L.I.F.T.

My good friend Kwame Brown:

director of fitness at the Arlington, VA, Lee-District RecCenter; PhD. in neuroscience; founding member of the International Youth Conditioning Association; Exuberant Animal (par excellence):

and all-around good guy, needs your help.

He’s trying to get some insight into the factors affecting child development – from parents, educators, and policy-makers.  I’m sure that he’d even accept some ideas from folks who have an educated opinion, but don’t fit into any of those specific categories.

Please go over to his site and offer some ideas.

A recent New York Times articles asks :”Is There An Ecological Unconscious?“

Aside from citing a bunch of studies and trying to draw general conclusions from them (which is an incorrect use of science, by the way, for a great discussion of this, see John Sifferman’s most recent blog post), the author describes the field of ecopsychology, from its inception to present attempts at connecting individuals’ psychology and environment.

I dare you to look inside...

The article cites a study by Marc Berman, at the University of Michigan, whose study “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature” describes attentional gains after participants have walked through a setting full of “nature” (in this case, the Ann Arbor Arboretum…is that redundant?!).

But what is “psychology?”  Until that question is answered succinctly, all “psychological” studies are potentially redundant and misleading.

No one has ever answered that question in concrete terms.  Wikipedia says that: Psychology (lit. “study of the soul” or “study of the mind“^[1]) is an academic and applied discipline which involves the scientific study of human (or animal) mental functions and behaviors.

But what is the “mind?”  (let’s leave questions of the “soul” out of the discussion for now).  Apparently it’s a combination of “mental functions and behaviors.”

Again, Wikipedia says that “mind” is: the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is often used to refer, by implication, to the thought processes of reason. Mind manifests itself subjectively as a stream of consciousness.

But where do all of those things come from?

These guys must know...if they're helping "mind"

Most of psychology, if you’ve ever taken a psychology course (or several) addresses “mind” as a thing separate from physical reality.  Theorists make up their own paradigms of mind and mentality, of “mental functions and behaviors.”

The terrible redundancy can be seen most clearly in the field of Child Psychology, or Child Development.  There are five or ten competing theories of child development at different stages of maturation.  All are right, most are completely redundant with one another.  Many (if not most) create definitions of the child’s developmental process that are obviously derived solely from the researcher’s personal experience…no “objectivity” there (the question of “objectivity” is quite another question entirely).

This redundancy seems extraordinarily silly to me.  For one, can’t we all just get along?!  But for another, where does this “mind” come from?  I mean, “mind” doesn’t just exist on its own, apart from the physical body…apart from “behaviors.”  Does it?

I think the development of the field of psychology stems largely from the Cartesian mind/body dualism, and an underlying belief in “human supremacy” in the Order of Things.

Foucault me.

That is, human beings always believe that they are somehow specially different, better, “more special” than anything else in nature.  We always try to find qualities that separate us from the “lower animals.”

But, one by one, all of those arguments have been disproved.  I’ve heard them all – human beings have language (all animals have language); human beings are creative (ever see a spiderweb?); we use tools (ever see an ape catch termites with a long blade of grass?); we are self-conscious (debatable, and impossible to prove that other animals are not also self-aware/conscious)…etc.

The list goes on, but always with the same result – we are no “better” than anything else this planet has produced, we’re simply “different.”

This led, in combination with the Cartesian separation of mind from body, to a belief that our thoughts were somehow separate from our bodies, from our “physical” selves.

“Ecological Unconscious” or “ecopsychology” is one attempt to put those things back together, but it has skimmed over one of the most important questions – “When studying psychology (the mind), what exactly is it that we are studying?”

In reference to this, I’d like to cite a 2007 study by Japanese researchers (following up on several earlier studies of a similar nature).  The study is called “Psychological effects of forest environments on healthy adults: Shinrin-yoku (forest-air bathing, walking) as a possible method of stress reduction,” and, similar to Berman’s study, looked at the effects of walking or sitting in a wooded environment on physiology.

