Be Kind Always

Healthy tips that we can all benefit from reading

I know that I should drink more water and less coffee...for starters

Post by Collective Evolution.

Fitness is cool

Try some of these push-up variations

Empathy and Compassion

Functional Exercise

I have just started following this Functional Patterns channel and have found this man to be very knowledgeable. I like his exercises as they don't conflict with natural movement- rather, they encourage better strength and mobility around the joints which is imperative for gaining more overall strength and flexibility and avoiding chronic injuries. More importantly for me, it's not about building bulky muscles which conflict with karate practice

Try this routine

It's Not Always About Winning

True Wisdom

This is something that many of us may reflect on at some point or another. It doesn't mean giving up on your dreams or aspirations; rather, appreciate what you have and the people that are dear to you.

Change is here to stay

Great Reasons To Start Lifting

Here are ten of them-  and despite the title of the attached blog...these are great reasons for men as well.

Great Reasons To Lift- click here

Happy New Year- Get fit in 2014

Good Morning!

For those of you that made fitness resolutions this year...how's it going? January isn't over yet, if you feel like you've already dropped the ball- pick it back up!

It's never too late to start and you're never too old.


Look at this inspiring lady

Click here to go to the Facebook link

I thought that this was worth reading and sharing this morning. Have a great day!!

Frances Masters • Be Happy • No Comments

25 Incredible Quotes That Will Change the Way You Think About Life

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Be inspired by these 25 quotes that will challenge the way you think about life.

 “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!” ~ Hunter S. Thompson

“Every time we choose safety, we reinforce fear.” ~ Cheri Huber

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” ~ Dr. Seuss

“Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone even if it means being uncomfortable. The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades, bumps, and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested. Have the courage to accept that you’re not perfect, nothing is and no one is — and that’s OK.” ~ Katie Couric

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” ~ Mae West

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” ~ Robert Frost

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~ Albert Einstein

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” ~ Dr. Seuss

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” ~ Buddha

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” ~ Louise Erdrich

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” ~ Confucius

“The most important thing is to enjoy your life – to be happy – it’s all that matters.” ~ Audrey Hepburn

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” ~ Isaac Asimov

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.” ~ Jim Morrison

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” ~ Charles Darwin

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ~ Søren Kierkegaard

“Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be.” ~ Jose Ortega y Gasset

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” ~ Jackie Robinson

“Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.” ~ Erich Fromm

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” ~ John Lennon

“When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’” ~ Sydney J. Harris

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.” ~ C. JoyBell C.

“Life is to be enjoyed, not endured” ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

“There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.” ~ John Green

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Frances Masters

Frances Masters is a BACP accredited psychotherapist with over 30,000 client hours of experience. Follow her @fusioncoachuk

Tags: Quotes, Self Help Skills, Self Improvement Tips

Emotional and Mental Fitness

Good Morning

This time of year often causes one to reflect on the past year's events, successes and short-comings and everything in between. It can evoke sad feelings due to the loss of loved ones, financial difficulties, or seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D.) just to name a couple. If someone is a Grinch it may just be because there is an explanation of some kind and not that he or she is just an ogre lol.

And then there are those eternally positive, joyful people who manage to smile even bigger and brighter during the Christmas season. Thank goodness for them!

I stumbled across the following article on the Bodyrock Daily HIIT blog and thought it was worth sharing. It's not really "season specific" but my feeling is it may be just the right thing for some to read at this time.
Have a look at it and try to honestly evaluate yourself on each point to see how you measure up.

My conclusion regarding myself is that I seem to still have some work to do in some areas.
ok-  a few areas ;-)

Have a great day all!

Click here for the post

Fitness Over The Holidays

If you work hard on your fitness routine all year long, you probably don't want to sacrifice all your hard work and muscle gains (or weight loss) just because it's the Christmas Season.  On the other hand it's nice to be able to enjoy a little break and relax.

Here are some tips for keeping it together over the holidays from the Bodyrock.tv Facebook page.

http://www.dailyhiit.com/hiit-blog/hiit-workout/10-tips-eating-right-exercising-thru-holidays/

Push-up Variations

Push-ups can be boring - but they're excellent for strength and conditioning. The great thing about push-ups is that you can take them wherever you go - no equipment (other than you ) is necessary.

The following video from Strength Camp features some variations of the old standard exercise.

