Push Ups Rock!!

The push up (or press up for those of you from British backgrounds) is perhaps the most easily identifiable resistance movement in the world. It is accessible (all you really need is a working body and a floor), it is simple and it is loaded with benefits.

The raw power behind any push up comes from the pectorals (your chest) and the triceps (the back, or posterior, side of your upper arms) much in the way your typical bench press would. For this reason, a lot of people who enjoy resistance training assume that the push up can be replaced and even improved by substituting it for the bench press.

This is not the case. In fact, it is quite far from the truth. On the bench press, the body is sandwiched firmly in place between a bench and gravity. There is little core stimulation, for the most part your body is held in place and your arms and chest do the work.

The pushup however, is performed with your body in the air, all those muscles must contract and stay tight, after all, a rigid structure is much easier to move than something that flops all over the place. Someone once said it to me like this: "You know those planks we do, where we're forced to hold ourselves off the ground, tighten our stomach and just wait for the pain to overwhelm us? Well, a pushup is basically a plank where you go up and down."

It's like doing two extremely effective exercises in one hit. Killing two birds with one stone (not possible), etc, etc.

On average, a standard pushup moves about 70% of your weight. This changes based on where your weight is located, your unique body proportions and whichever fitness magazine you believe, but 70% is a fair estimate. The problem with this is that for some people, 70% is too much and for others that weight is far too little.

Never fear, this is where progressions and regressions come to the rescue!

Progressions and regressions are simply fancy gym jargon for tweaks and techniques that make certain exercises easier or harder depending on your individual needs. Progressions are more difficult and regressions are slightly easier. Some people, especially (in my experience) young men, shun the idea of a regression and will simply push and push and push themselves with an exercise that is too hard until they either get discouraged and quit (or proudly go about it with poor form). Others will see a progression and impatiently try it, disregarding the proper technique needed to do it properly in the process. Keeping that in mind, I beg that you would heed this one piece of advice with an understanding and open mind.

Proper Form Is King.

What I mean by that is that if you can't do something with good form, no matter what it is, you should be meek and lowly of heart and humble yourself down to something that you can perform properly. Poor form robs you of the true benefits of exercise and can lead to disasters later down the track (chronic back pain, anyone?).

So, for the pushup, here is a 5 step regression to progression standard:

1. Wall Pushup: Perform your pushup with your hands against a wall, keep your feet together a step away from the wall. Inhale as you lower yourself forwards and exhale as you push back.

2. Incline Pushup: Use a chair, bench, table or anything else that is sturdy and matches your level of strength. Put your hands on your surface of choice and perform your pushups inhaling and exhaling as you did on the wall pushup. Remember, the lower your surface, the more difficult the pushup.

3. Kneeling Pushup: Perform a standard pushup from a kneeling position. Be sure to keep your weight forward and your palms a little wider than shoulder width. Keep your weight forward and push through the ground, exhaling as you come up. You want the emphasis to be on your upper body so avoid using your legs and back to assist you.

4. Pushup: Congratulations, you've built up a to a proper pushup, now do them until their easy! Remember to keep your body in a straight line, nice, tight and rigid like a solid beam of concrete.

5. Diamond Pushup: Form a triangle below your chest with your thumb and pointer fingers. This puts a great deal more weight on your triceps and you will certainly feel it!

From there, you can progress further to assisted one armed pushups, single arm pushups and even bar pushups (where you are performing pushups from the top of an elevated bar), however, we won't go into that, as frankly, those movements are crazy enough to warrant a post of their own.

Starting with the wall pushup, which 99% of people should be able to do right through to a standard pushup, all these movements are attainable to you regardless of your age, gender or strength. When you can perform two sets of twenty repetitions (twenty straight wall/incline/kneeling etc pushups) move on to the next progression. Give yourself time and be patient. Don't try again until the soreness from your last attempt abates. Keep a sheet of paper (or a note on your phone) and track your progress. The pushup is a fantastic exercise that really does benefit your entire body. I strongly urge anyone and everyone to try it out.

All you need is a floor.

Run Free, Young Grasshopper!

 Running is the original mode of fast human transportation, we have been doing it for many thousands of years. Our ancestors ran for food and for pleasure, it is built into the very cells of our bodies as part of a 'fight or flight' reaction. When things were dangerous, those who came before us fought. When it was too dangerous, they ran. The only reason that you are able to read this today is because all of your predecessors were better runners than those who weren't so lucky.

As far as I know, most of us are not in any danger of being chased away by lions, tigers and bears (oh my!), so lets drop that side of the coin and talk about running for pleasure. As far as we know, the earliest competitive races were run in Ireland in the Tailteann Games in a 1829 BC, a good thousand years before the first recorded Olympics. Running back then was surely different from what running is now. For starters, nobody had iPods, Nikes, heart-beat monitors or TV screens in front of a moving conveyer belt, they had the cold (it was Ireland, after all) wind in their hair, the ground beneath their feet and the world of the track before them. Nobody cared about reaching the 60%-80% fat burn zone and nobody checked their scales when they got home. Why? Because running is fun.

