From: Brian Phillips (deepbluehalo@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Apr 13 2003 - 15:46:23 MDT
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 08:52:14 -0500
Greg Burch <gregburch@gregburch.net> wrote:
<<
Those who know me off-list are aware that I'm no paragon of extropian
purity when it comes to my own personal fitness. Slothful and
vice-ridden, I've often thought that if Max and Natasha were the
poster-couple for "the extropian lifestyle," I must be the "before"
picture. Well, among my other flaws, I'm vain, so recently I have had
to come face-to-face with the consequences of my bad habits. Partly at
my urging, Max and Natasha got scuba certified last year and, now that
they've moved to Texas, we're about to go on our first dive trip
together in Mexico. There's nothing more disgusting than a fat,
middle-aged bald guy in a wet suit. Of these, the thing most under my
control is my weight, so a couple of months ago, when we decided on the
date for our dive trip, I decided I'd try to do something about my
physical condition.
<<snip>>
The combination of all these factors having dramatic results in a short
time is nothing short of astonishing to me: Being twice as strong, being
pain-free and carrying 10% less weight has made me feel like I've been
transformed into some kind of superman: I walk lighter and feel much
better. Even without the sugar and carbohydrates in my diet, I have more
energy as a result. Given that many in our group have sedentary
"brain-worker" lifestyles and a survey of any EXTRO meeting reveals a
good deal of extra poundage and not enough lean muscle, I thought I'd
share this story. If I can do it, anyone can.>>
This is precisely the sort of thread we should have more often on ExI-L.
My thoughts...
Simply put, the better the condition of the support structure, the better
your wetwork functions.
I'm much younger than Greg, inching closer to 29, but for several years
now I've been making efforts to improve my physical condition. Most of
my efforts have been in the long term column, resetting my life expectations
to one's more compatible with general sanity.
One thing I have found very helpful is the CRON mentality, specifically
the "ON" portion. Working towards optimal nutrition profiles in one's
diet is a very "mechanistic" thing to do, and may be easier for those
who find the wirehead ethos compelling. Also learning to actually cook
is a good thing. If you go exploring some new sort of ethnic cuisine
you can pick and choose your "experiments" based on their health merits
and suddenly you wind up with a head full of tasty health food recipes,
and much less junk. I'm working on achieving the Optimal Nutrition
portion with the hopes I will be in a position to start restricting
by the time I hit 31. I encourage all persons not trapped in the
military to cherish your freedom to manipulate your lifestyle
via improving one's cooking skills.
Another thing I've found very very useful is martial arts. I plug the
internal chinese combatives to anyone whose interested, hsing-i/xingyi
and pa-kua/bagua. Good conditioning, good meditation, and seriously
lower body strength figure prominently. It's quite possible to spend
30+ years perfecting something apparently simple like bagua's Single Palm
Change. Another good recommendation is Arnis, escrima, or kali.
The Filipino arts are excellent, and are excellent values in terms of
defensive potential/exercise tradeoff with time invested. I don't care
for weights or for "gym culture" (nods to Greg and Natasha), it's a
personal quirk. I manage to get plenty of conditioning from low
postures from the gung fu, and working Filipino double-stick drills
with weighted steel pipes manages to hit whatever general purpose
calisthenics don't seem to adequately stress. General arnis practice
is perfect for less fit people, it relaxes the mind, makes for mild
soreness,
and cleans the system by usefully spending aggression.
I find that high-rep free squats, hindu pushups, and the back bridge
(i.e. the Royal Court) are great for one's mental tone, and things
like assisted bar dips and pull-ups do wonders for your sense of
personal power.
Granted none of these exercises tend to produce the aesthetic
marvels of weight training/cardio regimens (nods to Natasha again)
but I find the more satisfying and suspect they will be more easily
sustainable.
In summary, healthy chinese food, baguazhang, arnis, and the Bridge.
Victory goes over a bridge!
Brian
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