Active-Isolated Stretching: Better than you might think

The Whartons' Stretch Book

You've been stretching all wrong. That is, if you've been stretching at all. And stretching's not just for old guys, either. The more flexible you can be at any age, the less often you'll be injured. You'll play better, run faster, sleep sounder, and sit more comfortably, all thanks to active-isolated stretching (AIS).

Who Benefits?

Most anyone, really. My brother runs marathons. These stretching exercises do wonders for his legs before a run, and especially if he does them again after a run.

My dad, in his mid-fifties, performs physical labor on his feet all day. Just this week he began AIS in the mornings, and it has been a stark difference of increased energy and feel-goodness for him throughout the day. Now, instead of slugging out the end of the day, he feels like he could work longer if need be.

Me, I recently trained for an ultimate (frisbee) tournament (seven games in two days), and the key part of my training program were these stretches. I did the upper and lower leg stretches, and sometimes the feet. Yep, the feet. Ankles, down to the toes. Compared to last years tournament (only six games), this year I felt some stiffness and sluggishness by the beginning of the end game, but not the rigor mortis stiffness in my legs by last years final game. This year, by the time the last game was over I was ready to play more.

Sleeping Restless?

As people get older, the authors note, they become less active. So when bedtime comes, they may be mentally ready for sleep, but physically they have not had enough activity to be fully ready for sleep. So a tossing and turning throughout the night often ensues. Performing these exercises in bed before sleep can be light enough exercise to prepare the body for rest without being overly stimulating so as to make getting to sleep difficult.

Active Means Active

These are not the static, reach-and-touch-your-toes for thirty seconds kinds of stretching. But it isn't so active as aerobics, either. As for activity level, it's on par with some of the milder exercises of a pilates or yoga routine. When I first began doing these exercises, being a bit inactive in the months preceeding, I would work up a light sweat. But, that's a good thing. As noted by the authors, warming up before stretching is a misnomer. Stretching is the warm up. At least when you do the active isolated kind.

Why It Works

Each exercise focuses on stretching one muscle area by contracting the muscles that work in the opposite direction. This contracting of the opposing muscle, allows the muscle we want to stretch to relax, and therefore stretch it without forcing it to do so. Example: I flex my quads (thighs), and the hamstrings (back of thighs) relax.

Each exercise is performed in reps of 10, and held for 2 seconds each rep. The 2 seconds allows for a healthy stretching of the muscle before the stretched muscle kicks in it's natural protective response to contract, at which point further holding of the stretch would just fight against the muscle we are trying to stretch, and that's not so effective.

Sample Stretch

The book has easy to follow illustrations, as well as written instruction. But following are my own words on how to do one of the exercises:

Lie on your back, both legs bent so your feet rest on the floor. Lift one leg so it is in the air, but bent at a 90 degree angle, your lower leg parallel to the floor. Your upper leg will be perpendicular to the floor. Now extend your lower your leg upward, bending at the knee until your whole leg is straight. Depending on your flexibility, you may not be able to raise your leg fully upright, or you may be able to extend your leg past upright as you stretch it in the direction of your head. Hold for 2 seconds, then return your lower leg to be parallel with the floor, keeping your upper leg perpendicular to the floor (your leg bent at the knee, forming a right angle). Repeat 10 times.

Rope and Variations

The authors do suggest the use of a rope (see cover) to lightly assist with some of the stretches, but it is possible to do them with out it. I do the exercises both ways, with and without the rope. It's a little faster without it (not having to re-secure the rope on my foot for each exercise), and sometimes I just don't have the rope with me. A thicker rope is better, as it's easier to hold. Try a rope approximately 1/2" to 1" in diameter.

If you're not so flexible, you can vary the form of stretches to make them easier. For example, one of the quad (thigh) stretches asks you to hold one foot forward, while bringing the other foot backward as you lie on your side (if that isn't clear, it will be when you see the illustration and read the books description). If that's too hard, just don't hold the one foot forward, and the exercise becomes easier.