In our current superficial day and age everybody wants payment for their efforts. If you do something, you get something, it is not a courtesy but an expectation. In the corporate marketplace, that is a fair philosophy, but when it comes to fitness, well being, health and happiness, that is not the way the world works. If you are running to fit into some smaller jeans, to develop a ripped six pack or for any number of other self serving reasons, chances are you're going to hate what you're doing and give up quickly. However, if you love running for the pure sake of being outside, moving over the earth the way you were designed to do, feeling in touch with your movement and surroundings, you will reap rewards you never even knew you needed.

HOW?
Have you ever seen anyone pick up a golf club for the first time and nail a hole-in-one? How about a bullseye on their very first dart? Chances are you have not and will not. Golf and darts are technical skills that rely on flawless technique- you need years of training from professionals who have learned themselves over many years just what to say and do for you to improve. Same with any sport, swimming, basketball, tennis. Poor technique leads to poor performance and injury.

And it's the same with running.

Just because the ability to run is naturally hardwired into our system doesn't mean we know how to utilise that ability. Yet, how many people run without ever hearing a single word about 'proper form'? People get up and they run. They don't go very far and pretty soon they start to hurt. This isn't because running is evil and a waste of time, it is because they are not doing it the way it should be done. If you tried to play golf holding the club upside down, chances are you wouldn't enjoy that much either.

So here's the lesson that you should take from this post and apply to your lives:
In order to run free and be free to run, these are the cues you should repeat in your head every time you hit the track- these are taken from Christopher McDougalls excellent book Born To Run, for the simple reason that it is brilliant, straightforward and easy to apply.

1. Easy: Make your steps nice and easy, don't force it. Don't take long strides, just nice, short, easy strides at a pace that is comfortable for you.

2. Light: Once you've mastered easy, focus on making yourself weightless. Picture your feet barely sweeping the ground as you float along the track.

3. Smooth: When you're easy and light, make it flow like a smooth rolling river. Think of yourself as a tide rolling down the track.

4. Fast: If you master easy, light and smooth you'll already be fast.

The biggest mistake people make when they run is pushing themselves too much too soon. You don't jump straight into a hot bath and running is the same, you must ease into it. Start slow, build up from there, push yourself if you feel like a challenge, ease off if you don't. Do it for the right reasons and let yourself enjoy it.

And don't forget to smile, after all, running is fun.

Paronomasia

The humble pun (or paronomasia for sophisticated snobs) has been present as long as the written word itself. They have been found amongst the Egyptians, the Mayans, even in Ancient Iraq. Puns are hilarious and awesome, like alligators, they have used their awesome-osity to withstand the ravages of time.

There are six types of pun: Compound puns, graphological puns, homographic puns, homonymic puns, morphological puns and recursive puns. Of course you will never come upon any circumstance in life where you will need to know the specifics of each definition so I won't bother to explain them. Just remember that there are six.

Of all these six, my favourite would have to be the morphological pun, also known as a 'portmanteau'(pronounced: Port-Man-Toe), because of how applicable it is to 90% of real life situations. You see, a morphological pun is simply combining- or morphing- two words together to make one more suitable and therefore better word.

Examples include combining 'true' and 'touché' to make the 'truché', or 'angry' and 'hungry' to become 'hungry'. The morphological pun is limited only be your imagination and the combinability of the words in your vocabulary.

What are examples of common portmanteau's in your literary arsenal?

Griper, No Griping!

Lessons Learned From Old Phone Photos

Do you ever get bored, grab your phone, go to its photo gallery and flick back through old pictures? If you do, you are not alone. If you don't, perhaps you should try it- there are many great lessons to learn from photographic evidence you have taken yourself- and best of all, since you are the one who did it, the age old excuse of "yeah, they can do it, but that doesn't mean I can" doesn't apply.

In todays blog I'm going to provide three examples of lessons learned from my own nostalgia.

Lesson #1: Save Your Coins

If you are somewhat well off and living in a country with a reasonable economy, coins are often seen as an inconvenience. Charities take great advantage of this by placing 'coin tins' at almost every cash register in the world. That's because they know what everyone knows but lacks the patience to realise.

Coins add up.

One of the best investments anyone short of cash can make is a $3 money tin. One that is solid and can only be opened once. I used to hate these tins as a kid- I would buy them, spend a day looking for coins in couches, laundry and the car ash-tray, and then deposit them into my brand new tin. The next day I would need a dollar for chocolate and bam- a three dollar investment is wasted for 1/3rd of its value.

