It's Holistic

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Gem

I came to say something about my life change to daily exercise and there were two forum sections: Exercise and Health. Good health is not any one thing, but everything, so I talk about health rather than exercise.

I joined a gym. I'm not into yoga styled things, but I have a history with martial arts. I'm into body strength, rock music and grunting. I can't stand sitar and whale-song and people who emphasise the 'ssss' when they say 'universe'.

You have to understand how diametrically opposed the rock and sweat mentality and the relaxation music and incense mind-set are, so this about personality type. In which case, for me, there's no use for doing yoga because those clowns want to hug everyone and I want to crush the life out of them, right? It's not that I'm better than or hateful toward that other approach to health, or, more importantly, vice versa; it's just ones health has to be a real sincere expression of one's personality - to suit who you are.

The guys at the gym are much stronger than I am, because I'm just starting, so there is a self conscious embaressment about looking like a weakling and lifting such light weights, but that's all part of the fun. Those blokes represent my potential and inspire me with aspiration, but I'm not in competition with anyone else; I'm just in it to find my limit and surpass it - do as best I can.

OK, so where does it start? People talk about the discipline involved, but I don't think that's the way to approach it. Building on personality type, it is about doing what one really wants to do. I want to be in there with muscles and metal. I don't want to be in a yoga type setting. Others may like the outdoors and go that way. I hate the outdoors and like it inside. What ever it is that is liked depending on whoever's personality. Do not do something you hate doing in the name of 'health'.

Health is a part of being yourself, and not only that, but being the best self you can be. It has the psychological and physical side, and a practice of spirituality. How centred I can be, how patient I need to be, how concentrated I need to be, how determined I need to be, and of course on off days when my head is a mess, I just need pure discipline... all of that is being exercised, practiced, and built up along with these hunky muscles which sate my depraved state of vanity.

I'm pretty amped with this life change from chair bound navel gazer to muscle bound ranter and raver, and if any reader is feeling the inspiration to 'get off the couch' so to speak, then more power to ya!

Imma a yoga disciple who loves walking, tennis dance and anything else that feels good in my body where I am at and feel I want to be. I have done lots of other different styles of exercise classes, where I had to move hard and fast, lift weights and all that jazz and it all served me where I was and needed to be.

I agree with you, doing what you love and matches you is what it is all about. I guess I seek good health and feeling more alive and doing what I love. So for me personally its a whole body awareness in need and listening so I move in the way I am needing to be moving.

I recently started a pretty focused healthy diet that suits my body, I pretty much am just eating clean food and healthy and I have noticed a lot of my body aches have subsided and so with that ease of movement I am enjoying most all I engage in for health.

I don't do hugs in yoga with everyone lol.

I hug those I want to hug, end of story.


(I don't like faking hugs, they have to have some meaning in the reflection and the extension)

[Gem]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

Imma a yoga disciple who loves walking, tennis dance and anything else that feels good in my body where I am at and feel I want to be. I have done lots of other different styles of exercise classes, where I had to move hard and fast, lift weights and all that jazz and it all served me where I was and needed to be.

Yes, I was a bit hard on the incense sniffing, candle burning posers, but I didn't mean it. I was just trying to be a bit entertaining. Yoga is actually the most holistic exercise style there is. I mean martial arts warm ups are pretty much all yoga in origin ad the breath use is the same. We just took yoga and used to it to kill people. There we go with the dark humour again, because I can tell you as a martial arts trainer that the main part of martial ARTS is the art of living, and that means not getting into fights, let alone killing. It has become a sport and and a form of entertainment, so many schools have forgotten the ART of it, but actually yoga and martial arts are very similar as an art of living... In the training I did, it was like, explode, and that kind of hit was lethal. We were not permitted to compete in tournaments, because comparison with others is the wrong mentality, ant tournaments encourage poor technique. That's how martial arts lost it, by becoming 'competitive'. Comparison with others for the sake of seeing the potential is good, comparison to see 'who's better' is bad. Anyway... Yogw = yes. It's just not for me.

