Mitch subscribes to Men’s Journal and often teases me that I get my hands on it before he gets a chance to even open it up. It’s true. There is a great little section on health, exercise, mind-body, etc. All the stuff I love. It’s important for me to get my information from different sources and since this is a bit more macho than most of the material I read, it offers a good balance. Mitch also teases me that I have quoted basketball player Steve Nash, calling him “the author,” as opposed to the incredibly talented athlete he is FIRST. A point-guard, for the Phoenix Suns, and a past “100 most influential people,” he is a contributing writer in this section of the magazine and I always love what he has to say. This month, for instance, his article is titled My Key to Not Choking.
In this article, Nash talks about when he was in the 2000 Olympics and spent time with sports psychologist, David Cox, who helped Nash and other players hone their mental approach to the game. The advice was quite simple– “just breathe.” When we are stressed we tend to hold our breath and just not breathe as frequently as we should, or too frequently, or –well, you get it. This irregularity in our breathing causes our entire nervous system to go haywire. Mindful deep breaths will bring the nervous system back to it’s normal state. Well all else fails, remember to just breathe!
Other interesting tidbits I found in this section:
* A 150 pound individual that drinks 2 cups of caffeinated coffee before working out increase muscle output in the legs about 6%. If your body can handle caffeine, it’s not a bad idea to have a couple of cups before hitting the weights.
* 5 cups of coffee a day has been found to decrease the chance of getting Alzheimer’s, according to a study done at the University of South Florida. (Again, great if you can handle the caffeine. In as much as I don’t want get the big A, and am certainly at high risk for it, I would grind my teeth to the bone, live in a state of palpitations and never, ever sleep again if I drank that much caffeine. TOO BAD!)
*A study done on 125 patients with low back pain and osteoarthritis who were given 1,500 milligrams of glucosamine (or a placebo) showed NO pain relief in either group. This is something you might want to consider before spending a lot of money on this supplement. If, on the other hand it works for you, ignore this study!
Interestingly, there is also a great article titled The Case Against Milk. This article is a topic for another day. Suffice to say the sub-headline reads Cow’s Milk May Cause Everything from your Afternoon Crash to Arthritis. More about this tomorrow or later in the week. For now, just one fact to ponder: “Of all the animals on the planet, humans are the only ones that drink the milk of other animals. “
Speaking of animals, it is time to feed mine and then get my butt out running with my 9am client. Have a terrific Tuesday. If you learned anything worth sharing, please hit the share button on my home page and pass it on. Also feel free to click on some of the ads that may interest you. In business, both Mitch and Kyle are learning about how to work with Google. These links are definitely safe and I have found some really interesting ones on this site as they change from day to day. Thanks. Have a great day!
Special thanks to the people at:
That was exactly what I needed tonight Bonni – Thanks for providing a time and place for me to JUST BREATHE.
Good blog! I really love how it is easy on my eyes as well as the details are well written. I have subscribed to your rss feed which need to do the trick! Have a nice day!
yeeeeah buddy! Lightweight! great bodybuilding and fitness advice u have on this blog. 🙂
Hello, Tom here. I fully agree with what you said in the primary subsection, however I can’t say that I believe the whole post in general. Can you please tell me what research material you have used when writing this weblog post (magazines, courses, content pieces etc.)? Good looking weblog you’ve got here. Anyways I’m subscribing to the weblog, cya!