My Strong Medicine

So I officially moved my blog over to a self hosted WordPress blog website.

I must tell ya it was not fun, nor was it a smooth transition. (Lots of bumps and frustrations!)

I learned a lot about web hosting, uploads, plugins, etc. And learned a lot about what I don’t know. LOL

I’m still in my infancy with developing a worthwhile looking and functioning blog website, but at the very least, I was able to carbon copy my WordPress.com blog and move it over to a self-hosted website.

So please update your settings with my blog website if you are a frequent visitor. If you’re one of my 6 RSS subscribers please by all means update and/or change my feed as well, I’d hate to lose everyone who’s been kind enough to read my blog.

My new RSS is : 2bestrong.net.

I will start the process of updating all my Web2.0 profiles to reflect my awesome new blog website!

OK OK.. maybe not awesome, but I  just love the idea of being able to add and/or delete anything to my new blog, as opposed to the JavaScript restrictions I had with WordPress.com.

I’m almost 100% positive I will have future headaches in regards to diving into the self-hosted world, but as of now.. I’m pretty pumped.

So please join me at the new home of To Be Strong.

I of course missed out on the .com address, and settled for .net. I figured it suited Darren over at Problogger just fine, so I should survive.

I’ll also start to trim away the fat here on this blog site, and have all arrows pointing towards www.2bestrong.net.

I successfully moved all my blog post from here to my new home, so I’m not exactly sure how that will all play out with backtracks and permalinks, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Thanks again to anyone and everyone who has blessed this place with your visits.

Carpe Diem

I am once again baffled by what I see in the gym these days. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a people watcher. Everywhere I go, I watch people. Whether I’m in the gym, at the mall, in the car, at work, I love to observe (OK.. maybe I stare once in a while )

I was wondering at what point in the exercising world did stretching become obsolete? Or when did flexibility become unimportant?

All too often I’m noticing members walk in the gym, put down their bag and either jump on a universal weight machine, start running/walking, or get on the treadmill and/or ARC trainer without any preparation at all!

I myself wonder how these people can walk the next day or two after their workout??? I take 15-20 minutes before my workout and roughly 5 minutes post workout to do full body stretching. Everything from my upper body, upper extremities, core and torso, lower quadrant and lower extremities. If I’m using it, I’m stretching it.

I know from my education and training that a flexible muscle is a safe muscle. During a movement, whether strength training or not, you need to utilize and maximize the range of motion of the muscle being trained. Each muscle group, and individual muscle has a set range of motion parameter that is determined by anatomy, physiology and basic physics. The more you can move the muscle, the more you can use the muscle. Maximum motion produces maximum effort which yields maximum results. (ergo.. move faster, lift stronger, etc)

Flexibility also protects your muscles from injury. Everything from the planned workouts, to those long days at work, and the unfortunate accidents we all encounter. The more flexible your muscle(s) are the more adept YOU are to saving yourself from possible injury, or at the very least minimizing the severity of injury. Have you ever slipped on ice? Did you get hurt? How did your back feel over the next couple of days. Or how about your hamstrings? Did you ‘pull a muscle’? Or for heaven’s sake did you tear something?

Now we could dissect the proper methods for stretching. Everything from types of stretches, whether or not to hold or bounce, static vs. ballistic, the ever-so popular jump-stretch program, foam rollers, the Graston Technique, PNF stretching and PNF Patterns, Myofascial Release, Proprioception, and Golgi Tendon Complexes and the Reciprocal Inhibition Reflex, but I digress. The list is endless and limitless as you can see.

I guess maybe I always view things as the worst-case scenario. I’ve lived the scenario of not being able to exercise, of not being able to simple task like lifting a glass of water. I’ve injured myself enough times to want and demand that being safe is so much better than being sorry. (Did you ever see Jack LaLanne? Did he incorporate stretching?)

If you exercise in any manner, it would behoove you to stretch. Those of us who have suffered the consequences of not having a safe muscle know better. (Have you ever tried Yoga?)

It may not happen today, or tomorrow. It may not happen this month or even this year, but it will happen. Sooner or later inflexibility catches up with you and your body and kindly reminds you of how important stretching and flexibility really are.

Carpe Diem

The hard is what makes it great.

Lessons learned always come with a price. I myself have developed the theory that anything and everything I’ve learned of value I learned the hard way.

If it was easy, it just wasn’t a lesson I think I retained. Or should I say, it was a lesson that was not embedded into me. Most of the easy lessons had to be repeated until it became a hard lesson learned.

