Are You Doing Microworkouts? Here’s Why You Should.

The fitness industry is in the midst of a renaissance. Flawed and dated strategies like sedentary recovery practices or overly stressful HIIT workouts are being replaced with cutting-edge practices that offer more efficiency and return on investment. Today I’m covering one emerging fitness strategy: performing brief feats of strength in the routine course of a day. Let’s call them microworkouts.

I’m talking here about dropping for a single set of deep squats in the office, hitting a set of max effort pull-ups whenever you pass under a bar in a closet doorway, or stocking your backyard with a hex deadlift bar or bench press and busting out a single set every time you pass by while taking out the garbage.

Banking Benefits With Less Stress

Micro-workouts deliver two distinct and awesome benefits: First, when you add up the energy expenditure of these brief but frequent efforts, you obtain an incredible cumulative training effect. In essence, you are banking a lot of strength/power/explosiveness “mileage” without disturbing the necessary stress/rest balance of your official workout schedule or prompting the stress hormone production and cellular depletion that occurs from an extreme weekend warrior-type session. That is, a set of pull-ups, or even three sets over the course of 12 hours on a typical day, is not going to mess up the next day’s CrossFit session or even an ambitious arms and chest session. Rather, these micro sessions (Dr. Phil Maffetone calls the concept, “slow weights”) will raise the baseline from which you launch you ambitious full-scale workouts.

Think about it: If you do a single set of six deadlifts with 200 pounds on the bar every time you take out the garbage, that’s 1,200 pounds of work accomplished. Perhaps you can find your way to doing that 1-2 times a day, five or six days a week? That’s lifting an extra 10,000 pounds a week! When it’s time to perform a formal session, such as the popular 5 x 5 protocol (where you complete five sets of five reps, and perhaps add an upper body exercise to each set), you’re poised for fitness breakthroughs as well as faster recovery times. An “official” workout is no longer this tremendous athletic performance vastly outside the normal pattern of your largely sedentary life, but instead an upgrade of what you do every day to some extent. Does this concept ring a bell? Yes, micro-workouts are modeling the behavior patterns of our hunter-gatherer ancestors! Grok and company likely had some harsh days that might rival today’s CrossFit WOD or obstacle course race, but they also likely had routine daily chores entailing lifting heavy things or scrambling up steep embankments in between their legendary leisure time.

Interrupting Prolonged Inactivity

The second benefit of micro-workouts is perhaps even more profound: these short efforts help you combat the extreme health hazard of prolonged periods of stillness that characterize hyperconnected modern life. The adverse health consequences of stillness have been well-chronicled, and you’ve heard me talk about them for years. Studies show that even a few days of inactivity can generate a significant decline in glucose tolerance and increase in insulin resistance. In Primal Endurance, I quote Nutritious Movement queen Katy Bowman on the destruction of cellular health caused by stillness: “When you use a single position repetitively, such as curling your body into a comfortable work chair for hours every day, muscles, joints, and arteries will adapt to this repetitive positioning by changing their cellular makeup and becoming literally ‘stiff,’ with reduced ranges of motion and an actual hardening of the arterial walls in those areas.”

Strange as it may seem, it’s now becoming clear that increasing all forms of general everyday movement is a greater health priority than conducting ambitious workouts. Microworkouts, along with continued devotion to JFW (Just F—ing Walk) takes on increasing importance as daily life gets more effortless. Even if you’re a devoted gym rat, those few hours a week when you’re pushing weight around isn’t enough to combat a lifestyle of commuting, office work, and digital entertainment leisure time. The active couch potato syndrome is a scientifically validated concept revealing that devoted workout enthusiasts who lead otherwise sedentary lifestyles are subject to the same level of disease risk as inactive folks.

