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Be honest now. When it comes to your training, how much time do you spend working on your wrists?
There’s a good chance the answer is, “Not at all.”
Most of us don’t think much about warming up or strengthening our wrists, which is weird considering how many of us have immobile or weak wrists or even experience chronic pain in them.
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Pasta and meatballs are a classic, comforting dish, but there’s more possibilities than the carb-heavy grain pasta and beef meatball version. You’ll find these chicken hemp meatballs to be a little lighter and more nuanced. Over a helping of spiralized zucchini, it’s the perfect match of freshness and taste, but let’s not stop there. With a rich but bright Romesco sauce, this dish opens up a whole new world of Italian flavor.
Tips: Enjoy these meatballs over your favorite primal noodle. You can use raw zucchini noodles or lightly saute or roast them prior to eating. You can also serve these meatballs over cauliflower rice, spaghetti squash or sweet potato noodles. If you don’t have hazelnuts, you can switch up the romesco sauce by substituting almonds or walnuts. For more flavor, roast the nuts prior to blending them into the sauce.
Servings: 3
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cooking Time: 60 minutes
Ingredients:
Meatballs:
Romesco Sauce
For serving:
Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 375 ºF. Rub avocado oil all over the pepper and tomato and place it in the oven on a parchment covered sheet pan or oven-safe dish. The tomato will only need 15-20 minutes to be nicely roasted. Remove the tomato and set it aside once roasted and soft. Flip the pepper every 15 minutes or so until the skin of the pepper is nicely charred. This will take about 50-60 minutes in all. Set the pepper aside with the tomato to cool.
In a bowl, combine all of the meatball ingredients together. Allow the mixture to rest for 5 minutes. Form 9-12 meatballs from the mixture and place them on a lightly oiled sheet pan or glass dish. Bake for about 20 minutes or until they reach an internal temperature of 165 ºF.
Peel the stem of the pepper off and discard the stem and the seeds inside of the pepper. Run the pepper under water and peel off and discard the skin of the pepper. Place the pepper, tomato, and remaining romesco ingredients in a blender or food processor and blitz until the nuts are small and a sauce forms. You can leave the sauce a little rustic and chunky or blend it more to make it smooth.
Spoon some of the romesco sauce over your zucchini and top with the chicken meatballs. Spoon the remaining sauce on top and garnish with chopped parsley and hemp hearts. Enjoy!
Nutritional Information (3 servings, per serving):
The post Chicken Hemp Meatballs with Romesco Sauce appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
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“I made brownies! Here have one.”
“Oh, they smell so good! Thank you, but I had a big breakfast and I’m still full.” (a white lie)
“Come on. It’s just a little brownie.”
“Really, I appreciate it, but no thank you.”
“Really? You’re such a health freak that you won’t even eat the brownie I made?”
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Let’s face it; most of the world is sleep deprived. Perhaps without even realizing it. Busy schedules and family life mean that you may be lucky to get five hours of sleep in a night, forget the recommended seven or eight. The vast majority of modern Americans subsist on a hearty diet of caffeine and […]
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Even without weight loss, a high-protein, low-carb diet improves glucose tolerance and lowers liver fat in type 2 diabetics.
As fasting glucose ticks upward, so does pancreatic cancer incidence.
Just 12.2% of American adults have optimal (biologically appropriate) metabolic health.
Stress interferes with the mother-child bond.
Episode 362: Andre Obradovic: Host Brad Kearns chats with Andre Obradovic about the importance of not being a muppet.
Episode 363: Luis Villasenor and Tyler Cartwright: Host Elle Russ chats with KETOGAINS founders Luis and Tyler.
Primal Health Coach Radio, Episode 21: Hosts Erin and Laura chat with Todd McCullough about using pain to reflect and progress.
Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.
More pharmaceutical data shenanigans.
The core is the healthiest part of the apple. Just make sure it’s organic.
Ten findings that contradict (and appear to disprove) medical wisdom.
Interesting thread on making sourdough with ancient Egyptian yeast.
Is society scapegoating meat, particularly red meat?
Sure, let’s just slap on a robotic tail for “balance.” What harm could it do?
Another reason to pay attention to your surroundings when hiking.
Incentivizing organ donation by giving registered donors priority if they need a new organ increases organ pool but lowers organ quality.
News I’m pleased to announce: Primal Kitchen® took first place in several categories of Paleo Magazine’s annual “Best of” awards, including Best New Product (our ketchup and mustard), Best Paleo Food Company, and Best Paleo Lifestyle Company. Thanks, everybody!
