On Breathing and Working Out

The heightened activity of working out requires specific breathing practices. When faced with resistance, either with weight (lifting weights) or gravity (calisthenics), one should exhale. Conversely, inhaling during the expansion of the muscle group would be the natural time to expand the lungs. Your breathing should be natural, just with a little bit of force, as needed, during the resistance part of one's workout. The last thing you want to do when you're working out is talk. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/rethinking-the-exercise-talk-test/, this link discusses the "talk test." The ability to talk as criteria for conducting a proper workout has long been conventional wisdom. This study from researchers at the University of New Hampshire tells a different story. The idea that if you are able to talk, you aren't pushing yourself hard enough.

Your lactate threshold, it turns out, plays a critical role if you wish to become more fit. Multiple studies and practical experience have shown, persuasively, that to increase your endurance and speed, you need to work out occasionally at a strenuous intensity that hovers just below your lactate threshold. But if you can talk easily while exercising, you are not at that point, says Timothy J. Quinn, a professor at the University of New Hampshire and lead author of the new study.

Reciting Pine Street Passerby whilst doing pull-ups demanded focus. Towards the end it did become harder to speak, however I was still able to speak clearly. This research of mine, like all good research, has raised some questions. Is there a difference between catching your breath and it being difficult to talk? Is the talk test applicable to anabolic activities such as pull-ups i.e. maybe I am working really hard and the ability to talk in a non-factor in the difficulty of the workout? Perhaps, I did not reach my lactate threshold? Could I have willed it?

JP Auclair Street Segment

I appreciate how this video does not ram the fact that it is a skiing video down your throat at the outset. The video starts off with the camera canvassing a city street, a street that is soon to become a cement ski slope. Early in the video, the skier, JP Auclair, teases the viewer on a few occasions as he enters the field of view for only a moment. The video is in total sync with the music and is a joy to watch.

Pine Street Passerby

The unmatched beauty of a passerby

brings clarity to this hour.

Fateful few seconds bring one's thoughts into focus.

Conveying feelings incurred from fleeting moments on Pine Street

is the only things that matters.

Having to pull over in this park and write this letter is evident. 

Whether it ends up in your hands remains to be seen.

As the street lamps partake in the changing of night and day,

wrestling twilight to its certain end.

I realize I must go, and I haven't even said what I wanted to say.

Just like when I passed you by.

GoPro 3's (Black Edition) Napoleon Complex

Second tutoring session where the experts were stumped by my little camera : (

John Muir

Some polite small talk with a fellow bar guest at Barbuzzo has lead to probable research on the topic of walking. Tom, the man whom I made acquaintance with, told me to check out John Muir, co-founder of The Sierra Club. No doubt Muir was touched by the beauty that resides within The United States when he walked from Indiana to Florida (1000 miles) or from San Francisco to Yosemite National Park (318 miles). John Muir saw the beauty in nature and was able to convey those feelings in the written word. Muir's writings, famous for striking passion into readers hearts, were, and still are, a beacon of light in a world so ready to cut it down. Tom mentioned Muir's relationship with former President Theodore Roosevelt and at this point in the conversation I chimed in and told Tom about Wave Hill. Wave Hill is a garden located in my hometown, Bronx, New York, and it is documented that Theodore Roosevelt spent two summers there during his childhood. It is said that his time at Wave Hill helped shape his conservationist mindset. This early childhood experience coupled Muir's friendship gave President Roosevelt the conviction and justification to do something about it, like signing a bill passed by Congress that officially created Yellowstone National Park in 1890.

California celebrates John Muir Day on April 21 each year. Muir was the first person honored with a California commemorative day when legislation signed in 1988 created John Muir Day, effective from 1989 onward. Muir is one of three people so honored in California, along with Harvey Milk Day and Ronald Reagan Day.^[52][53]

So, some complete stranger (Tom) whom I met by happenstance at a restaurant I have never been to tells me about a person (John Muir) who might be FUNDAMENTAL to my current work as an artist and it just so happens that the day I meet this stranger (Tom) is the day where this person (John Muir) is officially recognized in the state of California (John Muir Day)

Weird.

Contemporary Art of Walking

http://contemporaryartofwalking.com/

In accordance with my last post, this website continues to shape my opinion that "walking" is viewed in a different light across the Atlantic.

Thank you, Internet.

http://walkart.wordpress.com/