Rational Insanity
The ultimate dork
Twelve years ago, when I was in high school, I was the ultimate gym buff. I went to the gym until I looked just a little short of Arnold Schazeneger (did I spell that right?). The gym stuff was for the purpose of companionship. I was always a nerd and always will be (in fact I am currently on my way to becoming a total academic), and so the best way I knew to get through to my male classmates (for companionship of course and not for anything else, you, green minded you...) was by taking their invitation of working out in the gym of one of our friends. The rewards of body building extended beyond companionship though (not the kind of extension you think, you!), including a really disciplined lifestyle as well as a healthy diet. I stopped working out when I had to leave for Manila for my Physical Therapy Internship. Now, twelve years after my gym days, I decided to hit the gym again, in preparation for my thirties "when my body fat will be in a very close relationship with my body' and it will be very difficult to separate the two. I enrolled myself in this fancy gym in the city and was expecting to see people who really know what they have gotten themselves into by going to the gym and working out. It turns out the people there were ultimately dorks and they did not have a slight clue of the medical elements of working out, trimming down, or building-up. Of course, I don't expect gym buffs to be medically inclined at the same time, but then again, we should always be aware of what we are doing to our body, unless we have plans of making the distance from cradle to grave considerably shorter.
Anyway, here are a few myths that dorky gym buffs propagate that we ought to bust if we ever have plans of hitting the gym anytime soon; and I hope you guys would consider these things if you know what's good for you.
- There is an upper and lower pec (toralis) - Dorks, there is no upper and lower pectoralis, only the pectoral muscles composed of the pectoralis major and the pectoralis minor. These muscles give bulk and shape to the chest.
- There is an upper and lower ab(dominal) - the truth is, there is only one vertical abdominal muscle, the rectus abdominis, and the other muscles (the ones you notice at the side of your tummy are the obliques and the transverse abdominals). Sit-ups can help in giving bulk to these muscles but crunches can be more effective in shaping these up.
- The heavier the load, the quicker the body shapes up - this is ultimately not true. Our muscles have what most lay people would call "breaking limit'. In Physical Therapy, we recognize this as the muscular threshold. Having someone to spot us because we cannot bear the load anymore is useless, this means that our muscles are crying out loud and telling us that the load is too much and we need to minimize it. Muscular response is best achieved when the load equals the actual muscle strength. This is the reason why load is gradually built up when body building, so that the muscles can adapt to the growing load. Do not load more than you can bear or else you will be risking muscular damage.
- The pain you feel after working out is a sign that your muscles are growing - while this is partly true, the pain that we feel after a work out is a sign of too much muscular stress. The pain is caused by microtears in the muscle tissue that are a result of intense muscular strain. In such cases, the painful muscle should be allowed to rest for a day or two; therefore, working out each muscle group on a diffierent day at a time is best for advanced body builders.
- Designer supplements are a very good alternative to steroids - designer supplements claim to replace the minerals and nutrients lost during work-out and help muscles heal faster therefore enabling faster muscle growth. True, muscle bulk increases faster with supplements, but the down side of this is that when one stops working out, all the muscle bulk acquired through supplements turn into FAT.
- You only need to lift the weight for an exercise to be effective - extreme dorkiness! In exercising your muscles, positioning and accurate muscular contraction are very crucial, otherwise, we might be doing a particular exercise and actually building up a different muscle or we may be in a very big risk of joint dislocation.
- Turning red while lifting a load is but natural - the Valsalva maneuver (bun-a) is a sign that the muscle we are using to lift a load cannot bear the load hence, an increase in intra-thoracic pressure is required, this is why our chest rises and our abdominals harden when forcing ourselves to lift extremely heavy weights despite our capacity. This can be very dangerous because this can cause aneurysms to explode or dislodge blood clots.
Well, I hope you guys consider these things when working out and don't be a dork. Remember, we only have one body and we must be very careful when working out, we might be doing more harm than good!
Be rational; be insane...every once in a while! TTFN! Hello and Happy New year (Three Kings?) to my dearest readers, to Dot, Verona, James, Sheen, Hellpen, Anne, Mary Dale, Chan,Michelle, Zarthus, Jonald, Mr. Bobot, Vic, Vincent, and Rex, Alex, Arvin, Corz, Jim, Kiara, Malikh, Audrae, Franz, Hendrick, Janice, Jay, Jim, Jonathan, Mark, Marz, Mel, Pres, Nhonoy, Niel, Piper, Rheavil, Joey, Alma, Rodolfo, Ecker, Ryan, Roni, Ian, Narle, Sunny and to Anuj of CMC, I love you all! Byers! Salamat gid sa mga walang-hintong text and reactions nyo! Catch Rational Insanity in TNT's online edition, check us out at www.thenewstoday.info, text me at (0920)9254269, or email me at prague@eudoramail.com. Byers! Mmmmmmmwah!