My main concern with using these chin-up/pull-up bars over the door is one, that the unit will mark up the wall, which the presenter affirms in this video at the 2:15 mark. Two, I don't want any unit to damage any structure of the door and its frame. And three, I don't want the unit itself to come apart or exposing a weak stress point from overuse. All it takes is one story to make you cautious about using these portable fitness units. The key consideration when buying a chin-up/pull-up bar is to know how much weight they can hold. I personally learned from a friend of an incident where he was using an in-home dip equipment that looked more like an old man's walker, but it was an effective dip station. Least that's what I thought when I tried it. But about a year later, he had an incident where the station collapsed on him and he fell onto to the floor with full weight distributed directly on the knees. Ouch. So, find out what the weight limits are. Find out how long they last. If it's two years, at least you're better off knowing that than not; you can take precautions. Makes no sense to be working out, building muscle, gaining strength only to get an injury from using the station. Particularly, on a dip rack, some folks will do different kinds of exercises if space permits. Some will dip with their legs bent. Some will do leg lifts. Just be aware of the kinds of movement that your station will allow. The newer models, like the one seen below, seem to be constructed with safety in mind. The one here almost looks like it's a one-piece. It isn't. They come in several pieces that require assembly.
The price on these chin-up/pull-up bars is reasonable. Price alone shouldn't be everything when you're considering your physical health. Be sure the station is safe, functional, and know its stress weights before you buy it. The product description for the dip station above says that it supports 350 lbs. Is that enough? If you doing leg lifts on it, is the 350-pound stress test exactly what you need? Write to the owner. Check it out.
Labdoor.com. Find out which supplements are best, where they rank, and their effectiveness.
Here is Neil Thanedar's Twitter page. Find his blog here. Consumers value transparency where transparency breeds trust, and so companies are responding to this trend.
Labels don't tell you that there's lead in the product. FDA's testing system is reactive.
FDA tests pharmaceuticals for safety and effectiveness.
FDA tests for neither safety nor effectiveness of nutritional supplements.
There’s no mercury. Found products where the probiotics actually died and less than 1% of the probiotics were still IN the product.
11:43. Neil Thanedar asks THE pertinent question:
Is the active ingredient there?
Lots of categories of products have lied.
Fish oils say its’s1000mgs actually 800mgs
No lead, arsenic.
Protein powder says 20 grams of protein when there’s only 5 or 10 grams per scoop.
Worked with companies to do failure analysis or recall investigations and product development. Spent a lot of time reverse engineering products. That’s a service to those businesses. It hit him rather than work with one company at a time, could he scale it up? And tell people what products they should buy before they come in the store.
Products that are failing? @ 14-minute mark:
We've seen herbal supplements where the company is just lying. There's no active ingredient, zero active ingredients in the product. This is crazy. It's literally just a sugar pill. And then even worse than that we've found some of those products because they're just a sugar pill will have a bacteria on top of that. So they have no active ingredient and they have the contamination. So many categories . . . right? Fish oil has those problems where the product can go rancid.
Shelf-life issue. How long did the mfg let it sit in the warehouse before it was shipped? Everyone defers to expiration dates. Protein powder had lead and arsenic contamination--2 or 3 scoops. Accumulation of heavy metals. Creatine is the same way. If you're going to take a product every single day. The difference between high and low-quality product can make a big difference.
He trusted bigger brands when he started.
No correlation between price and quality or brand and quality. It comes down to a specific day or product to someone delivering a
How many companies actually make their own product? Amazon or Alibaba, they buy it from someone else, put their label on it, and sell their product on Amazon. A white label relationship or changing someone's label? Bigger risk of counterfeit product in the latter case. Don't know where the products are coming from. The final company doesn't know and they often don't care.
Gov't holds a press conference. Everyone attends, and they get the word out.
How does Neil work?
He uses the press too. Do you know what's really in your supplements?
No one is doing this product testing. Who is going to do it? Turns out that it is him.
FDA doesn't overpromise. People have a lazy assumption on testing. There is this general sense that our safety is being looked after. The realization that no one is actually doing this and do something about it is astounding.
21:35. The system isn't really built for consumer awareness or education. It's built to reduce liability. Dr. Barry Sears' Omega 3's are pretty good. His claim is
Purity: Our standards for purity are 18
times more rigid than international standards. View OmegaRx
Purity Reports
from LiveStrong . . . When you don't get enough activity and instead sit around all day, your muscles are at rest -- and this can take a big toll on your health. Your body was made to move and be active, so if you're spending the majority of your time at a desk or lazing around on the couch, you'll see the effects. Inactivity has major physical effects on your body as a whole, but also on certain muscle groups in particular.
