Notes on exercise and exertion: what seems to matter

After focusing on creating and sustaining a full-on exercise program for myself I've now moved on and stepped aside from any obsession.

My lengthy mid year bout of ill health had sabotaged my program and recovering any routine has been difficult.

So I said to myself, "Chill out. All in good time."

After 4 years at the sweat face I'm relenting.

Of course when you take a break you should feel it physically and I do -- I feel my bod is missing something: not as strong nor as enduring as it  was...and theres' more daily pain.

But each time I get into the old mode -- do a session, so to speak -- I appreciate the changes that I'm re-introducing.

For instance, I'm back dancing almost every day and it's clear that the lack of practice had really impacted on my hip and knee mobility.

So it's great to discover  my core again and become more movement aware.

I'm walking less -- shorter distances -- but the irony is that I recognise  I'm missing  the routine of the peace and interaction with my environment long nighttime walks with the dogs give me.  So it's not the distance I yearn for. Nor the activity. It's the time and place. 

A walk to the shops or one of my shorter routes isn't the same as my old rambling habits along the shoreline. The dogs may get out for a walk but it isn't the same head space thing for the human.

Worst of all, I miss my early morning kickbike scoot...and that was so important to me. I could notch up an on-waking scoot even though I may be incapacitated the rest of the day. 

It was something active when I'm so often inactivated by pain and stiffness.

That leaves the High Intensity Interval Training exercise sessions -- the really demanding stuff. I need those 8 minutes of intense exertion every second day so I can handle my pain and alleviate stiffness. So that is a sort of pressing need I'm trying to re-embrace. After all: No pain/no gain. 

The rest can fit in as I feel primarily because I like all this other stuff: the walking, scooting and dancing. The HIIT -- lifting kettlebells or dumbbells, push and pull ups -- on the other hand is just plain Ouch! 

It slips my mind that I need to do this.... (no prizes for guessing why).

But I can feel its physiological absence especially on my upper body, across my shoulders and back. I'm stiffening up, despite my conscious attempts to work my limbs while swimming. Swimming and water work really doesn't challenge me that much. I need to work hard against gravity.

Since it's New Year resolution time: this year -- gotta get back doing HIIT. 

It may be irksome but the science supporting HIIT confirms it as the best 20-30 minutes  you could invest in yourself each week. So it's worth taking up and finding your own preferred HIIT routine. That's the trick. There are any number of ways to get highly INTENSELY TRAINED. Squatting. Running up stairs. Skipping. Sprinting (on foot or cycle/scooter). Lifting weights. Push up and pulling....

Just go flat out to the max. Then rest. I use 90 seconds/10 seconds cycles.

See also: How 1-Minute Intervals Can Improve Your Health

Muscle up and let go with Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Back in the days there was a period when  behaviour therapies took off and I used to teach 'relaxation' to psychiatric patients.

At the time, having done the research, I came upon the work of Edmund Jacobson (1888-1983) and was soon coaching folk in his Progressive Muscle Relaxation technique.

Progressive muscle relaxation is a technique that involves tensing specific muscle groups and then relaxing them to create awareness of tension and relaxation. It is termed progressive because it proceeds through all major muscle groups, relaxing them one at a time, and eventually leads to total muscle relaxation.

If you know your onions you'll know that Jacobson's work also  led to Biofeedback....

During the same period, friends of mine and patients I worked  with who suffered from epilepsy were recruited to a research project to see if  Biofeeback could reduce the incidences of their seizures.(You can monitor brain wave activity with electroencephaogy and  epileptic potential  presents as a very clear spike in brain waves.) It seemed to work but the problem is that biofeedback tends to be hardware dependent. 

In the decades since, I've not given Progressive Muscle Relaxation another thought.  And besides I  always deployed it for 'other' people.

As chance would have it I was researching isometric exercise approaches to hypertension when it struck me that Jacobson was doing the same thing.

So I started to experiment.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation is easy to do. No mind tricks. No mantra. No out-of-body demands.

Very DIY.

Just tense muscle groups. Let go. Consider the process ...and move onto another set of muscles.  Tense...and relax. Tense....and relax.

What I found out (about myself I guess) is:

• PMR beats insomnia. If you want to sleep, the 'exercising' part of the technique distracts the mind from  whatever its nocturnal obsessions and draws you into a body focusing experience. It's a wonderful distraction.
• PMR is easy done as soon as you go to bed or lie down. 
• PMR counteracts pain and stiffness. Since I suffer from a lot of pain and stiffness day to day, by each day's end I'm not necessarily that aware of what level of discomfort I'm carrying around with me. Since I am of the grin-and-bear-it school, I suspect that a day's somatic discomfort generates an armour which I'm unconscious of. I knew that the exertion and tension demanded by HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) reduced my painfulness but I suspect that a quick session of PMR will too. No mumbo jumbo tricks here -- just as you flinch at pain to protect yourself, PMR tenses a region of muscles and then gives you the go-ahead to  let them go.
• PMR is a biofeedback method  without hardware because it teaches me to be more somatic aware. I've explored  many movement awareness approaches over the years (Feldenkrais and Tai Chi Chuan especially) as well as connective tissue therapies (such as Rolfing and Bowen  [ and I'm trained in Bowen]) -- and they are all good to go, but PMR is such an easy switch on that I think it simplifies the access to this sort of awareness. You don't need instructors or coaches. You just stretch out or sit down and do it.

The more you practice PMR the easier it gets. You skill up. 

•  Guidelines on how to do Progressive Muscle Relaxation.

Rope Jumping -- the exhilaration of bouncing off the earth (Tis a pity about the landing...)

Jumping rope -- skipping -- may seem infantile.  School girls do it. It's a boxer's warmup. But given what else you could do to exert yourself, why jump over twine, time and time again?

Why indeed...

It turns out that jumping rope is extraordinarily good exercise. There are many physiological reasons why you should jump rope but that aside, it's a very practical pastime -- as Dr Jump points out:

It's inexpensive...You don't need a fancy or special facility....It can develop nearly every area of fitness including: aerobic conditioning, muscular endurance, agility, quickness, timing, and rhythm to name a few....There's tremendous variety  in jump rope, especially in regards to the number of skills. ...It goes well with music....If you master a few skills in jump rope, people will think that you are one of the kings of fitness.  I know, this is an appeal to vanity - but what the heck.

The one drawback is that it is a skilled activity demanding rhythm and coordination as well as a certain threshold of already existing fitness before you can sustain the skipping required.

I was regularly jumping rope 5 years ago and loved it primarily because it was a skill challenge.Unfortunately I suspected I caused myself an injury from jumping and did not persevere.

The problem is, of course, that you have to raise your whole body weight off the ground by springing upward, then drop that weight hard upon the ground as you descend -- and do that so many times per minute.  It's all about gravity and gravity is a brutal  master.

But the exhilaration of   bouncing off the earth always excited me. The challenge -- skill + exertion --seemed worth it. 'Tis a pity about the landing...

