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I've never asked a girl not to leave me. Not once. Yet here I am, sitting and thinking that very thing. Fear is apparently naturally human. I've never truly feared anything, especially after I've realized who I am and my true potential in this world. Yet here I am, fearful of what could happen and what I don't want to happen. I want to say I don't care, but it catches in my throat. I want to shed my fears like yesterday's worry, but they stick like their glued to my very soul.
I've never been touched gently enough that it felt like the wind caressing my skin, not before I met her. I've never reached for the stars in pure love and nearly brought one down just to show her. Before I met her destiny was nothing but a false philosopher's testament towards explanation, now it's tangible and engulfing. Yet here I sit, fearful of what could happen. Destiny seems cold, the stars seem darker, her touch seems false. I've never truly feared anything until now.
It's the exercises we all love to hate: Leg Exercises. When were in the gym we look at lunges like their poison and stare at the leg press like it's the harbinger of the apocalypse. They can indeed be hard to do and the recovery process after a long leg workout can be grueling if we're not careful. However, leg exercises are vital if we want to bulk both our lower and upper body up. You may be asking yourself why, and I'll tell you. Despite the obvious reasons it helps hard-gainers gain weight (by building an area that is typically neglected) and helps body builders maintain a healthy balanced physique, leg strengthening exercises force our body to balance itself out. It may sound crazy, but our body acts to maintain a certain degree of equilibrium through constant homeostatic regulation. This of course doesn't mean if we only do lunges and squats five days a week our arms will turn into cannon balls. However, it does cause our body to send blood to areas that otherwise aren't getting too much (e.g. your arms or pectorals) to maintain that equilibrium I mentioned earlier. As a result, when we do work our upper body, our gains can increase exponentially much faster than before. Don't believe me? Try it out yourself! Below are some general non-machine leg exercises with a recommended amount of reps and sets that you can use to supplement your workout regime.
Lunges (with or without weights) - 3 to 5 sets of 12 to 15 reps
Squats (with or without weights) - 3 to 5 sets of 10 to 12 reps
Dead lifts (Romanian or normal) - At least 50 to 70 pounds if your just starting, with 3 to 5 sets of 10 to 12 reps
Good mornings - 50 to 70 pounds (for beginners) with 3 to 5 sets of 10 to 12 reps
There are a billion more to mention, but for starters I just wanted to list these four. These are simple, easily done (with proper form of course!), and easily incorporated into a routine you're already used to. Comment on this blog if you have good things, bad things, or success stories!
Nutrition is the most important part of health, period. The most important parts of nutrition we should all focus on are: vitamins and minerals, fats, proteins and carbohyrdrates. Essentially the building blocks of any healthy diet. Keep in mind: variety is key and over doing it can be painful, uncomfortable, or potentially dangerous.
We get all of these nutrition essentials from the food we eat. Most vitamins and minerals come from fruits, vegetables and liquids, while our fats, proteins and carbohyrdrates mostly come from sugars, meats and wheats.
Like before: variety is key. If you eat too much meat, your liver may begin to "malfunction" due to overproduction of creatine phosphate. If you consume too much sugar, your blood may desensitize itself to insulin production, or maybe stop insulin production completely. If you take in too many vitamins and minerals, your body simply doesn't digest the excess material and dispels it through your urine or (at the worst) as a kidney stone through your urinary tract.