Needless to say, the effects were drastic, and positive.  Physiological markers of stress (salivary cortisol, resting heart rate, blood pressure, etc.) decrease in a “natural” environment.

Do the participants’ “psychologies” change?  Undoubtedly, yes.

I guarantee that changing your breathing will change your mind.

You see, for  me, “psychology,” or “mind,” is just a product of the physical body.  Sure, at some level it also becomes the product of the interaction of itself (recursive thought) and anything else (mind-to-mind, mind-thinking-about-itself), but without the physical body, there is no mind.

How can I assert this?  Well, you can “change your mind” by changing your body.  If you’re feeling blue, go out for a run.  It will change your mind.

So when fields like “ecopsychology” spring up, or talk of an “ecological unconscious” begins, I wonder why.  Why is it that we want to separate our physiology from our thoughts (or vice versa)?  Why is it that we hold onto this belief that there is some “magic” happening in our gray matter?

While it is magical that we have such a complex brain, the brain is not the mind.  The entire body is your brain.  To quote George Leonard:

Some researchers in the comparatively new field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) argue that the interplay of peptides with peptide receptors on the surface of cells throughout body and brain carries considerably more information than all previously discovered brain mechanisms combined. Imagine a pharmacy with well over a hundred potions that can be mixed in all possible combinations and proportions, and you can begin to understand the power of this chemical information system.

So don’t speak of an “ecological unconscious” as something separate from your body.  Don’t speak of nature as something separate from your body.  You are continuous with your habitat, with your environment.  This is why people living in cities get chronic diseases associated with urban environments – associated with pollution.  This is why people have the same diseases as their friends.

Everything “external” to your body can and should be considered your “external organs.”  There is nothing you see that does not affect your physiology on some level.  There is nothing you hear, smell, touch, that does not do the same.  At the same time, there are many things that you cannot sense in any way that are affecting your physiology…that are “creating your mind” – the invisible pollutants in your environment, the trees you do not notice that supply you with oxygen, the microbiomes that inhabit your body.

Stop separating your unconscious from your physical self.  And stop separating your physical self from the totality of your environment.  When you do that, you regain control over who you are and how you behave.

Only then can you finally say that you have a “mind.”

This blog post is the greatest summary and example of Exuberant Animal practice that I’ve ever seen:

http://maureenfreehill.blogspot.com/2010/02/exuberant-animals.html

Nice Maureen!  I hope you’re at the next EA event up there!

I’ve said this for a long time now – that someone, somewhere, needs to put “the rules” of muscle physiology down in plain language, so that everyone can have a fair shake at strength, endurance, and physical health.

So I’ll do it here, now.

The Four Horsemen

There are only four rules that you really need to understand in order to exercise properly.  They are:

1. Specificity

2. Progression/Overload

3. Acute Variables – Intensity/Volume/Frequency

4. Form/Technique

Let’s go over each.

Specifically nauseating

1. Specificity – I’ve S.A.I.D. It All Before

The first rule of physical training or conditioning is the SAID principle, coined by Digby and Sale, I think back in 1984.  SAID stands for “Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands.”

The concept is this – the body is an incredibly efficient system.  It will only respond to what it must, in exactly the degree it must, and only for as long as is absolutely necessary.

Therefore, you must train specifically, for the specific outcomes you wish to attain.

This is true in all of life.  If you want a cheese sandwich, don’t get the peanut butter out of the cabinet.

Specificity applies not just to the type of movement you do, the muscles used, or to the type and amount of weight you use, but also to the metabolic demands placed on the body as a whole.

If you want to be a marathon runner, lifting very heavy weights is not going to help you.  That is, depending upon how quickly you want to run that marathon.  If speed isn’t an issue, but slowness is, maybe lifting weights is a good idea!

Blindfolding increases neural drive to muscles

2. Progression/Overload

The next principle to understand is progression/overload…or, let’s call it “the progressive overload principle.”  Actually, that’s what Thomas Delorme called it in his book “Progressive Resistance Exercise,” back in 1951.

