Giving the Gift of Health with OMW

One of the best things you can do for those you care about (and yourself!) is to help them become and stay healthier. Whether they are family members or friends, their health will have an impact on your life. Your support and encouragement can make a big difference on theirs. Even better, exercising together can help keep both of you on track, leading to greater and longer-lasting results!

Due to popular demand, we've been busy working on making this easier. You can now buy OMW account upgrades as gifts for anyone with an email address. Just head over to www.oneminworkout.com/gift and fill out the form. Complete your gift purchase and we'll electronically send your gift to the recipient's email.

Forgetting to Work Out? Check Your Inbox to Stay On Track

Sometimes you get busy and put off your workout for a day. You promise yourself you’ll do it tomorrow but you get even busier. Before you know it, you’ve completely forgotten about your workout. So much for the beach body (or other goal) you wanted for the summer!

This has happened to all of us so that’s why we added "Exercise Reminder Emails" to all OMW accounts. If you haven’t logged an OMW exercise for 3 days or more, we’ll send you reminders by email periodically. Instead of being yet another way to put things off, checking your inbox can now help you get and stay in shape.

These reminders will show you how long you’ve been letting yourself slide and how many XP points you’ve lost. You can get back on track and recover some of the lost XP by doing an exercise right away. Just click the “Exercise Now” button to go to your OMW account and do an exercise.

We find these reminders quite helpful but if you prefer not to receive them, you can turn them off from the Reminder Preferences section of the Settings page in your account.

3 Reasons Most Workout Programs Will Fail You (And How to Avoid Them)

If you’re like most people resolving to get in shape this year, you want to be healthier, to move and feel better, and hopefully also look better. Just as importantly, you want results that last. Unfortunately, many workout programs will fail at helping you achieving one or more of these goals. They all sound exciting when you first start out but for one reason or another, you’ll stop doing them and lose any benefit you may have gained. Here are three common reasons why these workouts can’t deliver lasting results, and how to fix them.

1. Ineffective Exercises

This is the most insidious reason of the three because many people don’t even realize it. They think following a workout class or video automatically means they’ll get results. However, just because you are doing an exercise doesn’t mean it’s actually benefiting your body. Whether it’s for cardio, strength, or flexibility, exercises are only worth your time if they push yourself to your limits. Your body adapts to new challenges - exercises don’t. This means any exercise you do will eventually become unsuitable for you unless you change it by increasing the difficulty.

Don’t just do more repetitions of the same (or similar difficulty) exercises. This doesn’t build strength and muscle effectively. Rather, you end up building endurance for that particular exercise as your body learns to perform them more efficiently. So, even though you spend more time working out, you don’t get much to show for the extra time and effort. Plus, as your workouts get longer, the higher the chances you’ll fall off the exercise bandwagon.

What To Do: 

Increase the difficulty of any exercises in your workout that aren’t challenging. This means putting your muscles under more load, or effective weight. Your body will adapt to the heavier loads which stimulate muscle growth and thereby improve function and aesthetics. Review your workout regularly to ensure that you are always spending your workout time wisely.

If you are lifting weights, increase the weight so that each repetition takes a good amount of effort. Finishing a set of 6 to 10 reps should be challenging. If the weight is too light, you’re just wasting your time.

If you are doing one of those popular low- or no-equipment workouts that use bodyweight exercises, try this: grab a heavy item like a jug of water or sand to increase your bodyweight. Even better, learn how to modify your exercises so that you can increase your effective bodyweight without grabbing an extra weight. If you don’t know how to do that, you can learn how from my One Minute Workout.

2. Excessive Intensity and Volume

Ever think of trying a high intensity workout or boot-camp program? High intensity exercises are great for stimulating your body to grow but it needs to be ready. If you’re out of shape, jumping into a high intensity workout is an easy way to get hurt. Once you get hurt, you’re likely to stop exercising.

Another common pitfall is too much volume. Exercising too much, especially at high intensities, also increases your risk of injury. When performing hard exercises, it is more difficult to maintain good form. Trying to do them when you are tired is asking for trouble. Pushing through fatigue to finish an exercise set with poor form is a recipe for serious injury.What To Do: 

Resist the urge to jump right into new exercises or workouts at full intensity. Instead, ease into them then increase intensity once you are familiar and comfortable with the movement and technique. This gives your brain a chance to learn the new movement patterns correctly. It also gives the weaker parts in your body a chance to catch up to the stronger parts. Remember that while muscles can adapt quickly, tendons and ligaments take much longer. Following this tip will greatly reduce your chances of injury in the beginning, right when you are the most excited about starting a new exercise or workout.

