Living in a three dimensional world part II

At the end of the last post I mentioned that in addition to increased strength and injury prevention working our bodies and limbs through all potential angles was also good for the brain.


Here's why;  Our brains are interactive.  You probably already know this.  We take in information, analyze it, use it as seems appropriate.   You know that reading and learning throughout life helps keep the neurons firing and developing.  The old adage "use it or lose it" applies here.


While it is obvious in academic learning and in life it is less obvious in movement. 


In the case of movement the data is not external like reading a book or figuring out how to nail  together a door frame.  Learning movement is mostly internal.  In this case the data is sent to the brain by sensors we have throughout the body called proprioceptors.  These proprioceptors constantly feed information to our brain about how our body and limbs are aligned, how quickly they are moving and how much tension is being put on the muscles, tendons and joints. 


The more and varied the data the more the brain has to process and analyze and the more capeable it becomes. 


Instead of "push ups hurt my shoulder" the dialogue becomes "The left shoulder was higher than the right and the push up was harder on the left side"  The ability to identify subtle changes in the body BY FEEL helps performance but it also challenges the brain.




This subject was worth a two part talk because as neuroscience continues to develop we are learning about the very powerful interaction between movement and mental health.  We are moving away from a mechanistic view of ourselves and our bodies to an organic one where everything touches and affects everything else.  As we evolve our view of our bodies so we evolve our view of the world.


Stay tuned true believers. There is always more to learn.


All the best
Steve

Living in a three dimensional world

I had some of my best feedback ever upon ending a class.  The client, already pretty fit came up to me and said what was shocking to her was that when she did my class it didn't seem all that hard, but she noticed when she took other instructor's bootcamp classes after taking a few weeks of mine, THEIR classes were a lot easier.



She wanted to know what was the secret of her getting stronger, more endurance, more control and stamina without me killing her to do it.



Not a GREAT secret but a good one.



Circular training.



In most training we move and think like our limbs (arms and legs) are piston like, they go out and they go back, they go up and they go down, in and out. 



In reality our muscles are not attached in straight lines parallel to the bones.  Mostly the muscles sweep in a gentle arc spiraling around the bone (to varying degrees).  That means when they contract the motion is somewhat circular, other muscles counter that to keep the motion in a straight(ish) line.



By working in a spiral, twining fashion we use the body as it was designed, and by following this smart natural design we get stronger with less perceived effort and as a bonus we avoid injury and, believe it or not (believe it) we get just a wee bit smarter.



Have I blown your 2D world, let me know.


Stay tuned true believers.

Meal Frequency Review

The following is not mine. I am posting the abstract in total to make sure credit goes where credit is due.

Please note the mention that ghrelin, a hormone that is part of the signaling process for eating, was the same for both groups,  and that this was a small study.

One final point to ponder.  In our evolution was food always plentiful or did we have times of famine, and how does that relate to our chemical make today.

Steve

Br J Nutr. 2010 Apr;103(8):1098-101. Epub 2009 Nov 30.

 

Increased meal frequency does not promote greater weight loss in subjects who were prescribed an 8-week equi-energetic energy-restricted diet.

Cameron JD, Cyr MJ, Doucet E.

Source

Behavioural and Metabolic Research Unit, School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Abstract

There have been reports of an inverse relationship between meal frequency (MF) and adiposity. It has been postulated that this may be explained by favourable effects of increased MF on appetite control and possibly on gut peptides as well. The main goal of the present study was to investigate whether using a high MF could lead to a greater weight loss than that obtained with a low MF under conditions of similar energy restriction. Subjects were randomised into two treatment arms (high MF = 3 meals+3 snacks/d or low MF = 3 meals/d) and subjected to the same dietary energy restriction of - 2931 kJ/d for 8 weeks. Sixteen obese adults (n 8 women and 8 men; age 34.6 (sd 9.5); BMI 37.1 (sd 4.5) kg/m2) completed the study. Overall, there was a 4.7 % decrease in body weight (P < 0.01); similarly, significant decreases were noted in fat mass ( - 3.1 (sd 2.9) kg; P < 0.01), lean body mass ( - 2.0 (sd 3.1) kg; P < 0.05) and BMI ( - 1.7 (sd 0.8) kg/m2; P < 0.01). However, there were NS differences between the low- and high-MF groups for adiposity indices, appetite measurements or gut peptides (peptide YY and ghrelin) either before or after the intervention. We conclude that increasing MF does not promote greater body weight loss under the conditions described in the present study.

PMID:

19943985

[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]