Podcast I enjoyed: The story of the man who survived incurable brain cancer.
Phrase I found clever: “Benevolent pseudo-diabetes.”
I’m impressed: 89-year-old Joe Stockinger deadlifts 405 pounds. Twice.
I have to add the “correlation is not necessarily causation” caveat: Countries with more butter have happier people.
How many unintended physiological consequences would a robotic tail trigger in the human body?
One year ago (Aug 4– Aug 10)
“The parking lot at Target is on a slight hill so I park at the bottom, and then I can ride the shopping cart like a scooter all the way back down to my car. I’m going to be 61 soon.
Joy and delight!”– That’s the spirit, Jen!
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Ladies, vaginal health matters. Paying attention to your vagina is as vital as brushing your teeth or making sure you drink enough water. Unfortunately, many people are too shy or embarrassed to talk about their vaginas – even to their medical practitioner. A good rule of thumb is that it’s better to ask and be […]
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So, you’re going on vacation and are stoked about the mental and physical break from the gym.
But you also know an entire week of drinking and a lax diet, all the while not getting your heart rate up or doing a single push-up for a week, is only going to make you feel emotionally low during the days on vacation—days that you’re supposed to be enjoying!
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Disclaimer: I have not gone through menopause. I am, however, turning 40 this year. Statistically speaking, this is the decade in which I’m likely to enter perimenopause, so I have a vested interest in understanding what might be in store for me.
I’m all too familiar with the stereotype of the belligerent, out-of-control menopausal lady plagued by hot flashes and mood swings, bewildering her poor, beleaguered partner. [Note that for convenience I am going to use “menopause” to include the perimenopausal period as well.] Frankly, this narrative doesn’t suit me at all. I know very well that hot flashes and mood swings can be a part of menopause, but obviously there’s a lot more to it than that.
Of course, I want realistic view of what lies ahead so I might prepare mentally, emotionally, and physically. However, I also want the nuances. Plus, as an optimist I want to know the good, not just the bad and the ugly. To my mind, any major life transition is a chance at a reawakening of sorts, even if the road through it is rocky. My natural tendency is to find the silver lining and reframe situations as growth opportunities.
Menopause is much more than a collection of symptoms that need to be combatted. However, much of what’s written about menopause, from the scientific literature to the blogosphere, focuses on coping with and dealing with menopause. After a while, one wonders if the scientific and medical communities aren’t overeager to problematize and medicalize menopause by putting all the focus on the symptoms and, naturally, the treatments (they can make money off of). You have to dig deeper to find discussions about the meaning of menopause through the eyes of women who are living it.
Nevertheless, plenty of women and scientists (and women who are scientists!) are exploring how menopause fits into the flow of a woman’s life. I came away from my research seeing that menopause is, in fact, not terrible for many women. There’s tremendous variation in individual women’s experiences of menopause, not only in terms of the actual symptoms but also in the way she appraises them. Menopause is far more nuanced and idiosyncratic than sitcom stereotypes or medicalized portrayals would have us believe. It can be a time of tremendous growth and transformation, and a lot of women embrace that opportunity.
Moreover, although hormone therapy is by far the most loudly promoted remedy, it’s not the only game in town by far. There are actually a wide array of options that women might use to prepare for and alleviate the troublesome aspects of menopause. (Stay tuned for a future post on this topic.)
One of the fun facts I came across in my deep dive into menopause is that scientists have so far identified four non-humans species whose females experience menopause: orcas, narwhals, belugas, and short-finned pilot whales. All toothed whales—fascinating! Other primates probably do not, although chimps and gorillas might (this is controversial, apparently). In other words, we’re pretty special!
While the biology of menopause—the when and what—are well understood, the why is still not totally clear. Human females might spend 40% or more of their lives in the post-menopausal phase. As the authors of this paper bluntly put it, “If the main purpose of women is to propagate the species (survival of the fittest), as postulated by Darwin for all species, then going through menopause many years before dying should be selected against unless there are distinct advantages to it.”
Ouch, but also fair. Scientists have come up with various theories about the nature of those advantages and how they came to evolve. The most compelling explanation is that our post-menopausal longevity directly contributes to the reproductive success of our offspring. Because humans mature slowly, not only do our children require a ton of resources and caretaking, but we also have additional children before our older children are anywhere near self-sufficient.
