Intentional Reading

I look forward to certain articles or blogs each week, all for different reasons Brett Contreras for Strength and Conditioning research, Tony Gentilcore & Jonathan Goodman for the fitness community’s best articles and unique voices. Also in need of some mentions are John Romaniello, Ben Bruno and the inspirational Big Chris McCombs. This week’s installment of the Functional Fitness Systems blog or FFS blog is what I call intentional reading. Intentional reading is a list of articles I find interesting, thought provoking or in the least helpful. We are in the lab cooking up some new articles for you, I believe we are going to have some follow up pieces touching on mobility, women’s strength training and the ever popular Plyometrics. Also in the works is an office workers survival guide, which will touch on a number of different areas related to your health.   How many of you have heard that old adage “your own advice is the hardest pill to swallow”?  It is easy to solve everyone else’s problems, or at least think that you have an answer or maybe “the” answer especially if you have knowledge in various areas.  I can hear myself saying it now “don’t run on a treadmill, you will get hurt”, “work your way into a program, not out of training”. So to cut to the chase I have been dealing with a stress fracture in my right foot, been in a boot all because of running on a treadmill and poor choice using old running shoes. Finally, out of the boot and rotating back to the gym, I won’t be running anytime soon. The plan is to switch spin classes, mobility work for the back, hips and legs coupled with strength training. In all honesty, I have been floundering for a while, keep having set backs, keep being sidetracked. Running into the same problems repeatedly sort of like a mini version of karma, someone is telling me stop the pity party. Simply put you need to get it together and make it happen for yourself.

Today we have five articles on the agenda all touching on different topics. The first article is from the NY times based on research aimed at finding whether or not we are programmed to enjoy exercise or to be a couch potato.Are you programmed for exercise?

Next up is a research article from the University of Basel which looks at the benefit that green tea has on memory, treatment for cognitive impairments in psychiatric disorders like dementia.Tea Time

In third place is a piece from the British Medical Journal looking the effect if regular aerobic exercise on memory and learning in women whose intellectual capacity has been affected by age. Exercise your mind.

The fourth article is from St. Michael’s Hospital which had a finding that eating one serving a day of beans, peas, chickpeas or lentils can significantly reduce bad cholesterol and cardiovascular disease.  Have you had your servings of beans?

The final article is from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences published on 04/01/14 in the journal Cell Metabolism. The study found that obesity rather than diet causes changes in the colon that may lead to colorectal cancer. The finding supports the recommended calorie restriction and increased exercise as a healthy lifestyle change. This may help in reducing in colon cancer risk.  Healthy Lifestyle

Hopefully these articles are enjoyable and educational for you. At least you have to something to read when you are pretending to busy at work. I may periodically through articles up on the Functional Fitness Systems Facebook page and on my twitter as well. The next article coming on this blog will be the office workers survival guide.