The View from Sports Center

What You May Have Missed on Fusion

Just a quick note to let you know that we had some good stuff posted on Fusion over the past ten days or so and in case you missed it, here it is:

1. How Much Protein is Enough?
2. How Much Protein is Enough - Part II
3. Stop Working Out
4. Question from a Reader - Back and Reps: How Do You Decide?
5. How Old Are Your Joints?
6. A Simple Way to Lower Blood Pressure

And, one of our FusionTribe members had this to say about being a member:

"By the way, Carbon rocks!  Huge volume of work when you consider 5x15 reps per side.  I can't wait to see what else Fusion has in store for me!"

If you haven't signed up to get  free articles in your email, you can do that here. Just fill in the form, you'll get articles in your email and you'll also get my latest book, "Build a Rock Solid Core: Stop the Sit Ups and Save Your Spine" for free.

You won't want to miss the next series of articles - they're about the muscles that can make you look older than you are and what to do about it. Good stuff.

See you on Fusion?

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Make Your Best Better...

Well, it's here.

I've been talking about this for a few weeks and my new project is off the ground.

It's called Fusion.

And I would love for all of you who enjoy the View to sign up for my posts and newsletter from Fusion.

And, you'll get a free e-book too.

But you might be wondering, "What exactly is Fusion and is it something for me?"

Fusion is a method of training and lifestyle changes to help you build a more resilient and youthful life. It's based on a monthly fee membership - less than the cost to fill up your car with gas. Of course, there's plenty of free material too and even a one week free membership so you can get a taste of what we call the FusionTribe.

But, it might be easier to tell you what Fusion is NOT.

1. If you want to bench 350lbs and deadlift 500lbs, well, Fusion's not for you. 
2. If you want to train your arms on Monday, your back on Tuesday, your legs on Wednesday, do "cardio" on Thursday - the old school bodybuilding stuff - Fusion is not for you.
3. If you want to train until you puke, Fusion's not for you.

But, if you want a method that helps you get fit and stay fit and makes you feel younger as you get older, Fusion IS for you.

You'll be in great shape, have a great shape, and people will ask you, "What have you been doing?"

You won't get bored, you'll know your abilities, and you can take Fusion with you - train at home, on the road, in the gym. 

Now, if you're ready to build a new you, get fit, healthy, and enjoy more of your life, join the FusionTribe fitness movement.

One last bit of shameless self promotion. You might be familiar with one of the old TV ads for Hairclub for Men where the Sy Syler, the President says, "I'm not only the Hair Club president, I'm also a client!"

Well, I'm a FusionTribe member too.

Before I decided to launch this idea, I had to see if what I was offerring really worked. And I figured that if it worked on me, age 54, with a ton of othopedic issues, a creaky spine, degenerative joint disease, etc, then, well, it would certainly work for a lot of other people. Granted, you might have some learning to do but that's the whole point.

When I started "walking the walk" this past spring, here were my metrics:

• Body weight: ~230 lbs
• Body fat: ~30%
• Waist measurement: 39.5 inches

Okay so I have to fess up to one thing. I could not actually write down the real waist size. It was too big. Scary big. It really was 40.5 inches but I could not, absoultely refused, in any manner, to write down that number so I wrote down 39.5 inches. There. The truth is out. No wonder my 36 inch waist jeans felt like a corset.

Now a lot of people have told me that they never thought of me as "fat". Well there are two reasons for that. One is that I'm tall so I can carry more weight without appearing to be overweight and two, our societal standards have shifted. If you see someone who is 30 lbs over weight, you won't think that person is actually that heavy. We've become accustomed to seeing these proportions.

After 88 days with the FusionTribe, my metrics were:

• Body weight: 195 lbs
• Body fat: 10.5%
• Waist measurement: 34 inches

And I feel better too. Lighter. Quicker. More agile. Although I still can't dunk a basketball - yet. And, this is important to consider, while I was building what were to become the Elements of Fusion that were part of my training, I was still recovering from a rotator cuff tear in my right shoulder and a meniscus tear in my right knee.