But last year I bought a large one, I put it somewhere out of sight and was diligent in depositing my small change whenever I felt my wallet getting unnaturally lumpy and heavy (a rare occurrence, mind you). Twelve months later, I opened the sucker up, expecting a modest $400-$500. As you can see in the photo, I was pleasantly surprised with that actual result.

The moral of the story? Save your coins.

Lesson #2: Don't Spend Money on Costumes
I love dressing up. Not in a weird way, but whenever there are themed costume parties, no matter what the theme, I will always make an effort to look awesome. Why? Because awesome costumes always make for a hilariously fun time and great photos to look back on.

Unfortunately, even cheap dress ups cost money. I went as a giant ghoul monster to a Halloween party and shopped exclusively at the cheap-budget stores, it still cost me the same amount it probably would have to rent a costume. I went as a black haired emo-kid to an emo themed party but I still had to pay for hair dye and fake jewellery.

But it doesn't have to be that way, after my brother-in-laws surprise 'Spongebob' Party, I realised that costumes are all around us. Old rags, empty bottles, unused boxes can all be utilised in awesome and often hilarious ways.

So next time you have an excuse to dress up for something, remember: Every move you make, every step you take, awesome costumes will be watching you.

Lesson #3: You can have an endless amount of fun with a piece of paper, a lead pencil and your lunch. 

I do this whenever I get bored (mainly when I'm studying). It's a great way to exercise creativity and entertain yourself, even when nobody else finds it funny except for you.





I mean, who needs an iPhone with that type of improv? Talking nuts! Hilarious!

Love it.


But the biggest lesson of all is that we all have silly, creative and the occasionally remarkable ideas hidden away in our own lives. They might be in your phone gallery, on a sheet of paper in the back of an old school book or just hiding in plain sight.

Go and find them!

The Spark

Not long ago, a friend of mine was concerned about the romantic potential of his future. Everything seemed fantastic with his lady friend but danger loomed on the horizon, like a towering cumulonimbus filled with erratic, high voltage lightning.

The cause of this metaphorical mayhem?

The ever ominous "spark".

What exactly is the spark? A feeling? A crystallising moment of clarity?

Technically, a spark is an electrostatic discharge. Electricity building up somewhere and jumping to something that is grounded. Often dangerous, sometimes fatal, sparks are not always something you want as a part of your relationship.

Of course that is a physical spark, the spark to which I refer is of a more metaphorical nature. Metaphorical because it doesn't exist. It is a Hollywood invention. An idea created to justify terminating a good relationship for no apparent reason, or for continuing a terrible relationship despite the pile of evidence stacked against it.

So here is my advice when it comes to "The Spark":

There is no spark. If you find someone that makes you happy and makes you want to be better, and you do the same for them, then do whatever you can to keep them in your life.

Spark shmark.

TREP: Eating Healthy

FYI: TREP stands for "That Random Educational Post", for the odd occasion when I'm in the mood to drop some phat knowledge on y'all.

So recently I've been on a bit of a rampage as far as health and nutrition goes. I kept a food diary for a few weeks and was startled to find how much rubbish I was consuming for no reason except for the fact that the food and I were occupying the same room. There's probably a lot everyone in the world could learn from a food diary. If your overweight you might eat less simply so you didn't have to write so much (if your food diary is making your wrist hurt the same way a high school essay would then you are eating too much), anorexic people would learn that they cannot enjoy the glory of keeping a food diary with an empty book... The benefits are simply limitless.

However, I am not here to encourage you to keep a food diary, for you are busy. Busy busy busy and you don't have enough time to read this blog AND keep a food diary. In fact, if that is true, I would encourage the opposite for obviously selfish reasons.

What I am writing this blog about is something simple. Painfully simple. So simple that it is often overlooked (much like we overlook the fact that the 'ABC' song is sung to the same melody as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"), and like all good and simple ideas, I will start with a quote:

"The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine, or the slowest form of poison"

Which is more or less dead right. I cannot help but laugh to myself at fuel stations when I see people putting expensive, clean burning, high octane fuel into their cars to preserve its engine while chowing down on a Big Mac (or something similar). The food you eat is the fuel your body runs on.

That's my marvellously simple statement, which I am going to type again. In fact, as it is the entire topic of this blog I'm even going to make it bold.

And underlined.

With a cool slant....

The food you eat is the fuel your body runs on.

Think about it, if the simple brilliance of it doesn't hit you, think a little harder.

Imagine someone bought you a shiny brand new super fast megamercedes 500000 (and that kind of car exists) and then asked you if you would fill the tank with fries. Would you? Of course not! That's crazy.

Well let me tell you, you ARE a super fast megamercedes 500000. Your body is crazy! It does such cool stuff, cut your finger on a sharp edge, cover it with a bandaid and a few days later the cut is gone! 

I bet you wish your car could do that, I sure do, car part costs are killing me.

So next time you eat something, remember, your putting fuel into the most advanced piece of machinery you will ever own.

Yourself!