Physical therapy is a very well known and effective form of treatment and therapy for people who have developed chronic musculoskeletal ailments like back pain or who have experienced abrupt musculoskeletal changes like broken or complete loss of limbs. Whats not quite as well known is the multitude of modalities, or forms of treatment, available to treat these many musculoskeletal ailments. Modalities in physical therapy fall under two categories: manual modalities and non-manual modalities. Manual and non-manual modalities are associated with very different forms of treatment. Manual, otherwise known as physical treatment, involves the use of exercise, manipulative therapy, mobilization, etc, to treat patients (Moffet, Anne, Klinik). Non-manual on the other hand is knows as non-physical treatment and involves the use of topical agents, psychological treatment, etc, as a form of treatment (Hurley, Lindsay). Though manual and non-manual modalities differ greatly in their forms, these modalities are what make physical therapy effective and long lasting. However, when used individually these modalities only provide short term benefits to any one patient. The true long lasting benefits become apparent when a multi-modal approach that involves both manual and non-manual modalities is used (Feine, Lund). The question many researchers are asking, however, isnt whether multi-modal treatment works or not, but whether multimodal treatment is better than individual treatment. (1) Are specific techniques more effective than others in general? (2) Are specific techniques more effective than others for specific categories of musculoskeletal complaints? (3) Given a specific musculoskeletal symptom, when in the course of treatment should the clinician and patient reasonably expect to achieve improvement (Evans). Asking questions such as these, the conclusion many researchers have come to in many cases is multi-modal treatment is indeed better than individual modalities, especially in the long term.
Manual modalities are a form of treatment and therapy that are the most widely known of the two modalities. As a result, its widely believed that manual modalities are the best form of therapy, especially with musculoskeletal conditions. Musculoskeletal conditions are conditions that encompass the body as a whole, typically seen externally but in some cases internally as well. Ailments of the internal musculoskeletal region involve stomach pains, neural problems like balance, uncoordinated movement, or persistent migraines, and problems with any number of internal organs like the intestinal tract. External ailments on the other hand involve back pain, joint pain, muscle aches, etc. Manual therapy can indeed be useful in some of these cases like lower back pain. Exercise therapy has long enjoyed a major role in the armoury of effective treatments for chronic LBP (lower back pain), and most national and international guidelines recommend that supervised exercise therapy is used as a first-line treatment in the management of chronic LBP (Moffet, Anne, Klinik). Lower back pain, or LBP, is one of the most common forms of musculoskeletal pain known due to our typical sedentary lifestyles. Reducing pain is of the utmost importance in the treatment of musculoskeletal conditions like LBP, and manual modalities like exercise therapy and strength conditioning help bring that outcome to fruition. Another very well known and common ailment in which manual modalities are used is neck pain. One study proposed in Manual Therapy concluded that manipulation and mobilization used along with exercise were sufficient forms of treatment for neck pain. Neck pain is common, can decrease function, and poses a great cost to the health care system. While Spinal mobilisation or manipulation can have mechanical effects, physical medicine modalities (like exercise) have additional physiological effects on analgesia, inflammation and force-coupling production(Manual therapy with or without physical medicine). This suggests that manual therapies like mobilization and exercise provide adequate relief to the patient. Another study provided by the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation gives evidence that other exercises like strength training or aerobic exercises rather than mobilization and manipulation provide relief for muscle disorders like LBP or neck pain. Our best evidence synthesis resulted in level II evidence (likely to be effective) for strengthening exercises in combination with aerobic exercises for patients with muscle disorders (Exercise Therapy and Other Types of Physical Therapy) However, even though manual modalities are indeed a vital form of treatment in physical therapy, they are not always as effective for both the short and long term benefit of the patient. Level III evidence was found for aerobic exercises in patients with muscle disorders and for the combination of muscle strengthening and aerobic exercises in a heterogeneous group of patients with muscle disorders. Finally, there is level III evidence for breathing exercises for patients (Exercise Therapy and Other Types of Physical Therapy). Level III evidence, as stated in the study, indicates a lack of progress using only aerobic exercises in patients with muscle disorders. Though manual modalities are indeed valuable and effective with certain ailments, their use can be limited when used individually rather than together, such as aerobic exercises being used alone rather than with strength training. Manual modalities are also restricted in the ailments they can properly treat, like sprained ankles, chronic muscle fatigue, or chronic muscle pain in which they can potentially damage further
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Creatine is an interesting supplement. If you're a bodybuilder, or atleast work out frequently, and you don't know what creatine is or what it does, you're in for a treat. Creatine is one of the most frequently used supplements in the bodybuilding world, and for good reason. It's one of the few "legal" ergogenic aids on the market and it does it's job fairly well. However, creatine isn't limited to the bodybuilding world. It has a few more uses in the pharmocological world in the treatment of disease and disorders as well. So what is creatine exactly and what does it do?