Optimizing Movement For the Most Advantageous Genetic Signaling

But none of this is new. A decade ago now Time magazine offered a memorable title, “The Myth Of Exercise.” The story detailed how a strenuous workout (particularly the common workout patterns and strategies of today that can become chronically stressful) depletes cellular energy and prompts a compensatory response in the form of an increased appetite along with decreased activity for the rest of the day. More recently, I wrote about the constrained model of energy expenditure as well as the amazing study of the Hadza that’s helping us reframe the purpose and intended benefits of exercise.

As I’ve been saying since the introduction of the 10 Primal Blueprint Laws over a decade ago, it’s not about the calories but about the movement and the genetic signaling that movement prompts. The Myth of Exercise concept aligns with my longtime assertion that 80% of your body composition success is dependent on your diet—specifically, minimizing the wildly excessive insulin production that happens from a grain-based, high carbohydrate diet and prevents you from burning stored body fat.

How To Incorporate Microworkouts

Armed with the insight to no workout is too short, and any kind of movement delivers a health and fitness benefit, you can elevate micro-workouts to the forefront of your fitness plan. Reject the all or nothing mentality that causes you to fail with fitness commitments because you get too busy with work and life. We all have time for a set or two or three of deep squats during the workday or during leisure time.

Look for opportunities over the course of every day to put your body under some kind of brief resistance load. Even if you only work hard for one minute (or less) at a time but are relatively faithful incorporating these “micro” opportunities into your daily routine, the cumulative effect will still be incredible.

Word of Caution: Going from a prolonged inactive state to a performing a heavy lift carries an obvious risk factor. Truth be told, I generally precede my random sets of pull-ups, deadlifts or even cords by a minute of walking, a few dynamic stretches, or some specific warm-up moves like doing a set with a much lighter weight, followed by a “real” set with a respectable weight. It’s not a lot of time or effort, but it’s a good habit to add the resistance after you’ve been up and doing something for a few minutes (e.g. taking out the garbage, bringing in groceries, finishing an indoor/outdoor chore).

Beyond that, also realize that when you make micro-workouts a daily habit, you’ll discover that you’re much more adaptable to brief explosive efforts without a long warm-up. You’ll be able to pop up from your work desk to hustle down a flight of stairs at work without hearing the creaks and cracks that are so familiar, especially to aging jocks. My longtime writing partner Brad Kearns (our next book will be a comprehensive education and action plan on the topics of longevity—due out in December) swears that his brief morning flexibility/mobility routine. He says it’s transformed his recovery from sprint workouts. No more next-day stiffness and soreness and occasional minor injuries—just because he spends 12 minutes every morning working on drills specific to sprinting that challenge the glutes, hamstrings and core.

Dr. Art DeVany, Ph.D., author of The New Evolution Diet and one of my earliest and greatest inspirations for Primal-inspired health practices, says that the lion never has to stretch before a workout, and we shouldn’t have to either. No, our modern creakiness can be attributed to overtraining patterns (in the case of morning issues) or extended stillness without a movement break when you get up and hobble during the day. Our ancestors most certainly had to run for their lives with zero warning on a routine basis. It’s a good Primal skill to have still.

Micro workouts are also applicable to cardiovascular fitness. A few minutes here and a few minutes there have a similar cumulative effect. Dr. Phil Maffetone explains that any stimulation of the aerobic system, even really low intensity stuff that a hard-core athlete might not choose to count as an official workout, helps improve your cardiovascular health and fitness. There’s really no lower limit to the aerobic exercise zone.

Anytime you get up from a chair and walk, you’re getting an aerobic benefit. A couple minutes recruiting major muscle groups with Stretch Cordz confers a new advantage. A cruise ship analogy works well here. When the floating city is out on the open ocean, cruising at 20 knots en route to the next port, all twelve turbine engines are cranking at full throttle. When it’s cruising in the harbor at two knots in preparation for docking, only a couple turbines are operating at half power. However, the two turbines operating at half speed in the harbor are still being “trained” to perform when they’re called up on in the open ocean. Note: I’ve revised my position on this concept over the years as research filled in the picture. Early on, I used to designate an aerobic zone of 55-75% of maximum heart rate. I’m not saying abandon time in that range, but know that anything outside of it also counts for something, and that should be good news.

