"All right, Lunger"

Via Instapundit comes this item about tobacco smoker's apparent increased immunity to COVID-19 infection. As is only to be expected, the expert-atti in the comments get all Chemical Wedding about it. From my personal experience smoking cigarettes for 40+ years, I suspect one of the principal causative factors for this statistical result might be much simpler; smoker's cough.

People who regularly inhale burnt tobacco enjoy the mildly euphoric effect tobacco use is well known for (until they eventually don't - ask me how I know). At the same time, smokers are regularly irritating the tissue of their throat and lungs which causes them to cough. A lot. Certainly a lot more frequently than non-smokers, and a lot more deeply too. There is an associated phrase to describe the phenomenon; coughing up a lurgy. Tobacco smokers commonly have more mucus in their lungs as a response to the increased levels of lung tissue irritation the smoke causes.

Because tobacco users who inhale the smoke much more frequently cough on a regular basis, and cough up some of the mucus from their lungs more frequently than do non-smokers, my suspicion is that this is at least as likely a source for the apparently slight difference in infection rates between smokers and non. If you more frequently energetically expel the air from your lungs, as well as more frequently expel the mucus that coats lung tissue, any viral material has a more difficult time reaching the capillary network the lung tissue interacts with to oxygenate the human body, and spends less time inside the lungs due to the mucus being coughed out of the lungs more frequently than might be considered a "normal" rate.

A product I found helpful in recovering my lung capacity (less so in recent years - I quit smoking 13 years ago) is the Expand-A-Lung (this Adurance model appears to be functionally identical, and you can buy a singleton for cheaper) which allows you to vary the degree of resistance you experience filling and emptying your lungs. 8 to 12 inhale/exhale cycles between sips of that first cup of coffee while leaning against the kitchen sink is a useful way to get your reps in while you fully wake up. When I'm finished, I rinse the device off and put it back in the dish drainer beside the sink, and make sure all that I coughed up is safely down the drain too (you know how you're supposed to run some dish soap through your disposal regularly? This is a good time for that :)).

Another activity I've found useful once I've finished the restricted breathing is to go sit down at the dinner table with the rest of my coffee and get in some reps of the focused breathing advocated by Wim Hof among others (I'm still working my way up to the whole cold training thing - I'm certain I'll get there any day now).

Between these two activities my "lung sounds" are clear during my regular medical check ups, and I haven't had to resort to my inhaler more than a half a dozen times a year for the past 6 to 8 years. I don't know to what degree, if any, a general feeling of improved well-being contributes to resisting viral lung infections, but I do believe the process I follow to arrive at that feeling does contribute to that.

YMMV and I DO NOT recommend taking up tobacco smoking for its purgative effects.

Strange Bedfellows

AOC lives up to her nickname and takes the occasion of the COVID-19 outbreak to exercise her cortex in public.

Visions of her going all OCD in the shower trying to wash the Ted Cruz off may not be all that for you, but now you have that thought in your head too.  :)

File under: Things To Do While In Self-Isolation

This is a D-I-Y ventilator. The project appears to have begun as a slightly OCD response to an earlier outbreak of Avian Flu, which shares many symptom attributes to COVID-19. Keep in mind, most people who contract COVID-19 won't really need a ventilator, and if you don't use one right you can hurt yourself worse than not using one at all, nevertheless finding one mid-pandemic will be challenging to put it delicately.

This concept is very much a "Tim the Tool Man" idea (that absolutely DOES NOT require moar power), but I think the basic design would benefit from a creative adaptation of miniature air compressor technology and CPAP components (think tubing, head mounting hardware, and face mask), all easily sourced from Amazon.

Not for everybody, I admit, OTOH you never can tell what might develop from amateur projecting.

Hat Tip to Rand Simberg for finding this one.

How 2 Feed A Planet

While the number of humans known to exist in the universe doesn't seem likely to increase by more than 10% over the next decade (if even that much), it is already well past apparent that we humans need to develop the means to increase our food supply by as much as a doubling of the total quantity of food we can presently draw upon. Preferably without further damaging our only home in the process. What follows are two possible means to achieving this goal.

Water covers about 2/3 of the Earth's surface, and the sea has been a source of human sustenance for as long as we have records of human civilization (and almost certainly longer than that). But not an inexhaustible source. After at least two decades of watching their salmon catch quality and total numbers dwindle, the Haida First Nations tribe in the British Colombia region of Canada funded an effort to "seed" the areas of the northern Pacific in which the salmon fishery they depended upon for their survival grew into adulthood. This E&E News article published Wednesday, November 12, 2014, seems evenhanded enough in its reporting on the events:

"For the past 100 years, the Haida First Nations tribe in Canada has watched the salmon runs that provided its main food source decline. Both the quantity and quality of its members' catch in the group of islands they call home, off the coast of British Columbia, continued to drop.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, they became determined to do something about it. They built a hatchery, fixed watersheds damaged by past logging practices and sent more fish into the ocean for their multiyear migrations.

But the larger influx of fish that went out didn't return, and the search for better solutions for the small village of Old Massett on the north end of Graham Island in British Columbia eventually led the Haida down a path that culminated in the largest ocean fertilization project of its kind ever attempted.

In the summer of 2012, the Haida Salmon Restoration Council (HSRC) joined forces with a California businessman, Russ George, and dribbled 100 tons of iron sulfate into Canadian and international waters in the Pacific Ocean off the back of a ship.

......

But for the past two years, salmon have flowed into rivers along parts of the Pacific Northwest in sometimes record numbers, and questions remain unanswered about the possible success, failure or effects of the experiment.

"I can't stand up and give you a rock-solid statement that says A equals B," said Jason McNamee about whether the experiment had something to do with the massive sockeye and pink salmon runs for the past two years. McNamee is a former director and operations officer of HSRC and still sometimes acts as spokesman for the corporation. But, he said, "the iron sulfide bloom is a likely factor contributing to those runs."

End quote.

It seems inescapably obvious to me that what we need is an actual controlled experiment to address the question of whether or not fish populations in our oceans can be sustainably increased by increasing the amount of the food supply available to them during their immature stage of development.

What I am proposing here specifically is that the fifty year average of fish population(s) along the US Atlantic seaboard be calculated (annual fish population survey numbers from the US Fisheries, by species, be totaled, and that number divided by 50, resulting in the "average" fish population for the period 1960 through 2010) along with the recorded catch numbers for the same period (and the same method for averaging be applied). The specific question to be addressed by this experiment is: 

Is it possible to elevate the average number of fish in any given species by a factor of two or more over a predetermined period (5 years?) such that the average number of caught fish, by species, can sustainably be as much as doubled thereafter?

The only issue this experiment is concerned with is testing a specific method for increasing the fish populations humans rely on in part to feed us all. I submit that one yacht of a specific design could be outfitted and operated in the Caribbean and along the Atlantic seaboard for the duration of the experiment for as little as $20 million. This seems a reasonable enough expense, given the potential returns such an answer might provide.

There is another string to this particular bow.

This CNET article from 2012 gives a decent introductory look at the state of the molecular assembly of proteins and amino acids science of 7 years ago. I have no idea what Mr. Thiel thinks today, but it seems apparent that the technology isn't quite ready for market as of yet (recent stories about 3d printed human hearts notwithstanding). 

