The Come Alive Project

Category: Exercise

  • Energy Bite 177 – A More Effective Motivator

    Last week I wrote about intrinsic motivation.  This week I’m taking it a little bit deeper.

    One of the biggest fears we have as we start go grow chronologically older is a loss of independence. Some see it as the specter of having our driver’s license taken away in a few years. Others see it simply as the fear of having to rely on others to do things for us. I’ll come back to this in a moment.

    When I have written in the past about Health, Fitness, Personal Energy and Motivation, it has been from an “if you do, if you don’t” perspective. I’ve said that, “If you don’t move your body the way nature intended, you will start to deteriorate. If you do move your body, you will be rewarded with good health and vitality.”

    But as I pointed out in last week’s weeks article, only one out of seven people actually take action to improve themselves, even after their doctor has told them they will die if they don’t take action.

    Thus, it appears that the old “carrot and stick” or “if, then” motivation model doesn’t work to get people to take responsibility for their Health, Fitness and Personal Energy.

    Since that may not be the best way to motivate people to action, what then will work?

    In their book, Bold, authors Steven Kotler and Peter Diamandis  suggest that when the rewards are internal, emotional satisfactions, they are called “intrinsic rewards” and are the drivers of the intrinsic motivation I wrote about last week. They quote author and business thinker, Daniel Pink from his book Drive, as saying;

    “If, then” rewards are mostly invalid. But the third drive is most important: “. . . our deep seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to fill our life with purpose.”   In simple terms, these drives are:

    “Autonomy – desire to steer our own ship

    Mastery – desire to steer it well

    Purpose – the need for the journey to mean something.”

                — Bold, p. 79

    These intrinsic drives are the very motivators that activate us the most.

    That paints a different picture of the subject of motivation and reinforces what I suggested last week, that there is an intrinsic drive within some of us that inspires us to take action to do certain things.

    Since, as I mentioned in the opening paragraph, losing independence is one of the main fears of seniors, and since the desire for Autonomy is a major motivator, then perhaps that is the direction we should be focusing on to inspire us to move our bodies, eat right and do those things we know we should be doing to keep us healthy, fit and filled with a profound zest for life. More on that another day.

    I would be interested in your comments on this. If you would care to comment, send them to bob@thecomealiveproject.com and write “motivation” in the subject line. I’ll read them all.

    And thank you for reading.

  • Energy Bite 174 – Do You Keep Records?

    Do you keep a record of your exercises? Do you keep a record of your daily weight?

    If you do, that’s great. If you don’t, then how do you know if you are making progress toward your goal, whatever it may be. If you don’t keep a log, how can you track what you are doing, and compare what you are able to do today, with what you were doing yesterday?

    How do you track the plateaus? You know they will come, both in fitness progress, as well as weight loss or gain.

    If you are keeping a record or a log, are you being “brutally honest” with yourself. Nobody sees mine, except me. I don’t lie to myself by fudging numbers.  It pays in the long run to be honest on your logbook.

    Do I cheat? No. Will I do a few more exercises if I’m not at 55 minutes? Sure. But I’m also getting the benefit of those added exercise.

    Both the pros and normal people alike, keep a log book. Bruce Lee kept a log of every routine he ever did. Was he overly obsessive about it? No. He wanted to know where he stood compared with where he wanted to go. You should too.

    How about a weight log. I keep a daily record of my weight. Why? If I gain or lose weight, I can track it against what I have been eating. Oh yes, we make a menu at the beginning of the week and I note any deviations. . You don’t need to keep them, but it’s kind of interesting to have followed my weight loss progression, and compare what I was eating then against what I am eating now.

    It’s also nice to watch the plateaus as they happen, both in weight and in exercise. At my age, I am not looking for progress as such, but I am looking to maintain my muscle structure and keep my weight stabilized.

    I use a simple small notebook from Staples for my exercise log (see picture). I list the exercises I do and how many times I do them. It’s mind numbingly simple.

     

    I write my weight down every morning on 5 X 7 index cards. I use both sides of the card and I fill up four or five cards for the year (see picture). Even simpler.

     

    So if you’re not keeping a record, it really no big deal. But if you’re working toward an exercise or weight goal, it might be nice to track your progress. Give it a try. You’ll be surprised at how much your weight will fluctuate over a week, as well as how much more exercise you can do today compared to a month ago. It’s great for self-esteem, too.

