1. Good News
2. Product Highlight
3. Brainpower tip
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Regarding our national economy, the massive federal debt is the 400 lb gorilla
in the room. It affects everything, and not in a good way. Right now, it's
floated by debasing the currency. Currency debasement is a stealth tax, and it
taxes not only your present income, but any savings you have and all future
income. Economists call this tax "inflation" and non-economists misuse that term
to mean a general rise in prices. But make no mistake, this tax is how annual
deficits are floated (not truly paid for). Deficits accumulate, and the debt
grows. This affects your personal finances in no small way. Politicians like to say "We are borrowing from our children" but that is not true. When you borrow, you ask for permission and you intend to pay it back. We are not borrowing, we are stealing. The solution is to reduce federal spending so that we achieve a surplus every year and pay that debt down. Simply wringing out half the waste would accomplish this; the amount of waste is staggering. IRS employees, for example, spend half their office time surfing porn and gambling sites (source: GAO). Lay off half off those people, and you get the same amount of "work" (terrorism) done. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has a solution that he presents in this four-minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNUOubtFsEs&feature=youtu.be |
5. Security tip
6. Health tip/Fitness tips
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Photo taken about one week before 40th High School Class Reunion. Note that the information provided here will likely conflict with the "fad of the moment" and other unsustainable, unproductive ways of looking at health and fitness. Article appears below. See my climbing videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCyb67uKOxW_TsG6BVPbBIQ/videos
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Many people train within 50% or less of their full range of motion, thus
giving up 50% of their development potential, reducing flexibility, and
increasing the likelihood of injury. Why is this? Two factors:
What's a gravity locus? To answer that, let's do a standing dumbbell curl. Go ahead, grab a dumbbell (and I don't mean your boss). If your arm is fully extended while performing the standing biceps curl, gravity exerts its full force on that weight relative to your elbow joint. If your arm is fully contracted, gravity exerts zero force on that weight relative to your elbow joint. At full extension, 10lbs seems pretty heavy for the average guy (maybe half that much for a woman). Come up 20 degrees of rotation, and the effective force is greatly diminished; you now need a significantly heavier weight. That weight will do fine for you until you hit about 20 degrees from vertical. That's 60% of your range of motion. It's your midrange of your biceps contraction potential. If you take advantage of less than all of it, say starting at 25 degrees from the bottom and ending at 25 degrees from the top, you hit 50% of your full range of motion for your biceps. Doing seated curls won't change this; the gravity locus is similar to that of standing curls. Part of the answer is to do the bottom part with an inclined bench (lie back). You can use that lighter weight at full extension, with some overlap into the midrange. By lying back, you have rotated the gravitational line of force relative to your elbow joint. You rotated it backwards, relative to your standing position. But what about the full contraction? That great-looking peak will never develop if you don't work the last 20 degrees, the range of full contraction. The answer is to rotate the gravity locus forward relative to your standing position. One exercise to work this involves holding your forearm across your chest and lifting that way (e.g., right elbow by right side, right hand moves from just under pec to collarbone). Another exercise involves what I call the gorilla posture. It's a very useful posture. It's the basis for all kinds of moves, such as bentover rows and various kinds of deadlifts. Get into this posture and hold your elbows back so that your forearms point straight down when your upper arms are at a 45 degree angle. Now curl the weight. Notice how it hits the peaks really hard? It has a gravity locus that is at a 30 to 45 degree difference from that of the standing curl. You can use this same concept for most muscle groups. Another solution is to use cable machines and/or bands. I have a band setup I use for pecs. Flyes are very limited in their range of motion. Gravity always pulls straight down. You can't do full extension with flyes, because that puts undue stress on your shoulders. You can't do even halfway to full contraction, because you lose meaningful tension when you hit about 45 degrees. A cable or band that is pulling sideways doesn't have to account for the gravity locus. Many weight machines are designed with this concept in mind, so that no matter where you are in your range of motion the muscle tension is either the same (no cam) or it's adjusted across the range (a cam, such as the seashell-shaped Nautilus cam, does this). Controversy over machines versus free weights continues, with "real lifters" using free weights. Many have observed the poor results obtained with machines, and compared those to the great results obtained with free weights. But what they also fail to observe is the poor form typically used with machines. People confuse moving weight with training, so they put too much weight on the machine and then cheat to do the work. Beginners and typical gym rats are especially guilty. Watch how a "real lifter" works a seated leg press versus how a "see how much I can lift" person does. There's no comparison. The "real lifter" is actually seated on the seated leg press and her legs are actually pressing. Bad form is easier to get away with using machines, because machines tend to isolate the weight along a given plane and not require so much coordination and balance. My own routines rely mostly on free weights, but I also have bands, a leg press, a lat pulldown, a leg curl, and a seated leg press. I also have a Roman chair, which isn't a free weight but isn't a machine. Same for my chinning bar. I have only so much space, so not a lot of machines. However, I occasionally visit a training coach who has a well-apportioned training gym, and he always puts me on at least a few machines. Do I freak out, "Oh, it's a machine I am horrified?" Of course not. Do I try to impress this guy with how much I can lift? Of course not. He doesn't care about that. He cares about how much tension I can put on a given muscle through its full range of motion. He's drug-free and wins body building contests, as do dozens of his clients. Honesty is the best policy. If something's too heavy, I tell him I need less weight. The reverse, if it's too light. One thing I won't do is resort to bad form as if moving the weight is why I am there. It's certainly not why I work out six days a week, and it's not why I haven't missed a workout in almost 42 years. Pay attention to your gravity locus. Make sure you work a given muscle through its full range of motion, and in a way that applies the necessary tension to stimulate the adaptive response. Whether you use three arcs (mid range, full extension, full contraction) to account for gravity or if you use cables or other machines to sidestep the whole gravity locus problem, it doesn't matter. Keep good form and you will have good results. | |
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At
www.supplecity.com, you'll find plenty of informative, authoritative
articles on maintaining a lean, strong physique. It has nothing to
do with long workouts or impossible to maintain diets. In fact:
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7. Factoid
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Soda (soft drinks) cause tooth decay by multiple mechanisms, such as changing the flora and fauna in your mouth. |
8. Thought for the Day
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Aim Low, Reach Your Goals, Avoid Disappointment. This seems to be the philosophy of many people today. But is it not better to aim at the margin of your abilities and endure the occasional disappointment so that you achieve a new personal best? Stay out of your comfort zone! |
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Authorship
The views expressed in this e-newsletter are generally not shared by criminals, zombies, or brainwashed individuals.Except where noted, this e-newsletter is entirely the work of Mark Lamendola. Anything presented as fact can be independently verified. Often, sources are given; but where not given, they are readily available to anyone who makes the effort.
Mark provides information from either research or his own areas of established expertise. Sometimes, what appears to be a personal opinion is the only possibility when applying sound logic--reason it out before judging! (That said, some personal opinions do appear on occasion).
The purpose of this publication is to inform and empower its readers (and save you money!).
Personal note from Mark: I value each and every one of you, and I hope that shows in the diligent effort I put into writing this e-newsletter. Thank you for being a faithful reader. Please pass this newsletter along to others.