Also, don’t keep adding more exercises and repetitions to your workout regimen. Your body can only handle so much stress before it is unable to recover and repair in time for your next workout. Aim for 10 to 20 repetitions at most. If you can do more than 20 repetitions of an exercise, then it’s too easy for you.

3. Takes Too Much Time, Effort, or Resources

We’re all busy these days. If a workout takes too much time, you’re not going to stick with it for very long. Even with the best intentions, unexpected situations pop up and your priorities change over time. The same thing goes if it takes too much effort to start the workout. For example, having to drive to and from a gym across town creates a very real mental barrier that wears down your motivation each time. Even if you exercise at home, you’re not going to stick with it if you have to drag out and put away equipment each time. And needless to say, when your budget gets tight, workout classes and gym memberships and are the first to go.

What To Do:

Choose shorter workouts that maximize your results for the time spent. Don’t forget to include the time it takes to get to your workout location, setting up the equipment, and cleaning up afterward. Arrange your workout equipment so that they are easily accessible. If you go to a gym or class, pick one that is near the places you usually frequent, such as the office or grocery store. It’s better to go to a closer facility than a nicer one that is out of the way. And remember from earlier, as you get in better shape, don’t make your workouts longer.

Sustainability is Key

So there you have it. These three factors determine whether your workout is sustainable or not. It doesn’t matter how exciting or awesome a workout may sound, if it isn’t sustainable for you, it won’t do you any good. Health and fitness isn’t a short term game. It’s what you keep doing, especially as you get older and busier, that matters.

Need a Workout That Fits The Bill?

When I was younger, I kept running into these problems, whether it was with sport-specific training regimens or workout programs I saw on TV. As I got older and busier, I realized that what I really needed was a workout program that was effective and sustainable. The problem was, I couldn’t find one that fit my busy schedule. Some were sustainable but laughably ineffective. Others took too much time or equipment. So, I ended up designing my own workout system, The One Minute Workout, making sure I didn’t repeat the same mistakes. Since then, I’ve been able to stick with OMW for over five years and am now stronger and in better shape than I’ve ever been before.

If you need a workout that will make a lasting change on your life, join the many others who have started the One Minute Workout and see what it can do for you. You’ll be surprised how much you can accomplish with small but effective and consistent effort. Sign up and get started for free today.

The One Minute Workout Website has Launched!

Years ago, when I first created the One Minute Workout for myself, there was no website. I kept track of everything in my head. As I added more exercises, it became too much to remember so I logged my workouts on a piece of paper. It worked fine when I had my paper log nearby but when it wasn’t, I had to remember to log my day’s progress when I got back home. Needless to say, I often forgot to do so.

To solve this problem, I built a little personal website to track my OMW workouts online. It fit the bill perfectly and I have been using it ever since. It has enabled me to stay on track over the years to become stronger, move better, and feel healthier than I’ve ever been in my life.

I was happy with the website since it worked well enough for me. But it was apparently too ugly and clunky for anyone else to use (well, at least that’s what my friends told me). So, I knew the website would eventually need to be rebuilt if OMW was to help as many people as it could.

Fast forward a few years past all the blood, sweat, and tears from book publishing and website development. After a busy 2015 and especially crazy past few months, we’re happy to announce that the One Minute Workout website is officially up and open to the public! Now, anybody can start improving their health and fitness with the One Minute Workout by signing up for a free account.

The free account includes the essential basic OMW exercises that everybody needs to be able to do to maintain basic health and fitness. These exercises help build fundamental functional strength so that you can move better and start feeling better. It also includes the OMW online exercise tracker that I personally use so you can measure and track your progress. It’s an easy way to time your exercises and log your progress all from one place. You’ll also earn experience points for exercising and rewards for finishing your minute each day!

If you want to enhance your health and fitness further, you can get all of the exercises in The One Minute Workout book, workout programming, and more by upgrading to a premium account. This is the exercise system I used to fix my back pain, get the body you see on the cover of the book, and grow stronger than I’ve ever been. Your support will also enable us to develop new content and features to help you and others better.

So, don’t waste any more time reading this and sign up for a free OMW account. Then help your friends and family improve their health and fitness by telling them to sign up! Together, we can make the world a healthier place.

P.S. Don’t forget to use your personal referral link if you want to receive rewards in the future for helping us toward our goal of helping one million people.

