THE MIRACLE OF SQUATTING

THE SQUAT

Today I am going to cover the king of exercises the Squat. It is an exercise which will benefit us for a full life time; more so as we become old. For those of us who watched the last Olympics one of the best memories for Indians was provided by the wrestler Sushil Kumar. His powerful build with strong shoulders and tree trunk legs left one truly impressed. To those of us who visit an old style Indian gym the “AKHARA” the visualization is that of young budding wrestlers squatting (Uthak Baithak) or doing a push up variation (the dand or Hindu push up).  

It is said the Gama the legendary wrestler used to squat over 4000 times a day. He used to squat for 3-4 hours a day to develop phenomenal endurance and lower body strength.

Today every sportsman acknowledges that the squat is the most important component of his strength building training routines. Even sportsman who look slim and are involved in high mobility sports like tennis often squat close to 300 pounds.

Have you ever seen a child squat? He makes it look so natural. When did we lose that ability.?

See the basic villager wait for a train at the platform. She is squatting on her haunches.

So what are the benefits of squatting? Let me enumerate them.

Squatting tones up the leg muscles. The Squat exercises all our leg muscles which include our quads and hamstrings.

Squat exercises tones up the butt muscles. We also engage our ass when squatting. When done regularly, you’ll notice that your butt will become firmer and tighter than what it used to be. In old age this muscle is the most important as it enables us to rise from a chair or bed without help.

Squatting develops the abdominals, too. Squatting help develop the six pack. The abs contract when you engage your core to do squats.

Squatting exercise helps burn more fats. We develop muscles and muscles burn more fats.  

Squatting exercise improves day to day activities.  

Squatting exercise promotes strong bones, joints and muscles. 

Squats help prevent injury by improving your flexibility  and balance in old age.

Squats develop sexy asses.

Why Squat for Strength?

I’ll put it simply: physical strength is your best defense against illness, injury, and — ultimately — death. Furthermore, squat based strength training seems to accomplish most of our appearance based goals in addition to improving our physical health. Women tend to get lean and toned while squatting for strength. Men develop sculpted, natural muscles. Whether you’re looking to perform like an elite athlete, handle the stresses of challenging work, or simply “get healthy” … squatting will get you there.

There is no doubt that squats are one of the most beneficial exercises that you can perform. A proper squat can hit almost every muscle in the body. It’s a favored exercise whether you’re looking to increase muscle mass or burn fat – or indeed both. Recruiting so many muscles means the squat has a much more significant calorie burning effect than almost any other resistance training exercise. It can massively increase lower body and core strength, as well as improving the upper body tone too. Importantly, it’s also an exercise that   can be performed without any equipment at all.

Never do a partial squat. If you want good knees squat as deep as you can, without losing form and that’s the key. Don’t worry too much about the load that you’re squatting. Straight away, one of the benefits you’ll notice in performing deeper squats is the dramatic increase on the recruitment of the glute and hamstring muscles. These muscle groups simply don’t receive a proper workout when performing partial squats. You have to go deep.   As you find your balance and get used to the movement of deep squatting you’ll soon be able to start increasing the resistance as well, making your muscles work a lot harder. 

The Concept of Quick and Short : High Intensity Interval Training

The Concept of Quick and Short : High Intensity Interval Training

While he is now disgraced there are a lot of lessons to be learnt from Lance Armstrong’s life. All said and done he is a cancer survivor who has been through a lot. While he won with using performance enhancing drugs one must not forget that everyone was on performance enhancing drugs on the tour those days.

One of the things one should not copy from Lance’s life is consumption of drugs and lying. However, there is a lot to learn from his method of training. One of these is the concept of high intensity training. It was through ruthless high intensity interval training that Lance rode his opponents into the dust.

Most of us give an excuse that they do not exercise because they are pressed for time.  It is a stale excuse; in most cases I am sure they spend more time in front of the TV or on social media internet. However, there are some amongst us who are actually pressed for time. High intensity interval training is a concept by which none of us can ever give time as an excuse. In addition I am convinced that it is superior to spending long hours exercising at lower intensity.

The whole concept of High Intensity Training is to spend about 5 to 6 minutes exercising at highest intensity or close to highest intensity. Remember a Lion or a Cheetah or a Deer does not sprint for more than 5 to 6 minutes a week. They only do this while hunting prey or escaping from the predator.  The rest of the time they just amble about or rest.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) Experts advice is to spend twenty minutes a day which consists of 15 seconds of all out effort followed by 10 seconds to 2 minutes of relaxed effort. Initially 15 seconds all out effort will need 2 minutes of very relaxed effort like walking. As you grow fitter this period of relaxed effort to regain breath and energy can be reduced. An initial routine for a beginner would be 8 sets of 15 sec sprints followed by 2 minutes of recovery.