Disclaimer: Before beginning any exercise program, talk to your doctor, yada yada. There, I'm legally safe. But if you ask me, if you don't have a broken bone, or a torn ligament, AIS is as safe for anyone as is walking up the stairs. And perhaps safer because when you're done with the routine, your looser and stronger, and more prepared to do what you gotta do.

The Whartons' Stretch Book

Arches National Park, and parts round about

This weekend we went to Moab, visiting my brother and his family who live there.

We hiked, talked late into the night, saw beautiful country, and had a good time. I had forgotten my wide angle lens at home, and so I had to make do with my 70-200 (on a camera with a 1.6x sensor, if you now what that means). Not having a wider angle lens worked out better than I thought it would, and in a way, was better, at least for the above panoramic shot and similar ones I took. Otherwise, I likely would have focused on shooting stuff that was closer, and missed these panoramic opportunities.

Hiking outside Arches National Park

The panoramic at top is in Arches National Park, 10-15 minutes from my brother's house. It's a four shot panoramic of the ancient sand dunes there. I'll soon be making a polished final image, as well as of some others I took from the same vantage point. For now, you may see the large version (width: over 10,000 pixels) of the top image by clicking on it.

Hiking outside Arches National Park

Bouldering in Arches National Park

Double Happiness

That's what this weekend was. Yes, you astute ultimate players will have recognized the title of this post means a defensive knockdown, back to back with running to the goal and receiving a pass for a score. But that is not the double happiness I speak of. But my weekend of double happiness does include ultimate. I went to the Trouble in Vegas tournament, otherwise known as "The best and worst idea ever." Three days of frisbee, back to back to back. Our team, not one's to play on Sunday, played only on Friday and Saturday. A total of seven games. Great and glorious fun.

The second part of double happiness was eating at In-N-Out Burger. 'Nuff said.

Moving

It's the pits. Especially when you don't have a place to move into just yet. Finished school, so we're moving to be near family, but for now we're staying with family, until we find a place. Here's hopin' we find a place soon. Very soon.

ecodazoo.com

Perhaps the coolest site I have ever seen. Check it out.

Never Forgets

I went to San Diego two summers ago with my wife and her family. We towed along our then six month old son Jadon, going to Sea World, Balboa Park, the beach, and the zoo. I shot this elephant photo then, and just now got around to doing something fun with it.


The image further below is what it looked like out of camera.

Here's what I did to create the image above. In Canon's raw software, Digital Photo Professional, I made a sepia tone and upped the contrast, then cropped it square.

I didn't care for the original background, it was too distracting for me. So I thought I'd play with blending the elephant head and another photo, a close up of it's skin. The skin close-up was to be used as background, blending it into the head photo using a mask in Photoshop. This wasn't working for me either, so I took a break from it. I often think my creative best when lying down with my eyes closed, and so I killed two birds and thought about this image as I lay down to rest my weary eyes from this mornings photo excursion (more on that in a later post).

To clean up the visual mess surrounding the elephant's head, I decided on adding a background of an old textured wall. Adding this wall image as another layer in Photoshop, I used a mask to cut out where the elephant was, allowing it to appear in front of the wall. Then I played and played and played with also blending in the close-up photo of the skin, giving another layer of texture on the background. Ultimately, that proved too distracting, so I just vignetted the image of the wall, added to the wall a gaussian blur at 3 pixels, and then it was nearly done. I cleaned up some white specks on the elephant's face, probably bits of grass, and that was that. I wonder, though, if the fact that it is eating hay is a detraction to the image. I may come back to this and try painting it out, but that'd be quite the Photoshop workout.

[Note: the above is slightly simplified, as there are other adjustment layers in the image, and a few blendings of redundant layers, one altered one way, the other altered another, all to give a somewhat different look than what the above simple description would have given.]

If someone you know struggles with this whole computer/internet thing, this'll bring a smile

Perhaps you know this guy? Perhaps you know at least three or four people like this guy. All is not lost for those new to such newfangled gadgetry. Call the helpdesk.



About the video: Helpdesk support back in the day of the middle age with English subtitles. Original taken from the show "Øystein og jeg" on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) in 2001.

The "official" version (posted by NRK) may be seen here, but to me, the text is harder to read than in the version above, although, there are a few seconds more in this official version that add one more joke to the skit.

