Posted on
by

Some fitness guru that I follow on the internet—I think it was Andrew Huberman, although it might have been Andy Galpin—suggested that the optimal ratio of resistance and endurance training was 3-to-2—but also suggested that which one is emphasized should switch after some number of months.

So, you might combine three strength-training workouts per week with two endurance workouts per week for some number of months, and then reverse the ratio and go with three endurance workouts per week combined with two strength-training workouts per week.

This is interesting to me mainly because I seem to intuitively be doing exactly that. All through 2020 I was emphasizing resistance exercise (often 4 workouts per week), and limited myself to a single run most weeks. (Due in particular to a sore foot, but also just because it felt right.) I generally included an HIIT session most weeks—so also endurance training, even if not long steady-state training.

Early in 2021 I had made a plan to repeat Anthony Arvanitakis’s Superhero Bodyweight Workout, which I’d used the year before to good effect. I even bought the latest version, which seemed slightly better. But then a minor medical issue meant I had to defer the super-intense workouts that it called for. Once the medical issue was resolved I figured I’d get back to it, but as the year progressed I started feeling like running more and longer. My foot was no longer troubling me, and I always enjoy long runs.

I found myself doing less lifting and more running. Just lately it occurred to me that what I wanted to do was three runs per week, and maybe just two lifting sessions—which would be nicely in accordance with the suggested adjustment in workout ratios.

So that’s my plan for the rest of the winter—three runs per week, with just two lifting session. Then maybe in the spring I’ll switch back and reemphasize lifting.

Posted on
by
Image source: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/98510133/

Very occasionally I wish I were the sort of person who kept lists.

It’s most common that I regret not being a list-keeper when someone asks for book recommendations, especially when they want something in a particular scope—the 10 best books I read this year, or three books that I’ve given as gifts.

I’m always daunted by a request like that, because I have no idea what books I read this year.

Some of my tools—in particular, Amazon and my Kindle—do some amount of list-keeping for me. The public library could, but by default it doesn’t. (For very legitimate historical reasons, librarians worry about their patrons’ privacy, and since they don’t need to keep track of what books you’ve checked out once you’ve returned them, they default to forgetting about them.)

I played around with using a little toy tool called IndieBookClub, which posts the books you enter to your site, but it didn’t do most of the things you’d actually want such a tool to do (associate the books you’re meaning to read, books you’re reading, books you’ve read, and your thoughts about them), so I didn’t find it very useful.

Some people really enjoy the process of keeping lists, but that’s not me. Basically, I don’t want to keep lists, I sometimes want to have kept lists. I sometimes regret not having a list of something, but not in a way that makes me think I should start keeping such a list.

I do track some things—money, exercise, sleep—when experience has shown me that doing so is of great value, but in most areas of life I don’t keep track of anything at all.

Just today—after a year of having this post hanging around in my drafts folder—I saw plans for folks working on IndieWeb stuff to talk about how to do personal libraries in a way that would produce decentralized Goodreads-like functionality. That would really appeal to me.

In the meantime maybe I’ll look around at some list-keeping tools (or maybe start using a few pages in my bullet journal to keep track of books and other things worth tracking).

I’ll keep you posted. Maybe next year will be the year I keep a list of one more thing!

Posted on
by

Just like cell phones trained us to accept downtime that wireline customers the second half of last century would have considered outrageous, smart grids will too—as I said in 2017: What cell phones teach us about the power grid.

“… when the grid is unavailable, appliances and management software will collude to conserve electricity while trying to keep users comfortable and preserve food in the fridge or the charge on a laptop.”

Source: https://wolfliving.tumblr.com/post/670902474742317056/off-the-grid-iot

Posted on
by

I started practicing tai chi in 2009 with a beginner course at OLLI (the OSHER Lifelong Learning Institute). I’d always been attracted to tai chi. I liked the way it looked—the slow, controlled movement. I was also interested in it as a martial art, and I liked the idea of “moving meditation.” Despite all that interest, I had not anticipated how transformative the practice would turn out to be.

Me doing Lazy about Tying Coat
Lazy about Tying Coat

Before I added the tai chi practice to my life, I was all about figuring out the “right” amount of exercise—and in particular, the minimum amount of running, lifting, walking, bicycling, stretching, etc. to become and remain fit enough to be healthy, comfortable, and capable of doing the things I wanted to be able to do.

Pretty quickly after I took up the practice, I found I was no longer worried about that. I found that my body actually knew what the right amount was, and that all I needed to do was move when I felt like moving—and make sure that my movement was diverse.

Because diversity was the key, I did a lot more than just tai chi. I continued running. I dabbled in parkour. I stepped up my lifting practice (and then shifted to mostly bodyweight training when the pandemic made gyms unavailable, and then continued with it because it seemed to work better). I went down a “natural movement” rabbit hole. I walked a lot.

In about 2012 or 2013 my tai chi instructor asked if anyone wanted to “assistant teach” the beginners class with him. I volunteered, and then did so. After six months or so he asked me to take over the evening class that he was teaching for people who couldn’t come to the early classes. I gradually started filling in for him on other classes as well.

In 2015 I formally took over as the tai chi instructor at the Savoy Rec Center. I really enjoyed teaching tai chi, although I found the constraints (having to show up at every class) a bit. . . constraining.

I did some tweaking around the edges (in particular, combining the Wednesday and Friday classes into a single Thursday class, so I could have a three-day weekend), which helped, but only so much.

Then a few weeks ago, the Rec Center wanted me to sign a new contract which would have required me to buy a new insurance policy, naming the Village of Savoy as an “additional insured.” I’m sure I could have done that—there are companies that sell insurance specifically for martial arts and fitness instructors. But as soon as I got set to research such policies, I realized that I really didn’t want to.

Instead, I wanted to retire.

I’d retired from my regular job years before, in 2007. And of course teaching tai chi four or five hours a week was in no way a career. The first few years I was teaching, I found the money I earned a nice supplement to our other retirement income. But with various improvements to our financial situation over the last few years, the money became pretty irrelevant, and the time constraints more. . . constraining. Especially with my parents facing various health challenges, I want to be able to go visit either one if that seems necessary, which has been difficult if I want to honor my obligation to my students.

So a few weeks ago I told the Rec Center and my students that I was retiring from teaching tai chi. My last classes were yesterday.

I’m sad not to be teaching my students any more, but delighted at losing the set of related constraints.

For years now, my students have been gathering in the park (Morrissey Park in Champaign, Illinois) during nice weather for informal group practice sessions, and I expect we’ll keep doing that. At any rate, I plan to be there, starting in the spring, practicing my tai chi. You are welcome to join us.

Posted on
by

Fabric that’s comfortable all the way from kinda cool to slightly warm!

“keeping the wearer comfortably warm in temperatures as low as 11°C. Yet if the fabric is flipped inside-out, it could emit as much radiation as bare skin – keeping the wearer cool in temperatures as high as 24°C.”

Source: ‘Janus textile’ could keep you warm and cool you down – Physics World