What do humans need to build a commercial farm to grow and package for transport the necessary proteins and amino acids required to assemble such molecular constructs?  Being able to assemble such food products on-site will prove a useful capability in future disaster response efforts at the very least, but the commercial application I see as most applicable to existing market processes available on our planet today is to grow the individual components, possibly only one of the components per farm, package the harvest, and have it delivered to a specialized manufacturing factory for further distribution to retail food stores after assembly into analogs of the various forms "meat" is currently marketed in, followed - or quite possibly preceded - by other non-meat foods.

Here I suggest America's military veteran community be called upon once again to provide the human power necessary to populate a variety of prototype farms to begin the development process of such a zero-to-one effort. Since this type of food production has never been attempted in known human history, the lack of specific skill sets our existing veterans possess is immaterial. What we do have is a well-developed ability to confront the unknown, and only then figure out how to live through the process while we gain some understanding of what "success" looks like in this particular given circumstance.

At this point in this narrative, I should confess that this isn't exactly an original idea on my part; Robert A. Heinlein examined many of the developmental issues involved in this proposal in his 1950 novel Farmer In The Sky (which 12 year old me avidly read some 15 years later). This specific proposal is necessarily Earth-bound, but it too involves artificial habitats within which crops are grown; habitats composed of partially underground green houses similar in concept to this example (sorry about the auto-start; it's YouTube, what're ya gonna do?). While a more substantial structure would no doubt be desirable for a permanent operation, the basic features such a structure would contain are all featured in the linked video, and an experimental development effort could make do with virtually identical structures (if only for the potential ease and reduced expense required for modification of the process).

The crop I visualize would consist of essentially algae being grown in aquarium tanks. Very particular strain(s) of algae, in very large aquarium tanks. Tanks that have rigorously controllable lighting and other inputs to regulate the growth process, and a means of removing the algae from the growth tank into a shipment container that keeps the algae uncontaminated during the transfer. I'm thinking nitrogen gas will play an important part in this "uncontaminated transfer" process for instance.

While it will undoubtedly be necessary for on-site operators in the early development stages (and quite possibly well beyond), one of the important secondary developments of this effort should be that of remote operation of such farms. It won't happen soon, but having a multitude of "food component" farms operated largely by people who live in cities close and far away, and food assembly factories staffed similarly, should be understood as also being a stated objective of this proposal. The whole idea of "robots are taking away our jobs" is both silly and the diametric opposite of the coming reality. Robots will not be autonomous, they will need human operators to approve and initiate actions taken, particularly in remote settings like those being described here. Robotic devices can be semi-autonomous in rigorously controlled environments like warehouses or assembly lines, but even there the limits imposed by programming functionality demonstrate just how little decision-making capability can be programmed into a device (for an extremely well-informed opinion on the topic of programming robot autonomy and the intrinsic limitations of programming generally, one can usefully begin here). A potential use for the US Department of Education in future might be to organize and coordinate funding and human on-site staffing of local farms and assembly plants of this nature, along with the equipment to teach school children (not to mention old vets like me) how to operate and maintain the technology necessary to operate farms and factories remotely. We're not always going to be dirt-bound farmers and factory workers (he says hopefully).

We must be able to feed ourselves in whatever environment we place ourselves. Reducing the strain our species imposes upon our only currently available planet seems a useful way of developing the means for us to do so on (or off) any planet at all. My intent with this document is to stimulate conversation regarding how we might successfully achieve that level of capability within my lifetime. I'm 65, but no pressure.

Update 4/23/19: Chris Byrne has helpfully pointed out that food production isn't really inadequate to existing and projected human population requirements. Rather, that our nutritional failures are more the result of distribution inadequacies, which makes my current framing of the network of issues involved in this also necessarily inadequate.

So, to better frame the intent of what I propose, the fish population experiment has the dual purposes of developing reliable data upon which to base decisions regarding how fish populations might be supported both locally/regionally and planet-wide. Secondarily, by developing the techniques to do so in a controllable way, we effectively achieve the means to manage what can be regarded as a self-distributing resource.

The farming idea provides a product that is easily transportable and storeable within the constraints of existing distribution, warehousing, and manufacturing infrastructure as part of its harvesting process. No new technology needs to be developed to accommodate this additional source of nutrition becoming part of the existing matrix of options humanity already has to satisfy its nutritional requirements. What this addition adds to what has to be acknowledged as our already adequate food supply is the added versatility it brings to human society being able to respond to disruptions of societal infrastructure from catastrophic events, along with the ability to easily and economically incorporate remote operations technology into our existing societal infrastructure.

The US military, for only one example, has made no secret in recent years of its inability to recruit a sufficient number of personnel capable of operating weapon (and other) systems remotely. By creating an industry that incorporates teaching people the technology used in remote operations systems and devices, this and other more general applications can more economically be incorporated into our ever evolving societal structures, on and - in not too many more years - off our planet. For only one near-term new employment option for people literally around the world, orbital manufacturing and mining operations can be much more economically performed by people on the surface of the Earth, rather than physically in orbit themselves. Taking the requirements necessary to compensate for transmission time lag, this can easily be expanded to include lunar operations as well. Potentially millions of jobs that don't exist partially because potential investors have no reason to think workers can be economically trained. Hundreds of people can be trained as a by-product of the farming technology I suggest here. They in turn can provide the nucleus of the work force needed to meet the anticipated needs of the gradually expanding requirement for remote equipment operators in orbital facilities developed to refine the resources literally being delivered to Earth through the natural processes of our Solar System (ever given any thought to what the annual meteor showers imply as a delivery mechanism for mineable material in Earth orbit?).

I hope this added framing of my proposal proves useful in developing further refinements and improvements to the basic concepts presented here.

More Life In The Future

Via the Instapundit, I read in the Telegraph an article by one Sarah Knapton: "Nanomachines that drill into cancer cells killing them in just 60 seconds developed by scientists". I'm hoping the headline writer doesn't have it in for Our Sarah as much as the just quoted example leads me to believe might be the case.

That aside, Ms Knapton goes into informative detail about the anticipated benefits sufferers of skin and breast cancers may soon receive, while ignoring all of the pictures scattered throughout her article of the aforementioned nanomachines drilling into prostate cancer cells.

If I've read her article right (not always a given, that), women can expect to have smooth skin and breasts as a result of their glowing cancer treatments, while we guys can anticipate getting a UV flashlight up the back channel for ours. One hopes it won't require multiple "D" cell batteries.

Tell me again about the advantages of Male Patriarchy, will you? I need something to keep me focused on holding the old cheeks tight while I'm dominating all and sundry.

Considering The Proposition: How Jeff Bezos Can Hire Humanity

Since first submitting How Jeff Bezos Can Hire Humanity for consideration as a contribution to the book Visions for a World Transformed, I have had further thoughts I would like to add.

The first of those being that the published concept isn't a stand-alone. While Jeff Bezos likely could finance such a thing, and build a profitable company therefrom, the idea makes better sense as a principal component of a larger, more mutually supportive structure.

Secondly, the idea of Universal Basic Income itself makes better sense as a profit-making venture rather than as a purely tax funded endeavor. As I have already given previous attention to the first part, here follows some thoughts on the second.

