PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe #98 Get DOWN with your Bad Self!

PJSC 98  Get DOWN with your Bad Self

One of the simplest, most important, and yet most ignored ways to improve your health, posture, flexibility is simply to spend more time on the floor!

Think about it: the simple chair or couch is the most unnatural, non-paleo way to support your body.  It is taking a structure, and using it to support all  of your limbs and musculature, encouraging a slouch and long term weakening of all the small supporting muscles throughout the body and spine.  In particular, the muscles of the back and the butt are degraded the most over time- just look at most of our elderly population.  They walk hunched over, with a permanent slouch, and their flaccid butts cannot even lift their feet very well off the floor.

This doesn’t have to happen!  Simply resolve to spend an hour per day or so on the floor.  When I work out, about 1/3 of my exercise is spent on my mat on the floor, stretching, bridging, massaging my feet, doing straight legged sit ups, push ups, etc.  It is a mistake to always work out only in a standing position!

But, the bulk of your “floor time” can simply be hanging out, watching TV or reading, talking on the phone or to another person who is also on the floor!  It’s actually very “grounding” to be on the floor, and I don’t mean that only in the literal sense.  Being on the ground brings us back to when we were babies, before we even could get our selves off of the ground, or even roll over onto out backs!  But now, we need to maintain what we used to do effortlessly- do the Asian squat, as all toddlers do, to “sit” without a chair.  This is actually the very best “exercise” you can do on a daily basis- just squat down and “rest” in a full, flat footed squat on the floor- and it isn’t even really an exercise at all!  This is the very best stretch for your back and legs of any you can possibly do- do it daily.

But actually, any way you sit or crouch or relax on the floor is good, much better for you than just sitting on the chair or couch.  The transitions you make, moving from one floor position to another, and then when you stand,  getting up smoothly from the floor under your own power- these are wonderful for your overall bodily health, utterly natural and necessary, and are so often lost to people by middle age!

Walking is important, but even more important is simply sitting on the floor, and being able to get up to a standing position easily and gracefully.  To get up from a chair is like doing a squat down about a third of the way up- to get up from the floor is actually a rather complex, hinged motion involving the hand, arm, legs, hips, and back in a well coordinated and complex series of movements.  It is very important that we maintain our ability to do this throughout life!

Asians have a largely floor based culture, and they are the better for it!  When I was in Korea, I saw elderly folks get up from the floor after eating (this is how they traditionally dine) and they arose easily and smoothly.  Even young Westerners often need to be helped up!

The chair is a cast!  Think of it like that.  The more you use a cast, the weaker you become. Eyeglasses are casts, shoes are casts- weaker prescriptions make your eyes gradually stronger, walking barefoot strengthens your feet and ankles.  So strive to minimize using crutches of comfort to excess!  Start by sitting on the floor- get DOWN with your bad self! 

Paleojay’s Smoothie Cafe podcast #84 Get Paleolithic Fitness -on the Rebound

As usual, I am coming to you with something that seems like it’s “out of left field” somewhere- REBOUNDING! ??  Jumping on a mini-trampoline for health and fitness?

I know- at first glance, it looks like something that Richard Simmons would be promoting on late night informercials...

BUT- truth be told- rebounding is the REAL DEAL- an absolutely wonderful way to promote and enhance your fitness!

Despite the fact that it does NOT appear to be something our hunter/gatherer ancestors would have done (they wouldn’t have- the technology was not available for springy jumping surfaces back then)!!  - it is like many modern technologies that are VERY paleo friendly- like iPhones to look up sites like www.paleojay.com, or like the Vitamix blender that makes it so easy to liquify and thus make available all of the nutrition in leafy greens, berries, and coconut milk- (to name but a few paleo smoothie ingredients!)

What it does is to duplicate the endless, easy movement that our forebears engaged in, almost constantly- walking, squatting, occasionally sprinting and jumping... and it does so in a way that is very, very safe and natural- with virtually NO stress and jarring on the ankles, feet, knees and hips as is the case with running or jogging.

You simply buy a little rebounder, or trampoline of about 3 feet or so in diameter, and put it in your living room... mine is near the television.  And then, you just- bounce on it- and not necessarily hard; most of the benefits can be achieved by lightly bouncing without your feet necessarily even leaving the surface. This mild action is sufficient to not only elevate your heart rate beneficially, but more importantly it activates your lymph gland drainage system.

Most modern cubicle dwellers and car cage drivers are incredibly deficient in the simple jogging motion that our bodies have evolved to depend upon to activate our lymph, or toxin drainage system! We really need this movement to be healthy!   Most folks have toxins galore welled up in their bodies, and the lymph system to cure it needs movement- preferably up and down movement- to operate!

Enter the rebounder!  The iPhone of the lymph system!!

Just stand on it, and then... bounce- slightly!  This alone is enough to engage the lymph system.  I like to do my virtual resistance exercises while bouncing- just FLEX your muscles, as if you were a bodybuilder in a posing routine while... bouncing.

You have upped the ante- the very act of bouncing has increased the intensity of your exercise by a quantum amount.

The BALANCE afforded by rebounding is an incredible benefit, and one I believe is almost totally ignored by conventional training.  Just by being on an unstable surface, you are teaching your body how to balance, which is a skill quickly lost in modern, car and chair bound modern life!  And, it is fun! There is something about bouncing around that brings out your inner child- kind of like barefoot sprinting!  THAT surely brings out the 8 year old Jay- and so does rebounding!  It is just pure PLAY.

Also, if you suffer from plantar fasciitis (as so many do today), this rebounding is akin to running barefoot in sand- it is wonderful for restoring the strength in your shoe-wearing atrophied feet.  Our feet are elaborate extension bridges of tendons and muscles, as I have mentioned before: constant wearing of shoes, or “casts” weaken them dramatically over time- rebounding can be a powerful ally in reversing this atrophy- rebounding is wonderful for restoring foot health and fitness.

For me, doing my virtual resistance exercises while also bouncing is combining the best of both worlds!  You just bounce along, doing the high shoulder reach for reps, flexing your arms and shoulders as you continue gently bouncing... then hold and give an isometric hold!  Repeat for maybe 7 reps, then go to the forward fly...

You go through the whole cycle of your body, methodically, while getting a rebounding workout in at the same time!  In addition, your balance is dramatically improved from day #1, and even the flexes themselves are more intense because of the constant shift in your gravitational pull as your bounce!

I hope you are convinced that rebounding is something you should adopt!

So, how should you get started?

You can go high end- the Bellicon, Reboundair, and Cellercizer- all are fantastic, Mercedes Benz versions of the rebounder!

But, you can do just fine, at least at first, with a cheap, simple rebounder for, oh, $36 dollars or so... way cheaper than good running shoes! (And it’ll last a lot longer- and do WAY more good than those “cast-like” shoes!)

Just do it BAREFOOT for maximum  benefit!

Go ahead- go on Amazon, or Target or Walmart- they all have rebounders!  They’re not great- but they will all WORK GREAT.  Or, go high end- your choice.

If you’ve got the money, definitely- get a Bellicon, Reboundair, or Cellercizer- you do get what you pay for.  But I want you to know that even a CHEAP rebounder will get you healthy, and start you on the road to detoxing your lymph system, and energizing your virtual resistance exercise in a BIG, BIG WAY!