Creatine, or creatine phosphate, occurs naturally in all vertebrates and helps to supply energy to all working cells in the body, primarily muscles, and increase performance of those cells and muscles. Creatine increases performance and energy by supplying extra ATP, or adenosine triphosphate, the main (and as far as anyone knows the only) energy source for all bodily functions. That little chemistry nugget was just for your reference, we're not going to get too far into the chemical reactions and metabolic pathways involved with this supplementation right now
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In essence, I believe love is an art form. Something we aren't born good at or knowledgable of. Rather, we have to learn what it means to love, and in that it becomes an art form each of us perfect in our own way.
Personal musings aside (so soon, right?), I believe that love is indeed an art form. It evolves and changes like everything else in the world. There is this point, though, where you no longer recognize it as an art form. Your love seems to become what you believe your partner desires. Rather than an extension of yourself, it becomes an extension of the both of you. Is this good or bad? That seems the ultimate question in this regard.
Perhaps when looking at this whole welcome post, you'd assume the title led to something deep and meaningful. Something that each and every human being seems to relate to, according to our own popular beliefs.
However, this post means nothing like that. Matter of fact, I'm really asking you, the readers, if you're really there. If you've actually come to this blog, after looking at the other more readable blogs I have, then you're either crazy, enjoy other peoples personal business, or you have a real yearning for something deeper. Wonder which one of those you are.
Global warming, as many of us may very well know by now, has become much more of a reality than we had ever dreamed of. However, this doesnt mean we all know what global warming is exactly. Some of us may be asking what it does, while others may be asking what it is. Theories are often put forth to give you that insight into what it does and what it is. More often than not they confuse and irritate us, providing more frustration than insight, like the internal radiative forcing hypothesis. However, if we can look past the opinionated speculation, some of these theories like the greenhouse gas and solar variation theories, can provide us with that valuable insight.
If we look at all the different theories out there for global warming, we may quickly feel overwhelmed by all the information. Yet, there are a few reasonable theories, backed by years of research, which stand out and seem to make more sense than the others. For instance the greenhouse gas theory which according to the United States National Academy of Sciences (USAS) "Was observed to increase temperature since the middle of the 20th century and has been caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, which result from human activity such as the burning of fossil fuel and deforestation
Most scientists agree that the warming in recent decades has been caused primarily by human activities that have increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere"(USAS). This could be the most reasonable, easily explainable, and believable theory out there. As we read in the quote, temperature increase has been observed since the 20th century. This was a time in which we began developing a great many different tools in order to make life easier such as air conditioning, nuclear technologies, automobiles, and spacecraft. All of which, according to theory, produce emissions that promote the greenhouse effect. Another theory known as the solar variation theory states that variations in the suns solar output has been the cause of past climate changes, providing reason to believe that its simply happening again. According to the National Research Council (NRC) "Changes in insolation on a variety of time scales have been suggested as causes of known climate change, from the orbital cycles of thousands of years, to the decadal-to-century scale fluctuations typified by the Little Ice Age
Observations of total solar irradiance by spacecraft
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The idea of science being a popular subject may be poppycock (for lack of a better word) to some of us. However, whether we know it or not, science has pervaded some of the most popular mags and websites. Topics like global warming, stem cell research, nanotechnology, and many many other topics fill the information super highway. This is my opportunity to show you guys some popular, not so popular, and altogether interesting popular science topics.