UBI is by no means a new idea. The one change from all previous efforts I would insist upon is that UBI be primarily a mechanism for funding a national health insurance system for US citizens (if you don't live in the US, please feel free to initiate an identical program in the country you are a citizen of). To this end, all current financial support mechanisms currently available to some citizens, some of the time, is re-directed to funding issuance of One (1) Primary Share of UBI to every United States citizen (and ONLY US citizens as that condition is legislatively defined in [entirely arbitrary date of] the year 2000). This share entitles the citizen to unlimited health care for the citizen's lifetime, and has a per share face value of US $12,000.00. Each Primary Share is paid by the US government in lieu of any other financial benefits or payments that a citizen might previously have become eligible for (Social Security principally, but ALL other financial supports are explicitly included) Said Primary Share of UBI has a lifetime equal to that of the citizen who owns it. When the citizen expires, the share value escheats to the general UBI fund. When a new citizen is born, the US government issues him/her a UBI Primary Share. When a new citizen is otherwise created, part of the citizenship process is purchase (at face value, though there ought to be a mechanism whereby such share may be granted in whole or part) of a Primary Share of UBI. In addition to Social Security, all US military pensions of every description will be replaced by UBI shares.

For the sake of example; stipulate there are 300 million US citizens and each year 15% of them spend US $10 million on health care. 45 million x US $10 million = US$450 million that UBI total investments have to generate in order to cover this expense. Assuming 300 million citizens individually own an average 200 total UBI shares, and an annual 2.5% return on share investment of US $50 billion, I think we can afford not to exclude ... well, pretty much anything anyone wants health care-wise.

Additionally, there will be created as part of the UBI development and implementation process the category of Supplemental Share of UBI. Each Supplemental Share has a face value of US $1,000.00. Any monies a citizen might have become eligible for previously to the creation of UBI, and not applied to purchase of the Primary Share, is applied to the purchase of Supplemental Shares. Unlike Primary shares (which apply only to paying US citizen's health care treatment), Supplemental Shares are a means of earning income. Sales of Supplemental Shares are open to any investor from anywhere on - or off (looking right at you Elon Musk) - the planet, and are the permanent property of the purchaser, who may dispose of them when and as s/he likes. Supplemental Shares pay an annual dividend (on a to-be-determined schedule) of 1.5% of the face value. Citizens (or anyone really) are encouraged to invest in Supplemental Shares as extensively and often as they are able to. These initial "calculations" only apply to existing citizens at the time of UBI initiation, so a mechanism whereby parents of new citizens may affordably build a Supplemental Share fund for their children during their legal minority years will have to be considered and included in the UBI development process.

For the sake of example; stipulate that the "average" annual Social Security payment is US $20,000.00 and that the "average" period of claim is 25 years (age 65 to 90). The sum is US $500,000.00. Minus the Primary Share value of US $12,000.00 and the "average" now-living US citizen receives 488 Supplemental Shares of UBI. US $15.00 x 488 = an annual payment of US $ 7,320.00. Add to that initial purchase any other financial payments a citizen might be eligible for, and it will likely still be necessary to create an age-related discount for those between the stipulated ages at the time of UBI creation (although a mechanism to include private pension funds into Supplemental Share purchases would also prove useful I suggest - a tax reduction inducement to private pension fund providers to apply the actuarial total of expected pension payments in full at the time of UBI creation might prove helpful as well).

For UBI to be a profit-making venture (which it must be to pay dividends), the initial investment of UBI funds will be applied to the establishment of a US national electrical generating capacity of 5 terra-watts (in excess of the national generating capacity in the year 2010). The only means of doing so at this point in human history is by means of nuclear power plants (which are always subject to replacement with fusion power plants should that technology prove out as a stable power source). To permit quick development of this strategy, the President of the United States, in the capacity of Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces, will direct that these power plants will be constructed to a pre-determined design of 1,000 KWe on all existing US military reservations within the United States (to include all US territories) as a matter of National Security. Existing electrical power distribution business entities will be invited to bid on distribution of this energy at such a price per kilowatt as will exceed the forecast UBI funding requirements. Additionally, construction of a sufficient number of nuclear plants that burn "spent" nuclear fuel will also be directed as part of the power plant project (the subsequent unburnt fuel having a half-life measured in a few hundred years instead of thousands).

Additional UBI investment possibilities seem certain, but unnecessary to this presentation.

Further refinements of both the employment and the UBI parts of this strategy need to be considered, but the basics of the concept are in place. The Bezos Planetary Employment Office, working with the UBI Fund management, ensures all humans (assuming successful replication of the UBI model planet-wide - initially throughout the United States) with the means of attaining an education, applying for a job (or funding for a self-employment circumstance), training for future occupational opportunities, managing personal finance (to include UBI share management), personal health care (explicitly to include Healthy Life Extension technologies and therapies), and no doubt as many other applications as will seem likely to make the Agency shareholders (many - even most eventually - of whom take the form of UBI share investments) a regular financial profit.

Fitness is a journey: Part The Fifth

Archived from my FB page from Dec 30, 2016

Endurance training.

In my friend Charynn McCurdy's pursuit of physical fitness, one of the less well understood aspects of training is often characterized as "aerobic training". This is a bit misleading, in a couple of ways.

First, aerobic activities are basically any physical action that is performed at a sufficiently brisk pace as to induce a temporary anaerobic condition in the person doing it. In reality, "aerobic training" consists of training yourself to continue functioning at an accelerated pace of activity in a condition of the body being unable to input sufficient oxygen into the bloodstream to relieve the anaerobic condition. Aerobic training induces a shortage of oxygen in the bloodstream so that you can train to work in that condition.

Second, weight lifting is an excellent form of aerobic training. You just have to use lighter weights than you ordinarily would, and perform the chosen lifts at an accelerated pace and for extra reps/set. This is an excellent way to break up your strength training routine occasionally.

Mostly, and most of the time as well, people focus on treadmills, elliptical machines, stationary bicycles and the like for their usual endurance training while in the gym. The primary purpose of which is to elevate your heart rate and air exchange rate, while sustaining a moderate level of muscle stress over as many of the large muscle groups as are involved in the activity, for as long a time period as reasonably possible. There is always the old stand-by, going outside for a walk or a run, but this is frequently difficult for sailors aboard ship.

I'm going to stick to the treadmill here, but do try out the other machines available to you as you can.

As with weight lifting, you want to discover your initial performance parameters, but instead of "how much can you lift?", you want to find out "how far can you walk in how much time?". A reasonable starting point might be a pace of 3 mph for 20 minutes, which would equal 1 mile walked in that amount of time. Don't be disappointed if you can't do this the first time you try. It seems easy (and it is, really), but most of us have no idea of just how little physical endurance we actually have. We can remember doing (insert some memory of past athletics here) back in high school (or wherever) and don't realize just how transitory a skill set physical endurance actually is. Rule of thumb here; every day you don't endurance train, you lose the gains of a day you did.

Once you can do 20 minutes at 3 mph, increase the pace to 3.1 mph and see how many minutes it takes you to reach 1 mile. Increase the pace gradually over each training session in an effort to build yourself up to 3.5 mph, which is about as fast as you can walk.