The principle is this (and is directly related to the SAID principle) – by allowing a muscle or system to grow accustomed to a stimulus, you have made it stronger.  To continue making it stronger, you have to continue to increase the resistance the system must overcome.

Bam.

So, basically, keep adding weight. When it gets easier (and it will), add more weight.

Yeah?  Ok then.

Now that's loading! What?!

3. Loading – Reps/Sets/Intensity/Volume/Frequency

This principle is, again, related to the SAID and Progressive Overload principles.  Most people refer to this as “Periodization” – or the planning of loading based on some sort of organized schema.

First, for the sets/reps portion of this discussion, take a look at the chart below:

waryables

I made it really big on purpose.  So you can see all the pretty things in there.  Feel free to print this chart out and put it on your fridge, or wherever you’d like. This chart represents, to the best of my knowledge, an accurate depiction of how your muscles will respond, for the most part, to resistance based work.  There are some exceptions.  For instance, you can experience quite a bit of hypertrophy from high-repetition bodyweight work.  Just look at a gymnast.

Further, people will differ in their responses.  I, for instance, respond to 8-10 reps with hypertrophy.  I’ve known some people for whom that wasn’t true.  And, finally, strength itself is the combination of all of those factors – endurance, hypertrophy, maximal, and explosive strengths.   Most athletes will benefit from following the 80/20 rule in their training – training 80% of the time in ways very specific to their sport, with the other 20% of the time spent in non-specific “crosstraining” type activities.

Intensity is next.

Intensity is defined as the percentage of a person’s 1-rep maximum being moved.  You can see the “Load % 1RM” in column two in the chart above.  That is, what % of a person’s 1-rep maximum is optimal to achieve the desired response in the muscle.  It’s also directly related to how much weight a person will actually be capable of doing a certain contraction-type with.  For instance, you can’t do 15 reps with 100% of your 1-rep max, by definition.

Isometrics and Explosive Work

I’ve seen people who have lifted incredible amounts of weight on their first-ever attempt at a particular weightlifting exercise, simply because they have always trained isometric (where you contract a muscle against an immovable object or opposing force – the muscle doesn’t change length during the contraction) and explosive strength.

Does that destroy the SAID principle?  No, because these people also used progressive resistance in their isometric and explosive training.  In fact, they were preparing their musculature in the same way that someone doing heavy lifts might, just from the other side.

So there’s another strength type to add – static/isometric strength.  Train isometric strength with one set of 6-10 contractions of 6-8 seconds, anywhere between 60 and 100% of maximal contraction force – at the specific joint angle you want to increase strength in.  For instance, a great use of isometrics is to get past “sticking points” in exercises.  Let’s say you can’t do a pullup, you always get stuck halfway up.  Start training isometrics at the end of your normal workout in that specific joint angle.  Progress by adding more sets of contractions, but go slowly!

Finally, for this mini-section, the best training of explosive work is with ballistic movements – where the weight is actually physically thrown – or with plyometrics/shock-training.  For ballistics, it’s fun to go to a field with a weight of some sort and just throw the hell out of it.  Do squat-jump-throws, etc.  For plyometrics, follow guidelines on plyo’s before beginning.  Running around and jumping off and on things is not the same as plyometrics.  Plyo’s are typically very specific, and involve progression to depth-jumps, and, sometimes, loaded depth-jumps.  If you want more information on plyometrics, send me an email.

The last part of Number 3 here is training volume.

Volume (frequently expressed as “total sets x total weight”) is better-seen in A.S. Prilepin’s chart for training weightlifters:

Go Ask Prilepin, When He Was 10 Feet TAAAAAAALLLLLLL

Prilepin’s chart was compiled after years of charting elite weightlifters in the Soviet Union.  But it works pretty well for the rest of us.

Basically, the higher the intensity (the more weight/explosiveness) of the lift, the fewer the total repetitions you do during a set, the fewer the total repetitions you do during a workout, and the fewer workouts you do during a week.