The Truth About Artificial Sweeteners

If you do an internet search on “artificial sweeteners”, you’re bound to find a slew of articles decrying them and just as many articles touting them as the next best thing since sliced bread. You’ll find references to studies, good and bad, showing how toxic these chemicals are. You’ll also find references that support their safety. So, are they toxic or not? If not, are they good calorie-free substitutes for table sugar? And the question many of us have, will they help you lose fat?

As for their safety, you can debate either side of this issue almost indefinitely because we just don’t know enough about their complex effects within our bodies at this time. Any substance can be toxic at high enough doses, even those essential to life such as water and oxygen. Several sugar substitutes such as saccharin and aspartame are known to have toxic effects in humans. But they are generally considered safe to consume at the levels needed to make our foods more palatable. However, the stronger your sweet tooth, the more sweeteners you’re likely to eat, inching your consumption levels ever closer toward known levels of toxicity. Whether you ever reach those levels, or have any side effects, depends on your eating habits.

Just take a look at plain sugar. Decades ago, people never imagined we would consume as much sugar as we do today. Over the years, we’ve trained our brains to require higher levels of sweetness to be satisfied. This meant adding more sugar to our foods. While generally considered to be non-toxic at “normal” levels, when you eat too much sugar, you will develop metabolic problems like obesity and diabetes. For many of us, our brains have lost touch with how much sweetness it really needs and our health is paying for it.

The obvious “fix” to this sweetness addiction is to substitute sugar with low- or zero-calorie sweeteners. Indeed, this is the path that many people have chosen although many still have trouble losing unwanted pounds of fat despite the ostensible calorie reduction. However, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. When you crave high levels of sweetness, you’re more likely to end up eating more treats, even if they are lower in calories per serving. And when you are in situations where you aren’t able to eat sugar-substituted versions of a dessert, such as at a restaurant with friends, you’ll pile on even more calories. Despite intentions to lose weight, your addiction to sweetness trumps any discipline or willpower that you can muster.

The real solution to reduce caloric intake and achieve weight loss is to break this addiction. As you slowly ratchet down the sweetness level you consume, your brain adjusts accordingly. With time, you’ll no longer crave the same level of sweetness as before, making it easier to cut down on your overall calorie intake. In fact, you may find the previous levels of sweetness to be too much for you. I’ve experienced this effect several times as I cut down on various sugar-laden foods.

So, in the end, artificial sweeteners ARE bad for you but not in the sense that they are biologically toxic. Rather, they make the process of losing weight and keeping it off that much harder since they help fuel your addiction to sweetness and high-calorie foods. If you are truly serious about losing fat, do yourself a favor and cut down (not out!) on all forms of sweetness. You might be surprised how many extra calories those low- or zero-calorie sugar substitutes were making you eat before!

Why You Shouldn't Keep Doing More Push-Ups or Pull-Ups

In an earlier article, I discussed the problem with doing a lot of repetitions of low-weight exercises. As the number of repetitions increase, the gains become incrementally smaller. Instead of growing bigger and stronger, muscles improve in metabolic efficiency. While this is good if you want to be able to do that particular movement for a long time, it doesn’t necessarily carry over well to other movements or skills. Muscular endurance also doesn’t help improve the way you look.

When it comes to bodyweight exercises, the same holds true as well. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize they’re making the same mistake and end up doing increasing numbers of push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, etc. Since your bodyweight doesn’t change that much, doing more of the same kind of push-ups doesn’t increase your strength significantly. You just spend more time working out.

Unless you’re going to be in a competition based on the number of repetitions you can do, your time is better spent increasing the difficulty of your bodyweight exercises. How can you achieve this without using external weights? This is where an understanding of body mechanics and simple physics helps.

By adjusting your body position and placement of your hands and feet, you can make nearly any bodyweight exercise trivially easy or incredibly difficult. Just look at what gymnasts do, especially on the still rings. The iconic Iron Cross position is an incredible way to train your shoulders, forearms, biceps, chest, and lats at the same time. The significantly harder Maltese Cross is so difficult that it’s similar to bench pressing double your bodyweight!

If you can already do 10 to 20 push-ups, try increasing the difficulty by moving your hands apart, forward, or even backward. Play around with different hand placements and see what makes it harder for you. Work on that variation until it becomes easy. Then, increase the difficulty again. If you do sit-ups, try slowly extending your legs and arms until you can do V-ups easily. If those become too easy, then it’s time to up the difficulty even more by doing hanging abdominal exercises such as hanging leg lifts on a pull-up bar.

