The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Seven fitness and wellness trends in 2013 Posted: 24 Dec 2012 06:17 AM PST  Bloggers and experts predict that CrossFit will become a household name in 2013. – shutterstock.com For weeks, fitness bloggers and industry experts have been trendspotting for next year, and here is the best of the best on the horizon. Functional training: Sure, it's a fitness buzzword, but with most adults spending up to 20 hours a day sitting or sleeping, this technique targets a range of fitness needs in a short amount of time, says blog FoodandFitnessPro. Look for an upswing in classes such as TRX suspension training, P90X, bootcamp and kettlebell workouts, all designed to build strength for real-world activities. Juice is king: According to Well+Good NYC, juice is the new coffee. Juices are a US$5 billion (RM15.33 billion) business in the US and are expected to grow by four to eight per cent a year, according to Barron's. Brace yourself for boutique juice shops and high-end urban cafes cold-pressing produce. HIIT – or high-intensity interval training: The buzz over HIIT is only going to get stronger next year, bloggers say, as the principle of short, quick, intense workouts gets applied to everything from track drills to swimming to push-ups. CrossFit craze: CrossFit hit the global mainstream with its hellish workouts done in short, intense bursts. But soon most everyone will chatting about WODs as the brand expands even further next year. CrossFit's full product line and Reebok-backed annual competition on ESPN2 only reinforces the brand that much further. Fitness studios go online: A slew of fitness brands in New York, such as Barre 3 and Physique 57, have introduced online workouts, and that trend is expected to expand, allowing people around the globe to partake in hot new classes. The concept – pay for a live class or pay a monthly fee for unlimited access – is the business model of choice for cult-like celebrity trainers Mary Helen Bowers (Ballet Beautiful), Simone De La Rue (BBS TV), and Terri Walsh (ART Virtual Studio). Yoga festival overload: While the Yoga Journal Conference in the US is the "mother of them all," writes Well+Good NYC, Wanderlust yoga-music festivals have grown to include six annual festivals, including events in Oahu, Chile, and Whistler. Also urban pop-up versions will likely blossom, and regional festivals are predicted to expand. Even Burning Man in California, a week-long music and art festival for the raving masses, has added yoga. Wacky 5K races: This year zombie mania has expanded to fitness, with undead zombies chasing down participants in a series of 5K obstacle courses dubbed Run for Your Lives. Also Color Run 5Ks races – in which runners wear white T-shirts and get doused in coloured powder-paint along the course – have swelled in popularity in the US and have expanded to Australia. Some bloggers are predicting events such as a Hunger Games themed obstacle race springing up in 2013. Watch: youtube.com/watch?v=4EERSfHiqT8 – AFP/Relaxnews |
| Skulls, bones draw crowds to Europe’s second ossuary Posted: 23 Dec 2012 09:12 PM PST  Skulls at an ossuary with the remains of more than 50,000 people on October 19, 2012 under the Church of St. James in Brno. – AFP pic BRNO, Dec 24 – Dim lighting and quiet music accompany a faint smell of decomposing skeletons to complete a ghoulish ambiance that is proving to be a hit with visitors to a giant bone repository in the Czech Republic. The long-forgotten ossuary in the southern city of Brno opened its doors to the public this year with a display of the best-preserved remains of tens of thousands of souls. The collection is Europe's second largest after a repository in Paris. "Some skulls are penetrated by a sword or bullet," said Petra Kacirkova, head of the local tourist information centre. Some were victims of an unsuccessful Swedish siege during the Thirty Years' War of 1618-48, while others succumbed to the plague or cholera, or simply died by accident. "A few of them injured their heads in dark cellars, for instance by nails," Kacirkova added. Forgotten for some 200 years, the ossuary was discovered by chance in 2001 during building work under St James church in the heart of Brno. Researchers spent a decade uncovering the remains, most of which came from a local German enclave, according to Kacirkova. "An estimate based on the volume of skeleton dust showed there were about 50,000 bodies, but later calculations revised that number up," she said. "I suppose there are more dead people to be found," she added, pointing at a pile of bones neatly arranged in a niche against a brick wall. Built atop a smaller Romanesque church dating to the 13th century, the Gothic-style St James church with its soaring vaulted ceilings was encircled by a cemetery which was closed in 1784. Under imperial reforms effected at the time, cemeteries were banned within the city walls, and many gravestones were used to pave the streets of Brno. After the St James cemetery was abandoned, its auxiliary ossuary was also closed and forgotten for centuries. "The burials lasted 500 years, roughly from the 13th century. People bought the graves for 10 to 12 years, then the bones were exhumed and stored in the church's underground chambers," Kacirkova said. The venue, which has attracted 20,000 visitors since it opened in June, cost about 40 million koruna (RM6.5 million) to open to the public. Half of the total was covered by the European Union, which the Czech Republic joined in 2004. Death is omnipresent in the vaulted cellar, which features gravestones and modern sculptures alongside the skulls and bones. Soft music by a local modern composer creates a solemn, pious atmosphere. A marble wall at the street-level entrance lists the names of some of the people laid to rest there. Above it, a prayer inscribed in Latin reads, "Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them". An underground chapel contains some of the best-preserved skulls. In the centre of this grim room, a pillar of skulls and bones reaches to the ceiling near a tall cross and two coffins, one containing the bones of a 13-year-old child, the other a skeleton of a grown man. Architect Ales Svoboda, who refurbished the ossuary's interior, insists that every effort was made to preserve its character and to handle the remains with due respect. With piety in mind, Svoboda designed wire baskets supporting the bones to make glue or cement unnecessary. "It's very impressive, very apt, and done with taste," Michael Holland, a tourist from Britain, told AFP. Then he admitted: "But it is a little bit creepy." – AFP-Relaxnews |
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