The “grandmother hypothesis” proposes that elder women enhance the survival of their lineage by caring for their biological grandchildren, but they also pass down their considerable knowledge and wisdom in and beyond the family itself. Post-menopausal female orcas assume leadership roles in their pods. They’re instrumental in helping other whales find food. Research has shown that their ability to lead others to fruitful fishing grounds is especially important in times of food shortage.
These older females possess skills and knowledge that enhance the survival of their offspring; and their offsprings’ mortality risk increases dramatically following their mothers’ death. The same is probably true for humans. Indeed, there is historical evidence from the 1700s and 1800s that women reproduced earlier and more often if their children’s grandmother was alive. The grandchildren’s odds of surviving to adulthood decreased if grandmothers were distant or deceased.
When female orcas continue to reproduce once their daughters have themselves started reproducing, the older females’ babies are less likely to survive than the younger females’ babies. The same might have been true for humans. According to this line of thinking, as we age, it’s better that we cease having children of our own and instead step into a supporting role for direct caretaking—and a more expansive role beyond caretaking itself.
Personally, I like the view of our roles changing through the lifespan, providing different types of value at different times. We have different gifts to offer in our post-reproductive years.
In both the scientific literature and everyday conversation, people tend to talk about menopause as if it were one thing, a singular experience shared by all women. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Although some symptoms are common enough to be considered standard—hot flushes/flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, and mood alterations being at the top of the list—the range of possible symptoms is considerably greater than that. Not all women will experience even the most common ones. Among women who do, the severity of those symptoms can vary tremendously. Depending on whom you ask, anywhere from 20-75% of women experience symptoms severe enough to significantly impact their quality of life.
A huge number of factors influences any individual woman’s experience. To start, the onset and severity of symptoms can differ depending on what type of menopause she experiences: if it is premature (younger than 40-years-old) or early (between 40 and 45 years), or if it’s induced by surgical removal of the ovaries versus natural changes in hormone levels. Other factors shown to affect a woman’s symptomatology include her physical and mental health before starting menopause, activity level, lifestyle factors such as smoking, socioeconomic status, and perhaps even geography.
Many at least hold a mix of positive and negative beliefs and expectations. Understandably, women tend to hold negative attitudes towards hot flashes, night sweats, and other unpleasant physical symptoms. On the other hand, most women are only too happy to stop having monthly periods, and many of them are ready to move past the need for contraception. However, this can be an emotionally fraught time for women who are not ready for their reproductive years to end.
There’s a complex interplay between physical symptoms, attitudes and beliefs about menopause, and psychological well-being. Studies show a bidirectional link between a woman’s attitudes and her subjective experiences. Women who experience disruptive symptoms such as frequent and severe hot flushes understandably have more negative attitudes. The reverse is also true. One prospective study also showed that premenopausal women who had more negative attitudes about menopause later reported experiencing more frequent and more severe symptoms. Another study found that women are less likely to be bothered by menopause if they have other more pressing issues in their lives. (“Pssht, menopause? I can’t be bothered worrying about that, I’m too busy dealing with this crisis over here.”)
Finally, women’s subjective experiences of menopause do not perfectly map onto objective markers such as hormone levels. Two women reporting the same number of hot flashes and sleep disturbances might also report very different levels of distress about those symptoms, for example. This might be due to differences in psychological and emotional well-being, as I will discuss in the next post. Women who have better coping mechanisms, more social support, or higher emotional intelligence are likely more resilient to the physical symptoms.
This all goes to show there is so much more to the menopause story than we’re typically presented with. It’s important that healthcare providers understand this and take the time to understand their patients’ unique situations. Likewise, women should know that there’s no right or wrong way to experience menopause.
“Menopause starts out as a horror movie, but then transitions into a coming of age story. The time after menopause can truly become the best part of our lives as we create a vibrant second half of life. … Second adulthood is the best!” — Lynette Sheppard, RN
Now for the really good news. As I said above, many women have positive attitudes toward menopause, even when they are in the thick of it. Lotte Hvas is a Danish doctor and author of the book, Menopause—Better Than Its Reputation. Her research shines light on the positive aspects of menopause. In one study, Hvas asked women to reflect in an open-ended manner on how they experienced menopause and how it affected their lives. About half of the 393 women in the study spontaneously offered positive assessments.
Not surprisingly, many women were happy to be done with PMS and monthly periods. (This is something I saw often while reading menopause blogs—”No more cramps, and I can finally wear white pants again!” White pants are apparently a big deal for a lot of ladies.) Others described it as a “wonderful” and peaceful phase in their lives. Still others celebrated the fact that now that their children were grown, they had the time and freedom to explore new areas of interest. Nine of Hvas’ respondents reported that menopause improved their sex lives.
