men’s fitness – Memphis Flyer

Greg Cravens

About Jackson Baker’s Politics column, “Is Terry Roland a Bully?” …

There’s a certain mental framework that comes from growing up watching too much wrestling on television. Maybe that’s Roland’s issue here. Ritual exaggerated violence for entertainment encourages a certain bombast and swagger that substitutes for developing the subtler skills of rhetorical debate more commonly expected from politicians.

Physical violence is beyond the pale. If you are expecting mealy-mouthed political correctness from Roland or a number of our other local representatives, you will be waiting a long time. That’s what their supporters and constituents want and expect. Maybe Willie Herenton had it right: It’s all bullshit.

Thoughtful

About Eileen Townsend’s cover story, “A Night at the Ditch” …

I currently live just outside of Austin, Texas, but I grew up going to the races at Riverside Speedway. Your article was very well-written and really touched my heart. My mother tells me that the first time she ever felt me move in the womb was at Riverside. I now work as a PA announcer in Texas with a travelling sprint car series and edit racing videos for a streaming service called Race on Texas.

Thank you for a touching look through an outsider’s eyes. I hope you enjoyed your evening at the races. You should go again sometime!

Nick Robbins

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter From the Editor, “Orange is the New Black” …

“There are 300 million genies out of the bottle in America. Thanks to the NRA and their friends in our government, guns are everywhere and easy to get. No legislation can make a dent in that number in our lifetimes.”

This is a discouraging point of view and basically a summation of my own thoughts. The full picture is even more discouraging. The Second Amendment is our country’s fundamental design flaw. The NRA and gun culture as a whole are symptoms, not the disease. We can’t even pass sensible legislation on firearms in the United States or make serious efforts to reduce or eliminate the number of firearms in circulation because of that damned Second Amendment.

This is what we’re stuck with in the absence of massive systemic change — change that no one is truly pushing seriously. While I’ll never actively discourage someone from taking steps to try to reduce gun violence, I believe the fight is ultimately hopeless. I hate that it is.

Jersyko

You wear orange, and the soulless gang kids say, “Oh, gee, we gotta quit the endless cycle of violence.” Sure. Or, you wear orange and create a consciousness that we need to have some form of re-education for young men considered likely to shoot/get shot. That would be great. Am I missing a step here?

Danzo

About Mark Akin’s column, “Tackling Time” …

Muscle mass, endurance, and agility can all be addressed via an ancient exercise program known as the martial arts. I could never motivate myself enough to engage in mindless exercise like running, bicycling, or whatever for the simple goal of physical fitness. Karate has the added benefits of mental challenge and social interaction that are equally important to good health.

Some people think karate is for the young, but with a good instructor who can tailor his or her program to the physical abilities of every student, karate has tremendous benefits that you just can’t get working out in a gym. Toss in self-defense training, and you’ve got yourself a pretty well-rounded health regimen.

Jeff

About Toby Sells’ post, “West Memphis Plans for Big River Crossing” …

That land across the street from the entrance in West Memphis is vacant. Put stores, restaurants — something that will garner an interest when they get to West Memphis! Other cities have grown. It’s time West Memphis does the same.

Lucia Johnson

Re-open the Plantation Inn, have Willie Mitchell’s band play regular gigs, and consistently serve underage drinkers.

Packrat

About a year ago, after I turned 46, I began feeling a pain in my left calf. At first, it bothered me only at night, but the pain began to increase in frequency and intensity.

One Saturday morning, as I was leading a group of clients out for a run, my left leg gave out completely. I stumbled a little, only to have its use immediately return. I was shaken up enough to finally surrender my ego and pay a visit to a chiropractor. The X-rays they showed me that day were a bit startling. It was obvious that my spine was a mess, and that mess was starting to affect my mobility. I have been hard on my body over the years, and until my leg started giving out, I’d been training as if I were still 25. But a non-functioning leg and some cringe-worthy X-rays were proof: I was getting older.

Obviously, as we age, our bodies change, but that doesn’t mean that we should spend life after 40 plodding along doing steady-state cardio (jogging, cycling, etc.), never pushing ourselves to perform at a higher athletic level.

That said, getting older comes with some realities, so we want to make sure that as we push ourselves to be more athletic, we do it safely. Three components of fitness that decline as we age are strength, endurance, and agility. With just a little bit of focused effort, we can keep those areas sharper for decades.

STRENGTH: As we age, our muscle mass decreases. This is called sarcopenia. Living a sedentary lifestyle can cause us to lose up to 10 ounces of skeletal muscle a year. Some studies show that we can lose up to 30 percent of our muscle mass between the ages of 50 and 70.

Lifting weights is beneficial for a number of reasons. The muscle fibers needed to generate enough force to lift something heavy degenerate more rapidly than the ones used for slow, steady endurance work. So even if we jog 25 miles a week, we still may have muscles that are atrophying.

The good news is that age-induced sarcopenia is reversible. Just hit the weights. If you aren’t sure how to get started, do a little research on your own, hire a trainer, or join a group class.

Lastly, don’t worry about “getting big” (I hear this frequently used as an excuse to not lift). Two days a week of intentional weightlifting is not enough to get you looking like Arnold.

Monkey Business Images | Dreamstime.com

ENDURANCE: Endurance training is simply engaging in any exercise that stresses our joints and muscles over a period of time and requires aerobic effort as opposed to anaerobic. This means endurance work requires a steady supply of oxygen to keep our body performing the way we want it to. The maximum rate your body can get oxygen into your blood and deliver it to your muscles so they can contract (work) is known as your max vO2.

Our max vO2 determines our stamina and can decrease by as much as 10 percent per decade. Obviously this decrease can have profound effects on our endurance levels. The irony is that just increasing our cardio activity isn’t enough to increase our max vO2. We need to mix our training up to increase our endurance. Don’t hesitate to lift weights and then hit the treadmill or track on the same day. Taxing our bodies aerobically and anaerobically in the same workout will lead to faster gains in endurance and stamina.

AGILITY: Agility is the ability to stop, speed up, or change direction without losing control of our body. This section is also about core strength, as our core is what keeps the rest of our body from tumbling over when our feet suddenly have to stop moving. Life is full of potential stumbling hazards like slippery floors, cracks in the sidewalk, and steps we might not have noticed were there. By strengthening our core through exercises like push-ups, planks, and almost any correctly performed weight-lifting exercise, we will reduce our chances of face planting.

Sometimes just stopping in our tracks isn’t enough though. We may need to suddenly leap over a puddle or maybe change direction quickly to avoid stepping on something. Our ability to move our feet quickly while maintaining control over our hips and torso can be improved by incorporating directional change drills into our training. “Directional change drills” is just a fancy way of saying go one way quickly and then change direction without losing time or falling down. Agility ladders are a fantastic way to become more agile. They are also inexpensive and easy to store.

Mark Akin is a personal trainer and co-owner of Envision Fitness. Contact him at Mark@envisionmemphis.com