I'm not going to kid you. This journey was tough. But well worth it (and it included a change in my eating habits as well - more on the later).  My wife says I'm like living with a teenager (I think that's a compliment :) - I eat constantly and my clothes size keeps changing.

Most of my writing will be on Fusion. I have a number of posts already. Here are a few of my favorites:

• He Threw Up. I Didn't.
• The Road to Transformation.
• How to Get the Right Heart Rate.
• Just When You Think You Can't

Some of the posts are free; some are part free and part for members only and some are for members only. I will write here from time to time but if you want to know the latest stuff, sign up at Fusion.

Joint the FusionTribe, get in the best shape of your life and have the time of your life.

Hope to see you all at Fusion.

 

 

The TV and Computer - The Deadly Pair

I met my friend and guitar teacher, Jim Collard, for dinner at Maudie's a few weeks ago - a favorite Tex-Mex food haven of mine. We found our way to a table and as we were about to sit down, I saw to my left, a family of four: a child, a man and woman I assumed to be the child's parents and an older man likely the grandfather.

The child was maybe 6 or 7 years old.

He was wearing head phones and staring at a video playing on a small electronic device - maybe 8-9 inches wide.

The adults were talking to each other as if the kid was not even there.

I stared.

Almost too long as the mother looked up at me like I had a long handled knife in my hand.

"That's just incredible to me," I said to Jim.

"Yeah, I know. Sorta' sad really," he replied.

And yet this is far more often the norm than not.

But it comes at a very high price years later.

In recent research, people who spent two or more hours a day in front of a computer or television had twice the risk of heart attack or other cardiac event and those who spent four hours a day, enjoyed a 50% greater risk of dying of any cause.

Seriously.

Sitting can kill you.

And exercising your butt off three days a week on a treadmill or elliptical apparently doesn't help much.

So what to do?

Break up your sitting with activity. Some suggestions:

• Use a timer. Set the timer for 45 minutes and place it across the room. When it goes off, get up, walk over, reset it, do some light stretching or movement or walk for 2 minutes then hit the timer and go back to work.
• Use a Gymboss interval timer. A more sophisticated version of the first option but this tool allows you to set the work/rest interval and the number of total intervals.
• Use a computer based timer. I have Chimoo.
• Use software that makes you makes take a break. Very cool idea.
• Get a walking work station. I haven't tried this but it makes a lot of sense if you can find room for it.

Bottom line, move it or, literally, lose it.

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PS - my new project is very close to launch day. I'll be announcing it soon so look for it here in The View!

 

New to the View? Consider subscribing to my RSS feed: Subscribe to this blog's feed. Or sign up to get email updates in the box at the top right hand corner of my blog and then share this blog with your friends.

Do you have a copy of my book, "The Little Book of Sparks"? You can order it here.

Are you battling Runner's Knee? Get the only book, with videos, written on the subject, here.

 Photo: catspjamas, photobucket

 

A Year Ago on The View

Here's what was happening last November. Oldies but goodies.

Walk This Way - Again

An Unusual Way to Improve Your Balance

Grateful This Thanksgiving

The Key to Burning Fat Over the Holidays

Six Things to Do for a Crick in the Neck

Update on Partial Knee Replacement

What We Can Learn from the Love Lab About Injuries - Part II

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New to the View? Consider subscribing to my RSS feed: Subscribe to this blog's feed. Or sign up to get email updates in the box at the top right hand corner of my blog and then share this blog with your friends.

Do you have a copy of my book, "The Little Book of Sparks"? You can order it here.

Are you battling Runner's Knee? Get the only book with videos written on the subject, here.

 

Runner's Knee Bible - link issue

One of our readers, Ken, was kind of enough to point out that the link at the bottom of the last post, which was supposed to take you to a page with more information and how to order The Runner's Knee Bible, didn't work.

I've fixed it. So for anyone one else who ran into that problem, please try it again.

You can also get to the info/order page by clicking on the image of the book on the left hand side of the page.