Since I'm overweight, skipping also meant that I had to propel a heavy carcass skyward. When you consider how much effort it takes to lift a 10, 15, 20, or 30... kgm weight, the sort of exertion required to lift your whole self off the ground is something of a conceptual challenge. 

Nonetheless, I came back to this consideration as I contemplated the ideas explored in Sitting Kills - Moving Heals by NASA scientist, Joan Vernikos.

In the book, Vernikos argues that gravity rules our lives and a sedentary existence is essentially  an habituation to ceding to gravity and not asserting ourselves against it.

So being the kind of guy I am I've spent my empirical hobby time exploring ways I can push back against gravity on an everyday basis.

This is where skipping popped back into my consciousness. So I started to jump rope again.

Warning:I'm 64 years old and people my age do not jump rope. Rope jumping is, even in the gym junkie milieu, an exercise for the young....or for kids. A person jumping rope seems the epitome of 'fitness'  and not some one my age nor handicapped by my physical ailments.

But hey:I can't help myself.

I'm a terrible rope jumper. My skill level is low and I'm still at the stop-and-start stage that may last forever.

But I know my onions and I've quickly learned a few key lessons.

1. Surface matters. I skip on grass grown on sand in bare feet. You got that? Best landing I've ever had. I'm rooted to the earth but can spring off with a great sense of the power push from the soles of my feet all the way up my legs. I live near the sea, in cooee of  Australia's great sand islands,  so I'm lucky:

Sand is soft and conforms to your landing, reducing impact force. Second, it requires a considerable amount of force to push off from, but compacts upon landing, allowing you to jump at a fast pace. Third, its unstable nature incorporates muscles in the shins and feet. Lastly, it is soft and will not inflict injury upon landing or falling, making it an ideal surface for jumping rope.  (ref)

2. Rope matters. Go to any gym or sports shop and you'll usually be offered variations on a  speed rope. These are narrow gauged and tend to be stiff plastic or leather. Handles will vary but the key function of  such ropes is the speed they cut though the air. This is all very fine except when you miss a jump and the rope hits your legs. Ouch! it really hurts.

I prefer a thick gauge rope that travels through the air slower than the thin types and is made from a softer material.I'm not jumping to become an athlete. I just want to jump x number if times per minute and do it with rhythm. Thicker ropes are also heavier so that once you have the rope airborne you have more weight above your head and more drag as you bring it down. So unlike speed ropes you have a mental marker as to where the rope is relative to your next jump.

3. Music matters. I use music for all my High Intensity Interval Training sessions so I  jump to the same schedule - 90 seconds intervals followed by 10 second rests marked off by music. For HIIT I usually use gamelan music but I'm thinking that I may need to up the tempo. Listening to music is much better than watching  a clock.

4. Rope Jumping is satisfying even thrilling. I won't lie to you. Skipping is physically demanding especially as you learn technique. With greater skill, your body will work less. This is the Catch 22 of skipping. It may be hard yakker at first but it will get easier. And when it gets easier completing a session  will give you a great sense of achievement. And with each session I (usually) improve on the one before. There's sure to be a lot of feedback en route.  With each session I'm fostering more spring in my step.

5. Skipping beats stair climbing. For me it's always exhausting to jump rope and the exertion required is akin to climbing stairs. Since I live in flat country I don't have hills or a local built environment  that I can climb. The satisfaction you get from reaching the top of a staircase is similar to the sensation on offer the end of a skip. While you may run out of stair case steps,  there are always more skips to be had if you are up to the challenge,..

LCHF weight loss? Plateau frustration.

Because my Summer was a tough one I put on 3-4 kgm -- and it ain't coming off in a hurry.

In the scheme of things maybe that's not a big deal, but if adipose tissue is granted an inch it may take you out a mile.

I'm still carrying a  lot more weight than the official body image data recommends. Despite what I eat/despite what I do.

I suspect that after a certain age losing weight becomes much more difficult. But then a lot of what I carry around is the denser, heavier muscle meat rather than fat because I do exercise one helluva lot. Unfortunately I carry my obesity about in the worse place for a bloke: in my abdomen.

Nonetheless, give or take a couple of kilograms, I have lost 10 kgms over the past couple of years by pursuing a low carbohydrate regime. And, until last Summer, I maintained that weight loss effortlessly. The genesis of the weight gain wasn't what I ate but that I was less active because of pain and stiffness due to Fibromyalgia festering in the Summer humidity.

I'm sure I can get back to where I recently came from....and therein hangs a challenge.

Metformin

I eat well and in the main I do indeed eat low down the carbohydratic totem pole. I suspect I consume around or under 100 grams of carbohydrate per day.  I know that that is the case because my blood sugars register between 4.2 and 6.2 mmol but usually I'm flagging fives, despite my low dose (500 mgm) of  Metformin.

So my diabetes is being 'controlled' -- sort of -- by diet. (You can't/I can't  cure it.) Therefore, thought I, since I have been such a good boy  maybe I could stop taking the drug.

So that's what I did: stopped taking Metformin. Gone cold turkey.

The main reason I did this is simple: Metformin' s primary side effect (experienced by up to 50% of its users) is diarrhoea, and I was suffering from that big time. In fact  that condition was worsening.

So far so good. There has been no major change in my blood sugar readings. If there is, I'll need to shave back my carb intake and fiddle with my exercise regime  some more.

Weight loss

That still leaves the chronic problem of  me being overweight. When you know you can lose weight and you know  that taking off x number of kilograms will mean that is x number of kilograms you won't have to drag around all day/every day ... the quest is like a chimera.

If only....

I'd like to lose another 5 kgm at least...making my total weight loss 15 kgm. That's a good result by 'diet industry'  standards and should be feasible without me getting all angsty or depressed if I don't attain that figure.

It also gives me something to do: an in-house project.

The question is: how am I gonna get there? What are my options?

1. LCHF. The diet regime I pursue is Low Carb High Fat so I'm tweaking that some more. I know it works. I eat very well indeed. It's sustainable long term. Suits me fine.  I just have to shave back my carb intake some more, at least for a while...and eat more fat (like coconut oil, which isnt my favorite)!
2. More exercise? I do plenty already and am master of my activities, but to my High Intensity Interval Training regime I've added rope skipping. That I have to lift my heavy frame so many times into the air per minute against the  forces of gravity must amount to lift offs of some significance. That a person my age skips surely must add more bounce to my ageing ounce. I used to rope skip/jump and I love it. It was a personal goal and I get a lot of satisfaction skipping as relentlessly as I can like a boxer training for a  fight.
3. Activity. My habit has been to often lie down during the day. I carry so much fatigue, stiffness and pain around that a good lie down -- a siesta -- has sustained me for years. The problem is that resting routinely like that drags down my metabolism and switches off a range of somatic challenges. So I've engineered more stand up into my day. I'm less sedentary. I no longer sit longer than 25 minutes at a time. I move around more and don't lie down during the day. I will nap after my evening meal for an hour or a couple of hours...and that will get me through each 24 hour period.  But in daylight I'm active and upright. My approach here has been fostered by the notions explored in Sitting Kills, Moving Heals: How Everyday Movement Will Prevent Pain, Illness, and Early Death  and Exercise Alone Won't by Joan Vernikos but the approach promoted by N.E.A.T is in the same parameter.