I agree with you, doing what you love and matches you is what it is all about. I guess I seek good health and feeling more alive and doing what I love. So for me personally its a whole body awareness in need and listening so I move in the way I am needing to be moving.

Yep, and exercise needs to be a whole body awareness and precise co-ordinated control. Many try to distract away from the pain, but that isn't actually good for the mindful equanimity, to be aware of body and calm of mind is the holistic approach. My entire meditation is pretty much based on that principle.

I recently started a pretty focused healthy diet that suits my body, I pretty much am just eating clean food and healthy and I have noticed a lot of my body aches have subsided and so with that ease of movement I am enjoying most all I engage in for health.[/quote

My diet absolutely transformed. I don't eat anything unless it's high octane fuel for the body. I simply need the energy and I can't waste space on food that's not nutritious. Demand for protein is through the roof. The main thing that motivated me besided feeling like ****, was the paunch belly fat, so I started thinking I need to eat less, but then I had low energy, so I actually eat more now than before, but smaller portions like 4 or 5 times in a day, It's like the body is burning food, and I can't let that fire go out, so I have to add fuel as soon as it burns low. I did lose a kilo in the first month anyway, so it still works. More muscle, less fat.

I don't do hugs in yoga with everyone lol.

I hug those I want to hug, end of story.


(I don't like faking hugs, they have to have some meaning in the reflection and the extension)

Personally, I don't hug anyone, and I don't like it when people assume it's OK, but they do that, and I just go through it as a formality rather than creating an awkward moment. I just don't initiate it. Not that I'm really adverse to it or anything, just that my space is a zone where I rule and others need permission to enter it. I likes the oriental custom of bowing at a respectful distance.

[Gem]

I started the day with a bowl of oatmeal/porridge which has a tblsp sunflower seeds, tblsp crushes walnut, tblsp mixed seeds like linseed and stuff, tblsp honey, 2 heaped tblsp yogurt, 6 prunes and half a banana mixed in.

I then watched some videos on back anatomy and back workouts, both floor exercises and gym exercises, and wrote out a workout routine. It took a while to figure out, so I had a banana and half a wholemeal roll stuffed with tuna, and then headed to the gym.

I started out with basic lower back floor routine, which looked like a pilates sort of thing, and was surprisingly good. I didn't expect it to feel like that, but it felt like the body opened up or something.

I went out to the gym floor and did the lower back with 'good morning bows', and deadlifts, without much weight because I'm just learning the correct movement, which takes practice and patience but one needs perfect form first. Then I did all that stuff like chin ups (assisted on machine) and bar bell rows, bla bla bla lots of things, and 90 minutes later I finished a full back workout.

I had planned to do shoulders as well, but the back routine made my shoulders feel fatigued, so I'll see how that feels and work the shoulders another time. It seems back and shoulders don't go together, so I might change it to legs and shoulders next week.

It actually takes a lot of planning and figuring out, now that I'm starting a more focused training plan.

Now I'm home so I just about to make a big feed, high protein, heaps of veges, no carbs ( I only feel like carbs early on in the day, not late in the arvo). I'll eat half at a time like at 6:00 ad 8:30 or something like that... which means I ate four reasonable portions today. I really need something like salad half way through the day, so I might improve the diet as time goes on.

My mentality on food has changed. I think about it as the fuel I need, and not as stuff I bung in when I get hungry. Like, I'd never pick up 2 box for 10$ Korean noodle takeaway or the $7.90 pizza Tuesday special anymore, which I used to.

Diet and exercise... it's pretty basic stuff.

[Gem]

Just layed down here for a half hour, and now I can feel a glowing warmth or heat all through my back. Is good.