Plenty of women celebrate menopause as the beginning of a new phase of their lives. Menopause coincides with coming into their own in a new way. They talk about exploring new creative channels, experiencing greater patience, and being more selfish in a good way.
As Margaret Mead once said, “There is no greater power in the world than the zest of a post-menopausal woman.” Once women walk through menopause, whether it’s an easy stroll or a walk through fire, they emerge on the other side more confident, with a renewed vigor, and a take-no-baloney attitude. These sentiments were echoed by participants in a study in which Dr. Hvas conducted in-depth interviews with 52- and 53-year-old women. The women perceived themselves as more experienced and more competent than their younger selves, and more assertive about speaking their minds.
As my own mother told me, “Once you get older, you stop giving a $%&! about what other people think.” This theme is echoed time and again by post-menopausal women who say they feel less constrained and more self-confident. Some researchers believe this is actually due to the hormonal changes of menopause, but there are probably psychosocial influences as well. Whatever the cause, a lot of women affirm this, and frankly it sounds pretty great.
At some point in my reading I came across the term “menostart” as an alternative to “menopause.” This seems apt for the many women who experience menopause as a turning point after which their interests, priorities, and attitudes change.
The psychological principle of socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) offers a lens through which we might understand some of these shifts. The central tenet of SST is that as we age, our future time perception changes. Whereas once we were young and time felt expansive, with aging comes a growing recognition that time is limited. This changes how we approach the world. According to the theory, when time seems expansive in our youth, we focus on future-oriented goals, seek novelty and knowledge, and invest in individual achievement. In contrast, older adults prioritize relational goals and positive emotional experiences.
Three decades of research into SST bears this out. Although SST is not a theory of menopause per se, it does postulate that older individuals facing important life transitions that signal an “ending,” such as retirement, will effortfully focus on positive aspects and downplay negative aspects. Menopause surely falls into this category as well. Older individuals also tend to be better at emotion regulation in everyday life and enjoy more stable positive emotions.
Consistent with this, Hvas relates, “Some women describe that they have used the menopause as a trigger to changing their lifestyles. To others it has meant that they have realised that life is not eternal and that it is important to, ‘use life while you have it’. The statements indicate that the phase has resulted in personal development.” Some of the women in her other study described themselves as more tolerant. “The women also experienced that they had become better at prioritising and at ignoring trifles and instead focus on the important things in life, viz. things that were crucial to themselves.”
No, this isn’t my public announcement that I’m starting “the change.” (Ugh to that term.) I’m laying the foundation upon which I hope a healthy, meaningful “upper middle age” will be built when my husband and I will become empty nesters, and when we fully intend to be healthy, vibrant, active, and on the move.
I’ll talk in my next post about psychological and emotional considerations as well as non-hormonal approaches to easing one’s way through menopause. Hint: I bet you’re already using a few of them to improve overall well-being. I am, and now I see them in a new light.
Because attitude is clearly important, I’m cultivating a positive mindset about menopause. It’s necessary to be intentional about this in a world that often treats menopause like it’s the worst thing ever. One strategy is to gather positive role models of women who are celebrating this period of life. I’m starting with Oprah, who says, “So many women I’ve talked to see menopause as an ending. But I’ve discovered this is your moment to reinvent yourself after years of focusing on the needs of everyone else. It’s your opportunity to get clear about what matters to you and then to pursue that with all of your energy, time and talent.” That sounds good to me.
References:
Avis NE, Brockwell S, Colvin A. A universal menopausal syndrome? Am J Med. 2005 Dec 19;118 Suppl 12B:37-46.
Ayers, BN, Forshaw MJ, Hunter MS. The menopause. The Psychologist 2011;24:348-353.
Deeks AA. Psychological aspects of menopause management. Best Pract Res Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2003;17(1):17-31.
Hawkes K, O’Connell JF, Jones NG, Alvarez H, Charnov EL. Grandmothering, menopause, and the evolution of human life histories. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA.1998;95(3):1336–1339.
Peccei JS. Menopause: Adaptation or Epiphenomenon? Evol Anthr 2001;10:43–57.
Sievert, LL. Anthropology and the study of menopause: evolutionary, developmental, and comparative perspectives. Menopause 2014;21(10):1151–1159.
Takahashi M, Singh RS, Stone J. A Theory for the Origin of Human Menopause. Front Genet. 2017;7:222.