For now that's the limit of my imagination and creativity....

[The Weight Loss? graphic figures above are avatar mock ups of what I may look like now with my current weight and what I could look like if I took off some more.]

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Turkish Get Up and Go

This  isn't a post about my favorite cuisine. There's no mention of yogurt.

I am instead following up my last post on gravity -- 'Exercise' -- is it worth the effort? Discovering Anti-Exercising and G-forces.

I'm following up because I think I overdid the gravity thing the last few days and are now suffering as a consequence.I'm sore, fatigued, and stiff  -- and I suspect that I did too much  'core' play around.

'Core' is of course an exercise buzzword.  Core Exercise usually means focusing on your trunk, especially the abdominals and pelvis.

Dantien

But anyone with any background in martial arts -- and I have a  'hard' form Tai Chi Chuan past -- will tell you that 'core' is all about Dantien which is located as low as you can lower it. It's a centre-of-gravity thing.  It's a balance point located in the body as it moves about.

Freed of any mystical content, as an abstraction Dantien is a useful concept. But there is more to it than 'core' because it's also about keeping yourself upright and free moving. Pilates deploys 'core' like that.

So it's also about movement awareness rather than just shaping the abs or buns.

Over the last few days I've worked at lowering my Dantien (so to speak) by

• standing up from a seated position more often (on average at least 3-4 times per hour)
• standing up from a seated position without using my arms for support
• standing up from a lying position without using my arms for support
• altering my exercise routine (more on that later)

...and it hurts. Despite what I may get up to I'm very Dantien weak. I remember when I was Dantien strong because my Tai Chi was good.

But I'm not gonna go back and do Tai Chi again.

Getting Down

My gravitational  shift downwards -- physiologically no more than a conscious and very slight pivot of the pelvis and a bend of the knees -- has shocked my system, constrained and contained as it is by Fibromyalgia. This tells me that I'm carrying around a lot of stressors just to keep myself upright in the manner to which I have been accustomed.

Standing up against gravity takes more work than you realise. The question is: is there a better way to do it than relying on  habit?

This leads into my exercise tweaks.

First tweak: skipping. I like skipping/rope jumping. It gives you a sense of accomplishment. It's cheap and exhausting, thus ticking a lot of boxes. But I haven't skipped seriously for 3 years. So I'm adding 90 seconds of skipping to my HIIT workouts. Ninety seconds. That's all. Just me bouncing up and down, bobbing my head toward the sky, taking on gravity by lifting up my full body weight a wee bit off the ground. (You want an excuse to lose weight? Skip. There's not a better definitive answer about how much you weigh day in day out than the challenge of lifting your own self  up.)

Second tweak: the Turkish Get Up. The videos below explain the Turkish Get Up better than I could in words. It's a kettlebell exercise where you lift yourself and the bell from a starting position flat on the ground. It is hard to master and there is significant skilling up required in order to do it right because the fulcrum of the weight keeps  shifting on a vertical plane (although it also has a G-force mind of its own and will want to drift horizontally).

Since I started doing conscious High Intensity Interval Training I shaved back my kettlebell routines and only lifted vertically rather than swing the weighs away from  my body. I did that because I lift slowly and I don't employ momentum to lift.

The advantages of the Turkish Get Up are that it can still be done slowly, requires no momentum to complete and the lift is vertical. Of course starting so low and reaching up to the sky is a real gravity challenge...especially for all that core/Dantien.

So I've added the Turkish Get Up to my kettlebell sessions. My form is terrible (but you have to start somewhere)...

When you consider the Turkish Get Up and study it from the POV of gravity and posture and balance it is a superb exercise challenge. Like the Tai Chi form itself, your body can learn a lot of good lessons from 'getting up' under the hefty weight of a kettlebell. The quest to do it right is almost a Zen thing, is it not?  A sort of Zen and the art of the Turkish Get-Up. 

Grunt won't get you very far at all. Technique is important, indeed crucial. But an extreme focus and sense of space and movement -- just you and da bell -- without the distraction of time -- is essential.

I'm looking forward to a bit more Turkish get up and go.

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'Exercise' -- is it worth the effort? Discovering Anti-Exercising and G-forces

I do a lot of --what you may call -- 'exercise'.

I began to consciously do it because my life was stymied by arthritis, and for years I have been relentless in pursuit of an 'exercise program' that ticks all the right boxes...for me.

The irony is that after all this time and effort I now hardly 'exercise' at all.

Let's  consider that, shall we?

Hardly at all?

Well, I do 8 minutes of 'exercise' every second day -- leastways when I remember or feel up to it (given my often delicate condition).

That's it. I do  High Intensity Interval Training , inspired and based on Chris Highcock's HillFit.

Chris has sent me a copy of the new edition of his book and I'll get around to reviewing it soon enough , but for now I gotta say that the principles of Hillfittery have changed my life.

Interval training. Short. Sharp. Intense. Injury free. The research studies are in (check out the references in HillFit). You want to 'exercise' then  HIIT is where it's at. No gym fees. No special equipment. No long hours building up a sweat. HIIT is all you need to log up any number of great consequences.

Nothing I have ever done has had as much direct beneficial consequences as a conscious investment in HIIT.

8 minutes. Eight short minutes. That's roughly 24 minutes per week.

Not Exercising:Exercise isn't what you think it is.

Of course I do other stuff -- stuff  you'd call exercise. I kickbike/scoot hither and yon. I walk the dogs. I dance. I paddle a canoe. When I started doing these things I called them 'exercise' too but I don't any more because I do them  for the enjoyment of doing them.

I don't have to. But I want to.

What I have done was engineer my life so that these pursuits became an essential part of my activities of daily living. I found pleasures in the exertion. Excuses to do them other than the supposed need to exercise.

Of course it is 'healthier' for me to do this stuff than not to, but there isn't a direct physiological relationship in the way that 'exercise' supposedly registers on the body. Indeed, exercising like this isn't all what it is cracked up to be.

That's the truth. You could spend hours walking or dancing or whatever but not notch up the same impacts as a succession of HIIT sessions. If you don't believe me, follow a HIIT program such as Hillfit.

Nonetheless, kickbiking  has remade my glutes -- I'm taught and terrific -- and dancing has taught me to master my pelvis and given me leg dexterity and greater balance. I can scoot long distances and probably dance for hours... (Come to think of it, that's indeed what I do do each week!) But then I love doing this stuff. For me it aint exercise.

So that's my first point. Exercise isn't what you think it is. Exercise is very conscious. Planned...probably very painful...and always exhausting. Fortunately it can be of a short duration.