And the discount code, view1000, is still valid until November 7, 2010.

Thanks Ken for letting me know.

DK

The Runner's Knee Bible Is Here!

"Hi, I'm trying to determine if your site is scam or not. You talk about runners knee a lot, but you give almost no practical details at all what to do. You talk around it a lot, but nothing actionable. Yet you aren't even selling anything on runners knee which makes it a poor scam.

Do you have a specific set of things that can be done for runners knee?"

Greg

 

Yes, I do have something specific for Runner's Knee and here it is.

The solutions for Runner's Knee just can't be covered in one or two posts. My original goal with this site was to educate; raise awareness but after receiving countless emails and comments, similar to yours Greg, I decided to write a book.

The Runner's Knee Bible.

This is NOT a physical, hard cover book. This is a download, electronic book. I did that on purpose. Embedded in this expansive and detailed look at Runner's Knee are over 100 photos and 40 videos - both specific tests to perform along with explanations and demonstrations of specific exercises. You're getting it all in this book, including some of my most recent and advanced techniques, and at $69.95, it's a fraction of what one visit with me would cost.

And, I've included extras. Stumbling Blocks, a bonus book, is a summary of the most common barriers people encounter when trying to overcome Runner's Knee and my suggestions at getting past those barriers. A Test Score Sheet, and Training Logs are also included to make the whole process ready to go. I walk you through the whole thing; help you figure out where you should start, what drills to do, how to do them, how to progress them, and when you start running again, a specific program to follow.

There are at least 36 million people running regularly in the United States with almost 10 million logging over 100 days per year.¹ A lot of these folks get hurt. In fact, 65% of all runners have to stop running because of injury and the number one reason is knee pain - Runner’s Knee.²

Oh, and by the way, do you know how many books on Runner's Knee you can get from Amazon? None. For over 23 million people who want to run and can't because of knee pain from Runner's Knee, there's not one book available to help them.

Until now.

For more details and how to order, click here. As a reader of The View, you can get $10 off the retail price for the next seven days (this ends November 7, 2010). Use the discount code view1000 at check out.

 

1. Sports Data. American Sports Data 2003 Superstudy of Sports Participation. Volume 1. Cortlandt Manor, NY American Sports Data; 2003.

2. Lysholm J, Wiklander J. Injuries in runners. Am J Sports Med. 1987;15(2):168-71. 3. Source: Steadman-Hawkins Clinic, Vail, Colorado

We Walk Less; Spend More on Drugs

According to a study published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Americans take fewer steps per day than people in Switzerland, Australia, and Japan. We barely broke the sedentary mark of 5000 steps per day at 5117.

Australia and Switzerland were both over 9000 per day and Japan over 7000 steps per day.

Lifestyle is a center of the issue. Where we live/work, the kind of work we do, what we do when we get home all feeds into the sedentary lifestyle that is America. And, the detrimental effects of this lifestyle are not revealed for many years. Most people gain weight slowly, year by year until one day, at the age of 60, they realize they're 30-40 lbs too heavy. And by then, you have a lot of work to do.

In a different but related article in the NY Times, our use of prescription drugs has more than doubled in the last ten years in terms of expenditures. And for people older than 60, about 33 percent were taking five drugs.

What to do?

To start with, walk. But obviously if it was that simple more people would be doing it. Pedometers help some people; people who are motivated by data. Here's the pedometer I've used. It can slide into a pocket out of sight and it's quite accurate. Wear it for a few days and see what you actually take in steps per day. Then, set a goal for increasing your step count 10%. Eventually you'll start moving things around in your life to make room for a walk in the morning or evening or maybe over lunch.

Walking won't make you fit by itself but it helps. It can lower your blood pressure, help control weight, and even your cholesterol.

Oh, and make sure you try to increase your speed while you'e at it. People who walk slowly have a 44% increased risk of dying of cardiovascular disease (read more here)

Walk on.

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I had high hopes for releasing The Runner's Knee Bible today. But, we had a few technical issues pop-up and I've had to post-pone it - likely later this week. Sorry to those of you who called or emailed and were told it would be today. I'm researching / . writing a article on patience right now - seems I need to take my own advice. :-)

 

Where Did Your Writing Go?