YOUR BACK TAKES A HIT
The muscles in your back, particularly the erector spinae muscles which run parallel to your spine, are affected when you remain inactive for long periods of time. Unless you're maintaining proper posture when you're sitting around, this can seriously affect your spine and even cause permanent problems such as back pain and damage to spinal structures. Always sit up straight without hunching over and use ergonomic chairs or furniture when possible.
NO GOOD FOR THE GAMS
The legs contain more muscle groups than any other region of your body and therefore take a significant impact when you remain inactive for long periods of time. Even if you're just sitting for multiple hours, if it's a regular thing you're going to notice your quads, hamstrings, and calves are changing, becoming less toned and perky as your muscles get smaller and less defined. You might notice the effects first on your upper legs and hips, where fat deposits are common. This is largely due to the fact that fat in this area tends to be less metabolically active than the fat on other areas of the body, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz. Leg raises, leg extensions and hip flexion exercises are all simple movements that can be done at a desk.
BAD FOR THE BUTT
The gluteal muscles in your buttocks are some of the most affected muscles from inactivity. The buttocks is made up of three major muscle groups: the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus muscles. Over time, if you're sitting around and not working out these muscles, they become soft and undefined, leaving your butt looking flat and misshapen. Not only that, but there are potential health consequences as well, such as bouts of low back pain and conditions like piriformis syndrome. Whether you're on the couch watching your favorite show or at the office, it's easy to fit in a couple of minutes to do some squats or lunges to help keep those butt muscles toned and tight.
IT TAKES A TOLL ON YOUR ARMS
If you spend a lot of time sitting around, you may also notice changes in the muscles in your arms because they're not active. There are a few major muscle groups that make up the arms -- the biceps sit at front on your upper arms, the triceps at back and the forearms in your lower arms. The triceps are a common area for fat deposits, meaning you're most likely to notice excess, flabby skin in this area on your arms. If you are spending time sitting around and have your hands free, use a dumbbell to do a few bicep curls or triceps kickback exercises to keep your arms toned, even when you're just sitting around.
SOFT AND FLABBY ABS
Your abdominal muscles are also affected by inactivity. The rectus abdominis muscles sit at the front, the obliques along the sides and the transverse abdominis, which is the deepest abdominal muscle, wraps around the sides and sits underneath the internal oblique muscles. Fat accumulation and muscle deterioration is typically most noticeable first along the front and sides of your waist. One easy way to help avoid this is to engage your core, even when you're just sitting at your desk or lounging around. You do this by tucking your lower abdominal muscles in, so you can feel tightness in your abs.
Make the Right Changes
If you do work an office job or work elsewhere where you spend most of your day sitting down, there are ways to stay active. To prevent the negative consequences to your health, do what you can to fit in as much physical activity as possible through your day. Lift dumbbells on your lunch break, walk to work instead of taking your car and use the stairs instead of riding the elevator. Even the seemingly smallest steps you take will make a difference and help you maintain better health.
I am posting this video because, despite its automated narration, it does cover the important role of the Erector Spinae muscles. These are the muscles that support your spine, the muscles that are affected the most from prolonged hours of sitting. This one reason why journalists or people sitting long hours at work will buy expensive chairs. Other videos [here and here] do a better job at visualization but not by much. Those of us who move minute by minute on our jobs know that the back gets a workout and that can certainly be a good thing. Then there are those of us who sit prolonged hours, like computer programmers, truck drivers, accountants, and others where the Erector Spinae muscles are prone to getting weak.
So what type of exercises support and build the Erector Spinae muscles? Good question.
Here is another.
What about food or supplements? Can they help? Yes, just not as much as exercise, which only costs you time. Bill Sardi explains the benefits of Hyaluronic Acid:
The water content of each disc in
the spine is a reliable measure of degeneration and regeneration.Water is held in the disc by a molecule
called hyaluronic acid, which is produced by fibroblast cells throughout the
body.Hyaluronic acid, which is
comprised of two sugar-like molecules (glucosamine + glucuronic acid) holding
hands, exists in the gooey connective tissue outside of cells.
Hyaluronic Acid (HA) is the great water-holding molecule of the body. Estrogen stimulates HA which is why females have smoother skin, thicker hair, and exhibit greater flexibility than males. It is HA that makes the tissues in a young woman rubbery so tissues will stretch so a newborn baby can squeeze out of a woman’s womb.
The supplement regimen consisted of 500 mg glucosamine and 400 mg chondroitin daily. The 56-year-old patient, who had experienced back pain and lack of flexibility for 15 years, had less bulging and protrusion of the disc in his lower back and relief of symptoms after 2 years of supplementation. The photographic evidence is compelling.