Anti-Exercising = Anti-Gravity

This brings me to the conundrum that I have been dealing with of late. I've been asking myself:If I have been investing all this effort into 'exercising' why do I register so few health benefits?

Surely that's why you do it, right? You want to live forever or look like Adonis. (Or in my case, live with less pain and stiffness and be more mobile day to day).

This is why folk sign up to the gym or buy a pair of running shoes.

But this approach obscures what is a fatal flaw. If you are 'exercising' for 25 minutes per week or every second day or an hour a day or whatever...what are you doing the rest of your time?

This came home to me sharply during this last Summer when the heat and humidity really bore down on my body and I was less active and often bed ridden. Very quickly I put on weight and loss some muscle mass. I was still doing stuff -- but I was doing less because I was so unwell. But just because I was doing -- a little -- less  my body paid a hefty price.

Why? Hadn't I paid my dues? Didn't I have  reserves in my somatic bank to draw on? Why is life so unfair?

So in addressing this conundrum I started to explore time management and activity theories like Pomodoro Technique and N.E.A.T.--Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. 

While both concepts are useful and make a lot of sense I thought they required a level of obsessiveness I did not possess. Indeed, both approaches asked you to micro manage your life.

I read the books. Did the Googling. Guinea pigged myself. And came away thinking, "I can't do this. I can adapt some of it but the whole shebang is far too demanding."

I  couldn't get a handle on a DIY.

Then I read Sitting Kills - Moving Heals by NASA scientist, Joan Vernikos.

..and it clicked! Maybe not the best written book on planet earth but the relentless message is challenging. Day to day my challenge -- our challenge -- is to stand up to gravity.

When I stand; when I lift weights or jump; when I get out of bed in the morning or dance or bounce up and down on a scooter -- I'm pushing hard against gravity.

...but when I sit down at the computer or vege out or sleep I'm pushing a lot less.

Think about it: G forces rule our lives. And it's not so much about being upright or seated or lying down but changing  the location of your body (and its organs, muscles, bones and Proprioceptors) relative to the rest of the universe. It's about standing up and sitting or lying down. It's about jumping or skipping; climbing or descending stairs. It's about lifting not only objects and weights but your own body upwards away from the earth at your feet. 

This may sound almost ethereal but space does not lie. We are moulded by our relationship to gravity. It impacts on our muscles and bones; on our blood pressure and metabolism. It rules our lives.

So when you take that view -- that long long view from the POV of the solar system -- all our activities and all our exercising must relate to the force of gravity. When we 'exercise' we challenge those G forces more than when we don't. 

Think about it. 

If that's the domineering principle -- then what you do or don't do day in/day out is sure to impact on what sort of body you'll age with. What Vernikos argues is that if you consciously and frequently assert yourself against gravity you are going to be conditioning your body, training it up to  work better and undermine any penchant  it has -- you have -- to remain in a state of rest. You also slow down its deterioration.

G  Challenge I: lay down on the floor and get up without using your hands
G Challenge II: (to make you feel better) get out of  chair without using your hands.

So what does that mean day to day? What's the take-away message?

Well, it is not about more exercise is it? Exercise is only a few  focused moments of giving gravity the finger. 

I'm just beginning to think this through but along with elements I already have in place this is my working scenario:

• Get up frequently when seated. Stand up at least 3o times per day.
• Sit on an exercise ball . This I already do but the G advantage is that I shift my position in space as I wiggle  my tail.
• Climb and descend stairs rather than not.
• Be consciously more active and make things harder to do. Don't get too comfortable.
• Keep a  sedentary account. If I lay down for any amount of time I need to make up for  the indulgence by being consciously more active the rest of the day. 
• Try not to sit. (If you do, stand up frequently.) Fidget instead. 

I'm thinking of getting a balance disc and hope to explore ways I can integrate that into my HIIT sessions plus any other uses I can imagine.Maybe I'll start skipping again or go back on a mini trampoline...? I could make either one of my HIIT sessions perhaps?

A Balance Disc and its uses.

What I’ve learned about working out is that you don’t have to keep using heavier and heavier weights, you just have to find a way to make an exercise harder to perform, and Balance Disc does just that. Not only you can incorporate in into your workout, but it is perfect if you have a sitting job. Sitting on the balance disc creates active and dynamic sitting. Place the disc directly onto the chair, this provides a less stable sitting surface, which means that the body has to make continuous small movements to correct balance. These movements strengthen the deep core stability muscles which provide postural support to the body. Make sure to maintain a good posture at all times while sitting on the disc.I use it in my workouts, since the disk creates unstable surface you are engaging more muscle groups. Source

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Why bother? The Joys of Exercise

I've had a simply terrible month in what's been a brutal  Summer for me.

I've spent so much of it flat on my back. 

But today...I dragged myself out of bed this morning thinking that it was gonna be another one of those days in which I'll be housebound and more often abed.  

Fortunately, it didn't pan out that way

Since I'm a total weather vane -- a barometric junkie-- after an hour shuffling around the house I began to feel a little nimble. 

I don't look a gift horse in the mouth so I always try to seize the opportunity if it's there. So I altered my agenda to fit the expanding options.

The thing is that I bounced.

And bouncing is a skill you have to work at.

I was able to bounce today because I have such a great customized exercise program and my body is ready to be turned to active mode when it is given the go ahead.

That means I am trained to recover quickly.

This is the great thing about careful exercising -- something that explains the seeming conundrum. Exercise doesn't lessen my illness at all. I can't help the bouts of stiffness, pain and fatigue I am prone to.

Like shit, it happens.

But when flagged 'well' I can quickly seize the moment. 

I value that bounce.Waste not. Want not.

Exercise also reduces my pain levels. It won't prevent pain or stiffness, but my body is less willing to cede its carcass to crippling rheumatic symptoms. So I get traded a certain edge -- a little leeway.

I am allowed resilience. 

Resilience...and awareness. Exercise gives me movement awareness. I'm more attuned to how my body moves and feels. I more readily read all the somatic signals I get from all over: pain, stiffness, ease of movement, tension, fatigue, clumsiness.... It's surprising how easily you misread how your body is -- how routinely  you make assumptions based on a shallow inventory. I do it all the time. And so often I have to begin some exercising to chart the full picture because that will then tell me what I am install for and what agenda I can expect  that day. 

Finally, what exercise does is switch me from victim to animator. It won't do that all the time, of course, but I find that if I attempt  light exercises  while ill - and dancing is especially good in this regard -- I switch on responses in my body  that alleviate the pain, fatigue and stiffness. I consider it a sort of endorphin response but it also may indeed be cognitive in  that activity has its own rewards.

And exercise, afterall, is its own routine. Like those three meals a day, exercise is a regime, a schedule --- something that gets included on  your to-do list.

If you wallow in pain by focusing on its presence you will indeed ensure that the pain will continue. 

