The Causes of Activity, continued…

Posted on March 27, 2009 by Josh

I want to continue the discussion from my last blog. Motivation (and the causes of activity) is a critical factor in my livelihood as a personal trainer, and, more importantly, it is critical to understand also for anyone interested in reversing the “inactivity epidemic” in our society right now.

As mentioned in the previous post, activity for most of the history of homo sapiens probably occurred due to necessity (to stay fed and safe), and then for recreation or rites (play, games, and dancing; and religious or cultural rites involving physical extremes).

In the past 10,000 years we have successfully extracted ourselves from the natural world to such a large extent that we no longer have any control over the outcome of our collective actions.

Based on the last post, I identified five factors leading to inactivity in our culture:

An over-abundant and readily-available supply of calories
The lack of physical demands in our culture
High-stress environments and lifestyles
The breakup of the tribal unit – overcrowding, strangers, etc.
Rules-based thinking.

How do you remedy these problems? Relatively easily, I think. Here are remedies:

Restrict your calories. Preferably by choosing whole, natural foods over processed ones.
Create physical demands in your life. Whether it’s parking your car further from your destinations, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking during your work-breaks, working out at a gym, etc.
Reduce stress in your life. Use stress-relief methods like autogenic programming, meditation, body-awareness methods, etc. Reduce your exposure to stressful influences like news (try a 30-day “news fast”), violent TV shows, etc. And get more sleep!
Connect with a community. Find a community that you resonate with, in your area, and make it a point to connect with them on a regular (at least once/week) basis. Make sure it’s a community where you’ll be able to express yourself as an individual, not just a place where you go and stand on the sidelines. Your participation in the community is key. This can be your family, too. As long as they’re nearby, allowing personal contact.
Use your imagination and creativity more. Play more in your life. This can be as simple as brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand. It can be as complicated as creating a game with your spouse or kids and playing it for a day. Play more games, it doesn’t matter what they are – board games, sports, puzzles, etc. Question rules, and make up fanciful solutions. Just do it!

My personal favorite way to combat the inactivity epidemic is playful exercise. Sports are great, but I’ve found that many league sports become hyper-competitive – the teams all too often filled with angry egoists. Instead, seek out play-based bootcamps in your area, or just get some friends together for play dates. I’ll be posting more and more play-based workout ideas as this blog continues. Stay tuned!

Motivation, and the causes of activity

Posted on March 27, 2009 by Josh

Michelle, over at the For the Life of Me blog, recently wrote a post about motivation as one of the key factors to success in incorporating healthy diet and exercise into our lives.

I agree with Michelle 100%, and I really like her take on the issue in her post. Motivation is a key issue in having a healthy lifestyle. But why is motivation so difficult? What’s behind our motivations to do (or not do) certain things?

I think the source of the issue go straight to nature, or, what’s natural in general. The law of inertia applies to everything that exists, and says that a body at rest will tend to stay at rest, and a body in motion will tend to stay in motion. This is also “habit” – we tend to keep doing the things we’re used to doing, and not to do new or different things.

There’s also a law among living things demanding them to be as efficient as possible – to expend energy only when necessary. For instance, one of the first things they’ll tell you in a survival school is to stay warm (conserve energy), and move around as little as necessary (conserve energy). Building a log cabin is something a person does who already knows for a fact where they’re going to get their calories for the next year.

You can see this behavior in still-existing aboriginal/native cultures. They don’t run around any more than necessary. They spend a lot of time hanging out talking. They do what is needed, and then rest.

So, what’s going on with us, in our culture?

First, we have a steady, stable, and reliable supply of calories (not always from the best sources).

Second, we don’t have any difficult physical demands in our lives, especially no demands that are necessary for our survival. We have crafted environments that don’t demand any activity at all (going to the grocery store is a lot different from going out on a hunt, or even digging for your vegetables in a garden, or a natural setting). Our “work” isn’t physical (building huts versus building websites, tending to crops or herds versus tending to your computer).

Third, we’ve created environments that trigger our stress response frequently. Stressful work situations (with no physical outlet) lead to a constant release of adrenaline, and a buildup of cortisol, which leads to malfunction in the body.

Fourth, we’ve created an isolationist society – how many of your neighbors do you know and trust? In an aboriginal culture, you know all of your neighbors (maybe up to 100), and you trust them all equally.