For instance, when you were told to look both ways when crossing the street. Did you look both ways the first time? (I didn’t) I think I may have looked ACROSS the street and then crossed. I got away with that action for a lil’ while. Then one day I crossed and came millimeters from getting hit by a car. I think I felt the brush of the car against my clothing.

I chalked it up to chance. I thought to myself,”Aahh that’s a one in a million instance. That won’t happen to me again.”

Time moved on and I kept crossing the street, not looking both ways. I think I might occasionally look down the road one way, but never both.

Another typical day, and like clockwork I didn’t look. Low and behold there was a fellow neighborhood friend zooming down the street on his bicycle. If I could have clocked his speed I think he was reaching the 35mph mark. Before I could blink I can hear this funny ‘click-click-click’ noise and WHAM, BOOM, SKREEETTCH.

The next thing I remember is picking myself up off the road, and looking around for some sort of clue as to what happen. I’m scratched up. My knees and elbows are skinned clean and I think there is gravel in my ear?

We both end up having some lasting scars, but my fellow neighbor, myself and his bike survived the ordeal.

Since then and to this very day, if I cross a road, I look both ways TWICE.

The moral of this story: No one chooses to take a header over their bike, or suffer a face plant on the road, but it’s a great learning tool.

Carpe Diem

This post is the first in what I’ve dubbed: Mentality Mondays, surviving life is sometimes simply a mindset.

Side note:

I recently purchased a domain and webhost. I’m in the beginning (learning) stages of creating my new home for my blog. So stay tuned! In the meantime I’ll keep on doin’ what I’m doin’.

Come visit me over at Fat Man Unleashed for my guest post. With the assistance of Israel,  we’re approaching weight loss from a very different perspective, titled The Master List of Unconventional Benefits of Weight Loss

 Carpe Diem

I am once again baffled by what I see in the gym these days. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a people watcher. Everywhere I go, I watch people. Whether I’m in the gym, at the mall, in the car, at work, I love to observe (OK.. maybe I stare once in a while )

I was wondering at what point in the exercising world did stretching become obsolete? Or when did flexibility become unimportant?

All too often I’m noticing members walk in the gym, put down their bag and either jump on a universal weight machine, start running/walking, or get on the treadmill and/or ARC trainer without any preparation at all!

I myself wonder how these people can walk the next day or two after their workout??? I take 15-20 minutes before my workout and roughly 5 minutes post workout to do full body stretching. Everything from my upper body, upper extremities, core and torso, lower quadrant and lower extremities. If I’m using it, I’m stretching it.

I know from my education and training that a flexible muscle is a safe muscle. During a movement, whether strength training or not, you need to utilize and maximize the range of motion of the muscle being trained. Each muscle group, and individual muscle has a set range of motion parameter that is determined by anatomy, physiology and basic physics. The more you can move the muscle, the more you can use the muscle. Maximum motion produces maximum effort which yields maximum results. (ergo.. move faster, lift stronger, etc)

Flexibility also protects your muscles from injury. Everything from the planned workouts, to those long days at work, and the unfortunate accidents we all encounter. The more flexible your muscle(s) are the more adept YOU are to saving yourself from possible injury, or at the very least minimizing the severity of injury. Have you ever slipped on ice? Did you get hurt? How did your back feel over the next couple of days. Or how about your hamstrings? Did you ‘pull a muscle’? Or for heaven’s sake did you tear something?

Now we could dissect the proper methods for stretching. Everything from types of stretches, whether or not to hold or bounce, static vs. ballistic, the ever-so popular jump-stretch program, foam rollers, the Graston Technique, PNF stretching and PNF Patterns, Myofascial Release, Proprioception, and Golgi Tendon Complexes and the Reciprocal Inhibition Reflex, but I digress. The list is endless and limitless as you can see.

I guess maybe I always view things as the worst-case scenario. I’ve lived the scenario of not being able to exercise, of not being able to simple task like lifting a glass of water. I’ve injured myself enough times to want and demand that being safe is so much better than being sorry. (Did you ever see Jack LaLanne? Did he incorporate stretching?)

If you exercise in any manner, it would behoove you to stretch. Those of us who have suffered the consequences of not having a safe muscle know better. (Have you ever tried Yoga?)

It may not happen today, or tomorrow. It may not happen this month or even this year, but it will happen. Sooner or later inflexibility catches up with you and your body and kindly reminds you of how important stretching and flexibility really are.

Carpe Diem