See for yourself. It looks like the case with any supplement to be effective is long-term use. So be prepared for that regimen if you're serious about rejuvenation. On the spine, you've got a few options.
Usually, when we talk about “the core” we refer to the entirety of your torso between the sternum and the pubic bone. In the world of fitness, the word "core" often conjures up an image of abs, which is short for abdominal muscles. But that term is interchangeable, or at least gets confused, between the abdominal wall, abdominal cavity, abdomen, abdominal muscles, and abdominal organs.
Your abdomen is that part of your core that contains the digestive organs:
the
part of the body of a vertebrate containing the digestive organs; the
belly. In humans and other mammals, it is bounded by the diaphragm and
the pelvis.
So your abdomen is part of your core. But what I want to draw your attention to are your core muscles, which form the connective tissues that join to your ribs, to your hip, and which give you the ability to turn, twist, bend, and so forth, all the actions that we take for granted. It's easy to know what our bones do. Our vertebrae, ribs, femur, etc. all keep us upright. Olga Kabel explains that
our core musculature [is] a tightly wrapped package protecting the internal organs. Here you have muscles running across the body (transverse abdominis), diagonally (external and internal obliques) and from top to bottom (rectus abdominis at the front, quadratus lumborum and erectors at the back). So this is the first purpose of your core musculature – organ containment and protection.
Pointing out the obvious, she adds that
Structurally we will notice that this part of your body doesn’t have many bones (except for the spine and some floating ribs), yet it contains many important internal organs that need to be kept safe and sound. Without the bony structure to rely on, the entire area needs to be wrapped up tightly to maintain the integrity of its contents.
1. Rectus Abdominus: These are the muscles people usually mean when they talk about the ‘abs.’ They are a flat band of muscle that runs from your sternum to your pelvis. This is the muscle that produces that obvious, six pack look.
2. Internal Obliques: These muscles run from your lower rib cage into your pelvic iliac crest. Your iliac crest is the top, outer part of your pelvic bone. They are located underneath the external obliques.
3. External Obliques: These muscles run in a diagonal from your lower ribs to the iliac crest, along the side of your torso.
4. Transverse Abdominus: This is the deepest of the ab muscles and wraps around your spine to provide your body with stability. [The photo below is intended to show the layers of abdominal muscles. Note how the layers are cut in that diagram. That is for effect. Do not imitate that in your own life. Surgery should be the last resort, a kind of survival effort that keeps you from dying. And while it's true that doctors and surgeons might sell a surgery in that light of "your survival depends on it," be careful. For once you have a surgery of any kind it means that you cannot get that tissue back and that area is actually weakened. So don't get cut. Get well. Exercise instead.]
The following video does a good job of showing you where they're located in contrast to other muscles and what function they serve.
CORE MUSCLES CONTINUED
Latissimus Dorsi: These muscles connect from your lower spine, along your lower back and into your lower ribs. They are the largest muscle in the back. These muscles help with rotation of the shoulder joint and help with extension and lateral movements in the spine.
Trapezius: These are triangle shaped muscles that run from the mid back into the shoulders. These muscles help with shoulder movement and rotation.
When building your core, you cannot neglect strength and stability which is why it is supremely important that you focus on all these muscles, the obliques in particular. Some great moves that use all these muscles are things like planks, v-sit ups, kettlebell swings, and bicycle crunches.
What's interesting about the structure of our core is that it is organized "vertically, horizontally, [AND] diagonally." Olga Kabel explains
Because of the way our core musculature is organized (vertically, horizontally and diagonally), it allows a great range of movement in the trunk. It allows us to bend forward, backwards, sideways, twist and do combinations of those.
This video is worth a few minutes.
Modern lifestyle contributes to a weak core:
It is therefore important to work on your core. Why? What's the big deal if we don't, and what are the benefits if we do? If we don't work our core, whose most important function is to expel things, like a bowel movement, babies, and air, these muscles get weak and are unable to perform vital functions. So there's that. Here's a short list of everyday things we do with these muscles. Reminder: strengthening these muscles can keep you looking and moving young.
Bathing or dressing, for example, call on your core.
On-the-job-tasks
Jobs that involve lifting, twisting, and standing all rely on your core muscles.
Sitting at your desk for hours engages your core as well.
Phone calls, typing, computer use, and similar work can make back muscles surprisingly stiff and sore.
Balance and Stability. Your core stabilizes your body, allowing you to move in any direction, even on the bumpiest terrain, or stand in one spot without losing your balance. Viewed this way, core exercises can lessen your risk of falling.
Good posture. Weak core muscles contribute to slouching. Good posture trims your silhouette and projects confidence. More importantly, it lessens wear and tear on the spine and allows you to breathe deeply. Good posture helps you gain full benefits from the effort you put into exercising, too.