If you so much as jump up from your desk, scramble down the stairs and out to your vehicle, then return with a few floors of ascent and back to your desk—total time five minutes and eight seconds. You’ll be turbocharging fat burning, increasing oxygen delivery and blood circulation to the brain, and flooding the bloodstream with neurotransmitters that elevate mood and improve cognitive focus. Similarly, anytime you haul off a set of pushups or squats, you’re making a meaningful contribution to your fitness and longevity.

Every effort, however modest, can be a small win. How does that shift your mindset? How does it open up possibilities for you? Let me know down below, and share any questions you have while you’re at it. Have a great week, everybody.

The post Are You Doing Microworkouts? Here’s Why You Should. appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

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Kratom: Fear-worthy foliage or beneficial botanical?

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Depending on what you read, kratom is a dangerous, addictive drug with no medical utility and severe side effects, including overdose and death, or it is an accessible pathway out of undertreated chronic pain and opiate withdrawal. How can the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), media professionals, and millions of regular kratom users have such divergent views of the same plant?

What is kratom?

Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) is a tropical tree from the coffee family native to Southeast Asia, with properties that range from stimulant-like, energizing and uplifting, to opiate-like, causing drowsiness and euphoria. Kratom has dozens of active components, which makes it difficult to characterize as one particular type of drug such as “stimulant” or “opiate.” The two main chemicals, mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, have strong activity at the main opioid receptor, the “mu” receptor, which is the same one stimulated by heroin and oxycodone. Kratom is commonly consumed orally, with added sweetener to overcome its harsh bitterness, made into tea or swallowed as a pill. Side effects can include agitation, tachycardia, drowsiness, vomiting, and confusion. There can also be grave side effects such as seizures, as well as respiratory and cardiac arrest.

Kratom can be found in gas stations and paraphernalia shops in most parts of the US, except in the handful of states and cities that have banned it. Many people purchase kratom over the Internet, where it is sold “for soap-making and aromatherapy” to avoid the fact that in 2014 the FDA made it illegal to import or manufacture kratom as a dietary supplement.

What are some of the problems with kratom?

There is little to no control or reliable information on the growth, processing, packaging, or labeling of the kratom sold in the US, which adds to the already considerable uncertainty of its health risks. In 2018 the FDA instituted a mandatory recall over concerns about Salmonella contamination of kratom-containing products. The DEA has recently placed kratom on its Drugs and Chemicals of Concern list, but has not yet labeled it as a controlled substance.

Kratom can be addictive due to its opiate-like qualities, and a small minority of users end up requiring addiction treatment. The CDC claims that between 2016 and 2017, there were 91 deaths due to kratom, but this claim should be greeted with skepticism, as all but seven of these casualties had other drugs in their system at the time of death, making it impossible to uniquely implicate kratom.

Why do people use kratom?

The DEA maintains that kratom has no medical uses or benefits, but in Asia kratom has been used for hundreds of years to treat cough, diarrhea, opiate withdrawal, and chronic pain, and to boost energy and sexual desire. More recently, in the US there has been an uptick in the use of kratom by people who are self-treating chronic pain and acute withdrawal from opiates and seeking alternatives to prescription medications. Despite a vocal community of supporters, and numerous anecdotal testimonials of effectiveness, these treatment practices using kratom have not been rigorously studied as either safe or effective.

A patient wishing to use kratom for pain or to mitigate withdrawal symptoms would encounter several problems, not all of which have to do with the intrinsic properties of kratom itself.