For those of you competing based on how fast you can complete a certain number of repetitions, such as in CrossFit, then you’ll definitely want to increase your strength and power. As you get stronger, the perceived difficulty of each repetition goes down, making it easier to do more. Plus, you’ll be able to do each repetition faster. So, instead of training more repetitions of the technique you’ll be competing with, train with harder variations. When it comes to game day, you’ll be surprised how much better you perform.

How to Ripen Pineapples Perfectly Every Time

Getting fresh pineapples from the store used to be hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes I’d get lucky and find one that was fragrantly ripe, sweet, and ready-to-eat. But more often then not, there would only be green ones in the entire bin. After picking the best from the bunch, I would sit it on the counter for days, or even a couple of weeks if need be, waiting for it to ripen. Even though the color would change from dark green to golden yellow, they still lacked the intensely aromatic sweetness of a truly ripe pineapple.

Eventually I found out that I could make them ripen faster and sweeter by putting a plastic produce bag over them as they sat on the counter. Unfortunately, there were three problems with this technique.

1. Uneven Ripening. The top of the pineapple would be ready faster than the bottom. If I left the bag on longer to let the bottom ripen all the way, the top became over-ripe and began fermenting.
   
2. Inconsistent Results. Sometimes the pineapples became sweet but other times, they were still quite sour despite taking on a nice golden color. Also, even the sweet ones would make my tongue feel prickly, as though I was eating an unripe pineapple.
   
   
3. Mold! This happened all over the surfaces that were covered by the bag and also where the pineapple sat on the counter. I was able to prevent mold on the bottom by placing a folded paper towel between the fruit and the counter but mold still persisted elsewhere.

One day, I was taking bananas out of the bag they came in and saw it was just the right size for the pineapple I had also bought. So I put that bag over the pineapple and several days later, I had a beautifully ripened golden pineapple that was extremely sweet throughout. No mold had formed and the fruit didn’t make my tongue feel prickly either. It was the best fresh pineapple I have ever had from a grocery store! I’ve been using this method ever since and have had perfectly ripened pineapples each time, regardless of the stage of ripeness at the store.

So, what’s the trick to the banana bag? I think it’s the holes that are punched throughout. A bag without holes doesn’t allow much air movement. As a result, the gases released by the fruit (ripening-hormones released by the fruit?) accumulate unevenly. Since the top of the bag is completely enclosed, the concentration of these gases is probably higher there, making that part of the fruit ripen faster. The bottom of the bag is open to the air, enabling these gases to disperse a bit. As a result, the bottom ripens more slowly. Also, since humidity doesn’t escape readily from a bag without holes, the surface of the fruit becomes a prime environment for mold to form.

Putting holes throughout the bag alleviates both of these issues by allowing humidity and gases to escape. This enables the ripening process to occur more evenly while decreasing the probability of mold growing.

Is there anything special about the banana bag material itself? I don’t think so as I’ve also tried cutting out 15-20 quarter-inch sized holes in a regular produce bag and using it to ripen pineapples. That has worked just as well too.

So, the next time you want to get a pineapple at the grocery store, there’s no need to pass up on the delicious fruit if you can’t find one that’s ready to eat. Just grab a clear grocery bag, cut some holes in it, and put it over your pineapple for a few days. Watch it turn golden yellow and when you can no longer resist the wonderful pineapple scent every time you walk by, it’s ready for eating!

Stop the Low-Weight High-Rep Workouts

Recently, a lady at one of my One Minute Workout workshops asked me how to tighten up her underarms and get rid of the “teacher flab”. She had been doing dumbbell triceps extensions for quite some time but didn’t see any improvements. When I asked her how heavy and how many repetitions, she replied 3 to 5 pounds, 20 to 30 times. Bingo! That was her problem. Those exercises weren’t doing anything meaningful for her. In other words, she had been wasting her time!

Many people think that light weights and high repetitions is the best way to “tone” muscles and improve the look of a body part. This is false! Unfortunately, many workout programs continue to promote this belief while people wonder why they aren’t getting the results they want.

When a body part lacks shape and feels squishably soft, it’s because there is insufficient underlying muscle mass to provide the desired contours. As a result, skin and fat dictate the appearance. Muscles only grow bigger in response to loads (e.g. weight) that stress it enough mechanically to cause individual muscle fibers to break. As part of the normal repair process, the fibers grow back thicker and stronger. When you get tired working against heavy loads, it’s largely because the muscles are no longer strong enough to move it. This is why lifting heavy weights increases the size of your muscles.