There is a transition from walking to running on a treadmill that isn't as noticeable when running outside on a track or path. It's harder to maintain your balance within the relatively narrow confines of a treadmill's rails than people appreciate. One of the fundamental training lessons running coaches impart is how to run forward, and not up-and-down or side-to-side during your stride. You're going to have to teach yourself how to do this, or you won't have much success as a runner generally and especially on a machine.

Watch people running; see how many of them have their heads bouncing up and down rather than maintaining an even distance above the ground. Those last ones are the good runners. What worked for me was to put my hands on the rails and jog along (maybe 3.7 or 3.8 mph) and feel what stride motions in my legs and hips resulted in the least amount of movement of my elbows (both laterally and vertically) while maintaining that pace. Then figure out how to make that combination of hip and leg motions your regular running stride. As you up the pace, recheck your stride for excess upward or lateral motion and focus on making the necessary stride movement corrections. It is called endurance TRAINING, after all.

You don't want to spend more than 20 minutes a day endurance training (as a distinct segment of your overall fitness routine), but you do want to train to complete at least 1 mile each session. As with weight strength training, you can vary the pace, distance, and time (if you can run 1 mile in 6 minutes, you can theoretically run 3 miles in 18 minutes - if you actually do that, congratulations, you're an average line Marine grunt; CNO will be so proud) (yes, that is indeed a 10 mph pace - you're gonna be a while getting there). The point of this is to train yourself to a degree of physical capability that is likely to exceed the requirements of your normal duty day (or just life its own self). This reduces the effects of exertion on you generally, and makes you capable of doing more for longer on the hopefully rare occasion when that may be the difference between you living or dying (or only just hearing harsh language from some bystanding CPO).

On the days when you simply don't have the time to do anything but one form of training, choose endurance training over anything else, as physical endurance is what is most necessary over the broadest range of activities you can find yourself confronted with.

Fitness is a journey, Part The Fourth

Archived from my FB page of Dec 28, 2016

Strength training.

I have directed these monologues at my friend Charynn McCurdy, but they are more or less my accumulated recollections of lessons learned, over a few more years than are comfortable to remember these days, bumming around different kinds of gyms. I've largely avoided referring readers to any particular source material, but we have reached the stage when doing so becomes a necessity.

For detailed instruction on pretty much anything to do with weight training, Mark Rippetoe is your go-to source. His book "Starting Strength - Basic Barbell Training" (Amazon link below) will teach anyone who can read English how to safely and productively train with weights. He basically starts from the pretty much irrefutable premise that, if you want to get strong enough to lift heavy things, you need to lift heavy things, and do so in the manner that your body naturally does that sort of activity.

That said, and I have no argument against his position, I'm nevertheless going to advocate that a beginner, especially one in Charynn's position (a young sailor who will have to alternate her training environment from a shore-based gym to the facilities that can be built into whatever ship she deploys aboard), would be better off starting out working on the machines available in almost any gym not dedicated to a specific training regimen (or not a martial arts gym - these sometimes have their own "machines", but they are combat specific, and not for beginners either) (personal note; Charynn and I first met in a martial arts class. This is mostly me just covering the different types of gym that might be available to any reader, she's well aware of what martial arts training is comprised of). I think it reasonable to assume that the gym/fitness center available on a modern US Navy base will be reasonably well equipped and maintained. I use Anytime Fitness personally for my weight and endurance training.

There is another aspect to this advice that should be commented on. There is a form of "gym etiquette" that basically holds that others should be left to their own training unless they ask for help or are obviously in trouble. This gets observed more in the breach than in practice. You know that whole clubbing/bar scene of getting dressed up to attract a "date"? People (not just women either) routinely dress much less provocatively to get laid on a hot Saturday night than they do to get sore and sweaty doing exercise.

- [Pro Tip: Wear utility underwear (especially knickers - the "wet fart" is a real and all-to-common weight training gym event) (or pretty much any other physically strenuous environment come to that; grappling training anyone?) underneath uniformly dark-colored sweat pants or long-legged shorts, a long-waisted (a size too large might be in order here as well) T-shirt/sweat shirt, and good weight training athletic shoes (something that provides a uniformly level foot structure that doesn't pre-load your ankles to twist to the side under stress - the old-school Converse high top basketball shoes are a reasonably available example) (For women, I can recommend the Otomics brand name of shoe as well). Also, roll a pair of sweats or shorts into a compact shape and keep them in your gym bag with your towel and the other gear you will gradually accumulate (see: wet fart, above). You'll know you're accepted by the experienced, serious lifters when they give you a little friendly stick about the quality of your fart. It's that kind of atmosphere, if you'll pardon the terrible pun.]

Everybody occasionally gets distracted by the scenery at the gym. Be polite, nod your head in a friendly fashion (if you think you won't attract a shark-pack by doing so) (being a more-than-attractive girl, Charynn no doubt learned how to dodge that years ago), maybe offer a compliment on form or technique, and get on with your own training. You will get hit on at the gym (even my old ass, to my considerable surprise - the End Times may indeed be upon us). Try not to be a hitter yourself; it's poor form, if nothing else.

The thing to keep in mind about weight training is that it is data-heavy driven behavior. That is, there is a number (more commonly a complex of inter-related numbers) for literally every exercise you can do with a weight. I've touched on this in earlier essays: "Max weight", "max rep". For a complete beginner (or anyone starting out again after a long-ish lay-off from weight training), there are a few basic body areas to concentrate on initially. In no particular order of importance, they are:

Chest
Shoulders
Back
Biceps
Triceps
Leg Extension
Leg Curls
Leg Squats
Calf Raises

There are machines designed to focus your workout on these muscle groups solely. Any modern gym has a staff trainer; do consult him/her as to which machine is which, and how to use it properly.

It has to be acknowledged that this isn't actually the most optimum training you can do. All of these muscles come into play on any of the basic Olympic weight lifting forms, for example. Your initial focus is to determine how much weight you can lift in each of these body categories, and how many times you can lift that weight in each category. Be prepared to take notes (seriously).

Keep in mind, max weight is how much weight you can lift, one time, using correct lifting form for that body part.

- [One of the less-than-compelling arguments for machines over free weights is that a machine forces the lifter into more-or-less "correct form". Whose definition of correct form is left unanswered, of course. My argument in favor of machines initially can be divided into two areas of concern: ease of initial data division by body part/area, and reduction of distraction from training at all. The first seems obvious to me; the second is an aspect of motivation I haven't touched on earlier. If you rely on a training partner or group or class, you will fail to train regularly due to schedule conflict. Training on machines is by its nature a solitary approach to weight training that relies on no one but yourself.]

Max repetitions is how much weight you can lift a certain number of times (commonly 8 to 10 times) in a row, and for how many reps in a set of reps (max set isn't an actual "thing"; commonly lifters will train for 8 to 10 reps per set, and adjust the time between sets, as well as the number of reps in each set, or the weight lifted in each set, to prevent "plateauing" - not something a beginner needs to worry about). A common weight training routine might be: 3 sets of 10 reps on each major body part/area, each training day (this will change with accumulated experience - dividing the body parts into complimentary training groups [arms/calves, chest/back, shoulders/legs, for example], to be trained on different days, is an idea that naturally comes along with adding weight and training devices to your routine).