Winterich JA, Umberson D. How women experience menopause: the importance of social context. J Women Aging. 1999;11(4):57-73.
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Every gym has at least one of them (OK, more like 10 of them)—the people who want to improve a specific skill or movements so their answer is to practice that skill every single day.
I have a client—bless her heart—who was frustrated that her deadlift hadn’t improved in 12 months and proceeded to deadlift heavy every single time she came to the gym for six months. At the end of it all, her deadlift weight hadn’t increased, but frustration certainly had.
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The fitness industry is in the midst of a renaissance. Flawed and dated strategies like sedentary recovery practices or overly stressful HIIT workouts are being replaced with cutting-edge practices that offer more efficiency and return on investment. Today I’m covering one emerging fitness strategy: performing brief feats of strength in the routine course of a day. Let’s call them microworkouts.
I’m talking here about dropping for a single set of deep squats in the office, hitting a set of max effort pull-ups whenever you pass under a bar in a closet doorway, or stocking your backyard with a hex deadlift bar or bench press and busting out a single set every time you pass by while taking out the garbage.
Micro-workouts deliver two distinct and awesome benefits: First, when you add up the energy expenditure of these brief but frequent efforts, you obtain an incredible cumulative training effect. In essence, you are banking a lot of strength/power/explosiveness “mileage” without disturbing the necessary stress/rest balance of your official workout schedule or prompting the stress hormone production and cellular depletion that occurs from an extreme weekend warrior-type session. That is, a set of pull-ups, or even three sets over the course of 12 hours on a typical day, is not going to mess up the next day’s CrossFit session or even an ambitious arms and chest session. Rather, these micro sessions (Dr. Phil Maffetone calls the concept, “slow weights”) will raise the baseline from which you launch you ambitious full-scale workouts.
Think about it: If you do a single set of six deadlifts with 200 pounds on the bar every time you take out the garbage, that’s 1,200 pounds of work accomplished. Perhaps you can find your way to doing that 1-2 times a day, five or six days a week? That’s lifting an extra 10,000 pounds a week! When it’s time to perform a formal session, such as the popular 5 x 5 protocol (where you complete five sets of five reps, and perhaps add an upper body exercise to each set), you’re poised for fitness breakthroughs as well as faster recovery times. An “official” workout is no longer this tremendous athletic performance vastly outside the normal pattern of your largely sedentary life, but instead an upgrade of what you do every day to some extent. Does this concept ring a bell? Yes, micro-workouts are modeling the behavior patterns of our hunter-gatherer ancestors! Grok and company likely had some harsh days that might rival today’s CrossFit WOD or obstacle course race, but they also likely had routine daily chores entailing lifting heavy things or scrambling up steep embankments in between their legendary leisure time.
The second benefit of micro-workouts is perhaps even more profound: these short efforts help you combat the extreme health hazard of prolonged periods of stillness that characterize hyperconnected modern life. The adverse health consequences of stillness have been well-chronicled, and you’ve heard me talk about them for years. Studies show that even a few days of inactivity can generate a significant decline in glucose tolerance and increase in insulin resistance. In Primal Endurance, I quote Nutritious Movement queen Katy Bowman on the destruction of cellular health caused by stillness: “When you use a single position repetitively, such as curling your body into a comfortable work chair for hours every day, muscles, joints, and arteries will adapt to this repetitive positioning by changing their cellular makeup and becoming literally ‘stiff,’ with reduced ranges of motion and an actual hardening of the arterial walls in those areas.”
Strange as it may seem, it’s now becoming clear that increasing all forms of general everyday movement is a greater health priority than conducting ambitious workouts. Microworkouts, along with continued devotion to JFW (Just F—ing Walk) takes on increasing importance as daily life gets more effortless. Even if you’re a devoted gym rat, those few hours a week when you’re pushing weight around isn’t enough to combat a lifestyle of commuting, office work, and digital entertainment leisure time. The active couch potato syndrome is a scientifically validated concept revealing that devoted workout enthusiasts who lead otherwise sedentary lifestyles are subject to the same level of disease risk as inactive folks.
But none of this is new. A decade ago now Time magazine offered a memorable title, “The Myth Of Exercise.” The story detailed how a strenuous workout (particularly the common workout patterns and strategies of today that can become chronically stressful) depletes cellular energy and prompts a compensatory response in the form of an increased appetite along with decreased activity for the rest of the day. More recently, I wrote about the constrained model of energy expenditure as well as the amazing study of the Hadza that’s helping us reframe the purpose and intended benefits of exercise.