On the other hand, when you train with light weights, muscle fibers don’t break. Performing lots of repetitions only tires your muscles metabolically, not mechanically. In response, your muscle cells change their metabolic efficiency so that they can perform for longer periods of time before tiring out. This doesn’t increase their size significantly. Your body also learns to move more efficiently, reducing the number of calories spent for that movement. This has no effect on your body aesthetics. Any improvements you may see are from a global reduction in your body fat, which lets underlying muscles show through better. Losing fat is much more difficult than gaining muscle, which can take very little time and effort when done properly.

If you’re worried about developing too much muscle and becoming bulky, fear not. Building bulky muscles like a bodybuilder takes significant effort, both in terms of training and proper nutrition. If it were easy to get that big, you’d expect to see many more bodybuilders walking around right?

Now, if you’re an endurance athlete, you may think that building muscle mass will weigh you down. While it’s true the heavier you are the more energy you will need to spend, consider the fact that the stronger you are the easier movements become. As your perceived exertion decreases, you will be able to perform longer. Train to increase your strength-to-bodyweight ratio and you’ll improve your endurance performance.

So, the next time you hit the weights, pick ones that you can do for about 6 to 12 repetitions per set. You want to challenge yourself to the point of being unable to complete the last repetition in your set. This means you’ve pushed your muscles hard enough to grow. As your strength grows, increase the weight accordingly. This kind of exercise programming will give you better results and save you valuable time.

The Real Deal With “Whole-Grain”

The number of products labeled “whole-grain” is blooming these days. People looking for healthier food are moving away from refined flour products and picking up “whole-grain” versions instead. But are they really better for you? And does it matter?

To answer those questions, we need to look at how our bodies process the foods we consume. While our bodies are generally quite efficient at absorbing nutrients and energy from the foods we eat, it’s not 100% efficient. Just because you put 2000 calories into your mouth doesn’t mean your body absorbs all 2000 calories. How many calories your body actually absorbs depends on many factors.

For example, the type, amount, and mix of foods you eat affect nutrient absorption. Certain foods are digested and converted to energy more readily while others can slow down the digestive process. The health of your digestive tract can also matter. When you have an intestinal infection or severe food poisoning, food can go through with little of it being absorbed. Even the microorganisms in your gut can affect how much you can extract from your food.

If you consider the ease with which your body digests and absorbs nutrients from various “whole-grain” products, it becomes pretty clear which ones can be healthier for you, and which ones are not much different from refined flour products. Digestion takes place in many phases. We commonly think of it starting in the mouth when we chew and mix saliva with the food. This helps break down the food into smaller particles, giving the rest of the digestive process more surface area to work on. However, if you think about it, we often “pre-digest” our foods by preparing and cooking them. For instance, a tough cut of meat can be made quite tender and easy to eat if tenderized or cooked long enough.

It’s a similar story with whole grains. Left completely intact, they are quite difficult for our body to digest since each grain has several fibrous outer layers protecting it. If you don’t chew and break apart the protective layers, the grains go through you relatively untouched. However, when whole grains are ground into whole-grain flour, the fiber-rich outer layers are broken up, exposing the readily-digested carbohydrates inside. White flour takes this “pre-digestion” a step further and removes all of the fibrous parts, leaving a fine powder of quickly-absorbed carbohydrates.

Since white flour is so refined, your body will readily digest and absorb it as if you are eating sugar. This is why your blood sugar can spike quickly when eating foods made primarily with white flour. Whole-grain flour is essentially the same as white flour but with the ground-up fibrous parts left in. The presence of fiber in the whole-grain flour may slow down absorption slightly but not to a great extent. So, your body will also rapidly absorb the carbohydrates and cause your blood sugar to spike. Neither option is as favorable as eating intact whole grains. These take longer to digest and therefore affect your blood sugar levels less quickly.

So, if you are watching your waistline or your blood sugar levels, consider buying foods that haven’t been “pre-digested” (i.e. processed) as much. Don’t let the marketing on the packaging fool you into thinking a product is healthier than it really is. Think about what the labels really mean, and when in doubt, choose foods that are closer to their natural form.

The Differences Between Brand Name and Generic Medications

With rising health care costs and health insurance premiums these days, you’ll inevitably be asked whether you will accept a generic alternative for your prescription. Some people will tell you they are clinically the same while others will insist they are not. So who’s right? More importantly, does it matter?