That being said, total training volume may be the same regardless of what intensity you’re training at.  Total training volume is usually related to an athlete’s (or exerciser’s) level of experience with the type of training they’re doing.  If you’re really experienced, you can handle a much larger total training volume (though, often, you don’t need to) than a less-experienced athlete.

While this particular version of Prilepin’s chart does not include weekly, monthly, or yearly values, you – I hope – get the idea.  You can only overload the muscle so far, till it breaks.  There is such a thing as “too much of a good thing.”

For the purposes of this post, it’s helpful just to remember this – the more difficult, demanding, or stressful a lift, exercise, or workout is, the more time you need for recovery.

The Soviets were, I think, the first to really emphasize the importance of recovery (physical, nervous system, and psychological) to the degree that it’s only starting to receive today.

So recover!

The Skeleton Man deadlifts!!!

4. Form/Technique

The final chapter in our list of things to know in order to succeed is this – perhaps the keystone of the four.

Form/Technique assumes, to some degree, a certain knowledge of how the body works.  This is particularly true for heavy weightlifting, but can be just as true for things like Yoga and Pilates, where small, difficult movements, can cause big problems if not done correctly.

The best thing you can do is to learn how your body works.  This is a fantastic book that covers just about everything you could ever need to know about this topic.

Doing, is another issue, though.  When first learning how to do a particular exercise, movement, or technique, it is really important that you have a good instructor there.

As the old saying goes – Never Trust A Bald Barber.

If someone tells you they know everything about exercise and will help you to learn, but they have neither the credentials nor the physique to prove it, don’t trust them.  Find someone who does.  Preferably, find someone with both the physique and credentials, and a cheerful, sunny demeanor.  That’ll make it easier on everyone.

Your Turn

Now go out there and do it!!!

My good friend Aaron Schwenzfeier asked me if I had read any books that talked about the information from my last entry – about the continuity of an animal with its habitat.  The rest of this post is my response, with some modifications.

The short answer is no, I haven’t read any single text that shows this continuity.  The closest I could come would be something like Lynn Margulis’ works, or James Lovelock’s and others’ works with the Gaia hypothesis.

In a world where everything needs to be validated by “science,” it’s no sufficient to use common-sense to combine the different principles you’ve learned into a coherent whole.

Please don't drop the ball!!!

Breakdown

The “animal-as-continuous-with-habitat” is an obvious thing, but who’s going to write about it?  What science would you cite? I’m not sure there is much.  There are some studies coming around about the importance of environment with regard to physical activity, even health (for instance, the Framingham study that correlates social group with obesity) but they’re few and far between.  It’s hard to quantify.  And that’s what science wants – quantities.  Qualities are still derided.

The other part, “eat in season, locally,” is the same thing – continuity with environment.  But dieticians can’t quantify that, again.  They can count calories, vitamin content, etc.  They can count other things (OCD), but they can’t count the effect of eating things from other places than your natural geography.

Activity levels waxing and waning with the seasons is as old as life itself.  All animals do this, not just human animals.  The squirrel hides nuts away for the cold winter, builds a large layer of fat to keep itself warm, etc.

Is there a way to measure that, though?

Meow...it's THIS big...

Happiness

Finally, how do you measure happiness?  A few studies have tried, and they create “scientific” versions of happiness – with plenty of “categories” to rate different aspects by.  Is that how happiness is made?  What about the feeling of safety and security that comes from living within your tribe?  How would you measure that.

And even if you could, what would happen?  What if you realize, through the course of your research career, that a feeling of happiness and safety was all that really mattered?  What would you say?  How would you say it?  How would a message like that be taken by your scientific colleagues?  By the general public?

The other thing, and perhaps the biggest impediment to getting real answers about things, about the true “optimal state” of the human animal, is revealed by this question – Why does science measure what it does, and not the other things?  What is guiding science?  Who gains from scientific research?

An ounce of gold, or a pound of lead?

You’re in The Cul-tcha

Culture dictates all.  So, what does our culture value most?  Money.  Our culture is built around the flow of money.  An economic depression is the most terrifying thing imaginable in our society (other than a nuclear holocaust).

