massage and fitness (as well as old posts) at my new website!

Greetings, fellow humans!

For those of you who have been on this journey with me for a while it will be no surprise, but I'm taking the "Next step" and moving my blog over to my new website!

Also, feel free to like and share my facebook page if so inclined,
 or follow me on instagram.

All of your favorite recipes and videos will soon be available, but through this page:

http://www.mothehuman.net/blog/

My first post to the new blog is here in reference to the importance of sleep and some simple tools to improve your sleep.

For now, old posts will still also be available on this blogger site as I transition everything over.

Luckily, I'm so busy giving massages and coaching people on efficient, safe exercise that I don't have a ton of computer time available in my schedule.

Thanks to all of you for all of your support.

OK, now go outside and play!



                                                                                        Much love and respect,  Mo the human

What if "CARDIO" doesn't exist?

Greetings, fellow humans!

I'm now ready to put "cardio" in the same bin with "heart healthy whole grains" "artery clogging saturated fat" and "a good supportive shoe".

Don't get me wrong, fellow humans... I love to move!

(August 2014 update... I am now available as a personal trainer at Synchronicity Wellness Hooray!)

Vigorous physical movement is vital to my physical and mental health. Hiking, biking, trail running, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu... Numerous things that I have LOVED throughout the years could easily be considered "cardio" by most people.

If you love exercise bikes, treadmills, ellipticals, etc... Have fun! I'm not suggesting anyone stop doing any of that stuff. However, I now have pretty good reason to believe the term "cardiovascular fitness" is a cultural misunderstanding of biology.

Please allow me to give a "plain English" explanation:


About 10 or more years ago, my wife and I were a walking stereotype of Boulder, CO:

• We were young(ish), slightly tan, and relatively fit.
• She was a full time yoga teacher, and I was a full time massage therapist.
• We had the typical medium-sized athletic dog that we would take for hikes on the steep trails near town a few times a week. 
• We rode our cruiser bikes downtown to have sushi with our insanely beautiful friends. 

Essentially, you could have pulled us off a "GREETINGS FROM BOULDER!" postcard.


One day, we ran into my friend "Bob" (not his real name) who we hadn't seen in a few years. He invited us to join him and a group to hike three "14ers" in one day. (To those who don't live in the Rockies, this means we would be hiking up and down three 14,000+ foot tall mountains in one day.) This is the kind of thing Boulderites do for fun, I swear!

A few days later, we meet up early in the morning at Bob's place. That's when my wife and I realized we had accidentally found ourselves surrounded by another Boulder stereotype: the Uber-Athletes! You know,  The folks who train with heart rate monitors, have clothing and footwear sponsors, test out fancy new fabrics and gadgets for companies, model for fitness photo shoots... Yeah, like that. During the early-morning-coffee-in-the-kitchen conversation, we discovered a key factor we hadn't considered... Bob is now a competitive marathon runner. Actually, to our surprise, so is everyone else going on this hike except for the two of us!
But wait, it get's better...
"We've got a race coming up," one of these uber-athletes casually mentions, "and we'd kinda like to use today as a training day. So.... hopefully, you two don't mind if we keep a pretty good pace?" She says with  smile.

My sweet wife and I looked at each other with thinly veiled dread and agreed that we'd try to keep up with these kind and friendly folks... And then we got to the trail:

These "cardio kings" (and queens) couldn't keep up with us! "Oh, that's right," We thought, "These people are pros! They're pacing themselves. We know nothing about pacing. We better slow down, or they're going to just blow past us at some point."

So, we slowed down to the pace of the pros... And our dog started going nuts. He wanted to go normal pace... He wanted to GO!
"OK then", we figured, "We'll go our normal speed, and they'll pass us when they pass us."
They never passed us.

We sat at the top of the first 14 thousand-and-some-odd-hundred-foot-tall mountain and ate our lunch, then packed away lunch, waiting for these super-fit freaks (actually, very nice people) to catch up.
Finally they did catch up... IN PAIN.
Not only were they as confused as we were, but they appeared to be hurting themselves trying to catch us! The rest of the day went just like this. These folks could NOT keep up with us! 