Fifth, and I think worst of all, we’ve created a culture of rules-based thinking, instead of creative-based thinking. Everything we’re taught from an early age is designed to get us to follow rules. Hence, when we get older, we do what everyone else is doing. We think that it’s crazy to go off and follow our dreams – because there are no rules about that, and no one else is doing it (except the odd-ball cousin or friend-of-a-friend that you hear of on some occasion).

Exuberant Animal – in SF

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Josh

Yesterday was another great Exuberant Animal event, this time held at the gym I work in – DIAKADI Body.

Frank Forencich, creator of EA, came down from Seattle for a day of discussion and PLAY! There were about seven DIAKADI trainers there, two clients of DIAKADI trainers, and two other folks who had heard about the program.

We were together for eight hours, and it was great! The first hour was a warmup and some play. Then Frank went through the basic knowledge that underlies the EA philosophy and approach to play. We switched back and forth every hour for the rest of the day, discussion/play, discussion/play. I wish school was always like this!

If you do anything at all after reading this post – GO OUT AND PLAY! If you can’t think of any games, the EA website has some great ones you can use.

Why Life?

Posted on March 22, 2009 by Josh

I have a philosophical question today.

Here’s how it starts:

What lives, that is not born from something else that is also alive?

I can’t think of anything that is born from something that we would consider “dead.”

But wait, if that’s the case, where did “life” come from?

I guess I have to be a little “ideological” here, because I’m on the evolutionary side of this “creation” debate (though I don’t discount the idea that there is a ubiquitous organizing Force of some sort behind/within it all, which is what this post is about).

The evolutionary perspective (that the Big Bang occurred, cosmic dust swirled, solar systems stars and planets formed, etc.), assumes that “life” evolved from “non-living” organic matter.

But, again, where else does life come from the non-living? Not that it’s outside the realm of possibility, but again, there is no other place in nature where life or something living comes from something “dead” or non-living.

And, if it is the case that life only comes from other things that are alive, then we have to say that the planet Earth is “alive.”

Is our conception of “life” too narrow?

If the planet that “created” life had to be alive in order for that to happen, what do we define as “life?”

And, really, there was one other “parent” involved in the creation of “life-as-we-kn0w-it” on this planet – the sun. Without the sun, none of it would be possible (not even the planet itself).

If that quality, “life,” was present in the planet and the sun, where did theyget it from? What was/were the parent/s of the Earth and sun?

If the planet was formed out of a swirling cloud of space debris caused by the Big Bang, and the sun caused by swirling gases collapsing onto themselves, what was/were the parent/s of those swirling clouds?

And then, what was/were the parent/s of the Big Bang?

I think our concept of “life” (of what constitutes “life,” and what creates “life”) is far too narrow.

Have a nice day!

The Home Gym

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Josh

If you want to get healthy, go outside and play more. If you want to get stronger, or really shape your physique, start working out. If you want to get better at a sport or event, train.

In all instances, you should be eating a healthy, natural diet, that meets but doesn’t exceed your nutritional needs.

Often times, we make things so complex that they’re stultifying. You get stopped in your tracks. You don’t know what to do. Psychologist Barry Schwartz has written and spoken extensively about the harmful effects of having too many choices or options. In our culture, it’s necessary to self-limit. You can’t do it all. And you can’t do most of it if you want to do some of it well. You can probably do three things really well.

Working out is no different in that regard. Walk into any gym, anywhere, and you’ll find hundreds of unique pieces of equipment. If you had no idea what they were for, or had never been exposed to a gym before, you’d be completely baffled by the use of almost all of those items.

Not only that, but all of those pieces of equipment are completely unnecessary for most people.

For one thing, bodyweight exercise alone is as effective at creating strength, increasing health parameters, and increasing muscle mass/losing fat. You have all of the equipment you need right now.

But even beyond that, let’s say you want to do something harder. I’ve written about my sandbag, which is a wonderful training tool. You could make something like that to throw around, using a big sack and whatever relatively soft material you can find to fill it with. I’ve seen people do the same thing with a backpack full of bricks that I do with my sandbag. You have to be a bit more careful, but the effect is the same.

If you really want to get creative, and play more, you can make your own equipment. This site is a fantastic resource for homemade gym toys. Ross Enamait is another king of do-it-yourself gym equipment (see the right sidebar of his page).