So get up, get out of bed -- and have a go...or so I try to tell myself. But hey! It works.

• Excellent summary of the proven benefits of strength training

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It's over: I got where I wanted to go...

When I bagan all this  I was keen to negotiate a self conscious lifestyle journey.

I had then, and still do have, major health issues to deal with.

But I needed to improve my options by changing the way I lived. 

There wasn't anything especially toxic in my day to day. It was just that I was cornered by the toll chronic illness was taking on me. And the best response to my condition was to up my game.

So I've worked at the exercising and I've worked at the diet and such  so that now I've tweaked as much as I can and  routinely just do it.

In fact, from my point of view, I don't really consider myself contained by 'a diet' or 'an exercise program' at all. 

I don't need to call on that much discipline because  it's all routine. It's not boring, nor ascetic ... it's no longer demanding. 

It just happens...and I enjoy it.

So what have I done?

• I guess, on average,  I  'exercise' at least three times per day. But then, as far as I'm concerned,  I really only exercise for 8 minutes every second day. That's the High Intensity Interval Training stuff. The other times I'm walking the dogs, scooting around town or dancing. We may call it 'exercise' during these other times, but as far as I'm concerned it's  recreation a or a simple chore. The way I've tweaked this I'm notching up over 30 km most weeks  'exercising/recreating'. I give myself a 1 km credit for each of the non distance sessions I do. So as well as the foot work I do --walking or scooting -- I pick up peripheral marks from these other habits. But the only real conscious strain and pain is doing the HIIT. The rest is pleasure.
• It took a lot of work, many years and a lot of experimentation to develop this customized program. Indeed, some of the discovery embedded in all this, was pure luck...and, of course, it suits me. There was research involved: plenty of reading up. I used professional trainers for a time. I logged my sessions and monitored the impacts the exertions were having on my physiology. I relied on dog ownership to keep me focused. And out of all this I got myself a sort of activated daily life, as routinised as eating lunch. 
• I've also altered my diet. I now routinely -- every day with no problems -- eat a low carbohydrate diet. I guess I'm eating around  50-100 grams of carbohydrate per day. I shop with low carb in mind.I cook with low carb in mind. I eat with low carb in mind. That's my cuisine. Of course that means I have to forgo a few foods.I may miss a weekly  dose of bananas or crusty bread or ice cream or rice or whatever else is carb dense ...but then, all that means is that I get to be inventive with the foods I do eat. 
• And that's it. I've lost weight.I may still be oh-so-very-often crippled by episodes of  illness and incapacity, but I'm the fittest I've been in decades. That means I get more bounce to the ounce. Suffer less pain. More sprightly for longer with no need to wallow in depression because the activity disallows it. I recover from my debility episodes quicker. And I've tweaked it that no matter how bad I may feel though Fibromyalgia I can still do at least some element of my exercising which means I can access any endorphins my body may have in reserve.

So now -- given what I've done -- what continues to interest me is the question of activity -- of how to make my day more physically active, more 'fidgeted' by making it more mental. 

This may seem an odd perspective -- fidget time -- but please consider the fact that movement for me is arduous and sore for long periods, and I have to sleep a lot. I also have to deal with the ready descent of a Fibrofog which plays havoc with cognition. So making the most of my active awake time becomes important. It's a  sort of seize-the-hour/seize-the-haf-hour challenge. 

Besides I'm getting older and the clock is ticking.

That's my new frontier and I can tell you it is a hard call.

I'm trying to delineate what I should focus on and schedule short bouts of intense mental  activity -- whether it be creating stuff on the computer or reading -- and break this up with movement out and about. I'm also trying to engineer this around a relaxed cyclical program of awake and sleep so that my penchant for insomnia (a symptom of FM) doesn't cripple me.

What I've learned from 'exercising'  I now try to apply more generally.It's a glorious quest for High Intensity Interval Thinking.

Wish me luck.

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Ah! How sweet the after burn: High Intensity Inverval Training

I've been tardy and haven't bought y'all up to speed.

My usual 'routine' -- such as it exists -- was ticking over when I missed a couple of my Interval Training sessions. Mainly because I was bored  and with  a bad health fortnight  hovering over me I didn't  force myself.

I was also suffering from confusion as to what regime I should be following on each second day -- was it the Kettlebell/Dumbells thingey or the HillFit?

Habit had clouded my recall

So I thought, bugger this, I'll retool.

My norm had been to do 5 minutes of HillFit one day and the lifting of da bells for 20 minutes two days later.

There's an obvious glitch in the routine, right? Why 5 and 20? 

So now I do (roughly) 12 minutes each:

• HillFit plus Kettlebells one day ( 4 HillFit plus 3 KB lifts)
• Lifting Dumbbells two days later( 6 Dumbbell lifts).

More balanced. Each session is more evenly challenging and 'intense' as High Intensity Intervals should be.

Still with music in my ear with a cycle of 90 seconds of exercising followed by 10 second rests. Still with exertions as slow as I can make them.  

I don't have to do this but I find with the stuff I do I tick more of the body boxes and I challenge my carcass all over. That's what I want. I want muscle burn from head to toe each time in as many muscle groups I can work over and strain.

That's the point.

HillFit as a standalone was getting too easy as after the four routines I wasn't hurting as much as I wanted to.  The HillFit is very 'core' and I had learnt to appreciate the consequence of straining the limbs more. 

I'll surely tweak this some more to tidy up the routines -- but the fact that I can feel the session's effect on my musculature, 10 hours later  (as I do now) is what I'm after. 

I'm no masochist but the physiology impact of HIIT relative to insulin resistance, pain threshold, metabolism, etc  is all good.

I don't see any reason why I should extend the time I spend doing this  --  30-40 minutes per week -- nor alter the cadence -- 90 seconds on/10 seconds off -- nor change the exercises I do. After doing this for many months now I am still physically  challenged by  the pushing,  pulling, lifting, lunging  and squatting I do and even look forward to it (at least a tad). 

The slowness really forces me to focus on technique  and the ironic challenge is trying to make the moves even slower. Performing a move with the best possible form to it and take seemingly ever so long to complete it (eg: 20 seconds) offers a succession of Zen moments. 

Slowness is key. It's the trick. The slower I go, the harder it is to complete the cycle. 

I tell you it's a great discovery! A wonderful lesson.

I used to do Tai Chi. Even helped teach it. But Tai Chi Chuan can be caught up in its own metaphysics and movement metaphors. It formats balance and body alignment; movement awareness and core centering --  but as an exercise for what I want from my exertions it doesn't come close.

I can get the same results from dancing as I can from Tai Chi with more fun out of the performance.

And with Tai Chi my muscles aren't challenged  like they are with HIIT. Of course if I did Tai Chi with weights...that would be different. But the drawback is that when you lift as slow as I do you can't have the weight out there and all over the place. You need to lift close to the body  on a direct vertical plane otherwise you can't lift slowly.  And when you lift weights slowly it doesn't take long to note that the lift that matters is the one that starts in your legs -- not in your backbone or abdomen.

