Izzying Thoughts
Welcome to Izzying
Izzying is about doing it your way. Not following dogma blindly. You're always learning more things and incorporating these things into yourself, always progressing.
Izzying could be Ralphing, Joaning, Sammying, whatever your name is, it's you always learning different things and having different things in your life to improve on. Different disciplines to keep your interest because you are always progressing and have made it a habit to progress thereby satisfying the brains need for habituality. You have to improve in order to be happy. You're filling your life up with good habits. So practice the musical instrument if that is your choice, your geology, your history studies, your chess game, golf, but always be sure to daily take care of the body and mind, they need to move.
What I show here, Izzying, is the things that I do. You have your own things that satisfy the need of fulfilling habits. Make them good habits. Make them healthy habits.
In reality, this is just my notebook, That I have chosen a web format to keep. Like my learning, this will never be done.
Izzying is about changing your habits to those habits that help you to "not get old as you get older". The brain (you) runs on habits and habits are easy to change. Just like programming a computer, you can program yourself through your habits. It's really that simple. Satisfying your habits, your choice to make, good or bad, keeps your brain and you happy. Good healthy habits are better then bad unhealthy habits. YOU are responsible for all your actions in life. Learn what's healthy and change your habits to healthy ones so you can enjoy your life and older age.I say it’s the art of not getting old as you get older because art implies it’s a passion that lives always in the back of your mind. You have an enthusiasm which affects and fills you with excitement. As the artist you are the canvass with which you perform your art on, growing in mind body and spirit. You know yourself, where you are at in life and where you want to be. Progressing not with stress, not with hard work, though to others it appears like hard work, but because it’s your passion. You love it. Your not dieting, your eating healthy, your not working out, but you are moving, playing and getting satisfaction out of what you do. . If we are passionate about what we do, we look forward to doing our passions with passion. Once again understanding the minds need to have habits, of which we choose to use our time up with good healthy habits.
I don’t go to the gym to work out. I go to my playground, which happens to have various exercise equipment laying around. In my playground there are fun toys that are laying around and I have a good time pulling, lifting, moving balancing, whatever. It’s never “oh crap I have to workout” it’s hmmmm “what can I play with now.” All my toys are good for the body and mind. All my movements are good for the body and mind. If I can not smile and have fun: then why? It is never dull repetition. It is never the same. Always challenging and varied to combat the evil of SAID (specific adaptation to imposed demands). My playground is available 24/7 in case I want to play for 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there, in between the hours here and hours there. I love my playground and treat it like a Dojo filled with the spirit of life. It is a spiritual playground to explore myself and to ALWAYS keep improving, to support my war of not getting older as I get older.
If you are an athlete that is training for a sport the best thing to do is train for that sport by practicing that sport. If you are a golfer play golf and practice specifically the basics of teeing off, chipping and putting and playing golf games. If it is tennis you practice your back hand, serving etc along with playing the games. If your idea is to improve your bench lift you add more weight as time goes along. The body will adapt and get stronger in the bench lift to the demise of other areas of the body. If you are a Martial artist, you practice your art. The body gets better at what ever it is asked to do by the practice of that specific sport. No great revelation there. The adage is true. Practice practice practice to get better at what you want to get better.
However, if you are not training for any specific sport, but just for health and strength then an issue can arise by the repetition of the same set of exercises. The body will naturally become efficient at what it is asked to do and overall gains over time will decrease. Through the repetition of theses exercises there can be an imbalance in the body as you practice a set of skills and ignore other parts of your body. If you vary your exercises so the body does not know what to expect it must work harder. That is what we need for health benefits. We need to fool the smart intelligent body and not let it become complacent in it’s movements due to it’s self-efficient ways of learning. Not that we work harder but that the body works harder by being challenged from many approaches. As mind and body are one the challenges of a varied workout will also work the mind, but it is the body we are discussing here. If a new demand is placed on the body by a varied routine the body will not become accustomed to what is demanded of it. If you do the same thing all the time, there are diminishing returns. One could say that progressively adding weight to the same lifting routine challenges the body, but the movement is the same. It is movement along with added weight that needs to be varied. You need to move with intelligence and knowledge to protect the body from harm. This is why it is good to learn from many instructors’ various forms of exercise.
.
There needs to be a holistic approach to strength and conditioning. Do not just run for cardio or Lift weights for strength, stretching for limberness. Yes, you do lift weights for strength, but repeatedly the same exercises all the time and just increasing the weight lets the body lock itself knowingly into the same movement. You can bench 400 lbs, but can you scratch your back without aid of an implement. Lifting weights the old fashion way where you isolate parts of the body to push a lot of weight thereby getting little muscle tears that in the long run will cause most of the shoulder and back issues people have. Using machines that restrict movement of the body can also be damaging as too much strain tends to be put on one area of the body. You need to be WELL ROUNDED. Do many things and vary what you do for strength and condition. And do not forget the joints. There are many exercises that will work the joints and do not even require any implements
You need to increase strength of large and small muscles. Work the stability muscles and tendons. Most people don’t work the breaking muscles (Muscles that stop a movement) when they push weights as they are doing a slow grinding push. Doing fast controlled movements with lighter weights and halting the action quickly will work the breaking muscles. This will give a different kind of strength to the body by working the tendons from a tense - to relax - to tense action. A karate performer will move quickly and stop quickly using breaking action to develop power and not need an over muscled body to do some amazing things.