Keep it simple. The simpler the better. Figure out what your goal is, and then find the simplest and most direct route to get there. If you’re still at a loss, drop me a line on this blog, and I’ll be happy to point you in the right direction.

Bruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human Body – Review

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Josh

Based on a recommendation from Ross Enamait on his blog, I bought and read the book “Bruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human Body,” by John Little.

This was a very interesting read for me, for a number of reasons. For one thing, Bruce Lee was one of my biggest idols as a kid. I would imitate him all the time, and I’m pretty sure he was the first person I ever thought of as having an “ideal physique.”*

The thing that most intrigued me, though, was the prospect of getting some insight into Bruce’s training regimen. When I was a kid, there were always myths about what Bruce did for his training. Thousands of pushups and situps. Or jogging and punching drills. I didn’t really get into weightlifting till I was about 15 (thanks to Arnold), so most of my “exercise” time was spent doing pushups and situps. That was it! Of course, I would play outside constantly with my friends, ride bikes, run around the neighborhood, etc. But on most days as soon as I got home from school I’d go through as many sets of pushups and situps (feet hooked under the couch) as I could till I was tired.

This book gave me something different than what I had expected to find, though. There are plenty of workout routines in the book from different times in Bruce’s life. He basically ran the gamut of training techniques and styles – which is something most of the physically-active people I know will be familiar with. He did bodyweight calisthenics, interval training, jogging, sprints, weightlifting, bodybuilding, circuit training, kettlebells. You name it, Bruce, at one time or another, did it.

Which leads me to what most impressed me about this book. It is the thing that made Bruce Lee who and what he was, and still is. It is the unwavering attempt to maximize his potential as a human being that stands out most. Bruce was constantly experimenting, revising, tweaking, playing.

Even more, Bruce’s wide-ranging interest and approach led him to understand human beings intimately. I was blown away by a statement of his, included as a quote in the Preface. He says:

All types of human knowledge ultimately lead to self-knowledge. So, therefore, these people are coming in and asking me to teach them, not so much how to defend themselves or how to do somebody in. Rather, they want to learn to express themselves through some movement, be it anger, be it determination or whatever… (pg. 14)

This could be a direct quote from Susan Higgins essay on Motor Skill Development, which I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts on this blog. Human movement is an attempt to solve a motor problem. In the same way, human emotions and communication are attempts to solve emotional or rational problems. I don’t mean “problem” in the sense of something bad. I mean it in the sense of a puzzle, something that needs to be figured out so you can continue to develop.

The rest of that quote finishes with “So, in other words, they’re paying me to show them, in combative form, the art of expressing the human body.” The way to do that, is to continually explore its potential, by continually challenging it with new and different “problems,” which is what Bruce did.

Check out the book if you have a chance!

*My other major idol was Arnold, who is quoted in this book as saying “The great thing about someone like Bruce Lee is that he inspires so many millions and millions of kids out there who want to follow in his footsteps…they go out and train every day for hours and hours” (pg. 18). Amen to that!

Grandma

Posted on March 17, 2009 by Josh

Two weeks ago I headed out to Michigan to see my grandma. She’s recently been diagnosed with colon cancer. That being said, she seemed absolutely the same as ever. Cheerful, optimistic, happy.

My grandma has a couple of habits that I thought I’d share with you. The first is this – every day, when she wakes up, she says “Happy day, happy day! Thank you God for another day!” She told me that she does this, and said she’s been doing it for years.

The other habit my grandma has is to comment on how wonderful things are. After breakfast at Colonial Kitchen (like a Denny’s for you non-midwesterners out there) she said, ”Well wasn’t that wonderful?!”

Well, I wouldn’t have called it “wonderful.” But when she said it, I thought, “why not?!” So I said “YES! It was wonderful!”

Some people see this type of behavior as silly, or unrealistic. I see it as imposing the power of positive thinking on your life.

This approach also puts you in control of your life. Truly, you can’t change external events, you can only change your response to them. Take this attitude versus diet books, the news, advertising/marketing – whose message is always the same – you don’t know what’s best for you, and we do.

Another thing I like about my grandma’s approach is that it favors simplicity over complexity. While this may not be apparent at first glance, take a closer look at what’s going on. When she says “Wasn’t that wonderful?!” about a breakfast, she’s saying “you know what, I can enjoy even the most simple things…and in fact, those things are most wonderful!”