So I'm deploying the HillFit template as developed by Chris Highcock and adapting its essential elements for the specific reasons I do physical conditioning and strength training .

That said, it is remarkable how far I still have to go as the more I do this stuff the easier it is  to locate my inadequacies. It's easier to become your own personal trainer because your body is always speaking to you when you work it in slow mode. And since you aren't in a rush you get to listen.

A lot can go through your mind in 10 seconds as you lift or pull something against gravity. It ain't the ends. It's the way you get there...

Grunt is obscurantism.

                     

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Night time kickbiking and a few more exercise thoughts...only a few.

Just come back from a night time scoot.  No cars at all, being Sunday, and without the dogs -- I didn't disturb the 'hood.

Luverly night for a scoot.

I wear a flashing tail light on my helmet and I rest a spot light on my front carrier basket. I need that super glow and focus so that I can see the road ahead. Most bike lights are designed only so that the cyclist can be seen by others. I have to look out for pot holes, little critters and sundries that may rear up in my path.

And when you get to the sea shore you can use the light for spotlighting... I also use it for night time walks on the tidal flats.

Great gadget is a spot light.

In the dark I use it to check where my dogs wonder off to. One has a penchant to go his own route.  Fish fry jump out of the water when the beam hits the surface and this entertains my Jack Russel a lot. (And entertaining a Jack Russel is a full time activity.)

I went out tonight because I'm trying to do three episodes of 'exercise' per day, similar to three meals a day. Maybe 20 minutes duration for each and preferably 'light' exertion rather than the full on High Intensity stuff. 

I'm doing this because, as I wrote recently, I do more than enough exercise. That may seem contradictory but I do in fact more or less do three episodes of exercise each day of varying duration.

If lucky -- and I'm not crippled by [ ] pain, [ ] fatigue or [ ] stiffness -- I scoot in the mornings, fit in a session  Soul Line Dancing at some stage, and then take the dogs for a walk -- preferably in the evening. Of course this is a hierarchy as I do what I can when I can, given  [ ] pain, [ ] fatigue or [ ] stiffness. But something tweaked for me when I started to consider Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT).  

NEAT is  the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating or sports-like exercise.

My complication is that while I do a lot of exercises I am also recumbent a lot of the time. I am also asleep often during the day and always in the early evening as well as over night. So while I expend energy doing 'exercise' I also slow my energy expenses right down when I hit the sack . My physiology consequently  is continuously being contained by this on/off switch. 

 Example of NEAT Relativities

What I'd like would be to expend more energy over a longer period of time each day.

But how do I do that? And why would I?

Actually  I knew the answer but didn't recognize it.

In 2007/2008 I was engaged with the 1000 Steps program and that was the only time I have ever lost weight through 'exercise'.  The point of the program is to walk as much as you can every day and to do it consciously by wearing a pedometer during your waking hours.

I really got into it and notched up a million steps in 85 days .  It wasn't so much that I was doing more stuff but that what I was doing was done consciously throughout the day.

The literature on and science about NEAT is convincing although the standard 'self help' book on the topic -- Move a Little, Lose a Lot: New N.E.A.T. Science Reveals How to Be Thinner, Happier, and Smarter (I kid you not: that's its title! ) -- is  indulgent and shallow. Any good Google search on the topic  will garner all the info you'll need without negotiating the book's purchase price.

But having read the book...I think there are a few changes I can make to my existence in order to consciously  follow the NEAT pathway. Some I already had in motion -- that's why I was looking up the related literature in the first place.

1. Time my sessions on the computer. There are plenty of browser apps out there. I'm fiddling with one that reminds me that I have spent 35 minutes (that was my arbitrary period selection) in one stretch at the console and maybe should consider getting up for a stretch  and a walk around.  The timer I use is timer-tab.com.
2. Go back to sitting on an exercise ball when at my desk. I was using the gym ball option or some time  but gave it up when I hurt my knee while deploying the ball for exercise routines. The point of the ball as a seat is that it forces you to move more while you rest your  derriere upon it. I like using it and will  return to the option. I'd use a standup desk but I share a computer with a partner who doesn't like to do that.
3. Do three 'exercise' sessions a day. That's the equivalent (at least) of three walks of at least 20 minutes duration each. For me that's kickbiking, dancing and dog walkies... So as well as looking at my exercising as something I monitor as a weekly score card -- kickbiking, walking, dancing and HIIT exertions such as HillFit -- I am going to start thinking  within a diurnal schedule.
4. Be more active. 

This last is the clincher and the hardest part for me to negotiate and I'll need to experiment by generating novel ways to do this. For instance, I always read recumbent. So maybe I can start reading while walking. With an eReader that's easy. This is how the monks and the like used to do their bible study: walking the courtyards of the monasteries reading scripture or reciting from a prayer book. 

I could also get another pedometer and monitor my progress...but the irony would be that the kickbiking/dancing/dog walking sessions would have to be excluded as they are a sort of given and I don't need to -- nor want to -- monitor those exertions.

Another adjustment I can make -- and I've done this before -- is to always limit my siesta sleep time by using an alarm. When I lay down and sleep I am usually laying down exhausted and I have no choice in the matter. If I'm lucky --  given the pain and stiffness I may be experiencing -- sleep is a welcomed relief. I don't necessarily wake up relieved and I never awake rested -- but I can wake up feeling at least a little  better than when I fell asleep.

If I can reduce my siesta time I stand more chance of spending more energy; and if sitting is low NEAT, sleeping is zero. 

And as my daughter said when asked "What does your father do?"  She replied, "He sleeps." Yep. That's been my career.

Fibromyalgia ... it's a profession.

This explains the irony of my exercise obsession.

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Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)

 I've come a long way baby (see the story so far).

And you'd think I was on a short list for the Olympics -- but it aint so.

There is only so much one can do with a body such as mine. It's not at all about how I look -- it's all about how I feel.

That said I have to ask myself , what more can I do?

(You'll note the frustration.)

Here I am notching up the physical activity that millions may aspire to and I'm not satisfied , even demanding more.

As we discussed last time, stopping or scaling back isn't an option.

I like what I do in way of 'conscious exercise'. I'm proud of it and it generates a range of simple pleasures each day. It's an achievement.

But if I were to add more...not much more, how could I guarantee that it would do any good, or at least enough good to warrant the outlay of exertion ?

NEAT

This is where the concept of NEAT (for non-exercise activity thermogenesis) may be of assistance. NEAT, I guess, is all about fidgetting.

That's right I gotta get the fidgets. Look at it this way. On the computer I sit stationary for hours. watching TV I sit stationary for hours. Reading I  lie stationary for hours.

If I got up often and did other more physical stuff, I'd be living very differently.