For about a decade, my wife and I racked our brains and could not figure this out! I'm guessing the marathoners are still baffled by that "mystery hike" day.

Then I read the book "Body By Science" by Doug McGuff, MD and John Little...

This book changed my perception of exercise immensely. Among other things, it explains where the myth of "Cardiovascular Fitness" came from! Apparently, it was invented by a doctor who worked for the US Air Force. It went kinda like this... Allow me to grossly oversimplify:

We are all familiar with the "Cardiac Stress Test", right? You know, a person is running on a treadmill while hooked up to wires that measure heart rate, breathing into a snorkel to measure their breathing.
Our good doctor would have a soldier doing such a thing.

• Day 1: Heart rate and breathing go WAY up.
• Train the same soldier on the same treadmill for an hour a day
• Day 30: Same soldier, same speed, same treadmill: Heart rate and breathing are now much slower.

"Cardiovascular Fitness" is born! We all now accept that the heart and lungs are now more efficient at transporting oxygen to the body.
Hence, we dutifully "break a sweat" every day, getting our heart rate up for at least 30-45 minutes... Right? With me so far? OK.

So, what most of us DON'T realize is that this good doctor took his research a bit farther. He'd take the person who (after "cardio conditioning") did very well on the treadmill, and put them on a stationary bike. Guess what?- The heart rate and breathing went through the roof! He could put this supposedly "fit" individual on a stair-stepper/ elliptical machine/ nordic track... Heck even if he let this test subject run outside and his heart rate would go up!

Wait a minute... If the heart and lungs are more efficient, why are they only good at the treadmill?

It took years (and more sophisticated technology) to figure it out. However, we now know that the majority of change that happened from running on a treadmill was NOT in the heart and lungs. It was in the muscles!

By running at a specific speed, on this specific machine, he trained specific fibers of specific muscles to efficiently perform the very specific task of running on a treadmill... Thus reducing the amount of work his heart and lungs had to do... While performing that specific task.

So... Going back to the "mystery hike": By hiking on the steep, rocky trails around town a few times per week, my wife and I had unintentionally, and unknowingly conditioned our muscles to efficiently walk up and down steep rocky trails... Thus creating the illusion of superior "cardiovascular fitness" while performing that specific task! AND... I have very little doubt: If she and I had joined that group of runners on a run that day (instead of a hike) we would have had the worst day EVER... And they would have appeared to have amazingly superior "cardiovascular fitness"! While indeed we just had different types of "myovascular fitness"!

This starts to go into the explanation of the physiological advantages of strength training, HIT, crossfit, and cross-training, but we'll talk about that another day.
If you'd like to spend an hour learning a LOT about HIT, watch this talk by Dr. McGuff.


OK... Now go outside and play!

Much love, Mo the human.

Why I DON'T ice injuries.

Ice is for cocktails... NOT injuries!

Disclaimer: As with everything on this blog, I make no pretense of being a professional or "expert" on nutrition, foot health, exercise, etc. I'm a massage therapist, and a really good one (or so they tell me)... And I'd like to continue massaging people for years to come. Therefore, my scope of practice prevents me giving advice on what YOU should be doing. I'm merely sharing my own personal journey in health exploration.

Anyone who has had some training in sports medicine, first aid, or health care has heard the old "sprains and strains" acronym. RICE

1. Rest
2. Ice
3. Compression
4. Elevation

Personally, Though I heard this through so many of my trainings, I've never been a fan of icing injuries.

First of all:
 I don't like it. It feels awful to me. Perhaps I'm kinda selfish - I tend to avoid things I don't like.

Second:
Years ago, a good friend/teacher/mentor of mine explained that in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) they believe icing an injury stops the flow of "Qi"  or "Chi" (vital life energy) to the injury. Since qi this is what brings healing, we don't want to stop it, but would rather encourage flow of qi.

Third:
About a year ago, I felt so very much relieved when I saw a humorous, yet  quite geeky video post from one of my "virtual mentors" Kelly Starrett.
He finally gave me a solid, western medicine, biological explanation that's hard to ignore.

This explanation meshes perfectly with the TCM explanation, and that makes me happy... I like when we can all get along!