This is the same attitude my friends over at GarageStrength take. Read their post about dietary fiber, and transfer that to any pharmaceutical cure versus the natural healing powers of the body (when given time and space to perform). Simple solutions are best. Get your fiber and nutrients from your diet, and you don’t have to worry about whether or not you took your pill today. This is also the central theme of Egoscue therapy, which I’m more and more impressed with on a daily basis – surgery versus functional correction. Simple is always better, but our culture is obsessed with/possessed by complexity.

The thing I like most about grandma’s attitude, if you couldn’t tell, is that it encapsulates what’s known as “Positive Mental Attitude.” PMA is a choice. And it’s a muscle. Use it or lose it!

The Other Person Is Always Right

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Josh

I want to expose you to an idea that I’ve been trying to integrate into my life recently. I first encountered this idea a few years ago, when I was reading about NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming. NLP is typically associated with Tony Robbins, who popularized parts of it. Many sales training techniques will utilize the eye cues from NLP that can reveal the parts of a person’s brain they’re using during conversation (popularly, to see if the person is “lying,” though this isn’t the purpose in NLP). But I’m getting off on a tangent here…

One of the main concepts within NLP is that every person has a “map” of reality that they refer to when thinking about or doing things. An integral part of this concept of a “reality map” is understanding that every person has a positive outcome intended in every action. No one does things to achieve what they would then perceive to be as a negative outcome. They always want to create what they currently understand to be a positive outcome.

Finally, and most importantly, every person is right about what they think.

Take a second to consider these statements. Consider the worst person you can imagine. A criminal of some sort, perhaps. That person’s actions reflect their map of reality. And within that map, their actions have a positive outcome for themselves. They either gain esteem, personal wealth, or something else from their actions. Not only that, but they are completely right about that belief. While their actions may not be “right,” their thought about what their actions will get them, in relation to their map of reality, can never be wrong. They may change their map after suffering consequences other than what they believed would happen (or they may not).

Understanding and accepting this concept is the first step. Learning to accept that what another person tells you is true to them is the second (and I think, more difficult) step.

To highlight this again, let’s take another, less extreme example. A teenager is in the “rebellion” stage. They have formed a map of reality based on their prior experience, their current environment, and their perception of the future. Their actions reflect this map. They do not intend to experience negative consequences as the result of their actions. They want to express themselves and their understanding of the world, whatever it may be – to correct perceived wrongs done to them, perhaps. While they might get grounded for bad behavior, they never intended to get grounded from the outset. Again, not only that, but they were not wrong in what they believed. They were completely right, based on their map of reality, to behave the way they did.

My second exposure to this same concept happened this semester in my Motor Learning class. We learned a new definition of the word “skill,” which is skill as the ability to solve a motor problem. Skill, then, is a continuum, with several factors influencing each person’s level of skill at any moment.

The first article we read with this approach to the idea of skill was by Dr. Susan Higgins. In it, she points out that “the degree of skill we attain on most tasks is generally to the satisfaction of the individual within the constraints imposed by cognitive, morphological, or sociocultural factors. We thereby settle for a level that suits our momentary needs.”

She also says that “You cannot impose a strategy or movement on another person, but should instead regard their own solution and consider the expression of their own personality and problem-solving ability in that solution, and then find ways to enhance their chance of success at the task and increase their pool of resources for solving the problem.” Because – “Each strategy a person uses complements their strengths and weaknesses and reflects their current level of understanding and skill.”

Isn’t this directly in line with what NLP says? I think so.

But what is the lesson here? I don’t want you to think that this post only applies to physical training, or therapy, that’s why I included the NLP tie-in.

I guess my reason for this post is to make a suggestion, which is this:

The next time you’re speaking with, or dealing with another person (or even thinking about an interaction you’ve previously had with another person), consider the perspective presented here. Consider the fact that the other person is referencing their map of reality, and that it is absolutely true to them. Also consider that, whatever the outcome of the interaction, they were ultimately interested in attaining something positive for themselves, in some way.

When you see people doing things, realize that they are expressing their current level of ability in solving the problem presented to them (whether it’s a movement or other type of problem) in their world, based on their previous experience, and their level of consideration of the situation. What is their map? How can you help them to express themselves more clearly (whether it’s through actions or words)? What questions can you ask that will help you to understand them better?