 HOW IT WORKS :  Researchers have studied high-intensity training extensively, and the basic premise is that such efforts lead to many of the same physiological adaptations achieved in traditional endurance-training models. In fact, a 2005 study found that high-intensity interval training doubled an athlete's time to exhaustion This is appealing to time-crunched athletes because the efforts required are as much as five times shorter than traditional training.

Researchers   examining the effectiveness of short, high-intensity intervals for improving aerobic performance have also shown an increase in the maximum amount of oxygen a muscle can utilize.  Simply speaking it means your cardio-vascular system fitness will improve faster through HIIT.

Weight Training through its concept of repetitions and sets is an ideal form of high intensity training. The catch is you should use progressively increasing loads and also do such exercises which exercise the large muscles of the body. Also the breaks between sets should never be more than 2 minutes.  I have often seen people in gyms arm curling a two pound weight ten times for months on end and then giving up saying that their bodies do not respond to exercise.

Remember the body responds positively only when it is overloaded for short periods to failure and then given adequate time to rest and recoup from this stress.  

We still don’t really know the minimum amount of exercise required to induce significant health and fitness benefits. But a recent study has cut down the exercise time even further, showing that just six ten-second all-out sprints, spread throughout a week can improve aerobic fitness and blood-sugar control.

Evidence states that the HIIT approach to exercise can substantially improve aerobic fitness while providing a range of positive health outcomes, including better blood-sugar control, blood pressure and blood vessel function in a range of conditions such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and heart disease.

Refs:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2255867/Is-minutes-week-exercise-need-fit-Scientists-say-ideal-fitness-regime-involves-intense-bursts-activity.html

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2012/11/fast-and-furious-intensity-is-the-key-to-health-and-fitness/

The Approach to Fitness

The Approach to Fitness

Your lifestyle choices in middle age have a direct impact on how you'll spend your latter years. If you're fit at 50, you're much more likely to be healthy into your 70s and 80s. My mother who was always fit and strong in her early years went on to win the national shot put, discus and javelin in the over 70 age category. Mid life fitness is a recipe for a happy old age. Chronic diseases, like diabetes, cancer and heart disease will get delayed unless you are genetically predisposed. You reap what you sow when it comes to your diet and exercise patterns.

You will notice that your friends  been the least fit in their 40s and 50s developed the most chronic conditions early in the aging process. Physically fit people have a lower risk of dying than those who are unfit.  It makes a difference in your quality of life. If you want to spend more of your retired life on golf courses or holidaying rather than in hospital rooms it is time to start working out.

I am not saying you will live forever; but focus on fitness and diet will ensure that you will not die as a bedridden burden to your family. I have seen so many cases of people who stopped exercising post retirement and suddenly degenerated in their old age. Remember exercise reduces inflammation, improves your strength, and protects your brain as you age. Reduced inflammation prevents degenerative changes in our joints. People who exercise are generally mentally sharper. I have seen in the case of my father how his mental faculties slowly degraded after he stopped exercise about 10 years back. It saddens and that is putting it mildly.

As you age, your resting metabolic rate tends to decline; this slowly raises body fat. The only way to speed up the metabolic rate is by putting on muscle mass. Good nutrition and optimal exercise help counter these biological tendencies. Exercising readies your body for increased muscle strength and fat burning.

If you think you need to spend an hour pounding the treadmill or roads every day in order to be fit, then you'll be pleased to learn this is an outdated myth.  The body as we grow older needs strength unless you are planning for a marathon or some endurance event. Simple strength building gives ample scope of improving endurance. The cardio or aerobic fitness will come if you do exercises which make you breathless for very short periods. In nature remember no animal goes for long jogs or attempts to run marathons. Life for them consists of slow movement for foraging or rapid sprints to avoid getting killed or rapid sprints to catch a kill. It is either roam about relaxed or do a high power short time activity. The same rule applies to us as humans. Every game we played as a child consisted of brief periods of intense activity followed by slower periods whether it be football or tennis. Short intense exercise followed by periods of recovery are what nature intended us to do. High power activity is also what animals do when they actually move. That is what builds strength, power and endurance.  Basically what I am talking about is high intensity short duration training.

Finally don't underestimate the importance of proper nutrition and lots of rest as crucial elements in achieving your fitness goals.

Certain Tips to Achieving Your Fitness Goals.