As I’ve been saying since the introduction of the 10 Primal Blueprint Laws over a decade ago, it’s not about the calories but about the movement and the genetic signaling that movement prompts. The Myth of Exercise concept aligns with my longtime assertion that 80% of your body composition success is dependent on your diet—specifically, minimizing the wildly excessive insulin production that happens from a grain-based, high carbohydrate diet and prevents you from burning stored body fat.
Armed with the insight to no workout is too short, and any kind of movement delivers a health and fitness benefit, you can elevate micro-workouts to the forefront of your fitness plan. Reject the all or nothing mentality that causes you to fail with fitness commitments because you get too busy with work and life. We all have time for a set or two or three of deep squats during the workday or during leisure time.
Look for opportunities over the course of every day to put your body under some kind of brief resistance load. Even if you only work hard for one minute (or less) at a time but are relatively faithful incorporating these “micro” opportunities into your daily routine, the cumulative effect will still be incredible.
Word of Caution: Going from a prolonged inactive state to a performing a heavy lift carries an obvious risk factor. Truth be told, I generally precede my random sets of pull-ups, deadlifts or even cords by a minute of walking, a few dynamic stretches, or some specific warm-up moves like doing a set with a much lighter weight, followed by a “real” set with a respectable weight. It’s not a lot of time or effort, but it’s a good habit to add the resistance after you’ve been up and doing something for a few minutes (e.g. taking out the garbage, bringing in groceries, finishing an indoor/outdoor chore).
Beyond that, also realize that when you make micro-workouts a daily habit, you’ll discover that you’re much more adaptable to brief explosive efforts without a long warm-up. You’ll be able to pop up from your work desk to hustle down a flight of stairs at work without hearing the creaks and cracks that are so familiar, especially to aging jocks. My longtime writing partner Brad Kearns (our next book will be a comprehensive education and action plan on the topics of longevity—due out in December) swears that his brief morning flexibility/mobility routine. He says it’s transformed his recovery from sprint workouts. No more next-day stiffness and soreness and occasional minor injuries—just because he spends 12 minutes every morning working on drills specific to sprinting that challenge the glutes, hamstrings and core.
Dr. Art DeVany, Ph.D., author of The New Evolution Diet and one of my earliest and greatest inspirations for Primal-inspired health practices, says that the lion never has to stretch before a workout, and we shouldn’t have to either. No, our modern creakiness can be attributed to overtraining patterns (in the case of morning issues) or extended stillness without a movement break when you get up and hobble during the day. Our ancestors most certainly had to run for their lives with zero warning on a routine basis. It’s a good Primal skill to have still.
Micro workouts are also applicable to cardiovascular fitness. A few minutes here and a few minutes there have a similar cumulative effect. Dr. Phil Maffetone explains that any stimulation of the aerobic system, even really low intensity stuff that a hard-core athlete might not choose to count as an official workout, helps improve your cardiovascular health and fitness. There’s really no lower limit to the aerobic exercise zone.
Anytime you get up from a chair and walk, you’re getting an aerobic benefit. A couple minutes recruiting major muscle groups with Stretch Cordz confers a new advantage. A cruise ship analogy works well here. When the floating city is out on the open ocean, cruising at 20 knots en route to the next port, all twelve turbine engines are cranking at full throttle. When it’s cruising in the harbor at two knots in preparation for docking, only a couple turbines are operating at half power. However, the two turbines operating at half speed in the harbor are still being “trained” to perform when they’re called up on in the open ocean. Note: I’ve revised my position on this concept over the years as research filled in the picture. Early on, I used to designate an aerobic zone of 55-75% of maximum heart rate. I’m not saying abandon time in that range, but know that anything outside of it also counts for something, and that should be good news.
If you so much as jump up from your desk, scramble down the stairs and out to your vehicle, then return with a few floors of ascent and back to your desk—total time five minutes and eight seconds. You’ll be turbocharging fat burning, increasing oxygen delivery and blood circulation to the brain, and flooding the bloodstream with neurotransmitters that elevate mood and improve cognitive focus. Similarly, anytime you haul off a set of pushups or squats, you’re making a meaningful contribution to your fitness and longevity.
Every effort, however modest, can be a small win. How does that shift your mindset? How does it open up possibilities for you? Let me know down below, and share any questions you have while you’re at it. Have a great week, everybody.
The post Are You Doing Microworkouts? Here’s Why You Should. appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
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