I’d go so far to say that much, if not most, of science is guided by money.  You need funding to do science.  So you have to do science in a way that gets that funding.  If you can get funding for a particular research design and not another, you’ll choose the design that gets you the money.

Who is paying that money?  I would hazard a guess, again, that much, if not most of the money being donated to the pursuit of science is being donated by people who want to make more money from that science.

They are pursuing science for the sake of money.  Not for the sake of discovering “truth.”

A few examples of this, taken from the ideas in my post:
The studies done on continuity of animal with habitat are largely from zoo populations – trying to discover how to keep zoo animals alive.  Why would you do that?  What is a zoo for?  What does a zoo tell people who visit it?  How does a zoo treat animals?  I’ll let you answer those questions for yourself.

Studies of diet largely focus on quantity of micro/macronutrients and the physiology of the body.  Almost none involve the fact that that body is not a “physiology” without its habitat and social environment.  There is no isolated “body” to study…it doesn’t exist alone, in a vacuum.  But, further, and again – What is the purpose of dietary research, and to what ends is that research put?  Who gains from dietary research?

Our measurement of chronobiology has largely been to discover how to handle “shift workers,” and make them healthier and more productive.  There is some research on circadian and ultradian clocks, but it isn’t integrated into anything else.  It’s just “science.”  Another problem, I guess, that should be mentioned.  Science for science’s sake is even less effective than science for money’s sake.  It may produce amazing information, but what happens to that information, if it is done in a culture that is separate from the main flow of science?  It sits there.  It doesn’t get used or analyzed, or integrated into the big picture.

Studies of happiness and culture are similarly isolated from other science.  There has bee a trend in the past ten years to combine scientific zones of study, in fields like psychoneuroimmunology, or social ecology, etc.  But they aren’t really making themselves heard that strongly.

My recent post on the Paleo diet raised some great questions and comments from various sources.

I want to say something about diet here.

A “healthy” diet varies by region, by geography. YOU ARE NOT SEPARATE FROM YOUR ENVIRONMENT.

Your physiology is determined to a great degree by your environment. The type of terrain you have to navigate, and how you navigate it. How frequently you have to move through that terrain, similarly, and what types of tasks you need to accomplish in what type of frequency, will also determine your physiology.

The weather in your geography – the barometric pressure in your area, the amount of rainfall every year, of sunlight – will determine how your body looks, feels, and can move.

The types of animals and plants available for consumption in your area represent natural energy that is in synchrony with the seasons your body is in. Eating outside of that synchrony (the old “I live in NYC, but eat strawberries from Brazil) creates metabolic discord in your system.

Yes, human beings need a certain amount of nutrients, but not as much as you’re told, or as you think, or from the sources you’ve been told (or think) that those nutrients are “supposed to” come from.

Before I go much further, consider the wide range of climates and geographies that human beings inhabit. From deserts to ice-packs, from coniferous and deciduous forests to rain forests, from tropics to temperate zones to the arctics.

In each of these places, human animals live just fine. They can, if times are good, live to the same ripe old ages that human animals in any other area live to (given the same good conditions).

It’s not about a specific diet.

Consider This
Instead, I think it’s more important to consider the state of the physiology the diet is going into.

If you are happy, and feel safe and secure, things in your body tend to run smoothly. Homeostasis is achieved and maintained easily. Your body heals faster. Things correct themselves.

If you are unhappy, your body is constantly releasing stress-hormones that break things down. They tear your body up from the inside.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy
In the happy state, the food you ingest, whatever it is, will flow through that smooth-running system. Your body is miraculous in its ability to take what it needs and discard what it does not (as long as you’re moderate in consumption).

In the unhappy state, the food you ingest will not be processed well. Your body won’t be capable of digesting, it will be busy constantly preparing to defend itself. Things won’t go right. You’ll have gastro-intestinal disorders – ulcers, heartburn, acid reflux, poor digestion.

In that unhappy state, it doesn’t matter what you eat.