How do keep the body guessing and working hard? Use many tools. Kettlebells, Clubbells/Indian clubs, Sandbags, Balance exercises, Core exercises, Yoga, Pilates, Body Weight exercise, Battling Ropes, Joint Mobility exercises Martial Arts, Free Weights, Aerobic exercises, all in a balanced and progressive way
The key words being:
Progression – Increase weight, complexity, time,
Foundations – Build a foundation of knowledge on which to progress from
Control – Move with a controlled purpose of movement
Variety – Vary things up all the time
Commitment – Commit to a regime of staying in shape and stick with it
Intelligence – Learn things and do the smartly.
As I have gotten older, I have found the need to look at my strength training as not so much actually doing it to get stronger though of course that is a benefit, but to more protect my joints. I am no longer interested in how much weight I can push in one slow grinding movement that only ends up causing little muscle tears that take longer to heal (another factor of getting older), but in doing exercises that will increase overall strength of the whole body, strengthen the joints and stretch the joints at the same time. The kind of lifting I prefer is where the whole body is used to move and control the weight by starting a movement with the legs and not just the arms. I use ballistic movement as compared to grinding movement. Grinding is being defined as moving the weight from a dead stop and applying a steady force through the movement of the weight. In the ballistic movement there is more involved in moving the weight from a dead stop then the isolation of a few joints. In the ballistic movement the whole body is used with the legs transmitting force through a stable core as it moves up the body and then the weight itself. Yes, there is a continuous acceleration in the movement, but of more importance is the stopping of the weight. After all this is how we move in life. Not in Isolated movements but in a continuous flow of movement with stops here and there.
If I am going to do a grinding press such as a seated military press or Bench Press I will lower the weight and watch the form more closely especially keeping the shoulders packed down and the Lats flared, creating more space between the ears and the shoulders to say. One cannot just do ballistic training as one should not just do one of any kind of training so there is some grinding to be done, just with lower weights in mind. Grinding movement usually has lower weights. Another component of ballistic movements is the braking muscles needed to stop the weight. Grinding presses do not engage stopping muscles as much. The muscles needed to stop a weight in movement are more tendon in nature and deeper. These are the muscles that help protect the joints. More groups of muscles are needed to stop a weight. A strong core is needed to start the movement and to stop the movement. A coordination of muscles working together is also needed. There is no just using one or two groups of muscles to stop the moving weight. The whole body is used to stop the weight just like it was used to start the weight.
There has also been a movement to working out harder and smarter. Not lifting or pushing more weight. I suppose harder being translated to more varied exercises with different equipment including body weight exercises over a longer period of time to tax the whole body more and not just targeted areas such as upper and lower body, triceps and biceps. WHOLE BODY.
Through the years I have modified what I do. At first, it’s not easy to stop something you love doing, but the demands placed on the body that is older dictate the necessity of this. Usually older Karate practitioners do not fight, but all of a sudden love to do Kata when in their youth they did not. The heavy weight bench pressers loved to say I bench 450 lb’s when they were young and now most are saying my shoulder is messed up and I had to give it up, but my golf game is getting into the 90’s. Then it might go like I had to stop golf as I threw my back out last year and things have not been right ever since. After a while, their only exercise is raising the elbow to put something in the mouth. We need, as we get older, more training to keep us healthy and functional not wear us down.
Most older individuals are well aware that they need regular aerobic exercise, such as walking, swimming, or running, to strengthen their heart and lungs and tone their bodies, but many dismiss weight/resistance training as an activity predominantly for the young. However, it is the only type of exercise that can substantially slow, and even reverse, the declines in muscle mass, bone density, and strength that were once considered inevitable consequences of aging. Unlike aerobic, or endurance, activities, which improve cardiovascular fitness and require moving large muscle groups hundreds of times against gravity, weights provide so much resistance that muscles gain strength from only a few movements.
Still to me the hardest part of getting older training was giving up things I loved as they were more damaging to the body and only fed the Ego. I prefer to say replaced then gave up something.
I say it's the art of not getting old as you get older because art implies it's a passion that lives always in the back of your mind. You have an enthusiasm which affects and fills you with excitement. As the artist you are the canvass with which you perform your art on, growing in mind body and spirit. You know yourself, where you are at in life and where you want to be. Progressing not with stress, not with hard work, though to others it appears like hard work, but because it's your passion, you love it. Your not dieting, your eating healthy, your not working out but you are moving, playing getting and satisfaction out of what you do. You even get to practice while sitting down and reading as you practice the art of relaxation and paying attention, plus just plain old enjoying the book. If we are passionate about what we do, we look forward to doing our passions with passion. Once again using the minds need to have habits of which we choose to use our time up with good habits.
The Iz Infinite Circles
A friend and I came up the this diagram that helps to see and move multiple directional joints such as the hips and neck for all around joint mobility of the joint. Akin to moving the joints in a dynamic sphere. More explanation and demonstrations to come.The where were am I going carries a few meaning. <a name="circle"></a>
1 The concept of "where am i going : makes me ask if I have a purpose of what I am doing and that I am always working with a purpose even if that purpose is meaningless and enjoyable. The what you may be doing is nothing and meaningless, but you are aware of this and its a purpose because you chose that course of action. Do your actions have a purpose?" where are you going with that purpose? Everyday is a chance to improve something in your life, anything, as we all can use improvement. Do I have a purpose when I do things or am I just doing them, which is OK, but you need to be aware that's what you are doing. Is what I am doing negative, positive or neutral in that you are just doing and being in the moment.
2 With the middle dot representing you, In terms of joint mobility,these are the optional planes to move in. From the center there are four quadrants and the directions you can move around. There are linear lines, circles, and elliptical directions. There is patterns of movements that connect these directions into a flow of movement