Born in 1860 and raised in Japan, Jigoro Kano grew up a small boy, weighing around 90 pounds for the majority of his pubescent years. Jigoro truly wished he were stronger, and so he was introduced to jiujitsu, the gentle form, at an early age by family friend Nakai Basiei. So he began his formal training in the martial arts in 1874. Through jiujitsu he learned two essential lessons that are relative to any martial art: size and strength do not matter. Jigoro trained hard in jiujitsu and learned very quickly how to efficiently bring down someone larger and stronger than himself, but for a while he would be no match for the masters that taught him. However, throughout the seven years of thorough training Jigoro began to look into and teach himself other fighting arts, like western wrestling and sumo wrestling. This brought a variation that his masters didnt expect from anyone under their tutelage, and through this he began to exceed their own technique and develop his own. This eventually became what we know today as Kodokan Judo. Jigoro developed a purpose for Kodokan Judo, or the gentle way, that is quite similar to jiujitsu, but exceeds the simple purpose of jiujitsu and other martial arts. The translation itself is a slight glimpse into judos true nature and Jigoros true purpose for his martial art: judo is not only a system of self defense but a way to live life with a certain degree of perfection. Jigoro sought to convey seiryoku zenyo, or maximum efficiency with ones energy and spent his entire life educating anyone interested how to apply the principles of judo to everyday living in and out of the dojo. Jigoros goal was to show judo as it truly was. Not a rough and tough wrestling sport, but a simple and efficient martial art meant to teach everyone looking for it the gentle way of life.
Martial arts have been around for centuries. Their hierarchal systems and complex movements can take years to master. More often than not it takes an entire lifetime. To develop a martial art and bring it to its full potential takes many lifetimes. Jigoro mastered jiujitsu, developed judo, and watched it come to fruition in his own lifetime. He had an advantage that some dont have, however; the keen interest and dedication any master must have. Because he grew up such a small boy, his interest in the martial arts was easily ingrained, especially martial arts that placed a large amount of emphasis on leverage and using opponents force against them. His education began with jiujitsu, a well established martial art well known for its emphasis on joint locks and effective take downs which not unlike judo translates as gentle art form. Jiujitsu was introduced to Jigoro when he was around fourteen years old through a close family friend, Nakai Basiei, who just so happened to be a member of the shoguns guard. For those of you who havent read much Japanese history, the shogun of Japan was equivalent to todays general, albeit with a little more power. Nakai had enough knowledge to impart this advice to Jigoro. Jigoro took a true liking to jiujitsu, quickly finding a teacher to show him the ropes and taking the first step into what would be his lifes goal. This was the beginning. Indeed, Jigoro Kano continued his jiujitsu training until he was about twenty-two years of age, only a couple years before he founded Kodokan Judo. Near the twenty two mark, Jigoro began to modify his fighting style after he felt he had mastered the techniques of jiujitsu. He began to look into sumo wrestling and western wrestling, practicing techniques like the firemans carry, which is essentially throwing someone over the shoulder(s). These techniques were relatively unknown to his masters at the time, especially in jiujitsu where such great emphasis is placed on joint locks and leg sweeps. Soon enough, instead of Jigoros masters throwing him to the mat, the contrary began to occur. Jigoro began to outmatch and outmaneuver the very teachers that taught him for so very long. This lifelong training and adaptive attitude helped Jigoro build principles stemming from jiujitsu, principles like fluidity and seiryoku zenyo, and transform them into his own unique outlook.
The roots of jiujitsu, like any martial art, are planted deep in the idea of combat and self defense. It was indeed that in the beginning. Great emphasis was placed on killing strikes and striking vital points on the body to bring an opponent down quickly and efficiently. Like many martial arts that developed successfully and were taught for many generations, jiujitsu eventually became more than a simple war art. Eventually, its unique system evolved into a more complex form of physical and mental education. There is little dispute that because training to fight involves moving the body in various ways, jujutsu indirectly became a form of physical education, but for that reason it also became a method of training the mind. (Kano, 17) Jigoro was well aware that learning various tricks and variations required a certain degree of ingenuity and cunning. This, whether intentional or not, brought a level of training exclusive to the mind. He also believed that through training, courage and composure (among others) were brought to the surface, of which are beneficial to anyones quality of life. Upon this foundation of jiujitsu and principle, Jigoro believed a method of training that brought about a physical, mental, and moral education could be developed. He knew it was absolutely possible, and through that possibility he developed and named the martial art Kodokan Judo
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