematic joints.
Tom (fake name) was a competitive athlete with lots of knowledge about training and very nice ability. As you can see there is a lot of knowledge to be learned, mistakes could cost not only in health, but also in bad patterns that would inhibit development and take longer time to change then it takes a beginner to learn.

The lesson to learn is when coming to developing skills, fitness or health, if you are not a hundred percent sure about the safety of your practice (and even if you are sure about it as you can see), make sure to find a good practitioner to help you out. Certificates are nice, but I find personally more important the ability to demonstrate personal results as well as results with other people.

If there ever was an investment that gives back the most for your money, it’s your health.


Amir Solsky
www.FundamentalsOfMovement.com