Try to get breathless at least 5 times during an exercise session. Follow each such occasion  with atleast 2 minutes of light exercise.

Set a mix of very short goals each time you exercise. Do not worry about the long term picture. Limit goals to the current exercise session. Deadlines can be motivating. But they can also be incredibly de-motivating if you repeatedly fail to hit them. As you focus on the right things each session the rest will take care of itself.

It’s tempting to think that you need to wait until you “know it all” before getting started. All that happens is that you get bogged down in the planning stage and never reach the point where you actually do anything. The best method is to start and then evolve your approach along the way.

Focus on strength building your cardio will take care of itself. The strength building should be based on squats, deadlift, bench presses, barbell rows and presses. More on that in my next blog.

Stick to roughly the same exercise pattern for at least 12 weeks to see results. Make it slightly tougher each session.

THE MENTAL EDGE

The Mental Edge

One cannot deny one basic fact; you are as fit as your mind and will.  I have always known that when I was down, it was because I was allowing myself to be down and when I was happy it was because I was responding to something that made me happy.  It has always been easier to be happy than to be sad or troubled.  I think that’s true for all of us.

 We have to think very hard about what true happiness should mean because we have grown so accustomed to a luxury based way of thinking that it has created an unrealistic false lifestyle.  But this is how we live and this is what we know.   The only world we can run to for answers is our own mind. Even here we have lost sight of the power of this complex organ.  We need to master our state of mind.

In reality, whatever problems we experience, come from the state of the mind.  We each choose to respond to every situation in the manner we choose to.  This can be a negative or a positive response.  If we were to respond to difficult situations with a positive mindset, they would not be problems for us, instead, we may even come to regard them as opportunities for growth and development.  Problems, on the other hand, arise when we respond to situations or difficulties in a negative state of mind. Everything starts in the mind.  Everything ends in the mind.  
In the matter of health and fitness, this struggle is what I find separates those that succeed from those that withdraw.  It is so easy to stay in the same ways we’ve known for so long.  Open the bag, reach in, stuff it in your mouth, taste the snack, do it all over again.  In fact, do it until you can’t eat any more.  This is a mindset, a habit and an addiction and that’s why it’s so hard to break out of it and easy to stay in it.
How hard is it to change your lifestyle in the area of health and fitness?  It has become one of the most, if not the most, challenging area to control in our lives.  The choices we have been making year by year have added up to rising health issues. 

Changing my eating and fitness habits is the most challenging thing I have ever had to do.  Because of that, it has made me gain some of the most rewarding of all rewards I have received in my life.  I had many setbacks in my journey of getting fit in my middle age.  It was hard to get in the gym with all the other people who were more experienced and looked better. It was hard to experience plateaus and have to fight with my patience but I never let myself quit.  That was the difference this time from any other time I had tried to get fit but failed.  I realized at this time that my mind had grown and strengthened, significantly.  I was able to do the thing I wouldn’t have been able to do a year before.  I did this by deciding to change and by taking it step by step.

When we are unhappy with one facet of our life, it usually spills onto other facets, creating a spiraling effect of unhappiness and negativity.  Sometimes things are out of our control, but the one thing that is in our control is the power to change our health, our bodies and most importantly, our mind.

How does one gain control of the mind.  I believe there is a time for each of us when this can happen. Some through their ambition and drive and some like me when you hit rock bottom or someone else inspires you.  For me, it started when my damaged knee started showing signs of arthritis and my so far healthy blood tests suddenly began to show mild onset of high morning sugars. I could have lamented my fate, given up and I would have withered quickly.  This is when I decided to turn things around. I decided to move forward; I said to myself this is it you either jump into the bottomless pit or you begin to climb out of this hole.

"No one saves us but one ourselves. No can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." – Buddha

My body, health and mind strengthened slowly but surely.

The first thing I did was start to get stubborn. I said I will not set long term goals or aim for perfection I will only aim for progress. Next thing was to develop an attitude that began to challenge anybody who said I cannot do it. As the Nike ad says “Just do it”

The worst that could happen was that I would fail. As the famous saying goes you miss every shot which you did not try. One can only learn from one’s mistakes. One of the attitudes I find in all happy people is that they have understood that a life/time spent in negative emotion is life lost. I would rather live healthy and happy than die sick and old. Once you realize this strength comes from the mind becoming indomitable. An indomitable mind and will can drive you to physical exertion and build great strength and endurance. Energy and persistence will prevail finally.

It is this sort of conditioning of the mind that can drive one to happiness and fitness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFLKxAqE5fA

Courtesy  nmnathletics.com