- [A common rule of thumb to give your training some external point of reference is that you "should" be able to lift roughly 25% of your body weight directly overhead in a Military Press, at least your own body weight for your chest Bench Press, and at least 150% of your body weight from your Leg Squat. You will be a while getting up to these levels of lifting performance. Probably well into the free weights stage of your training. Don't get frustrated; nobody can do this when they are getting started. This is a generic example of the sort of external training metric you can use to guide your training development on your own.]

Once you have accumulated this basic training data and physical capability, you will be ready to consider adding dumbells to your training routine. When you do, you will no longer be a beginner at weight training, but expect this to occur only after probably 2 months of regular training (4 days a week minimum), and more likely longer than that. A regular training session for a beginning lifter will probably average about 20 to 25 minutes of weight training, with at least 20 minutes of endurance training (topic of Part The Fifth, forthcoming).

Keep in mind that your initial training is to achieve a desirable muscle mass to body fat ratio, as well as a generally firmer body composition, before beginning to add muscle mass. You need to achieve a desired physical dimension before adding to your body weight, or you will simply be adding bulk to an already over-padded form. This is only achieved when your diet reduces the quantity of body fat to the desired level, and thus the routine experience of having to allow additional time before beginning training to add specific muscle bulk (a note on that: women have an incredibly difficult time adding very much visible specific muscle bulk without resorting to extreme physical training or chemical assistance. Frankly, women just don't "bulk up" in the same way that men do. Get over it, and don't let a fear of that result stop you from beginning weight training).

Remember, it's a journey.

Post-script: I see that I haven't mentioned abdominal muscle training. Can you do a sit up? Whether or not you can (yet), can you do a supine leg lift? Lie on your back on some available area of reasonably clean (don't get pissy about a little dirt, you're already sweaty and stinky and it will all wash off, I promise) floor, place your hands palm down beside your hips, now lift your straight legs about a foot off the ground and lower until your feet are almost touching the floor again. Repeat at least 20 times.

Once you catch your breath, move your hands to the side of your head, now sit up (if you need to lodge your straight legs or feet under something at first, you're cheating) (keep in mind the ancient training adage: if you're not cheating, you're not trying hard enough to get good enough that you don't have to). Repeat at least 20 times.

On a related note, can you do a regulation push up? If you can't, don't drop your knees to the floor, use the "snake motion" by pushing your shoulders up until your arms are fully extended and then snaking your hips up until your body is in alignment again. Lower yourself until you are almost touching the floor and repeat at least 20 times.

These three daily exercises will keep your abs well toned, and your back strong enough for them to have something to leverage all that strength against without injury.

Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, 3rd edition

Starting Strength has been called the best and most useful of fitness books. The second edition, Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, sold over 80,000 copies in a competitive global market for fitness education. Along with Practical Programming for…

AMAZON.COM

Fitness is a journey: Part The Third

Archived here from my FB page of Dec 22, 2016

Motivation

There are whole sections, never mind shelves, of libraries dedicated to the concept of "motivation". Much of psychiatry addresses the ways in which humans motivate themselves in ways both healthy and un. Fortunately for us, we only need to take a passing glance at the complexities as our focus is on a very narrow application of the most fundamental of the ideas that make up human motivation.

Basically, it needs to be understood that motivation consists of two supporting, but not necessarily interacting, parts. I think of them as "internal" and "external" motivators.

An example of an external motivator that very much will be applicable to my friend Charynn McCurdy in the not-too-distant future, will be the physical requirements necessary to performing successfully on a working party during an underway replenishment evolution at sea.

In Navy-speak, unrep - underway replenishment of consumable stores and supplies - is probably the most fully worked out example of the concept of "organized chaos" known to human civilization. It seems a virtual certainty that, as one of her commands most junior members, she will be detailed to be a working party member during the regular unreps a modern warship requires to meet the operational demands we place upon them (and necessarily their crews). A typical working party requirement is to manually transfer cases of consumables (anything from beverages to preserved foods to lubricants to - pretty much anything that can be packaged in a cardboard shipping case for transport) from the pallets they are shipped on into any available storage space that can be free'd up to meet the demand for short-term storage. It isn't actually a requirement that this be in the most inaccessible location aboard the ship, it just seems that way when you're doing it.

The usual method is to form a "chain" of workers (who, if they are smart, stand on opposite sides of the passageway from each other alternately, so they can pass items from one to another with the least difficulty) and pass each individual case from the pallet to however far down a twisting passageway is necessary to get to the stipulated temporary storage space. A case of canned Cokes weighs 25 lbs as I recall; a case of #10 cans of preserved food can weigh in excess of 30 lbs (but the Navy is pretty good about keeping the case weight down to about that amount at most). So, here is an external fitness motivator that Charynn must be able to meet, prior to her first at-sea deployment, in order to not be THAT GIRL (the one who exemplifies the stereotype "girls don't belong in combat arms" to the assholes).

We will take a look at the training requirements to achieve this very basic fitness goal as a separate topic.

The internal half of motivation is always a personal choice, more idiosyncratic in nature. It can take almost any form, but the essential requirement is that it be a thought or idea that inspires you. Very commonly this takes the form of some imaginary standard of approval you are willing to work to achieve.

Lemme 'splain.

We all have someone whose approval we seek. It is common for athletes to imagine a physical goal (again, often appearance based) they wish to achieve that "Person X" would be ... fill in the space with your preferred adjective. It is important that this set of goals not be something a real, actually breathing-on-his/her-own person really wants you to do. I mean, think about it, that has to be a pretty creepy conversation no matter how intimate X is. More importantly, that removes you from control of the desired result and we are talking about your fitness.

So, an imaginary version of someone whose good opinion you desire is created in your imagination to give specificity to your otherwise pretty random fitness objectives. "X would really be happy if I looked like this when s/he walks in the room when I get back from this cruise." Whatever. This isn't about what X might or might not really want, but about keeping you engaged in your fitness pursuits when the inevitable distractions arise. Working to gain the approval of someone important to you personally is a very common technique for doing this.

For the more practical minded among us Charynn , next time you're in your quarters alone and get out of the shower, look in the mirror and take note of what you see. Notice your profile, face-on and sideways. Not in any kind of critical way, but simply as a baseline observation. Following a period of training (and this varies considerably for a lot of different reasons) you will subsequently observe that your waist will have reduced in circumference by an inch or more, your hip profile will have probably remained about the same overall measurement but the tissue placement will have altered (fat tissue tends to be more susceptible to gravity than does muscle, so your hips will be about the same size but shaped differently), your thighs will begin to display greater size and definition, especially above the knees, with more mass in the hamstring muscles and less fat tissue along the sides, and your calves will become more defined as well as simply larger (stronger). So too your shoulders and, less noticeably probably, your neck will gain in muscle density and visible size. Your bra cup size will remain essentially the same, but your chest diameter will increase by possibly as much as a couple of inches (this depends in part on how much muscle growth you experience in your back). There will be other changes as well, but they tend to be less obvious to the casual glance until very much further along the fitness path.

Your external motivations are in considerable part the result of factors you can't control. Your internal motivators are the result of factors you largely must create from your own experience of life. An added factor helps to coordinate these two impulses in my experience.

I can't say who, but I read somewhere that an English family "of yore" had as their family motto (suitably gussied up in properly declensioned Latin, I'm sure) the phrase, "Be as you wish to seem".

I've always found this to be profound enough to be useful in virtually any fitness application.