Then, you can think about yourself and your own actions and reactions in this way. Examine yourself, and see how you’re trying to solve problems. What might facilitate your problem-solving capacity? How can you be more understanding and allowing toward yourself?

Finally, consider they way your map presents you to the world. How do you look to other people, based on the map of reality you reference? How can you communicate your map more clearly to others?

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Taking this approach has been a challenging (to say the least) but incredibly eye-opening experience for me. I hope that it will be for you too!

The Difference Between Training and Working Out

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Josh

I was discussing this with my colleague Charlie Reid yesterday, and thought I’d pass it along, because it’s helpful to recognize the difference between training and working out.

In brief, “training” is when you’re preparing for an event of some sort. “Working out” is exercising to stay in shape. “Exercise” is the use of something. You can “exercise” your brain, or your authority, etc.

More thorougly, training involves a long, detailed program aimed at achieving a very specific goal. It is hard, and not a lot of fun most of the time. Consider training just for one event all the time. Every effort, every breath, aimed at one goal. As a simple example, consider a powerlifter. You’ll spend a lot of time lifting heavy weight. You’ll spend a lot of time doing deadlift, bench press, and squat. It’ll be most of what you do, in one form or another. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what training is.

Working out, on the other hand, is just “exercising” to stay in shape, or have some effect on your body. And there’s nothing wrong with this, either. I just think that people get confused a lot about the difference between these two types of exercise, and what’s involved in them.

Most people (99%) will benefit fully in every way (weight loss, body composition change – more muscle, increased aerobic capacity, increased strength) by working out. They don’t need a specific “plan.” The don’t need “periodization” of their training schedule. They don’t need to do the same thing all the time. All they need to do is to go in and do something.

The body does adapt specifically to the demands it’s exposed to, so some planning is in order. But consider this – how specific do you want to be if your goal is general fitness? I don’t think you should get too specific. Keep your training program general.

Part of the source of this confusion is that people think that it’s extraordinary for a person to have “ripped abs,” low bodyfat, or a lean muscular physique, when in fact, that’s every person’s most natural state!

We are all “designed” to be exceptional examples of movement. We are all capable of moving powerfully through the world. The myth that someone else is exceptionally fit is a myth held by the unfit. I think one of the first things you need to do is to realize that this idea is a myth. It isn’t reality. In reality, every human being can do what every other can (within the dictates of genetic predispositions, of course).

Don’t sell yourself short. If you want to get in shape, don’t look for a “training program.” Go out and start moving. Run, walk, jog, skip, hopscotch, crawl on all fours, climb trees, do somersaults, handstands, cartwheels…

Trust me.

Guiding Principles

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Josh

I worked for a grocery store called “Fresh Fields” back when I was in college (and for a while after). By the time I left, Fresh Fields had been purchased and I was working for Whole Foods. But Fresh Fields had something interesting that Whole Foods does not.

On the wall of most Whole Foods stores you can find their “core values.” They are:

While I appreciate Whole Foods’ honesty, I miss the values that led Fresh Fields. Fresh Fields’ version of “core values” were called the “guiding principles.” Those were (to the best of my memory):

No refined sugar
No artificial preservatives, colors, or flavors
No bleached or brominated flours
No irradiated vegetables
No hydrogenated or tropical oils
No steroids/antibiotics in the meat
No animal testing in the beauty products

I think Fresh Fields also required meats sold there to be organic and free range.

There’s something about the focus of these two enterprises that speaks to me. Fresh Fields tells you what they won’t tolerate, under any circumstances (they ended up playing with those rules a little by the end). But what’s most important about Fresh Fields’ values is that they tell you explicitly what you’re going to get.

Most importantly, Fresh Fields’ guiding principles lead someone who reads them to a question – Why?

WHY won’t you let any of those things into your stores? And then, the rest of the questions begin – What the hell are those things?! What’s so bad about those things? What’s wrong with refined sugar? What’s wrong with artificial colors and flavors? What is “brominated?” What is irradiation? What’s wrong with hydrogenated and tropical oils? What’s wrong with steroids/antibiotics in meat? Maybe the last one didn’t get as many why’s…most people know what’s wrong with animal testing.

What we get with Whole Foods is a list of “action goals” for the corporate organization. Nothing about definitions. Nothing thought-provoking there. Nothing entirely comforting, either.

Just wanted to share those old principles with you. Good luck on your journeys!