So, here's my "Plain English" lowdown:

Say, for instance, You just sprained your ankle/worked out really hard/bruised your shin... What's going on?

INFLAMMATION! (lots of extra blood flow/aka"Qi" coming to the area)

Lately, many folks see inflammation as a bad thing.
I agree that CHRONIC inflammation can be a serious issue. That's another subject for another day.

In the case of such an acute injury, acute inflammation is a necessary part of your body's natural repair process.
Torn, damaged tissues need loads of resources to repair themselves. Your body is miraculously bringing in all the necessary nutrients for repair while also removing the debris of damaged tissues.
This is the purpose of inflammation.

As the video says, (and I very much agree.) "There can be inflammation without healing, but there can be no healing without inflammation."
Let me say that again slowly. YOU. CAN. NOT. HEAL. WITHOUT. INFLAMMATION.

The whole purpose of icing an injury is to "reduce inflammation"by decreasing the blood coming to the injury. As these fellas put quite bluntly: "Do you honestly think your body is making a mistake by bringing more blood to an injury?"

"Groceries in, Garbage out." is Kelly Starrett's little phrase for what your body is trying to accomplish. Therefore, the idea here is that if we want to speed healing, we should speed the process of blood LEAVING the injury, not slow it ENTERING. Of course, the brilliant man offering the explanation in the above video is selling a high-tech and high dollar machine to do this. If you play on an NFL, NHL or NBA team, you and your trainers are probably already using one of these awesome gadgets.

Fortunately for the rest of us, we can "walk it off". Or, better yet... Get a massage! I know a really good massage therapist in almost every part of the USA, and even a few in other countries... If you don't see me, see someone. OK?

Furthermore, Dr. Starrett (aka "KStar") has come up with a new acronym to replace "RICE"...

MCE
Move safely when you can, what you can. Compress lymphatics and soft tissues (use bands, muscle contraction, clothing, normatec, etc.)  Elevate when you can.  MCE.

Now, to add further information for the biology geeks out there... a one-year later follow-up on the idea!

Tell me, fellow humans... What do you think?

OK, now go outside and play!  

                                                                                     Much love- Mo the human

You're going to die of a heart attack! a.k.a. My intro to paleo eating

"SPSHHHHHHHHhhhhh...." The smell and the sizzle were wonderful.

The worried look on my sweet wife's face was not so wonderful.

It was early in the morning on June 1st, 2011.

I was cooking my first intentionally paleo meal.

The cooked pile of grass-fed ground beef was waiting on a plate. I was sauteing a huge pile of purple cabbage, sliced carrots, and a few slivered almonds in the copious layer of beef fat that remained in the cast iron pan. This, along with some fresh dill from the garden, carrot sticks and an apple, would be my breakfast and lunch for "Day 1 of  trying to prove Robb Wolf wrong."

It was one of the best breakfasts I've ever had.

Eating paleo was to be an experiment for me. I had just read "The Paleo Solution" by Robb Wolf, and decided I would call his bluff; I would try eating this way for one month... Just to see what would happen.

Over my shoulder, I heard in a tone of dread,

 "Honey, I'm afraid you're going to die of a heart attack!"

My wife was genuinely concerned for my well being. Like most folks in our culture, (and like myself prior to reading this book) she thought saturated, DELICIOUS animal fat was the fastest way to slippery-slide yourself straight into the morgue.
We had a half-full bottle of organic, expeller-pressed canola oil that I was refusing to use... You know, the "heart-healthy" stuff! However, Robb Wolf makes some pretty good arguments, and I figured it was worth a shot to try it out, despite scaring my sweetie with my seemingly insane food choices.

Within 2 days, my chronic, ahem.. "digestive issues" (you know... the kind that would wake my wife up at night.) had disappeared!!!

Seriously, she had been putting up with my nasty, gassy, bloating guts for years. (What a kind, patient and wonderful soul she is.) The gas was GONE.

"Maybe the risk of heart attack is worth it," She said.

In her typical, understated sense of humor, she had given me approval to continue my seemingly dangerous experiment.