"To seem" is any aspect of appearance or strength or endurance qualification you can imagine. "Wish" is always a factor governing our choices. "As you" confines the choices and selections to those acceptable (or maybe just available) to the circumstance you presently, or anticipate to, inhabit. "Be" though, that's the magical bit for me; the successful culmination of two distinct but inseparable things. I must achieve a capability I do not currently possess by acting as if my possession of that capability is the normal standard of my existence.

To a large degree, physical fitness is an ill-defined standard we all pursue (or ignore) with very little practical reference to what and how others pursue that exact same goal. By actually being as you wish to seem in your own mind, soon enough you will seem as you will have become. You will know - and demonstrate - that you have the ability to master the physical demands placed upon you by the circumstances of your chosen life, and you will maintain this condition through motivating factors that have intense meaning only to you.

Fitness is a journey; Part the Second.

Archived from my FB page from Dec 18, 2016

Since Charynn McCurdy specifically mentioned she has no kitchen in her quarters, I thought I'd do this one a lot earlier than I would have otherwise.

Diet.

Everyone fixates on what the pros do. No one stops to consider the differences between themselves and the physical demands pro athletes routinely live their lives with.

In an effort to keep it honest and the pain at a minimum, you ain't that. To be honest, the specialized diets that professional (or even "only" high level amateur) athletes require would be almost entirely wasted on someone just beginning their athletic journey. The actual food consumed would be healthy, but it wouldn't be in the proportions your body needs, so you wouldn't achieve the results top level athletes would from such a refined diet plan.

What anyone needs to focus on in the beginning is discovering their physical limits and refining their existing body from that of a sedentary human into an athletic human (and not all that athletic, when you get right down to it). That means learning how to perform the most basic physical activities, and healthy calorie restriction.

If you can reduce your food and beverage consumption of calories to a daily average of 1600 calories, you will lose body fat. If you can perform a daily exercise routine (particularly one that varies from day to day to include all of the major body parts as well as aerobic activities like brisk walking or slow running) along with that, you will gain muscle tone and some muscle mass. Only after you have achieved the basic muscle-to-fat ratio and physical strength-to-weight ratio your body is naturally capable of are you ready to begin building beyond your natural body parameters of muscle mass or perform any of the more extreme physical activities.

How to get started? Go to the store (or the commissary, if the .nav still has such a thing). Start reading the data printed on the packaging of the food items you can keep and prepare in your quarters. The only really vital data point you should be noting down for now is the total calories per serving amount. While you're there, buy a jumbo bottle of a daily vitamin (one with an iron supplement included would be useful since you're a woman) and a bottle of vitamin D supplement (I recommend the 5,000 IU dosage). This will provide you with the basic vitamins necessary to good health, even if your diet were to be much more restricted than what is proposed here. Do drink enough clear liquids to keep your urine clear-ish, mostly not-too-odorous, and of reasonable quantity to keep your kidneys working.

Anyone can make a sandwich if they have a refrigerator to keep the makings in. How many calories in a couple slices of bread? How many calories in a tablespoon of mayo (or mustard or ketchup; insert the condiment of your choice here)? How many calories in a slice of your preferred sandwich meat (don't forget to include things like tuna here)? How many calories in a package of shredded lettuce or a tomato? When you reach a total of 400 calories, all you have to do now is put it all together into some form you can get down your neck instead of your shirt front. :)

Look around the store for the powdered drinks. Buy one each of every flavor of Crystal Light you think you might like and at least two 1 quart tupperware drink containers. If you have to have fizzy drinks, buy a bottle or two of carbonated soda water. For regular drinking, mix the Crystal Light as directed and drink as much as you want. If you are completely fiending for a fizzy drink, mix a package of Crystal Light with about 40% of the usual water required, stir like crazy until it's reasonably well mixed, fill a glass about 60% full of carbonated water, top up with the concentrated Crystal Light mix and belch with gusto. If you let both containers get cold first, you can do it without ice even. Oh, and Crystal Light flavored ice cubes are an excellent way to make a glass of tap water seem a whole lot more palatable too.

When you absolutely cannot face another sandwich, total up the calories from a salad instead (just go with a vinegar-and-oil dressing and look around for small packages of different kinds of nuts for variety. Other than peanuts, most nuts are surprisingly high protein for their caloric content). Again, 1600 calories total per day.

Total calories in a packet of ramen noodles? 190. Get about 200 calories of diced meat from the deli, add a splash of soy sauce (go on, splurge, make it two splashes), cover the lot with water from the tap and you're about 2:00 minutes away from post-nuclear dinn-dinn.

The critical factors to keep in mind are: kiss is more than fun or a really glam rock band, it is an acronym for a simple way to go about making you into someone you want to look at in the mirror (or just not have to buy new uniforms for), a little fore-thought makes keeping to a training/diet regimen equally simple, and you don't really care what percentage of your calories come from what segment of the dietetic spectrum of foods at this point. What you want are an average of four meals a day consisting of a total of 1600 calories. It's nice to divide them into 4 meals of equal stomach volume if you can, but don't stress over that too much either.

Sugar-free gum and non-peanut nuts are good items to have around for those "gotta have something in my mouth" cravings, but you gotta remember to add them to the daily total when you give in (which you will; welcome to the human race, we're none of us perfect).

Get your head space around the idea that sugary, fizzy drinks are a thing of the past, as are pretty much any type of fast food. Candy is right out, unless you want to add the calories to your daily total. Your call there.

A few small size ice cube trays, a couple three tupperware bottles for drinks, a couple nuke-safe bowls for salads and hot soups. If you can arrange routine access to a 'frig and a microwave oven, this process doesn't have to be uncomfortable or especially expensive to begin. Which is good, because you aren't going to have any of that aboard ship, so you're gonna need the time you have to figure out how to get the same levels of nutrition from your ships galley before you actually have to do that thing.

Actually, once you achieve your initial goals of weight-to-fat ratio, you want to increase your caloric intake as you will then be adding exertion levels to your physical workouts at the same time. If you can get in the regular strength training in addition to the other exercise routines you will have developed, you'll probably be looking at a 2000 calorie average daily intake. That's when you'll want to start paying attention to how many calories are from fat or protein or carbs, etc. In the beginning, not so much, so don't stress yourself.

For the record, my usual daily diet consists of a single bacon and egg Hot Pocket, with two sandwiches for lunch/dinner. All the Crystal Light Iced Tea or Fruit Punch flavor drink I can stand, and a non-sugar sweetener for my coffee called Xylosweet (24.99 plus shipping from Amazon for 5 lbs, made with xylitol which has about a third of the calories of regular sugar, but is used in the same proportions as sugar for cooking or flavoring). When I absolutely will kill someone if faced with one more sandwich, I cheat. Sue me. Actually, I mostly go with a tupperware bowl full of brown rice and some quality steak chopped into bite-seized pieces for easy nuking and chewing.

My exercise routine consists of about 30 minutes a day of either boxing training on the heavy bags (and Bob - you need a precise target to really focus your punching training and Bob's THE go-to guy for that) usually 4 times a week, or roughly the same time on the weight machines at Anytime Fitness with some added time on the treadmill. One or the other, every day. That's the key. Devise a routine you can do, and structure your day around doing it - and staying employed, of course. I find it extremely important that my martial arts interest in historic pugilism and the Backsword (which uses essentially the same foot work) is a critically important contributor to my continued willingness to put in the work. You will have to find your own motivation, but everyone has to so I'm confident you'll have no difficulties there.