• First of all, the DEA is threatening to make it a Schedule 1 controlled substance, in the same category as heroin or methamphetamine, which would make it difficult to access, and would likely make the supply as a whole even more dangerous. Generally, it’s not a good idea to use something for pain or addiction which is about to become less available and less safe.
• Secondly, the complete lack of oversight or quality control in the production and sale of kratom makes its use potentially dangerous.
• Thirdly, kratom has not been well studied for any of the uses its proponents claim, though as the saying goes, “absence of evidence of benefit isn’t evidence of absence of benefit.”
• A final problem is that kratom doesn’t show up on drug screens, and one can argue that the wider adaptation of another potentially addictive opiate-like substance in the midst of an opiate epidemic is the last thing we need.

Is there a sensible path forward with kratom?

I’m not sure that anyone has the answer to this question. At bare minimum, safety could be improved with:

• Regulation: it would be safer if people knew the exact dosages they were consuming and that it was free of contamination.
• Education: educated consumers, who know the dangers and potential benefits, are far less vulnerable to misleading claims.
• Research: if it does have benefits for either addiction or chronic pain, we should know, and it is critical that we better define the risks of using kratom, so that people are more accurately informed.

If all of the above could somehow be accomplished, by scientists and public health specialists, without overdue distortion from corporate interests, antidrug ideology, and romanticism by kratom enthusiasts, we could then have enough clarity to answer the question: is kratom harmful or helpful?

The post Kratom: Fear-worthy foliage or beneficial botanical? appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

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When Your Job Requires Brilliant Ideas, But Brainstorming Feels Like Pulling Teeth

It sounds terribly cliché, but sometimes coming up with ideas really does feel like pulling teeth. It feels painful and frustrating. It feels messy and hard. And it’s the last thing you want to do.

But maybe your job requires you to come up with great ideas. On a regular basis.

Maybe you’re a writer, speaker, designer, artist, podcast host, publicist, teacher, researcher, or entrepreneur. Either way, idea generation is a priority in your position.

And, unfortunately, you feel utterly and completely uninspired.

Mary Potter Kenyon, an author, certified grief counselor, and program coordinator at the Shalom Spirituality Center, typically feels uninspired when she’s tired or overwhelmed, and after she’s submitted a manuscript or big project.

“I feel spent, as if it took everything creative out of me,” Kenyon said.

For author and productivity expert Paula Rizzo lack of inspiration comes from lack of structure. If she doesn’t plan for creativity, it’s hard for her to “think of anything!”

Alexandra Franzen, a prolific writer who helps clients complete all kinds of creative projects, feels uninspired when she spends too much time sitting in front of her computer and not enough time moving her body. She feels uninspired when she’s been too isolated and “shut off from the fascinating and beautiful world.”

That’s one way to kick-start our creativity: Find out why the heck you feel uninspired—and work to turn it around. Be honest about what’s going on and be compassionate with yourself, Franzen said.

For instance, maybe you’re tired or lethargic because your lifestyle leaves little room for leisure. Maybe you’re bored of your career or afraid to take an emotional risk, she said. Maybe you’re not getting enough sleep. Maybe you’re saying yes to projects you’re not even interested in.

Franzen also suggested getting help, whether that’s from a close friend, creative partner, therapist, or coach. Below you’ll find eight other ways to feel inspired and ignite your creativity.

Carve out creative time. “Oftentimes creative people think that adding boundaries or structure will make them less creative but it’s simply not true,” Rizzo said.

She puts her creativity sessions on her calendar—and sticks to them. When she started writing her second book Listful Living: A List-Making Journey to a Less Stressed You (published in September 2019 by Mango Publishing), she carved out Fridays for researching and writing, and wouldn’t schedule any other calls or appointments.

Now that the book is finished, her Fridays are devoted to other forms of creativity. She tries to assign a project or theme for each session. For example, a few weeks ago, she wrote about a funny scene from her vacation in Greece:

When she and her husband were in Santorini, they decided to walk to the next town, which people told them would take 25 minutes. It turned out to be one hour. “[T]he signage was terrible and we weren’t sure where we were going half the time. But on our way, I kept joking about why they didn’t give us better directions when we would come across something on the path [like] ‘Then you’ll come to an abandoned flip flop—just keep going.'”