The answer to the first question is it depends. It is true that the two have the same active ingredients. But, they may not necessarily have the same inactive ingredients. The answer to the second question is that for most people, these differences won’t matter much since both will provide the same intended effects. However, if you are one of the few people sensitive to certain ingredients, knowing how they can differ can help your doctor and pharmacist find the medication best suited for you.

So, how do brand and generic medications differ? The most obvious difference is cost. Generic medications tend to be cheaper since competition between multiple drug manufacturers bring down cost. As a result, insurance companies usually put them higher up on their formularies, or preferred medication lists. This is why an increasing number of prescriptions are, by default, being filled by generic versions. Note that there may be several generic manufacturers with different prices so it’s a good idea to compare options at different pharmacies. In certain cases, prices may be significantly different.

Aside from cost, there may also be chemical differences. Medications consist of active and inactive ingredients. The active ingredient(s) is what creates the therapeutic effect. Inactive ingredients make up the vehicle that delivers the active ingredients into your body (e.g. pill, capsule, syrup, etc.) While the listed active ingredients and dosage should be the same between comparable brand name and generic medications, the other ingredients and impurities contained within them may differ.

When making the active ingredients, different manufacturers may employ different processes and chemicals. This can lead to different kinds and amounts of impurities being left in the final product. Manufacturers check to make sure these impurities are within safe limits for human consumption. Even so, a small number of people may be more sensitive to the impurities in one manufacturer’s product than another’s and develop unwanted side effects.

Similarly, the chemical compounds used to formulate the pills, capsules, and syrups can also differ between manufacturers. Just look at the variety of colors and flavors that medications come in. While most of these chemicals are relatively inert inside the human body, some people may react to them, leading to side effects.

Finally, manufacturers test their medications to make sure that the active ingredients are released and absorbed as designed. But in some people, they don’t work exactly as expected. This can lead to the medication having a stronger or weaker effect.

Now you know the about the differences between brand name and generic versions of the same drug. But before you tell your doctor or pharmacist to keep your medication manufacturer the same, keep in mind that these differences generally affect very few people. So far, I have only come across a handful of patients in which staying with one manufacturer’s medication was clinically significant. If the medications you are taking are working as your doctor intended, there’s no need to worry. But, if you notice your medications are no longer working as well or you are having new side effects, talk to your doctor or pharmacist. They will be able to help you figure out what’s going on.

How to Fix "Weak" Wrists

People often ask me what to do about “weak” wrists. They usually complain of discomfort or even pain in the wrist area when supporting their body weight on their hands, such as during planks, push-ups, and gardening, and other similar palm-pushing activities. As a result, they shy away from those exercises and lose out on their benefits. While you can wear wrist supports or modify the techniques so that they put less strain on the joint, the best thing to do is to increase wrist flexibility and strengthen the muscles that support it.

While it may seem simple, the wrist joint is actually quite complicated. It consists of the 5 proximal ends of the metacarpal bones in the hand, 8 small bones in the base of the hand, the distal ends of the 2 long bones in the forearm, ligaments, and joints between all of the bones. As you can imagine, without strong support from the ligaments and muscles, it will be really hard to keep them moving appropriately relative to each other. When you have weak supporting muscles, bending the wrist and placing it under weight can easily move the bones out of alignment, making them hit each other and cause pain. Similarly, if your wrist isn’t flexible enough, the bones will be crushed against each other when placed in stressed positions.

Before we go over how to strengthen these important muscles, let’s cover the correct way to push with your wrists extended, such as in a push-up. Contrary to common practice, the hand and wrist should not be relaxed when pushing with your palm. Doing so will allow weight to move your wrist bones out of alignment. It will also concentrate the stress onto fewer joints, increasing the chances of injuring them. Rather, constantly press and flex the entire hand into the ground, distributing the force throughout the palm, bases of the fingers, and the finger tips. This engages your wrist and finger flexor muscles, stabilizing the wrist joint.

Left: Pushing down with only the base of the palm provides less stability and concentrates stress into a smaller area.
Right: Pushing down with all parts of the hand and fingers increase stability and better distributes the stress. Note the pressure from the fingers indenting the carpet.

This technique also improves the stability of your support. Maintaining tension throughout your hand enables you to sense changes and react quickly. This is something I struggled with for a long time when learning the handstand. I used to do them with my hands relaxed, which made it difficult to adjust my balance. In addition, the weight of my body quickly made my wrists hurt. Once I tightened my hand and fingers, improvement quickly followed and the pain went away.