I hope you find all this encouraging and helpful in your efforts to achieve greater fitness and general health.

Fitness is a journey, Part The First.

Archived here from my FB page of Dec 16, 2016.

My friend Charynn McCurdy has finished her A School training and is settling in to her new command. For the immediate future, this will keep her ashore instead of at sea somewhere. Lots of advantages to that, of course, but one disadvantage is that much of what you learn doesn't easily transfer to shipboard duty.

Returning to my opening gambit, maintaining fitness ashore can involve many activities that simply aren't practical aboard ship (even a large ship like an aircraft carrier; you can run on the flight deck only as long as the airplanes aren't using it, you see :)). My thought is that if Charynn can use these suggestions aboard ship, they ought to be equally useful to the rest of us (that would be me, still looking around my gut in an effort to see my ... feet). The trick, of course, is to establish a shipboard usable routine before you have to make the actual transition to shipboard duty (with all the unavoidable struggle that initially involves). Then it's just a matter of making the time to do a little of what you already do, instead of being one more new thing you have to learn. For those of us determinedly ashore, having an exercise routine available that doesn't require expensive gear or facilities (although there are swords involved eventually, so there is that :)) ought to be an obvious attraction, I would think.

For an initial suggestion, I direct your attention to sword instructor and author Guy Windsor's free video on breathing and general flexibility. I recommend his books and am thinking about spending a little money his way in the new year on the linked-to exercise course in the video below, once I've actually earned a little money, you understand. For now:

Breathing Course Free Sample Exercise

Breathing is a fundamental part of being human. You can learn to use your breath to control stress, increase fitness, and improve every aspect of your life. ...

YOUTUBE.COM

You Are As Old As You ...

Aging, the relentless march into senescence, seems to have gradually morphed from a scientific and philosophic certainty into more of an open question of late, at least as a scientific assertion.

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/intermittent-expression-of-genes.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/genome-editing-of-pluripotent-stem-cell.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/11/fight-aging-predicts-sequence-of.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/11/neurons-from-stem-cells-replace-damaged.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/10/baby-mice-created-from-skin-cells-and.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/stem-cells-delivered-via-skin-gun-can.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/07/3-d-weaving-of-genetically-engineered.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/07/nottingham-uppsala-and-ge-researchers.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/06/a-few-units-of-stem-cell-created-blood.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/06/modified-stem-cells-used-for-overall.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/04/progress-to-regrowing-parts-of-eyes-as.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/03/stem-cell-derived-neurons-regenerate.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/03/a-full-sized-beating-bioengineered.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/01/wheelchair-bound-multiple-sclerosis.html

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2015/12/currently-existing-longevity-treatments.html

(all above links provided by Brian Wang's Next Big Future)

Over the last year, we have learned how to treat some of the effects of MS, create a replacement heart for a patient, re-grow parts of different organs, grow blood from our own stem cells and produce large quantities of that blood, build replacement joint structures from living tissue for joint replacement, how to treat skin burns at a much accelerated rate of healing, how to create mice entirely outside a living body, how to replace damaged neuron cells in a living patient, how to create quantities of pluripotent cells from an adult stem cell source, and much else. It seems entirely unreasonable to believe this discovery trend won't continue, or that further developments won't result from what we learn.

Despite the regulatory burden placed on development of specific therapies up to now, it seems clear that these therapies will become available, either from within the health care system in the United States or elsewhere. From that it seems only reasonable to begin modifying our life styles so as to make ourselves into viable candidates for the treatments as they become available. Achieve and maintain a general level of physical fitness. Achieve and maintain a healthy weight and muscle/fat ratio. All the obvious things we are familiar with.

One form of technically (perhaps "technologically" would be better?) available therapy I think needs greater emphasis, is that of blood replacement with pluripotent stem cells derived from our own adult stem cells and introduced in a serum matrix on a unit-to-unit basis over an extended period of time. Perhaps 500 cc's of whole blood removed and replaced with an equal amount of pluripotent stem cell bearing neutral saline, every other week, for 20 weeks. The intended object being to reduce the presence of damaged proteins as a percentage of overall blood volume in an aged patient, and to infuse existing body tissues with young stem cells generally, thereby restoring at least some of the normal cellular function of a younger body to an older patient.

Even without benefit of specific genetic modifications, providing one's body with a supply of your own youthful stem cells seems likely to be of general benefit to extending healthy life span. I suggest that cancer cells being defective cells by their nature, they would not benefit from a procedure such as this, but that cancer development monitoring could easily be incorporated into such an extended time frame as suggested here. Should cancerous cells increase, stop the serum replacement and begin cancer treatment instead (since this would suggest the existence of previously undetected cancerous cells in your body before you began the blood replacement regimen).

I wonder if there aren't D-I-Y'ers out there doing something very like this already? It just doesn't seem all that technically challenging or expensive.

As to the philosophic issues; I suppose I'm too much a believer in the concept of Individual Rights to accept anyone having final say over me without my consent, or at least my passive non-aggression to such an assertion. I understand that there are many who are afraid of change, or of any perception of elevated risk/threat to themselves even indirectly, but I'm too well grounded in classical strategy precepts for that to be an option I can accept for myself. Every old (or young, come to that) gym rat is familiar with the mantra, "No pain, no gain". The strategic principle of "risk = opportunity" is simply a restatement of that same idea. To gain from a perceived opportunity, you must accept an elevated exposure to increased risk (pain).

By causing to be created (from a reputable laboratory source) pluripotent stem cells from your own adult stem cells, you avoid any risk of tissue incompatibility. Replacing a limited quantity of your blood with these stem cells over a controlled time span permits observation of results via available blood and other testing metrics (like for elevated levels of cancerous cells, for instance). Doing this repeatedly for multiple replacement cycles (I have suggested 10 cycles over a 20 week time span, mostly because it seems a reasonable framework to begin with - I am open to counter arguments on this point certainly) allows for recursive effects (that is, an effect in one area of the body to stimulate seemingly unrelated effects elsewhere) to develop within the body's cellular structure, thereby increasing the improved level of health one can expect to achieve from this procedure.

In order to still be alive to receive more refined (and hopefully genetically personalized) treatments and therapies, we must still be alive when they become available. Doing what we individually can to assure that eventuality ultimately falls to each of us, as individuals, exercising our individual rights of choice, and accepting personal responsibility for the outcomes of those decisions.

You know; adulthood?

At some point in humanity's journey into the future, we will all make just such choices as the one I have suggested here. I believe such a choice is upon us now, not next year, or next decade, or after someone else has put in sufficient work to make us feel less frightened.

It remains only for each of us to decide, and then act.  

On Pain

I'm not certain now when I first heard the phrase, "Are you hurt, or are you injured?" Probably in some otherwise mostly forgettable football movie since this caliber of dialogue is pretty non-standard IRL. Or, maybe, this sort of question is more a reflection on just how non-standard my life has mostly been. Something to that last bit, regardless.

In any case, a practicing student of martial arts should be familiar with the distinction between the two conditions. And if this doesn't describe you yet, keep showing up.

