BBC News – Survival of the fittest

In this Scientific American piece – Eat Exercise & Be Merry keeping a weekly journal of what you have to be grateful for, seemed to help folks in the study exercise more and keep a positive attitude.  I would agree that thinking positively leads you to be more optimistic, and try a little harder, and that leads you to push a little more in your workouts, which in turn will give you better results.

So putting yourself into a little positive feedback loop, a viscious cycle turned on end if you will, doesn’t sound like such a bad idea for the new year!

Scientific American – Fit Body, Fit Mind?

Never the less the evidence is there that exercise and training actually strengthens the body and joints.  Why the injuries then?  Well quite simply from improper training.  One has to stretch the joints, and warm up slowly to activities that we don’t do everyday.  Beware the weekend-warrior syndrome of not working out at all for some time, then heading out for a weekend where you think you’re in the same shape you were at 20 years old.

Ease into your training, build up slow, warmup and warmdown in a balanced way, and take stretching seriously, and you’ll continue to train injury free.  It’s like they say, it’s what we were built for!

The Human Body Is Built for Distance

Brain Surgery Frees Runner, but Raises Barriers – NY Times

 The Buddy System:  How Medical Data Revealed Secret to Health and Happiness

Here’s a great article about a guy who, just preceding his 40th birthday, decided to get into shape, and the story of his path to the ultraman world championships.

From miserable man to “Ultraman”:  A Fitness Journey

Among some of the other interesting points in the article are to check your urine color – ie check your hydration, check your sleepiness, monitor your heartbeat after exercise.  The PERF acronym is to remind people to get produce (fruits and veggies), exercise, relaxation (laughter and fun time for 15 minutes…) and fiber (beans, grains, you know the drill)…

Think PERF To Monitor Your Health.

As a trainer I can confirm one of Ratey’s first observations that a client “felt more passionate about life once he got into an exercise routine.”  He goes on to talk about what became known as the “endorphin rush”…

“Candace Pert had recently discovered that there were opiate receptors in the brain, meaning the body had a built-in way of killing pain with molecules that worked like morphine.  Endorphins, as they became known, dulled pain in the body and produced euphoria in the mind.  When elevated levels of endorphins were detected in the blood samples of a group of runners, everything seemed to fit.  The theory that exercise fills your brain with this morphinelike substance matched the good feeling everyone got.  It gave us the expression “runner’s high” an extreme version of the effect.”

“Blumenthal concluded that exercise was as effective as medication.  This is the study I photocopy for patients who are skeptical of the idea that exercise changes their brain chemistry enough to help their depression, because it puts the issue in terms that are as black-and-white as psychiatry can hope to deliver, at least for now.  The results should be taught in medical school and driven home with health insurance companies and posted on bulletin bouards of every nursing home in the country, where nearly a fifth of the residents have depression.  If everyone knew that exercise worked as well as Zoloft, I think we could put a real dent in the disease.”

“In short, exercise affects so many variables in the brain that its nigh impossible to isolate its effect as we’d like — in the name of hard science.  But the evidence is there, from the action of microscopic molecules to massive surveys of tens of thousands of people over the years.  Yes exercise is an antidepressant.  But it is also much more.”

It’s a little bit geeky at the beginning but well worth a listen.

“There is just a flock of evidence for the benefits for depression, anxiety, panic disorder. Part of what the real message is, is that if you activate your brain with exercise, you’re gonna release a lot of the neurotransmitters we aim with in psychopharmacology, you know, our drugs that we use, serotonin drugs, dopamine drugs, neurepinephrine drugs, all tend to try we think to elevate the levels of these neurotransmitters. Well exercise does that pretty quickly!”

“The retro art of hula hooping is making a comeback on both sides of the Atlantic.  And no wonder, says Lucy Atkins:  as well as being a lot of fun, it will tone your body in all the right places”

If you’re interested in hooping in NYC, checkout Groove Hoops.  They have classes…