[Gem]

I'm finding out more clearly how the muscle mechanics of the body operate. For example, I was using the rowing machine, and as I mentioned, I thought I would stop because I felt my core strength was not enough to support the lower back movement. Today I did my cardio 20 minutes each on treadmill, bike and eliptical, and I didn't feel good about reducing the routine by omiting the rowing, so I decided to go for it. Not only that, I also increased the resistance. I have found that when the body hurts and mind starts whining about it, instead of backing off, better make it harder. A few minutes in I realised I had been doing the rowing all wrong, because the pull is meant to come from lower lats, and not the lower back motions. When I pulled from the lats, my back stopped curving foward and back, ad there is ample strength there not only to do the exercise safely, but to amp it up as well.

The real fight I think, which I have experienced and I'm pretty sure prevents people from persisting ad being consistent with their training routine, is what I have come to call 'the little baby'. This negative mentality of the whinging whining complaining baby mind. It'll say 'I don't feel like it today', or 'that's enough now', or 'today I'm just going to take it easy'. The proper mind is just focused and has nothing to say. There is a training routine. Period. Sometimes it says, 'two more' or 'go harder' or 'add some weight'. Of course there is little baby's big brother, mucho ego, who wants more weight because it's mucho, but that guy and his little sister are simply not permitted in the gym. They have been expelled for disrupting the ones who are there to train.

The other point with the mind is, it has to stay with the part being trained. It is what feels the right part of the exercise. Like it has to stay on the lower lats mostly during the rowing. Before today I was tuning out to the music videos (which are mindless and inane pop produced drivel), but during yesterday's sesh, I realised you have be aware of what you are doing and every detail of the motion so you can make it feel 'just right'.

Well, there is a psychological training which goes with body training. The body must obey the mind, and not the distracting little baby and her brother, mucho ego, but the proper mind which knows what it really wants and remains focused on what I'm doing.

(PS I just called it 'little baby' because of forum rules, but I actually call it something else with starts with 'b'.)

[Sarian]

Love that last post, it's great. I want to print it out and read it when I'm feeling like a little B...

[Gem]

Today I worked with arms. When I looked into it I found it is a bigger job than I anticipated because there are forearms and upper arms each with back and front sides and working the rotation joints of shoulder and lower arm bones in all their different positions. It ended up being a two hour stint at the gym, and now I'm just feeling the aftermath of total arm obliteration!

[Sarian]

LOL, my arms are weak. I have no upper body strength it seems, well, mean I can lift things but when it comes to push ups and things like that, I'm a baby. I can lift weights, just not myself Hahaha!

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Sarian

LOL, my arms are weak. I have no upper body strength it seems, well, mean I can lift things but when it comes to push ups and things like that, I'm a baby. I can lift weights, just not myself Hahaha!

My arms are weak too, but I lift something I can do 15 times, and do 3 sets, but maybe hit failure after 10 or 12 reps on the last set. The I know my limitation, which is the 'right weight'. For bench press, for example, I don't use weight because the bar alone is already so heavy I can only lift like 7 or 8 reps. When I first started a month or so ago, I used the inclined lift machine without any weight, then added one and then two weights, but going from that to bench pressing the 44lb (20kg) bar is real progress. It's a bit embarrassing to be the weakest bloke there, but to me it doesn't matter and I don't have to prove myself as strong. It's more about the persistence and consistency it takes to make progress. If I remain persistent ad consistent, by next year I will not be the weakest bloke there, but one of the stronger ones.

Today is rest day, so I'm just lying around instead of doing the housework.

[Sarian]

LOL! You've come a long way, though, Gem! I admire you! You have to start somewhere and you have and doesn't it feel great. I've slacked off terribly the last month or so and it's not good. Now I'm trying to get back to it. Get back in shape. It's like I've become so weak. Did you know that even a two week break you lose it. Pretty much what I did. thankful for muscle memory though! But I just got weak again...even with running. I feel like a potato now. When my daughter gets off to work, I'm going to do a work out, then get on with my day.

It's good to have a rest day to let those muscle tears heal. you will remain persistent and consistent and be one of the stronger ones. You have truly inspired me to get back on the horse.