With the holidays coming, perhaps we should call December push-up month at

London Shido-kan Karate Dojo

No Excuses From This 64 Year Old

This fellow has taken "get back in shape" to a new level. His message is that it's never too late.

Check it out!

London Shido-kan Karate Dojo...

we're into fitness!

Playground Workouts

This is the video that originally got me interested in focusing more bodyweight training- the guy is still the original in my books. Many have come along after him.


At London Shido-kan Karate Dojo we employ  bodyweight training as well as traditional weight training for improving strength and function.

Exercise for subway tokens

Neat concept!

More great bodyweight training

Good morning

As I've said in other posts - while I enjoy lifting weights in the traditional sense - I really love doing exercises that employ one's own bodyweight.
This means that you need little or no equipment other than maybe a mat and a pull-up bar. You also don't need a ton of space to perform the exercises in.

Watch the link below first, then decide if you need to tailor it for your needs. You don't have to perform 50 repetitions of each exercise right off- start with as few as 10 if you like. Also if there is a movement that you're not able to perform without discomfort, simply drop that one and double-up on one that you like. The clip is called an MMA workout but is obviously not exclusive to those involved in mixed martial arts- or any martial art for that matter.

Have some fun with the routine. Time yourself the first time that you do it, and either add more repetitions to each exercise, or try to improve your time for the same numbers. Setting small short-term goals really helps to keep working out more interesting and motivating.



*if you any doubts about your ability to perform this or any other exercise program- or if you have sustained any type of injury- particularly in the back or neck region- contact your physician or qualified physio-therapist to receive medical clearance before attempting this exercise.

Bodyweight 500 by Funk Roberts

Have a great weekend!

Larry

Everything In Moderation? Or just some things..

Often when we say those words "everything in moderation" we are justifying indulging in something that we know we shouldn't. Ok not always - let's say sometimes to be safe.

The first things to come to mind are certain foods-  junk foods. There is a huge list. Then there are other vices like alcohol, cigarettes, and for some - illicit drugs. Hopefully anyone reading this will agree that "a moderate amount of meth" isn't acceptable ever. lol Most doctors will say that 2 or 3 alcoholic beverages a day is acceptable for the general population of adults. Barring of course those with health conditions or medication that would make it contraindicative to consume alcohol. 

Then there are those things that everyone agrees are good for us. Healthy food, water, exercise, love, karate, work, friends, etc.  (did I mention karate?) Can an excess of any of these things be bad for you? (no argument about work here)

As a former Canada Post letter-carrier I constantly heard comments from people about how great my job must be- all the wonderful exercise that I got walking everyday. I still laugh at something one fellow said  - a guy who worked at a computer terminal. He said " I'd love to have your job, just walking around to offices with mail saying - here you go...here you go" He doesn't realize how long and how far some carriers walk everyday- and that's with carrying weight. But from his perspective, stuck at a desk all day, it looked pretty attractive. The truth is, all that walking day after day for over 22 years can take a toll on one's feet and knees. Especially for someone like myself who spends a lot of time in bare feet doing karate. My wife Joanne is still a letter-carrier with 26 years of service and she- on the other hand -doesn't suffer from foot pain...with Jo it's her hips. The smart thing to do in this situation - where repetitive stress can cause chronic pain and injuries - is to start on an exercise program to combat the effect of that repetitive motion. This is what Jo and I practice.

Of course I went one step further and left the post office at the end of July in favour of operating my karate dojo full time and embarking on a personal training business.  Within just a few weeks I noticed an improvement in how I felt in the feet and knees and I proceeded to increase the weight in my squats and other leg exercises. So now I am in pain again! I have increased the attention that I'm giving to my quadriceps (thighs) and as a result, I allowed my hamstrings to suffer. This created an imbalance that I am addressing with varying exercises and increasing flexibility training.

I was so happy with the new-found freedom of movement in my knees that I overdid things. It was too much of a good thing. 

I think that the message here is that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It's mentally healthy to treat ourselves occasionally and give ourselves a break from being disciplined in some small way. Have a few potato chips once in a while- just don't eat the whole bag and run out to buy another. Similarly if we become too obsessed with our goals, fitness or career - wise, we can create other types of imbalance with our mental health, or with family and friends. It's important to be tuned in to the warning signs whether it's pain somewhere in your body, your clothes are getting too tight,or there is a strained relationship with someone close to you. Don't ignore the signs- make adjustments.