By the end of the month, The results were astounding:

-I had lost 15 lbs without trying.
I was back at what I used to call my "fighting weight" in the days before we had kids... (Back then I rode my bike daily, practiced Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu 5 or 6 days per week, contact improv and yoga twice per week.)
-My energy levels were soaring.
-The mild "old man aches" in my joints were completely gone!
-I was sleeping better.
-The chronic chest and sinus congestion that I've had for 20+ years was gone...
-Essentially, I felt like a 19 year old! (with a tad more emotional maturity, I hope...)

As I stepped out of the shower, my kind and previously skeptical wife said, "Ok, You didn't look that good when we met. I need to read that book."

Needless to say, within one month, her transformation was amazing as well:
-This mother of 2 who had been teaching yoga for a decade had to buy new jeans. (Her old ones were falling off!)
-She was STRONGER! Strong enough to do yoga poses she had never had the strength to do.
-Her PMS and cramps were gone... GONE! This was good for everyone.
-The bloating and discomfort she used to have after every meal were all GONE.
-Like me, her energy levels were soaring!


What did we eat? It's very simple... This is NOT a complicated thing:

-Veggies (not corn, it's a grain.)
-Meats (Primarily pasture raised mammals and birds, and wild caught fish) and "good fats" (coconut oil, fat from healthy animals, avocados)
-Eggs
-Fruits
-Nuts (not peanuts... They are beans)
-A little full-fat dairy for her, but not for me. (More on that later...)

Pretty much in that order of volume... picture it like a "paleo food pyramid"
 The bottom is animals and plants.
The top is fruits and nuts.


What was NOT on the plate?
sugary beverages (including juice)
Grains (ESPECIALLY Wheat!)
Beans (except a few green beans)
Sugar and other refined sweeteners.
"vegetable" oils. (actually industrial seed oil. Has anyone ever actually gotten oil out of a vegetable?)

Does this look like a restrictive diet to you?

This meal was a delicious, local grass fed beef burger, oven- roasted veggies, and an avocado fried in the high-quality beef fat left behind from the burger... YUM!


At this point, we've settled into a nice "paleo-esque" groove. We're not super strict paleovores, but that's basically how we eat.

The truth is, I have enjoyed food more in the last 2 years than ever before! (and those of you who know me know how I love good food!)

So far, no heart attack, and my bloodwork is quite impressive!

"Praise the Lard!" (Pasture-raised, of course.) -Mo the human

Could too much exercise be killing you?

I love to run.

Those who spend time with me in daily life see it in my daily activity. I run from the car to work, I run in the woods with my kids. I run to get somewhere if I'm in a hurry. However, I almost never go for a long run, and I never see it as "exercise". To me, running falls into the "play" category, and generally only happens in short spurts. (see 1 minute video below if you like...)

Thanks to Ken Bob Saxton's Book  and a load of other resources I was able to run again for the first time in years without any pain in my knees and feet. I have never been fast, but that's not the point... to me -it's just joyful, childish playtime. I've never run a marathon, or even a half marathon. Heck, I've never run a race at all! (Did I mention I'm not very fast?)

Now, don't get me wrong... I'm NOT saying it's healthy to be inactive. Exercise is good. However, a growing body of evidence is suggesting that too much might be just as dangerous as not enough.


In the past few years (since re-evaluating all I thought I knew) I have been learning more and more that tells me... it's a really good thing I never caught the competitive bug! A growing pile of research is showing that "chronic cardio" is actually causing some serious damage to the heart muscle and coronary arteries of many runners... regardless of their "good form". Even if their knees, hips, feet, and back aren't being destroyed, it appears their hearts may be. It seems that, contrary to the overriding message of the book "Born to Run", too much exercise can actually INCREASE the effects of aging! Now, nobody is saying exercise is bad. However, too much seems to be.

I now have good reason to believe the same thing could also be happening to hard core cyclists (which I was for many years), cross-country skiers, etc...

Would you rather be a healthy "tortoise", or a dead "hare"?

I have to give a BIG thanks to cardiologist James O'Keefe for simplifying most of what I've been learning from various sources into an 18 minute video that in my opinion is well worth watching.

Thanks for reading, Now go outside and play!

                                                                             Much love, Mo the human

PS if you have a taste for a more geeky version of Dr. O'Keefe's talk, go here.