Not only that, but what does get absorbed will simply be put to use continuing the bad state. That sounds like hell.

Eat What’s In Season, Where You Live, Now
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate eating McDonald’s. And I agree with Michael Pollan, to a point. Not every locale produces the same foodstuffs. Pollan’s dictum, to “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants,” is not actually how we evolved. Our brains got bigger from eating a lot of protein. Plants don’t have a lot of that. I have a different idea.

Eat as much organic, locally-grown food as possible. Reduce or eliminate processed foods (including breads) from your diet. Whatever is in season, is what is best for you at that point.

Part of the thing we Northern-European humans used to do was to rest more in the winter. It would be cold, it would snow. It wouldn’t be a good time to work. And there wouldn’t be much work to do. We could live off of dried goods for a while, till those ran out. Then we were stuck with whatever we could gather from the land. Pine needle tea. Hardy winter greens. Root vegetables. Animal meat.

It’s not hard to imagine.

What Determines Your Happiness?
Your happiness is directly related to your feeling of safety and support in the world. A community of like-minded individuals, a “tribe” (a word/concept that’s catching on these days).

In the womb of the tribe, you are complete. Your worldview is reinforced and supported. You are cared for. You are able to do your work, and step back, without attachment.

You are able to be happy.

the exuberant animal tribe

Another goodie from the NYT, that’s too good not to comment on: “One Bowl = 2 Servings. F.D.A. May Fix That.”

Finally, it seems, things are starting to make sense.

Or are they?

Unfair Trade, with my GI Tract

Ben & Jerry’s
When I was in college, we’d all get together now and then, have some food, drink a few bottles of wine, and then each polish off our own pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Didn’t seem like a lot of ice cream, but I knew what was in it. I worked for Fresh Fields (now Whole Foods), and was keen on dietary information.

A pint of Ben & Jerry’s had something around 1300 calories in it. I think there were 30+ grams of fat per serving. And it tasted delicious!

It didn’t bother any of us. I think we were all young and active enough to be able to burn that stuff off. I don’t know. We’ll find out in another fifteen years or so, when one of us keels over.

Wherefore Art Thou, Nutrition?
Until then, I want to ask the same question I always ask – what does this mean?

Seriously, folks. Do food labels lead to any change? The NYT did another piece in October of last year, showing that the posting of caloric value of foods in restaurants’ windows didn’t lead to any change.

So what is the meaning of this? More regulation? More change?

One of the things that we do know about human (or animal) behavior, is that animals are less likely to be concerned when something appears immediately obvious or transparent.

In that same October NYT article, in fact, the people going into the restaurants with posted nutrition values had actually consumed more calories on average than customers had before the posting took place.

I know you want some.

Something to Gain, Something to Lose
Who is gaining from these new rules? Not Americans. Not “the common man.” At least, the common person isn’t gaining anything but extra girth, and a new risk-factor on their health insurance application.

Someone else is gaining something, too. Who is that?

Change is happening, but to what end? And on whose terms?

After attending the NLP seminar in Marin a few weeks ago, I went onto iTunes and purchased Richard Bandler’s book “Get the Life You Want.”  Bandler was one of the co-founders of NLP back in the ’70’s.

The book is pretty good, offering a succession of examples of use of a few NLP techniques.

One of the things that struck me about the book was Bandler’s assertion that feelings are actions.

It's ok sad clown, turn that frown upside down!

Feelings about social qualities or even self-valuations are often “doings” not actual “be-ings.”  The way Bandler proves this assertion is by showing how you can change your mood or feeling by changing your physiological state – breathing faster, deeper, shorter, or smiling, laughing, singing, or dancing.

Put yet another way – while physical qualities are pretty much as-they-are (skinny, fat, long legs, small feet), feelings or thoughts are more often “actions” rather than true physical “qualities.”

For instance, if you say that you don’t get along well with people, what you’re saying is that not getting along well with people is something that you do, not a quality of what you are

if you feel awkward in social settings, that means that you do awkwardness.