Pain is how our bodies tell us we're doing something in a less-than-optimal way. In martial arts, feeling pain makes it frequently necessary for us to make a quick self-diagnosis between hurt and injury. The primary distinction I make between the two conditions is, does this pain require invasive (surgical) or restrictive (plaster of paris cast or neck brace for example) intervention by a medical professional for me to continue? If so, I'm injured.

Much of the time though, I'm "only" hurt. Hurt is a condition that a brief-ish period of recovery will alleviate sufficiently for me to continue with the practice/bout/game/etc. Allow me to illustrate by recounting a recent incident from HEMA practice.

We were practicing the basics of falls and rolls. Following a simple leg sweep (or trip), we were to fall into a rolling break-fall. I managed to land on the top of my shoulder in a very unglamorous pile of OUCH! instead. Due to my several-years-long relationship with my physical therapist (and there's a non-standard friendship for you), I am aware of the structure of the shoulder - I am, in fact, in the process of relieving an impingement (her word) of the ACL in the same shoulder (of course) - and discovered I still had basic joint integrity while I was un-piling onto my back by the simple expedient of using the same arm to move with. She, at least, will not be shocked by my choice of diagnostic technique.

The point being that it was immediately apparent to me that I was "only hurt" and not injured.

In our study of the historical treatises, it is just basic good sense to also make a study of the current best understanding of our own human anatomy (and never mind what the cutting edge thinking on matters medical was "back in the day"). Knowing how a wrist joint is structured, or the bones in the hand, would probably apply fairly directly to at least half of all HEMA-related injuries - and is pretty critical knowledge to making a self-diagnosis that won't get you sued for malpractice later.

By its very nature, HEMA involves experiencing pain - the hopefully modest pain of physical exertion, if nothing else. Having a conscious mechanism whereby we can categorize the nature and degree of the pain we will undergo seems a useful capability for us to develop.

Ouch!

Second day back at work yesterday and the seat support thingee I bought didn't help me make it to the end of the shift as well as it seemed to Monday.  Paid vacation for a day or two until I can put together a more effective lower spine support for use on a forklift truck.  Already sent the money to Amazon after I got home from work for attempt No. 2.  A couple different designs of L-spine/abs braces and a small seat pad to alter the angle I sit on the seat.  If this doesn't work I spend the hundred bucks for the pro-model seat back cushion, I guess.

There certainly seems to be real science behind all of this technology design, but I'm not doing any of it.  Vitamin I stacked with codeine will get you through the night though.

Wellville Update

To re-cap; on Sunday the 19th of January I developed lower back pain that extended down the length of my left leg.  On the following Monday (January 20), this was diagnosed as bursitis since X-ray revealed no physical abnormality to my back and pelvic region.  The next day, I was seen by the first available orthopedic specialist who determined there was no medical cause for my symptoms revealed so far (he specifically ruled out bursitis) and he scheduled me for an MRI which took place the next day (Wednesday, Jan 22).  The following Tuesday, 28 Jan, the orthopedic specialist determined I was suffering from a stenosis of the L-1 and/or L-2 vertebrae, which basically means a narrowing or constriction of the channels through which the nerves run causing nerve pain (which has the attribute of expressing as pain almost anywhere the given nerve extends or "transmits" to/from).

Simply as a result of who I saw first for pain treatment (the Urgent Care doc-in-a-box alternative to the Emergency Room), I ended up going to the wrong specialist.  No one's fault as such; everyone involved sought the best treatment for me as the information they had available indicated.  My personal physician has now taken the lead position on my treatment, as would have occurred from the outset had this not transpired on a holiday weekend.  He has arranged for me to begin physical therapy starting this next Tuesday (that would be Feb 4 for those keeping score at home) and for me to be seen by a neurosurgeon, although that doesn't happen until Thursday Feb 13.

I've been off work this entire time and getting the Sickness and Accident insurance payments going is a slloooww process.  I'm in no danger of starvation, especially when you take the appetite suppression qualities of codeine into account, and the bills are all being paid still, but I'm actually looking forward to beginning PT if only for something to do.  Anyone who has been treated by a physical therapist will recognize just how extreme my level of boredom must be. Also, poverty (the money to pay for stuff is coming from my money to do things account).  First world problems all.

I expect to be off work for several more weeks at best.

I'm tempted to whine that "it never ends", but in fact it does and that alternative invites not at all.  I'll wait (and work) for "gets better".

Gee Thanks!

Now I have to buy a bigger hat.

Seriously, thanks Chris.

A Bump In The Road To Wellville

This past Sunday afternoon at about 4:30 I started feeling pain in my left hip.  Within an hour, I was almost in tears.  On Monday, I went to the Doc-in-a-box where I was irradiated and given codeine for pain.

This resulted in a man in great pain who was also high.  Not there fault, it was all they could do.

Other than get me an appointment with an Orthopedic specialist for the following day.  Whimpered my way there on the Tuesday expecting a "hip shot" (injection into the hip region) of cortisone and whatnot to resolve the pain and begin therapy.

When you go to an expert, you don't get to tell him what he finds wrong with you.  IOW, there's nothing medically wrong with my hip, thus no hip shot for pain relief, but I did get a much bigger bottle of codeine and an appointment for an MRI the following day.

That same afternoon I did get in to see my usual Doctor and he was able to look over everyones notes and accumulated work (x-rays and the like) and he thinks that, along with some arthritis developing in my lower back and pelvic region - not surprising in a man of 60 years, some hopefully still-minor damage has occurred to a disc in my L-spine or that possibly something else has pinched the nerve running down into my left leg.

Wednesday, I went to get the MRI.  I've had one before for my knees.  Surprising to me, a spine scan is less complicated than one of the knee; only took about 20 minutes, even with the do-over toward the end when I had to move or wet myself.  Something else I discovered - when in a building that contains an active MRI machine, don't bother texting anyone.  Your message(s) will eventually go through, but the (increasingly irritated) replies will all appear on your phone in a cascade of bloops and beeps once you get into the more usually constructed portion of the building, like reception say.  I wasn't taking notes at the time, but either the electronic symphony coming out of my pocket or the sight of me madly choking down drugs while whimpering my way toward the water fountain will likely get you looked at in a concerned fashion by everyone else too.

Just saying.

The ortho guy won't be back in town 'till next week, so I get to spend the next several days looking at the clock to see if my morally ill-prepared self control is stronger than the pain-addled rest of me (the label says "every 6 hours", which so far means my life still has unfulfilled aspirations as of yet) along with ice packs wedged dangerously close to the groinal region, resulting in sporadic (not to mention hasty) inspections for testicular frost damage.

So, I'm never not in pain and I'm too high to do much of anything more demanding than move the blue ice pack somewhere a little less close to my urinary tract.  I failed to mention that I did get a course of steroids to keep track of along with all the rest.  I'd forgotten how steroids make one urinate so much more frequently.  Levitating up out of bed from yet-another nap with one leg in agony and the other in cramp is not an experience I can recommend.  Note to self: just drink more water, you're too high to know if you're thirsty or not anyway.

I am told that there are good non-surgical therapies these days even if it turns out to be a ruptured disc in my spine.  I resolutely refuse to speculate, mostly because doing so requires too much mental horsepower.  I'll know more next Tuesday.