And remember to go to karate class

Cheers,

Larry

Own Your Health

Good Morning

Today's blog is focused not on specific exercises - but on busy lifestyles and making the time in our schedules to fit an exercise program into our day.

Recently there was a photo posted by a woman named Maria Kang captioned "What's Your Excuse?"

Unfortunately many working mothers took exception to the photo and accused Maria of "fat-shaming" and showing off. I'm not one of those that is bashing Maria for her post or for being proud of her own accomplishment. My wife Joanne raised four children (three of them triplets) and juggled work, home-making, driving to sports activities and everything else that comes up during the day. She knows as well as anyone that a work-out doesn't hold much appeal when one falls asleep in utter exhaustion before your head barely hits the pillow.
And yes before you jump on me- I helped too!
It wasn't until the kids were close to twelve years of age that Jo joined a gym and started an exercise program. I'm sure if she could go back in time she would have done it sooner because of all the benefits she started to realize through working out. Looking great is only one result in choosing a healthier lifestyle. The more important long-term benefits are things like reduced stress, lower blood pressure, increased metabolism, improvements in bone-density, reduced pain in joints, better posture due to decreased back pain, and the list goes on.

Vanity

So back to the photo of Maria. Her image outraged people because of the suggestion that a woman had to look like that in order be happy, healthy and fit. Whether she intended that or not- that's how many took it. This is not a new perception of course. The media and corporations have been doing it for years to sell products. They use models - male and female -  to suggest what the ideal body-type is and that if we use a particular product we have a better chance of assimilating. Perhaps a high percentage of people do start an exercise program to look better, but whatever the motivation is- if done properly-  the other benefits will follow. The trouble with the images models or competitive body-builders portray is that it's not usually a realistic goal for most "average" people. There is that all or nothing mentality. There is no point in striving to look a certain way if one is just going to fail (again) That's where people are mistaken - you don't need to have dramatic changes in your body composition just to improve your overall health and increase your chances of longevity.

Get Started

"I don't have the time" is likely the most common reason that people use. While there may be validity to that, there are still plenty of benefits to allotting 20 minutes a day for exercise. The other major issue is diet. When one is constantly running on a tight schedule, it's easy to get into the habit of grabbing fast or processed foods. High carbs, fats, sodium and processed sugar are the enemy, and quickly add pounds on the scale and do nasty things to the internal mechanisms of your body. There are many fitness and dietary experts available to help design a program. There are endless tutorial online workouts and websites. Joanne got started with bodyrock.tv for example. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars on gym memberships and personal trainers every single week. Once you establish goals and learn a few exercises you can go on your own. And you seriously only need 20 -30 minutes 3 or 4 times a week. If you think that you can't afford the time think again and be totally honest with yourself. How much time is spent on the computer or watching television? How long is a typical hockey or football game televised? Your health is so important so stop procrastinating. 

What to do then?

Not everyone can commit to attending a karate dojo 3 times a week (but I strongly recommend it ;-) ) It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Start to do something. There are some evenings where I don't particularly feel like doing "a whole workout" so I set a smaller goal for myself for that time. I will decide for example to choose 4 different exercises and perform a total of just 50 repetitions of each one. For example: push-ups, leg-raises, body-weight squats and inverted rows. Once I get into it and feeling good I will often end up doing more and before I know it a half hour has gone by and I feel 100% better- physically and mentally. 

The best way to start is moderately. Jumping into something that is too intense will likely just result in burn-out and even worse - an injury. You can enrol in a yoga program or a boot camp for beginners. Many community programs are available through schools or the city recreation department. You could join London Shido-kan Karate. :-)

Again if you're not sure how to get started or what to do- call someone who can help you. You could even call me.

Don't wait

The longer you put it off- the harder it gets. David Patchell Evans- the CEO and founder of Goodlife Fitness Centres has a great line that goes something like this. "Exercising is easy -living life unfit is hard" I apologize if that's not the exact wording but the message is clear. As well, the older we get, the longer it takes to heal. Don't let those minor aches and pains become chronic and debilitating for life. I see so many people in their  40's and even their late 30's who have just given up and it's sad to see. 

Have a great day and  be good to yourself - you're worth it!

Larry

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