Gassers

There are a couple of topics from yesterdays post that I would like to further explore. With your kind permission. Or I could talk about all the other cool stuff that is going on in RCV land. OK, one at a time.

Please talk a close, or closer, look at the results from yesterday post on the long term effects of long term sitting. It mentions 'leisure time' sitting as the primary culprit, I guess assuming that most people are going to be sitting for up to eight hours anyway, so it's the 'time after work' that is the isolated test. I can tell you that nearly 100% my 'leisure' time is spent in motion. Working on the cabin, chopping wood, running in the park, hauling things to and from various stores. I haven't watched TV in twenty years. As I spend much of my morning on the computer and editing video, I am keenly aware of the toll it takes on my back, core and spine. When I sit on a plane or in a rental car for hundreds of miles, it becomes acute. Conversely, I spend a lot of time spinning, biking, running, walking, and sometimes even swimming. I have done my share of martial arts and yoga. I appreciate this ambulatory device we call the body. I also like going fast, meaning that there are a series of steps necessary to prepare for the onset (and sustainability) of speed. We call this training. Speed is a relative term. What is fast for me is slow for ten thousand Kenyans, Alberto Contador, Emily Silver or Lindsey Corbin. But I am faster than Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Point is, that it is health and longevity that we are taking about here, not winning races. Unless, of course, you consider your life a race.

I consider it a race to happiness and one of the key components of that event is good health. Someone once suggested that good health is 90% of happiness. Let's use all the tools. Make every second count. Work your body. Go hard. Rest and recover. Repeat. Spent 90% on happiness and you'll find yourself moving a lot.

Please make sure that your leisure time activities include some movement. Have you considered the marketing genius behind Wii? Balance it out. If you must spend all day at the computer, commute to and from work on a bike, do some yoga in the morning when it's quiet and take a stroll in the evening. If you are going to race, please raise the intensity of your efforts on a regular basis. We used to call wind sprints 'gassers'. Guess why? Run HARD for forty yards, stop jog back, repeat. Gassers. Do ten today and report your efforts and metabolic response back. Gassers, yeah. Tank up.

Creates High Octane blood flow.

Gets you from point A to point B fast.

Zero to Sixty in flash.

No knocks, no pings.

Even the folks at the local 76 station know it. Stretch whenever possible.