Now that you know how to properly push with your palms, you can start strengthening your wrists. It’s as simple as using the proper pushing technique whenever you do planks, push-ups, sit presses, or any other pushing exercises. There's no need to do separate wrist curls with weights. If your wrists are too weak to support that much body weight right now, try doing easier versions of those exercises. For example, you can do push-ups or planks against the wall. Move your legs back and your hands down the wall until you feel enough pressure on your wrists. As you get stronger, you’ll be able to move your hands further down the wall. Alternatively, you can rest your knees on the ground to reduce weight. As your wrists gain strength, move your knees back to increase the difficulty.

Don’t forget to stretch your wrists regularly throughout the day. Use one hand to bend the other wrist in all different directions, to the point of tension but not pain. With consistent effort, you’ll notice an increased range of motion and wrist stability. Before long, your “weak” wrists will be a thing of the past.

Feel Younger by Staying Flexible

 Many of us lose flexibility as we age, which makes us feel even older than we really are. Simple tasks like bending down and tying shoelaces or reaching for a bag in the back seat of the car become harder. Recreational activities grow more daunting as our range of motion and strength decrease. With an increasing fear of injury as we age, many of us shrink away from these health-maintaining activities.

Is losing flexibility with age inevitable? No. In fact, there are elderly people who can still do leg splits and other feats of flexibility that even contortionists would find enviable! While most of us won’t need that degree of flexibility, I think everyone would like to keep moving easily and freely even as the years go on.

Why do some people stay flexible while others get stiffer with time? While some people are naturally more flexible, the key lies in habits. Just like strength, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Flexibility is largely dependent on the stretchiness of your muscles. Like a rubber band, if you use it regularly, it stays pliable. Let it sit around and it becomes stiff, breaking the next time you stretch it. That’s how you end up with an injury.

On the microscopic level, muscles contain bundles of contractile fibers. They slide back and forth, enabling the muscle to stretch and shorten. When used regularly, these fibers slide readily. Through inactivity, these fibers get stuck to each other, reducing the amount the muscle can stretch as a whole. As more fibers get stuck, the less flexible you become. If enough fibers become stuck, you can end up with an immovable contracture.

When we were kids, we moved and played a lot, keeping us flexible. Now that we’re older, studying and working take up more of our time. These often stationary activities leech flexibility from our bodies. Stretching helps recondition our muscles and restore flexibility. But if you’re like most people, stretching a couple times a week at the gym fails to undo the damage from countless hours of inactivity. This exceedingly common experience is why people often think the loss of flexibility with age is unavoidable.

The best way to counter this kind of damage caused by daily inactivity is to stretch every day. Now, this doesn’t mean you need to do deep stretching sessions every day, which may paradoxically reduce your flexibility. Rather, stretch lightly many times throughout the day, focusing on a different body part each time. Each light stretch helps counter the stiffness that has accumulated since the last stretch. If you sit a lot, stretch standing up. If you stand for most of the day, do some floor and squatting stretches.

If you keep forgetting to stretch regularly, try incorporating it into common actions. For example, instead of spinning your office chair around to get the phone, carefully twist and reach to stretch your neck, back, and shoulders. When walking through a doorway, take a second and hold onto both sides of the door frame. Then lean forward to stretch your chest muscles or lean back to stretch your upper back muscles. When you tie your shoelaces or pick up a light object, stretch your hamstrings by bending over slowly with your knees straight or just bent enough to feel a light stretch.

Do these little stretches consistently and remember to push your limits slightly each time. This will gradually improve your flexibility. Before you know it, you’ll be moving better and feeling younger.

Should You Eat Less Carbs and More Fat?

If you’ve been following the health news recently, you’ve undoubtedly seen articles saying that carbs are evil and fats are no longer considered bad for you. They might even cite a study or two that suggests the notion. Considering how tasty fatty foods are, it is understandable for people to want to see these studies as a green light to eat as much fat as they want. Unfortunately, throwing caution to the wind is not wise in this case. To understand why, we’ll have to take a historical look at our diet.

Decades ago, dietary guidelines that encouraged eating more carbohydrates and less fat were published in an attempt to reduce the rate of heart attacks and heart disease. At that time, it was believed we were eating too much fat. As a result, we started to eat more carbs and fewer fat calories. However, this didn’t do much to improve heart disease and seemed to have caused other problems such as obesity and diabetes to grow in size.

