Imagine being alive 50,000 years ago. While we don’t know exactly what life was like back then, chances are pretty good that you engaged in these types of activities on a fairly regular basis:
- Building simple shelters
- Foraging for fruits, nuts, and tubers
- Walking for long distances while carrying food, tools, and weapons
- Scaling up and down hilly, rocky terrain
- Cautiously navigating steep trails and strong river currents
- Quietly sneaking up on prey
- Chasing down, grappling with, and killing wild game
- Lifting, carrying, or dragging animal carcasses back to your shelter
- Jumping up and climbing into trees to escape predators
- Leaping back from a predator, a cornered prey, or a venomous reptile
- Defending yourself and your resources from rival humans
- Collecting wood and building fires
- Sleeping very lightly in a pitch dark environment
The only way you’d be able to survive in this setting would be to develop very versatile physical capabilities combined with enhanced spatial awareness and quick reaction times.
The key is, when you limit your physical activity to repetitive, uni-directional activities such as aerobics and running, you train your muscles to operate within a very narrow and predictable range of physical mobility. This means that you compromise your ability to react quickly and effectively to both threats and opportunities that come at you from all angles.
Bottom line – you dull your reflexes.
Remember, you’re built for quick and versatile movement in any direction. Make sure that you’re training to enhance this – and not to detriment it.
Just a reminder, this Saturday the city of Lake in the Hills is hosting its annual Splish, Splash, 5K Dash event.
The swim takes place in Woods Creek Lake which is one of the neatest swim venues in the Chicago area. Also, for those who are more ambitious, you can tack on a 5K run to your swim. Be forewarned, though. The run course is VERY challenging (hence the name Lake in the Hills). Check it out!
Date: Sunday, June 15, 2008 Time: 6:30AM (swim), 7:30AM (beach cleanup) Location: Ohio Street Beach Swim plan: 20-30 minutes of low exertion swimming Notes: Ohio Street Beach will once again the place to be this Sunday! I’m anticipating the water temperature to be in the 60F – 63F range. While this is still wetsuit temperature for me, there are a lot of people who swim this without one – so don’t be afraid to come on out!
** Beach Cleanup Details **
At around 7:30AM I’m going to be completing a beach report for the Alliance for the Great Lakes Adopt-a-Beach program. Part of this report involves collecting and disposing of litter and recording the types and quantities of litter present at the beach.
This is where I could really use your help!
I will bring all the equipment (trash bags, gloves, etc.), so all you need to do is just show up and help with the collection. Ohio Street Beach isn’t an enormous beach, so this shouldn’t take that long (I don’t expect to be out there past 9:00AM). Plus, if you don’t feel like swimming, you can just show up later for the beach cleanup.
So why do this? Because this is your beach and your lake. Not only do you swim in it and play in it, but everything that comes out of your faucet comes from the lake. Remember: we have 22% of the world’s fresh water right in our backyard while one fifth of the world’s population doesn’t even have access to clean water. Don’t take it for granted.
Summer has arrived early, and Ohio Street Beach was the place to be this morning. The beach is quite serene and sparsely populated at 6:30am. The only other swimmers out there were two fellows training for Ironman Coeur d’Alene in two weeks. A few intrepid souls arrived about an hour later, but by that time the lakefront had long since lost any semblance of tranquility.
The swim lane rope markers are now up, and the water temperature is ideal. I’d estimate we broke the 60F barrier (at least at this venue) which meant I could finally ditch the gloves, booties, and neoprene cap. I still kept the thermo shirt on – although I’ll probably shed that next week.
Longjing or “Dragon Well” tea is the most famous of all the teas in China. It is grown and harvested in the Longjing mountain area of Hangzhou, southwest of West Lake. There is a natural barrier of three encircling mountains that produces a unique microclimate which coats the tea-growing region with layers of cloud and mist for long periods of time.
Residents of this area during the Three Kingdoms Period (221-280) believed that a dragon lived in the village well and controlled the rainfall – hence the name.
Whether you choose to believe this tale or not, one thing is certain – this is one magnificent tea with a lengthy history of purported health benefits. I typically bring a thermos of it out to our swims. So if you want to give it a try, just let me know.
A co-worker of mine called my attention to a recent study conducted by McMaster University. The entire piece is worth reading, but it can be summed up rather nicely with this excerpt:
People can exercise using brief, high-intensity forms of exercise and reap the same benefits to cardiovascular health that can be derived from traditional, long-duration and moderately intense exercise.
This study underscores the whole concept of evolutionary fitness and power law training. More specifically, it provides empirical evidence that short burst, high intensity forms of physical activity are inherently “cardio-protective” – possibly much more so than endurance training.
The water was a tepid 56F on Sunday morning and very calm. The only difficulty I had was with my left goggle lens. The petroleum jelly on my face must have caused a loose seal, so it was constantly filling with water. This was exceptionally annoying, and I had to stop several times during the 25 minute swim to adjust (i.e. empty out) my goggles. These actions seem to have precipitated what happened next…
I had just poured my second cup of awesome Longjing tea, when I received a surprise visit from the Chicago Fire Department. The officer asked me if everything was okay and indicated that they had received a call that there was a “swimmer having problems” in the lake. Apparently, my pesky goggle situation had alarmed one of the residents in one of the high rises overlooking the swim area.
Lesson learned: Double check your gear by doing a few short laps and stick with a consistent swim pattern during your workout. Why? Because when you swim in the lake, you’re “on stage” whether you like it or not…
In my opinion, deadlifts are the single best strength training exercise you can do. Deadlifts involve basic power movements that not only work your core but also stress every single muscle in your entire body. In addition, the high intensity nature of deadlifts causes your body to secrete higher levels of muscle growth hormones that quickly accelerate your overall strength and power.
However, deadlifts have unfairly received a bad reputation among the general public. The primary misconception that most people have is that deadlifts will injure your back. This is a half-truth. While deadlifts (as well as any other strength training exercise) can certainly cause injuries, these injuries are typically the result of a combination of either using too much weight or – most often – improper lifting technique.
Below is a video clip of the proper way to perform deadlifts. Be sure to pay special attention to the athletes’ lifting techniques as well as the instructor’s comments.