There are three forms of Thermogenesis   (which is the  the process of heat production in organisms esp warm-blooded animals.):

• Exercise-associated thermogenesis (EAT)
• Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)
• Diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT)

But it's  the NEAT that interests me:

Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating or sports-like exercise. It ranges from the energy expended walking to work, typing, performing yard work, undertaking agricultural tasks and fidgeting. Even trivial physical activities increase metabolic rate substantially and it is the cumulative impact of a multitude of exothermic actions that culminate in an individual's daily NEAT. It is, therefore, not surprising that NEAT explains a vast majority of an individual's non-resting energy needs. Epidemiological studies highlight the importance of culture in promoting and quashing NEAT. Agricultural and manual workers have high NEAT, whereas wealth and industrialization appear to decrease NEAT. Physiological studies demonstrate, intriguingly, that NEAT is modulated with changes in energy balance; NEAT increases with overfeeding and decreases with underfeeding. Thus, NEAT could be a critical component in how we maintain our body weight and/or develop obesity or lose weight. The mechanism that regulates NEAT is unknown. However, hypothalamic factors have been identified that specifically and directly increase NEAT in animals. By understanding how NEAT is regulated we may come to appreciate that spontaneous physical activity is not spontaneous at all but carefully programmed.

How that relates to what I don't do is simple. I  have to take more frequent breaks from inactivity. So how is that done given that it surely is the most difficult of tasks?

Rather than consciously exercising NEAT is about consciously not-exercising.

So far I've added a stop watch/timer app to my computer desktop. My hope is to turn it on at every session at the console (and that's hard enough to remember to do) and be ruled by its reminders. I used to use a Pedometer when I was consciously walking longer distances each day and I'd keep it on throughout my non sleeping hours. I'd register a greater distane that way.

Maybe I should go back to that approach? The game is to retrain your self from old habits.

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Exercise: the good and the bad of it...as far as I'm concerned

I now and then wonder about why I do what I do. A good part of that speculation questions  the amount of  time and energy I invest in exercising.  I  ask myself, why bother? Where are the gains?

And it's true the promise of exercise -- so much promoted as a lifestyle essential   -- isn't really there. Our obsessions are seemingly fed by myths.

Will exercise help you lose weight?

No.

Will it improve your general  health and well being?

Yes -- but that's a perhaps 'yes'...so long as you 'exercise' properly.

If I do more exercise am I gonna be healthier?

Definitive answer: No. Volume doesn't decide these matters.

These above observations are the sort of conclusions coming out of more recent research into exercise and its effects on the human body. (See video below for over view of some of these). That 'exercise' is such a huge industry today cynically obscures this underlying physiological reality.

Assuming the above...I'd like to review what I do and assess it according to these criteria.

What I do is too much

Yep. I really don't have to exercise as much as I do do  -- that is, if I was you. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

At one time during the distant past I ceased to consciously exercise and my health and mobility suffered terribly. I soon enough had to rely on a walking stick to get around. I thought this was just pathology doing its evil work, but the fact was that while I was gaining nothing self evident from 'consciously exercising' I was nonetheless, holding back the grosser impacts my chronic condition, Fibromyalgia, was having on my body.

So that's the heads up for exercise: not that you are gonna feel better, but that you won't feel worse.  That's a consequence which is extremely hard to get your head around.

Exercise -- of any amount -- is gonna be primarily preventative.

Now if I knew way back whenever what I know now I would have definitely always exercised and done much more of it.

"Of it"? Of what? What kind of exercise would I have been doing?

All exercises aren't equal of course and I had to apply myself to my own body's quirks.

So, let's assume , that after a hiatus I started off on a journey of recovery through exercise. Not that I'll get anywhere special but at least I won't be going backwards.

Walking

Walking is my core ever-so-conscious exercise routine. I try to do it daily -- and to help me do it regularly I rely on my pet dogs to force me out the door.

You want to 'exercise' but don't trust your ability to always do it?  Simple answer: get a dog...and walk it.

Dog walking is probably the best long term exercise strategy available to suburbanites and there is nothing like a dog to keep you doing it. When one dies you go get yourself another...then another as you adopt to the  pack life style.

As I began to  ramble further in my doggy routes I addedx trekking poles to my walking rig. These are  hiking sticks about the height of ski poles. As a walking tool they generate upper body activity and increase the aerobic quality of your exertion.

Today I neither walk with a stick nor with trekking poles  but they were a great means to an end. As  my distance increased and my confidence improved I embraced the 10,000 steps walking program and began to seriously notch  up some ks.

That was over 5 years ago....and today I'm still walking the dogs. On average I'm out most days , preferably in the evening and usually I walk those dogs for at least 5 km. No aids of any kind. While I used to listen to audio podcasts on my mp3 player  as I walked -- for maybe 40 plus minutes -- I now partake of the experience device free.

Just my legs and a dog leash.

My walking stick and trekking poles are now family heirlooms resting against the garage wall.

Swimming, well sort of anyway.

Another invention I pursued was to walk in the water. We had a round 3 metre wide pool  filled with water up to my chest and I'd get in and drag myself walking around and around for a couple of  kilometres or so such that I'd create this whirlpool. Lovely in the Summer heat at night. When it got cold   I even had a wet suit so that I could jump in and do the routine during the cooler months.

 Water aerobics like this  was useful  because I could often do it despite the way I may have been feeling as the water offered buoyancy and I had to carry less of my own body weight around.

But really a pool and all that may be kosher for the kids -- and we had sprogs -- it is, nonetheless, a bit ritualistic -- what with the special dis-robing, towelling off and such. It's not much of a challenge given the effort and hardware required.

So aqua-robics like this  is an exercise option I mark down. You can't do it all year. If you use public pools you need to  commute to them before you can get wet. And really, it didn't have much of an impact on my health. I could get a better 'workout' --  which ticked the same boxes -- staying dry by   walking the neighborhood with a pair of  trekking poles.

Scootering

If you walk, sooner or later you may wonder that maybe instead of walking you could begin to run. I had been a keen jogger in my past pre-illness existence and loved it. Since I used to run long distance,  I knew what running required of a human body.

I was much heavier than  my old jogging weight and I knew that running was all about pounding the pavement and ramming gravity down hard on the ankles and knee joints.  Running can also be an injury waiting to happen.

So I thought: no I'm not gonna run. I'd like to but back then I didn't.

Nonetheless, this year I began to run the soft surface of tidal flats where I live. Had a great time, running with the dogs for 5 km at a stretch.

But I stopped running because (a) injury set in despite all my care and (b) it interfered with the time I spent scootering. I was delighted that I could so quickly notch up 5 ks -- at my age and given my condition -- but what was the supposed gain that I couldn't reach more easily and with less threat of injury by another means?

Back then - concerned that my condition was deteriorating -- I thought I may be sentenced to an electric  mobility scooter soon enough, as here I was already dependent on walking with a cane. 

I didn't want to cycle as it was too hard to always push down on the peddles and mounting a bike with a leg over wasn't going to be an option.  

I then had an epiphany: why not push a scooter? 