It's that time of year...

...where resolutions are made, only to be broken within a matter of weeks, if not days, or even hours. For any who wish their resolutions to stick, here are some suggestions for increased stickability:

1. Make sure it is attainable
2. Design it so it is measurable
3. Set a realistic plan for achieving it
4. Be accountable to someone for it
   

1. I might be able to realistically set a goal to put on 10 pounds of muscle in the next 6-8 months, but I know me, and if I were instead to set a goal to put on 25 pounds of muscle any time this year, that wouldn't be realistic.

2. I could set a "goal" to be nicer, but that wouldn't be measurable, and thus not really much of a goal. I'd have to design it such that my niceness is measurable, so that I could keep track of my progress. If my ultimate aim was to be nicer, I'd have to set goals of hugs given per day, or count the number of fist fights I get into each day (to find a baseline) and then reduce that as time goes by.

3. Part of this includes not setting too many goals all at once, because too many might very well be unrealistic to plan for. Make sure any goals you do set can be realistically worked in to the available time of each day, week, and month. In many cases, setting a goal will require cutting some other activity in order to make time for achieving your goal. If I want to read the complete works of J.R.R Tolkein this year, I have to plan time for which to do it, which will require that I choose what other activity I am going to cut out to allow me time for my reading. Some goals are complex, and will require a succession of steps to attain it, all which have to be planned out, with enough flexibility in your expectations to allow for setbacks or stalls or changes in your plans.

4. If you're married, discuss with your spouse what goal or goals you have, and have a daily or weekly accounting with him or her. If you're single, discuss with your parents (whether you live at home or not) your goal or goals, and have a daily or weekly accounting with them. Be sure the person who you choose to be accountable to has a genuine interest in your attaining the goal, or this step won't be much of a motivator to continue to work on the goal, but instead could actually be demotivating. If the goal isn't directly important to your "accounter," then explain how important it is to you, and why, and he or she may then be able to understand the importance to you and therefore have a desire to help encourage you to achieve your goal.

Honestly, these are pretty theoretical for me, but others have had success by implementing these (and often times other) principles in their goal setting.

Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

Do you forget stuff? Then this Wired article may be of interest. It's worth reading just for how well it is written. It's about Supermemo, a memory enhancing piece of software.

Supermemo really is an incredible concept. For me, the author of the software, Piotr Wozniak, is a wee bit extreme about using it, but even using it more lightly for a few things here and there could be hugely beneficial.

Here's an excerpt:

SuperMemo is based on the insight that there is an ideal moment to practice what you've learned. Practice too soon and you waste your time. Practice too late and you've forgotten the material and have to relearn it. The right time to practice is just at the moment you're about to forget.

(Tip for reading the article: click the "full page" link, at the bottom of every new page of the article, if you don't want to click the "next" link after reading each page.)

Words I looked up while reading:

misanthrope
episteme
Esperanto
hangdog
visceral

For Mac users, try mindburn, based on the same concept.

Semifinalist

Last year I submitted this image to the 2008 Adobe Design Achievement Awards, for which I was selected as a semifinalist. I also submitted another image, that I'll show here when I get back to my own computer where it's stored.



The above image was made with five different photos, then mixed together in Adobe Photoshop to create the final image.

For lighting, I used two or three Nikon SB-80 DX flashes, with dome diffusers on them, behind the mother. She is in a small 4'x5' "hallway" that connects three different rooms. This 4x5 space was closed on three sides by doors and a wall, creating a light tent effect, wrapping her in glowing light.

In Photoshop I blended the photos of each leg, one of each model's head, and one of the mother's arms and torso. The infant photo was actually taken several months prior to the mother photo(s). I warped the mother's torso to create a more upright and squared look to her back and shoulder. Several different adjustment layers created the coloring and added to the high key effect of my lighting. Also added lighting effects to the infant's head to help it look more like a part of the image.

I think I need to revisit this image, to try and achieve a more natural look to the infants head, making it look less like it was added in to the image. But overall, I'm pretty pleased with it. Thanks to my wife, Karleigh, and son Jadon for modeling.