Now, current studies show that the high-carb low-fat diet wasn’t such a great idea after all. Their results suggest that we should eat fewer carbs and more fats compared to that diet. But, they don’t show in absolute terms how much more fat and how much less carbs is healthy. They also don’t prove that a low-carb high-fat diet is good for you.

So yes, we should eat fewer carbohydrate calories than before. Yes, we can probably eat more fat than we were told to before. But no, that doesn’t mean we can safely eat as many fat calories as we want.

If you think about it, this shouldn’t be surprising. Considering that our bodies need fats, carbs, and proteins to function normally, it doesn’t make sense to deprive it of any one nutrient. Carbohydrates are not inherently bad for us. They are the easiest nutrient for our bodies to extract energy from. In fact, our brains run almost exclusively on glucose, a carbohydrate, for energy. Similarly, fats are not necessarily bad. They are an excellent way for our bodies to store energy and they also provide many other important functions throughout the body. Proteins serve as building blocks and also as a source of energy.

On the flip side, too much of anything, nutrient or otherwise, is bad for our bodies. The body can only process so much of any substance at a time. Get too much of it and it becomes toxic. Even absolute essentials such as oxygen and water can hurt and kill us if we get too much of either!

We’ve already seen the effects of high-fat and high-carb diets over the long term. Currently, I’m seeing a trend in articles about high-protein diets since people are avoiding carbs and fat. If these high-protein diets become wide-spread for long enough, I wouldn’t be surprised to see future studies showing deleterious effects. At that point, with strikes against carbs, fats and proteins, I wonder what direction the next trend will take. Perhaps then, people will remember that balance is the key to much of life and health.

As for now, the next time you see an article about a health food trend, skip the hype and take a step back. Look at the context from which the recommendation is being made and see if it makes sense. If a study is cited, consider looking at the actual publication and seeing what it actually says. It may be quite different from what articles about the study say.

Why Your Ergonomic Workstation Won’t Fix Your Pain

You’re at work sitting in front of the computer and your back or shoulder is hurting. This has been going on for longer than you care to remember so you think it’s time to improve your workspace. Maybe you’ll get an ergonomic chair or one of those standing desks. Unfortunately, after you spend all that money, it’s likely that you’ll still have pains, just in different parts of your body.

While ergonomic furniture may help, it’s not the true solution to the problem. Why? The problem isn’t your work space, but rather your habits. It’s not just that you’re sitting or standing poorly, but that you’re in the same position for too long. Even if you sit in an uncomfortable chair, you can actually avoid pain if you reposition yourself in your chair and stand up frequently enough. Ergonomically friendly furniture can help you stay in one position longer before developing symptoms, but then that also means you are being inactive that much longer.

We’re not meant to be stationary beings. Even when we sleep, we move around quite a bit. And there’s a good reason for this. Our bodies need to redistribute body weight so that pressure points don’t stay on any part of the body for too long. Pressure reduces blood flow to affected body tissue which causes damage over time. If this continues long enough, your tissues actually break down and you’ll develop open wounds called pressure sores. This is what happens to immobile people such as the critically patients in hospitals.

To prevent this, our bodies warn us far in advance by sending pain signals and motivating us to reposition ourselves. Don’t ignore those signals and keep working through the pain. Listen to what your body is telling you and move.

Some people, such as stroke patients and those with severe Type 2 diabetics, can’t feel the pain and are at high risk of developing these dangerous sores. If you have one of these conditions, you need to be even more vigilant and proactive about changing your position frequently.

Positional pain can also come from your muscles and joints. Muscles help maintain posture, both good and bad. When we stay in a position too long, muscles get tired and the weight it was working against is dumped onto your joints. Your joints are not meant to handle this kind of load for long periods of time and become damaged, leading to pain. In addition to joint pain, your muscles can also become stiff, causing the common muscle tightness and cramping between the shoulders and lower back.

Ergonomic furniture helps reduce the stresses on your body by distributing your weight better and supporting your posture to reduce the tension on your muscles. However, no matter how much the furniture helps, the fact remains that there is pressure and tension on your body. The only way to prevent positional pain is to move.

So, the next time you start feeling your leg go numb or your shoulders tighten up, stand up (or sit down if you’re standing)! Move around, take a few steps, or even do some light stretching or some exercises, such as those from The One Minute Workout. This will not only resolve your symptoms, but help you perform better by increasing blood flow throughout your body. As a bonus, physical activity will also help your brain change states, which may help you figure out a problem you’ve been stuck on!