Is Your Exercise Healing Your Body?

I watch people running and walking on the roadsides in their communities. It used to amaze me that so many people have it wrong. I stopped being amazed nearly ten years ago. I remember stopping to talk to a man who was doing some calisthenics after a run. He seemed to be having difficulty finding the correct extension for stretching the hamstring. I showed him how to prop his leg up on the back of a nearby park bench instead of the waste receptacle he was using.I thought I would ask if he had ever worked with a trainer or read a book on exercise. I wasn't surprised by his response.

"Any fool can get out and walk," he said. "It doesn't take a whole lot of studying."

The man was partly right. There are literally thousands of people on the roads of their towns who apparently want to be in better health but don't have a clue. On our website, Vitality Peaks, we point out that exercise can be damaging to the body if not done correctly. Think of it as driving your car all over town in first gear or with your brake shoes dragging against the discs. Some people seem to understand the importance of wearing good walking shoes, rather than ordinary street shoes. That's a start.

Most of the problem seems to be the manner in which the uninformed person exercises. Since there are so many physiques that respond to exercise in different ways, the technique for exercise has to be personalized. If I am sauntering down the street, it does not mean you can do it without harming your joints or spine. We are all different to some degree, and it's important, perhaps, to know why.

For details about how to exercise and for how long, please see our new page on that subject at Vitality Peaks.com.

Here's to your health!

Hudster

Getting To The Bottoms

It has been interesting [for me] to watch the changes in human behavior over the past sixty-plus years, particularly where health and nutrition is concerned. I prefer the word “interesting” to "inspiring" or "depressing". Today, our society is swarmed by a convergence of messages about good health and acceptable appearance.

In spite of the myriad glitzy marketing campaigns on fitness and longevity, I can still see the image of my eighth grade health teacher, pacing back and forth in front of the class, espousing on the virtues of exercise and a balance of protein, carbohydrates, minerals and fiber. Ah yes, even in the pre-historic days of civilization, there was a nutritional substance referred to as fiber.

When I think about all the information and programmed health services in abundance today, a single idea always seems to rise above the rest, from my perspective. Education.
What Mr. Martinson taught me about my heart, respiratory, circulatory and digestive system is still true – sixty years later! Incredible!

So, my view today takes into consideration that people have changed, dramatically in recent years. Either we were out the day they discussed basic nutrition and health in the classroom, or we have forgotten what we had to memorize to get a passing grade, or…our synapses are under siege, controlled by mass psychology.

None of the above is to say that high doses of manufactured nutritional supplements are not good for us. As a matter of fact, this blog is in total support of the solutions to the lack of proper nutrition and fitness that are available today. We intend to pick up where Mr. Martinson left off and examine ways in which we can maintain our pulmonary, respiratory, circulatory and digestive systems in the 21st Century.

Readers of our blog deserve to be introduced to an idea that is likely to shock some of the bad cholesterol right out of their systems. Before we get to the revelation of the millennium, here's a question you might want to "toy" with (at the risk of giving my "shocker" away but, so what):

Do you think the average human posterior is larger or smaller today, as compared to thirty years ago?

I think this is a good time to break and let the question germinate for a few hours. We’ll be back with more information about our physical state and what we can do about it. Our next post will cover such titillating themes as, lethargy, fatigue, complacency, energy loss.

Bonus question:

Why do you suppose the vibrating chair was invented? Does anyone know, exactly?

Hudster