File it away. Kenyon keeps a file folder with magazine articles on topics she finds interesting—everything from research to random facts. She also has a file folder with book ideas. Years ago, she considered writing a book about exploring and expanding creativity as an adult.

So, she started collecting fascinating articles and quotes on creativity. If she read a book about creativity that resonated with her, she jotted down the title, and put it in the folder, too. In 2020, Kenyon will be publishing a book on creativity with Familius Publishing.

Reconnect to your world. Instead of getting stuck inside your own mind, Franzen recommended having conversations, being in nature, and looking up at the sky (“not down at a digital screen”).

For instance, Franzen cited research that found that spending 3 days immersed in nature “acts like a ‘neural reboot’ and significantly boosts creativity.” “I’ve definitely experienced this myself,” she said. “For me, even just 3 hours in nature can make a huge difference in how I think and feel.”  

Play with prompts. At her writing classes and retreats, Franzen loves to assign small writing prompts, “not to write something ‘glorious’ or ‘perfect’—the point is just to have fun, wake up your brain, and flex your creative muscles in a new way.”

Here’s one she recently made up: “Imagine you’re a detective in a small town. A new client walks into your office with a very unusual mystery for you to solve. He’s willing to pay cash up front, and you could definitely use the cash. Set a timer for 5 minutes and write a fictional scene featuring you and this client. If you don’t ‘finish’ the scene, no worries. Just see how far you can get!”

Rizzo also uses prompts to create stories about people she sees on the street or news headlines she reads. For instance, she’ll ponder “What if?” as in “What if the homeless man I just saw on the street used to be a CEO on Wall Street?”

“Even if I don’t use the story for anything, it’s fun to think about,” Rizzo said.

Read. A lot. Kenyon reads about 30 to 40 books on a topic before, during, and after she’s writing a book about that topic. “Part of it is research that I might include in my book, but it also helps me clarify what I do, or don’t want to do with my own writing,” she said.

Another practice is to read books that you normally wouldn’t pick up to shake up your routine, and therefore shake up your thinking. This could be anything from children’s books to political thrillers to poetry.

Wander (and wonder) around. If you’re able to, take a day off work to meander without a strict agenda, said Franzen, author of several books, including You’re Going to Survive. “Lin-Manuel Miranda got the idea to write Hamilton while on vacation—proof that unwinding and unplugged leads to genius, creative ideas.”

Maybe you take a day trip to the botanical gardens or the beach. Maybe you browse a museum, bookstore, or library, focusing on whatever catches your eye (and leave your phone in the car).

Think in circles. When Kenyon needs to plan a speech, write an article, or work on a new book, she makes a mind map. Start by jotting down the core concept or topic in a circle in the center of your paper. Next draw lines from that circle for other ideas, which you also put in circles. Kenyon does this quickly, and some of the words, phrases, and ideas don’t even make much sense.

However, she finds that the farther she gets from her main topic, “the more creative and innovative my ideas are.” In fact, this technique has helped her on different occasions to come up with ideas that a traditional outline just couldn’t coax out.

Turn to others. For Kenyon, being around others who are creating jumpstarts her own creativity, so much so she formed two groups: a monthly writer’s group and a lifelong learner’s creativity group. “We feed off each other’s creative energy. I always want to go home from a meeting and start writing,” she said.

Rizzo often gets together with a friend to bounce ideas off each other. As a former television producer, she’s used to working collaboratively and sometimes needs “someone else in the room to get the creative juices flowing.”

It can be hard to play when you’ve got the pressure of producing useful, profitable ideas. However, as Rizzo pointed out, sometimes it’s OK to write (and create) without a purpose.

“I think all of us are focused on the finished product and the fastest way to get there. But some of the great stuff happens in the in between.”

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