Do What You Want To Do!

That’s the basic premise of NLP – change your life by gaining control over your physiology.  It requires, above all else, a very strong super-conscious.  You have to be able to observer yourself in the moment, and make decisions about what you want to be like right then.

Tell me about the laughing place, Uncle Remus!

Control versus Manipulation

I do like the techniques in NLP, and especially the concept of being more in-tune, and more in control of your physiology – thoughts, feelings, and actions.  But a lot of what’s in Bandler’s book really struck me as manipulation.  I’d prefer to see the circle return to the external world, but Bandler isn’t really concerned with that.  And I’m not sure that I blame him.  There’s very little we can actually control in the outside world.  But I don’t think that means that you stop being intimately involved with it altogether.

A relatively recent research study reveals a connection (of some sort) between muscular strength and longevity.

The article, “Association between muscular strength and mortality  in men: prospective cohort study,” says that “Muscular strength is inversely and independently associated with death from all causes in men, even after adjusting for cardiorespiratory fitness and other potential confounders.”

This is not an insignificant study.  The researchers used data from the Cooper Institute in Texas, and included 8762 men aged 20-80 in the study.

Why might muscular strength be correlated with longevity?  Well, there are a few reasons I can think of off the top of my head.  Here’s one:

For one, balance is highly correlated with muscular strength.  While the “scientists” among us will argue about “tonic” (the so-called “anti-gravity” muscles), and “phasic” (the “mover” muscles) muscles, I can tell you from personal experience that, when someone isn’t very strong, they aren’t very stable – and that “working on stability” (as much “functional training” does nowadays) by balancing on one leg on a Bosu ball, is the long, slow, hard road to stability…working on “gross strength” has much faster and better results.

Anyway, as we get older, we tend to lose muscle mass, strength, and with it, balance and proprioception (spatial awareness).  A lot of this has to do with lack of use in old age.  Some of it is “programmed.”  That being said, falls and related fractures, etc., can lead to death, or can lead to further lack of movement, which becomes more and more fatal the older we get.

The bottom line – get stronger.  My next post will be about this…

This is a review of the book “The Wisdom of the Body,” written in 1932 by Walter B. Cannon, M.D.

Cannon was a physiologist, and was the first person to promote the idea of homeostasis in American medicine/physiology.  Homeostasis is the concept that the human body is a dynamic system composed of smaller subsystems that serve to maintain an ideal steady state (stasis) for the function of the body.

This book is absolutely fantastic.

First, from a historical perspective, it’s a wonderful look into the methodology of early twentieth century experimental science in the field of physiology.  This book is not for the faint of heart.  Descriptions of experiments on cats and dogs in which the animals were denervated, etc., abound.

The book also provides a wonderful introduction to the science of homeostasis, which has become a field unto itself.  My next read, “Rethinking Homeostasis,” by Jay Schulkin, will be an interesting follow-up, summarizing some of the research that led to the development of the concept of allostasis – the attainment of stability through challenge or change, rather than through a subtle balance of systems.  But that’s another review…

Finally, Cannon provides tons of wonderful nuggets of wisdom throughout the book.  On page 199 he mentions the practice of cold baths/showers and profuse sweating in exercise or saunas as methods of training the temperature-regulation system of the body.  I’ve often heard of cold showers as being tonic, but never for that reason…mostly just in reference to “folk wisdom.”  Interesting to see a “scientific” explanation for that practice!

On pages 240-241 Cannon discusses the role of the physician in maintaining health.  The physician isn’t there to provide health.  That’s provided by vis medicatrix naturae – the healing power of nature.  Rather, the physician is there to facilitate that natural process of healing, by being familiar with the functions of the body, the balance of forces/activities that are present in optimal health (homeostasis), and the ways of helping the body to achieve that ideal balance.

I loved this book, and highly recommend it to anyone who wants a clearer understanding of how their body works.  You will probably need/want a dictionary at places, and an anatomy/physiology reference book in other places, but the journey will be well worth it!