"Are you still blogging?" asked my friend Ross.

"Yeah. Why?" I replied.

"Haven't seen much from you lately and just wondered what was going on," he said.

************************

That conversation is one of several that I've had recently. "What has happened to all of your writing?"

A couple of things.

Every writer has a "muse" - a source of inspiration; a well from which words spring. Some writers think of this in a physical sense - a person, place, etc. In the movie, "The Muse", Albert Brooks plays a screen writer who loses his mojo and ends up hiring Sharon Stone to be his muse because she somehow magically reignites his writing.

Well, I lost my muses: honesty and walking.

I have been as honest as I can be with my writing on this blog but there's a limit to my transparency. I went through a very stressful period in the fall of 2009. I kept writing - sort of - but I couldn't write about what I really wanted to write about because, well, it was just too personal (and no, it had nothing to do with my marriage or my dogs or my own health - it was business relate). I know some people who just are totally transparent in their writing. I guess I'm semi-transparent then.  So, I kept quiet. For a writer, this is one of the worst things. Yeah, I journaled about it. But, INFPs aren't satisfied with thoughts and ideas that stay private. They have a strong desire to see their ideas used by others. That's why I got into this to begin with. So, by not sharing what I went through and what I learned, I completely shut off one of the sources of inspiration.

Walking became a big part of my life when I was recovering from a spine injury. I would walk with my dogs nearly every day. I looked forward to it and I'm sure they did too. And during this time, I would have all sorts of things pop into my head. I learned to take a notebook and then later my iPhone to catch the thoughts before they faded. Many of these fragmented ideas turned into posts.

Well, when I injured my knee, I couldn't walk that much. I tried but it generally made my knee worse. So, walking slowly left my routine.

And with it, so did a bunch of ideas.

Then, came the book.

Only my staff, Ellen and a few close friends know about the book.

For several years, people have emailed me, some nicely and some not so nicely, asking why I didn't provide more details on one subject in particular: Runners Knee. I had emails like these:

"What exercises should I do? How do I fix this? I've tried everything and what you're saying makes complete sense! Please tell me more!"

"This is so frustrating! You tell me exactly what is wrong but not how to fix it!"

"Is this just a scam to get me into your clinic? It doesn't seem like a scam but there's nothing here to buy!"

So, I wrote a book that explains how I help people solve the vexing problem of Runners Knee. It's called The Runners Knee Bible.

It took me several months to do it. It's over 200 pages, over 100 images, and about 40 videos of tests and drills. It was quite a project. So, a lot of my energy and time went into the book while also overseeing a clinic and then one other thing which I'll tell you about in a minute. The book is now in editing and will come out as a down-loadable product fairly soon. There's no other resource like it, at least that I know of, and I think the public and maybe even some clinicians will get a lot of help from it.

The other thing that happened was that I started another business.

No, I don't have ADD. It probably seems that way. But, as my wife has gently pointed out, I like to do a lot of stuff. I have a lot of ideas and, as I said, unless these ideas end up being used, I'm not satisfied. Even if the ideas suck. I've had plenty of those too. We have to at least try them out.

And all of this was going on while I was healing a banged up body (shoulder and knee) which ate into my day. As many of you know, rehab is time intensive. I'm not 100 percent, as I recently discovered, but am a lot better. None the less, there are only so many hours in a day. And injuries can siphon off energy in the form of worry; future projections. I did that - still do. I would spend too much time being concerned about the "what ifs" instead of doing my rehab, being focused and moving on.

Now, my new endeavor is taking up a lot of my time. Building a website. Getting the name right. Putting all the various processes together. Trying, experimenting, failing, starting over. Did I mention starting over? I really like what I'm doing and my clients seem to like it as well. But, to really explain it, this post will get a little too long and start off an entirely new set of subjects so I'll save that for another day - likely my next post.

That's what has happened to me and my writing.