    Thank you for reading.

     

    463 wds

  • Energy Bite 164 – Strength Without Moving, Part 1

    Remember Charles Atlas? In the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, the most famous and popular physical fitness course in the world was Charles Atlas’ Dynamic Tension* program, sold through his famous “Kick sand in your face” graphic ads in the comic strips and magazines of the time. It was used by men and women alike, but was promoted mostly to men with the promise that women would be attracted to them because of their new and improved robust fitness.

    Charles Atlas’ real name was Angelo Siciliano. He was the winner of one of Physical Culture Magazine’s World’s Best Body contests. But he was even more famous for his “Kick Sand in Your Face” advertisements in magazines and comic books in the forties and fifties. Because of those ads, his Dynamic Tension course sold more exercise courses than anyone in history.   The course also worked as advertised!

    The course was built around the concept of “self-resistance”, or pitting one muscle against another and contracting it as hard as possible, either without or with movement.. Today these are called Isometric Contraction and Isotonic exercises. Isometric exercises are when you pit one muscle against another muscle or an inanimate object, without any movement. Isotonic exercises involve the same kind of muscular contraction, but with movement around the joints for partial or full range of motion.

    According to Wikipedia:  “Atlas’ Dynamic Tension” program consists of twelve lessons and one final perpetual lesson. Each lesson is supplemented with photos of Atlas demonstrating the exercises. Atlas’ lesson booklets added commentary that referred to the readers as his friends and gave them an open invitation to write him letters to update him on their progress and stories. His products and lessons have sold millions, and Atlas became the face of fitness. Among the people who took Atlas’ course were Max Baer, heavyweight boxing champion from 1934 to 1935; Rocky Marciano, heavyweight boxing champion from 1952 to 1956; Joe Louis, heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949; British heavyweight weightlifting champion and Darth Vader actor David Prowse; and Allan Wells, the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games 100 meter champion.”

    Legend has it that Mahatma Gandhi inquired about the course in response to one of his ads. Hmm. Apparently he didn’t take the course.

    What are some of the major benefits of this type of exercise? First, it is nearly impossible to be injured during exercise using this method because one’s own muscles provide the force and, as they tire, the force used also decreases. Second, you need no equipment other than possibly a chair or two. There are no dumbbells, barbells, stretch bands or other equipment. The Third benefit is that historically the program seems to work as advertised. A major barbell manufacturer once challenged Atlas’s claims with the FTC. Atlas won.

    For seniors, note that you should slowly work up to using maximum strength, and you should guard against holding your breath, for blood pressure reasons mostly.

    An interesting sidenote: Charles Atlas was a protege of Bernarr Macfadden, the godfather of American health and fitness. Another Macfadden protege was a writer for Macfadden’s magazine by the name of Paul Bragg, the founder of the first health food stores in the United States. Paul Bragg is also well known for his own protege, Jack Lalanne.

    In his later years, Charles Atlas still performed 50 knee-bends, 100 sit-ups, and 300 push-ups every morning. He died at age 79 (some say 80) in 1972

    Another surprising name in the area of Isometric exercise is Bruce Lee, the martial artist and movie actor. I say surprising because many believed that isometric exercises stifled muscle speed and range of motion of the joints. But Bruce Lee had blazing speed and full range of motion in spite of using isometric exercises.  According to the book, The Art of Expressing the Human Body, written by Bruce Lee and compiled and edited by John LIttle after Lee’s death, Lee was a huge fan of isometric exercise and performed what he called “the Basic 8” (isometrics) as part of his routine throughout a major portion of his career.

    Next week, in Part 2, I’ll describe some of the best strength building isometric and isotonic exercises we, as seniors, can do to build and protect our Strength, Health, Fitness and Personal Energy. The exercises will be excerpted from my ebook entitled, Fitness and Personal Energy (Working Title) to be for sale online by year end.

    Thank you for reading.

     

    *”Dynamic Tension” is a registered trademark of Charles Atlas, Ltd.

    Note: Pardon my grammar. Atlas’ vs. Atlas’s reflects the Associated Press Style Manual vs. the Chicago Manual of Style. Go figure.