My first scooter was a home built vehicle cannibalized by my neighbor from two BMX bicycles (pictured left).

Thus began my  scootering passion....I later got a kickbike and then supplemented that with my cute Mibo Folding Scooter.

What can I say? Kickbiking rocks.

Unlike standard peddle powered cycling, scootering is always a physical challenge as there isn't much in way of hardware to assist your travels. Two wheels and the rest is all your own work.

Easy to mount.  Easy to dismount. You can always -- as you will so often -- get off and walk.

And the 'work out' is top to toe. A kickbike doesn't just demand that the legs do all the work. It's all over cadence.

While I  relied on  my scooters to get around, it was when I consciously deployed them as part of my exercise regime that their utility soared. 

I realized that each morning I had a brief window in which my relentless pain and stiffness was yet to make up its mind as to how brutal it was gonna be that day. So opportunistically I'd get on the scooter and push it around the block, exploiting the window. First once, then two times around, then three...while I logged my efforts.

Today I do 14-8 kms on the kickbike on a morning scoot without turning a hair . My base distance is around 7 km and if I can I go further. Scoot out of town. Walk the tidal flats if the tide is out and scoot back in again. 

It is, aside from dog walking, my  core (hopefully daily) routine.

Some days I don't make it because I am indeed so far under the weather that walking itself isn't  an easy option, let alone scootering.

But there, you see: great workout/injury free and a transport plus.

Weight Lifting and HIIT

Walking and scootering is all very fine -- thought I -- but I didn't feel like my body was changing for the better. This is when I started going to a gym, got a personal trainer (weekly sessions) and started boxing.

Great experience it was too. I loved the society of it all and the way I was pushed to the max.

It cost a pretty penny  -- and I shelled out for it for a year or so. 

I'd love to go back to that gym -- Northside Boxing -- but I now live so far away  and am my own personal trainer. 

The gym experience taught me how to lift weights properly and how to box. And it was there that I fell in love with kettlebells.

It's here that some of the recent research begins to really matter.

While exercise won't take your weight off and while aerobic activities are a bit of a physical plus in way of cardio efficiency (and that's all), lifting heavy things is now thought to be much more useful than was  originally believed. Bone density, insulin resistance, muscle glycolysis ... are all greatly improved by following a weight training regimen. If you are diabetic (like me) or pre diabetic (like so many in the population at large, all unaware that they are) weight training is gonna be  one of  your best options so long as it is pursued  within HIIT protocols.

HIIT means High Intensity Interval Training and to get your share of that I think you really do need to do weight work  even if the weight you lift or pull is your own body.

I love the kettlebells but I also now use dumbbells.  The problem with weight training is that it can be  so darn boring and so exhausting. I mean it hurts, really hurts to generate all that required grunt.

But  it's what the gyms won't tell you that really matters: do the weight training less for shorter times for the same or better results. 

Chris Highcock's wonderful manual, HillFit  offers a great summary in its introductory essay about this wonderful logic -- so go read it. 

Chris's perspective is 5 minutes of HIIT exercise 2-3 times per week! 

So that's what I do:  but I alternate every second day (sort of) the HillFit regime lasting about 5 minutes with a kettlebell and dumbbell routine that requires 18 minutes to complete. I do the  exercises slowly --  very very slowly.

Injury free. Challenging. Exhausting. Painful. But over and done with soon enough. 

• Video on HillFit
• Video on my KB/DM routine

I think this every second day HIIT routine I follow is one of the best things I've ever done for my physical self. I'm mastering my stiffness and pain by pumping heaps of adrenalin and other relievers through my protesting body.

I only wish I knew this decades ago. 

Knew what? That you can exercise less for much greater gain so long as you worked hard at it when you do.

So if I was designing an exercise program for whoever this would be my numero uno. 

The KB or DB lifting is customisable; the HillFit is not. But you need to research the physiological rationale otherwise you miss the point of what you'd be doing.

Start with  Body by Science  by Doug McDuff and John Little...

Is that too much?

The reality is, as far as I'm concerned, I am indeed doing too much. The HIIT stuff should be an ample investment if I wanted to do good things for my health.

But I'm not gonna give up the kickbiking...because I love those morning scoots. I'm not gonna give up the dog walking because I love those evening walks.

In fact I've recently added  to this routine by once again hitting the bag boxing. I do this under HIIT protocols via a Tabata schedule which means I box  for less than 5 very painful minutes in staccato 20 second bursts.

While  I love boxing, I'm primarily doing this because I have learnt that intense burn workouts like  Tabata  pump my muscles  with analgesia concoctions and I appreciate all the long term pain relief I can get.  A session on the bag -- despite how short its duration -- will stay with me and my muscles all day.  

So every other day I'm now back punching the bag. 

In terms of the current research into HIIT you don't have to do what I do -- but if your are arthritic you learn to appreciate what works for you and for once, in my exercise journey, I can say that through HIIT I am logging tangible results.

I guess I'm one of those -- again according to research -- who are  exercise resistant.

I didn't see  results from a year of gym work with a personal trainer. I didn't see them in the pool, and I don't see similar tangible results from my walking of kickbiking. While most of my exercises are  deployed as  preventative measures, the conscious HIIT has  made me  into something a little different from what I was before I started it. And that's despite how little time it demands.

But there's more...

That's not the end of it either. There's more. I didn't begin Urban Soul Line Dancing  because I wanted 'to exercise' -- I began it because I wanted to dance and I  had reached a level of physical capacity such that I knew I could sustain  the challenges posed by stepping.

So my exercising prepared me, with my illness handicap, for my dancing.

However, I can dance on days even when I can't do this other stuff and that's a wonderful bonus.  I also find that dancing changes me physically  in a way that these other grunt routines do not.

I do however do a lot of dancing on a daily basis.

The more I practice the steps the more my body flexes especially along the spine and hips. The groove takes over. It has taken months for this to begin to happen. My body  is changing as it moves into Gene Kelly mode. My foot work is still tardy -- but maybe in time....?

Dancing has given me a way to become  more movement aware and I haven't had that going for me since way back when I was doing T'ai Chi ch'uan which is one of the best 'movement awareness' regimes on offer (as is Yoga, Feldenkrais, Pilates, etc).

So the irony is that while dancing is pursued as an exercise it isn't the standard criteria that actually may rule on its efficacy. It's impact is multi layered. 

If only I was dancing decades ago! ...and doing HIIT my life would be much better today.

ADDENDUM: What I haven't discussed --and won't but I will refer to it -- is  how exercise improves your cognitive and emotional existence.These are the subjective plusses that a routine offers. The sense of accomplishment. The excitement of physical challenges. The excuse to get out and about. The camaraderie of the dog pack.Sunsets. Sunrises. Sunshine.  Distances logged. Real pain from real physical effort and exertion. The joy you get when you finish the straining. The horror you feel when you begin...All these things keep your wonderfully attuned to yourself.

• Follow up  post on this Topic: some thoughts on NEAT 

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