The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Taking the workout to the back of the body Posted: 31 May 2011 12:38 AM PDT  The lunge stretch, from the book "Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence" is demonstrated in this undated file photo. — Reuters pic But the authors of a new book suggest people get plenty of that movement in their daily lives. They say to get a really strong midsection the back of the body needs to be worked. "Sitting at desks, working on computers, waiting in traffic, we are continually contracting our abs, throwing our shoulders forward and, ultimately, shutting down the back of the body, said Dr. Eric Goodman, co-author with Peter Park of "Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence." "If we're going to keep our posture and our spines strong, it has to be done by exercising the back of the body as the core of the body," explained Goodman, a chiropractor based in Santa Barbara, California. The exercises illustrated in the book require no machines or equipment and take the spine as the body's center of stability. In the signature, or founder exercise, knees are bent over ankles, the body hinges from the hip joint, and movement originates in the pelvis, hips and hip joints. "You're sticking your butt out on everything," explained Park, a trainer and owner of Platinum Fitness gyms, said. "We're aiming for the posterior chain." Park is cycling great Lance Armstrong's strength and conditioning coach. The seven-time Tour de France winner wrote the forward for the book. "Lance needed it more than anybody," Park said of the workout. "It opened him up. (With his) rounded back, rounded shoulders he almost looked funny off the bike." The exercises are designed to augment, rather than replace, a regular fitness regime, Goodman said. "We don't want people to stop doing yoga or Pilates. If you're currently doing cardio or other training just add foundation to it," Goodman said. "If you're doing it properly, 20 minutes is plenty. It's hard." Neal Pire, spokesperson for the American College of Sports Medicine, said the concept of "hinging" or loading the posterior chain while maintaining neutral spine is mainstream, but he's never seen a book entirely devoted to it. "Extension is key, because we do indeed live in a flexed state," he said, adding that if the public perception is that abs are the core, the public is mistaken. "The core involves two sets of muscles: deep muscles whose roles are primarily stabilising the spine, or more generally the trunk, and shallower muscles whose primary role is movement," Pire explained. Goodman advocates a four-to-one ratio of back-to-front training. "For every four exercises you do for the back of the body, you get to do one for the front. I think that's the opposite of what most people are doing." Park said too many workouts reinforce sedentary postures. "You see a guy who is sedentary all day go to the gym, do bench presses and ride on a bike. He's reinforcing what he did all day," said Park. "We're trying to bring everyone back to the center, where they should be. I think this is the missing link." — Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Bathhouse of Sultan’s favourite reopens in Istanbul Posted: 30 May 2011 09:45 PM PDT  Feel like a Sultan at the Roxelana Hamam Ottoman bath houses, structures once so important they were designed by the finest architects of the realm, fell out of favour as Turkey modernised and its citizens installed running water and bathrooms in their homes. Yet the architectural pedigree of many of the bath houses, the rising number of foreign tourists, and a resurgent interest among Turks in all things Ottoman, have revived the fortunes of the old stone hamams as developers recognise their huge earning potential.  The waiting hall at Roxelana's hamam. — Reuters pic "In the last 15 years we started to restore our buildings. Before that the focus was on constructing things fast. If a structure was broken we'd just try and fix it with concrete." In 2007 Istanbul authorities decided to return the hamam to its original use after a 105-year hiatus and launched a tender for its restoration, won by a tourism development group. The bath will open in June and charge €86 (RM372) for the customary steam bath, peeling and soap massage. The same service in one of the handful of old local hamams still in operation in Istanbul would cost around €15. Visitors to the separate men's and women's sections of the bath enter a soaring domed chamber the size of a small mosque, with tiers of wooden changing rooms circling the walls. After donning a cotton wrap known as a pestemal and slippers they enter the steamy, white marble bath. Once the moisture has penetrated their skin, an attendant scrubs the body to remove the dead skin cells, before dousing the visitor in water. "It is not just about bathing. It is a purification process, a ritual process," Ilter said.  The soap massage: more than a bath; it's a purification process, a ritual. — Reuters pic Scheming Roxelana While Istanbul now offers four or five historic luxury hamams to chose from, the figure of Roxelana, long a subject of Western orientalist fantasy could prove a paticular draw. Born into a Ukrainian family as Aleksandra Lisowska some time around 1500 she was captured by raiding Crimean Tartars and sold as a slave in Constantinople, where she was selected for the harem. Through her charm and guile she managed to catch the eye of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, displacing his former favourite and eventually becoming his wife. The bath's reopening coincides with a screening of a television drama based on the life of Roxelana, which has captivated Turkish audiences, but also drew complaints for its sexual content and liberty with the truth. Its glamorous costumes, sumptuous interiors, and the endless conniving and plotting among the women of the harem have fed the resurgent local interest in the Ottoman Empire, from which modern Turkey was formed in 1923. History has not viewed Roxelana kindly, portraying her as a meddlesome schemer. Her son Selim, inherited the empire from his father but proved a disastrous ruler and an alcoholic. Selim is said to have died in 1574 after slipping and banging his head in a hammam while drunk. "We don't know for sure whether Roxelana ever came to her hamam. She died in 1558 and the bath was finished in 1557," said Ilter. "Some people think the Sultan built it for her so bathers would pray for her in her ill health. Either way the location of the hamam, right opposite the Haghia Sophia in a central position shows her power and influence." Old Istanbul is littered with the ruins of old hamams, most of which are beyond saving. But other restorations are already in the works, particularly of structures built by Sinan. "History used to be about war and about being a hero. Now we are learning about the history of architecture, leisure and social life," Ilter said. — Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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