I'm walking a little more now and then as my knee has turned the corner. Spencer and Kobe are happy about that. A few ideas floating around. It's as if the movement of my legs turn the wheels of imagination. Oh, and Abby, well, she's fine lying around the house.

So, while my frequency may be less, I am still writing stuff. Some here in The View and some yet to be published on another project whose name we shall not yet mention :-)

Look for The Runners Knee Bible to launch soon. You'll hear about it here for sure.

I'm going for a walk.

 

 

If the Shoe Fits, Will it Make You Fit?

There are "innovators", "early adopters", "early majority, "late majority" and "laggards" when it comes to trying or buying new things. It's called the "innovation curve".  I'm on the "innovator" to "early adopter" side of the curve. One of those guys that buys new stuff just to try it out; curiosity more than anything (besides, who wants to be known as a "laggard"?

So, a few years ago, I bought a pair of MBT sandals, Chung Shi shoes, and Spira shoes. Oh, and I bought a pair of Kangoos too.

To be fair to the folks I bought them from, no one told me I would become fitter by wearing these shoes (I think they were just happy to see me drop in every couple of weeks).

That's not what Reebok would like you to think though.

They have come out with a shoe that they claim makes you fitter as you walk.

The EasyTone.

Really?

No. Sorry. The science behind this says otherwise. The shoe alone has no additional benefit other than perhaps convincing you to walk more than you would otherwise because you think that doing so will give you legs and a butt to die for.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin studied three shoes: MBT, EasyTone, and Sketchers' ShapeUps (you know, the ones Joe Montana wears in the ads). They looked at muscle activation among these shoes and regular running shoes and concluded:

"All three toning shoes tested showed no statistically significant increases in either exercise response or muscle activation during the treadmill trials, when compared to the normal athletic shoes tested.  There was simply no evidence to indicate that the toning shoes offer any enhanced fitness benefits over traditional sneakers, despite studies cited by manufacturers seemingly “proving” the toning shoes’ effectiveness."

Ok, so if the shoes don't make you any fitter, why buy them?

Like I said, I buy a lot of stuff just to try it out; see what works, how I can use it, etc. Here's why I bought some of these shoes:

1. I have multiple joint (ankle, knee, spine) degenerative joint disease; couple of Schmorl's Nodes in my thoracic spine. So, reducing impact load for things like jogging makes sense. Thus, the Spiras and Kangoos.
2. The MBT sandals are just about the most comfortable sandal type shoe I've worn. And again, the reduction in impact is nice on the joints so if I know I'm going to be standing around for quite  a while, I'm apt to wear them.
   
3. The Chung Shi shoes force you to walk into the "fall line". They have a ridge across the bottom of the shoe which tends to rock you forward. This will naturally make you walk faster. And, they're also comfortable.
4. Spira shoes also reduce impact load. Their claim to fame was getting banned by the United States Association of Track and Field because the USATF thought the shoe would provide an unfair advantage due to the springs in the shoe.
   
5. The Kangoos reduce the impact of running by about 50%. So, for me, especially after a meniscus tear that hasn't completely healed, reducing impact load makes a of of sense. Yes, they tend to attract a lot of attention. One guy walked up to me and hollered, "Do those things really work?" I wondered what he meant. Work for what? I just said "Yeah" and kept running.

Bottom line, you get fit by stressing your body and for some people buying one or more of these shoes will do that simply because they'll be more active in the shoe than otherwise. But, the shoes alone aren't as magical as their marketing.

Supplements for Women - Do Multivitamins Really Work?

It's a lot easier to pop a pill than it is to plan and prepare well balanced meals and for a long time, I think everyone believed that a multivitamin was a good backup plan for diets that were, well, less than balanced.

But in this report from Harvard Medical School, we might have to reconsider the pill-popping strategy at least for some vitamins.

Check out the article here.

Looks like the best choice is to eat nutrient dense foods (a list is in the article from Harvard) and supplements for Vitamin D and Calcium. Good things to talk over with your family doctor.

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Latest on my knee recovery is here.