Fitness On The Move

This step-by-step guide, written by a best-selling author and former Wall Street titan, provides all the information--and inspiration--you need to feel better, reduce aches and pains, and push back against aging with a personalized fitness program that's right for you. Whatever your fitness goals or preferences, this book is designed to help you pursue the health program that works for you. An inspirational speaker, author, and former Wall Street rainmaker, Jim Owen was 70 when he decided he had to get fit. Years of a chair-bound lifestyle were taking their toll. Realizing that the old bodybuilding approach was no way to tackle the stiffness, weakness, and aches and pains that come with age, he set off on a journey of discovery and transformation. With help from the experts, he developed a common-sense, step-by-step program that can be tailored to any level of physical ability. Along the way he learned why cardio machines aren't enough, what it takes to be "functionally fit" for daily life, and how to stay motivated. Today, Owen is in better shape than he was at 25, and he is a passionate evangelist for fitness as a way of life. He has proved that you don't have to be powerless in the face of advancing years: if you make a commitment to "just move," you can take charge of the aging process and make your coming years the best they can be. The book is divided into two sections, with the first providing fascinating information and the second showing step-by-step details of how to put the best fitness principles into practice.

A ground-breaking guide to understanding how aging happens in our cells and how to maintain and repair those cells--and roll back joint pain and muscle loss at any age--through gentle, scientifically designed workouts based on Classical Stretch and Essentrics, developed by the author and star of PBS's Classical Stretch series. It's never too late to slow down, or even reverse, the effects of aging. The human body is designed to function for the full length of its life--and with gentle, full-body flexibility and strengthening exercises we can look and feel tremendous, vibrant and active at any age, and well into our senior years. After all, the body is the world's most efficient self-healing machine. And yet, remarkably, many of us neglect the single most important system in the body--the one that makes all the others work--the muscular system. The typical message we get as we age is that we can move less and should take it easy--exactly the wrong advice. Surprisingly, fitness enthusiasts often do as much harm to their bodies as people living sedentary lives. For example, yoga instructors get tennis elbow or carpal tunnel syndrome from daily stress on wrists and elbows; Pilates instructors suffer pectoral and tricep muscle atrophy and even professional athletes grow overweight and suffer countless ACL, meniscus and disc injuries. Ligaments are virtually ignored by most exercises routines and yet joint health is essential in order to remain active. But these afflictions don't happen overnight, and with Aging Backwards we can slow or prevent their onset, and often reverse their symptoms.

The bestselling author of The Willpower Instinct introduces a surprising science-based book that doesn't tell us why we should exercise but instead shows us how to fall in love with movement. Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it's a chore. But, as Kelly McGonigal reveals, it doesn't have to be. Movement can and should be a source of joy. Through her trademark blend of science and storytelling, McGonigal draws on insights from neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and evolutionary biology, as well as memoirs, ethnographies, and philosophers. She shows how movement is intertwined with some of the most basic human joys, including self-expression, social connection, and mastery--and why it is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. McGonigal tells the stories of people who have found fulfillment and belonging through running, walking, dancing, swimming, weightlifting, and more, with examples that span the globe, from Tanzania, where one of the last hunter-gatherer tribes on the planet live, to a dance class at Juilliard for people with Parkinson's disease, to the streets of London, where volunteers combine fitness and community service, to races in the remote wilderness, where athletes push the limits of what a human can endure. Along the way, McGonigal paints a portrait of human nature that highlights our capacity for hope, cooperation, and self-transcendence. The result is a revolutionary narrative that goes beyond familiar arguments in favor of exercise, to illustrate why movement is integral to both our happiness and our humanity. Readers will learn what they can do in their own lives and communities to harness the power of movement to create happiness, meaning, and connection.

This practical guide to understanding the cranial nerves as the key to our psychological and physical well-being builds on Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory—one of the most important recent developments in human neurobiology. Drawing on more than thirty years of experience as a craniosacral therapist and Rolfer, Stanley Rosenberg explores the crucial role that the vagus nerve plays in determining our psychological and emotional states and explains that a myriad of common psychological and physical symptoms—from anxiety and depression to migraines and back pain—indicates a lack of proper functioning in the vagus nerve. Through a series of easy self-help exercises, the book illustrates the simple ways we can regulate the vagus nerve in order to initiate deep relaxation, improve sleep, and recover from injury and trauma. Additionally, by exploring the link between a well-regulated vagus nerve and social functioning, Rosenberg’s findings and methods offer new hope that by improving social behavior it is possible to alleviate some of the symptoms at the core of many cases of autism spectrum disorders. Useful for psychotherapists, doctors, bodyworkers, and caregivers, as well as anyone who experiences the symptoms of chronic stress and depression, this book shows how we can optimize autonomic functioning in ourselves and others, and bring the body into the state of safety that activates its innate capacity to heal.

Food & Fitness After 50 wellness experts share steps for getting started on a healthy fitness routine, eating plans, weight management techniques, tips for better sleep, and a breakdown of myths around aging and nutrition.

If you could fit our culture of convenience into a petri dish, what would it look like?Movement Matters is a series of essays in which biomechanist Katy Bowman continues to explain the mechanics of a sedentary culture and the deep complexity of the phenomenon we call movement. By exposing convenience as a way of outsourcing movements, Katy's groundbreaking work in the relationship between movement and nature expands to models that have evolved from thinking of the body as a single structure to considering it to be a cluster of a trillion bodies, and how those trillion bodies are being loaded by our habitat and how we move to interact with it.From movement nutrients to forest school to the problems with investigating parts, our culturally conditioned preference to be sedentary is explored from many angles.Thought-provoking, inspiring, and always entertaining, Movement Matters is a collection of essays conducting a deep exploration of movement and its role in science, community, work, and social responsibility. Deftly deconstructing sedentary assumptions that underlie much of our research into human health, Bowman works to reclaim our space in and responsibility to nature and ourselves.With essays on foraging, the nearsightedness epidemic, and the limitations of a parts approach to health, Bowman's gaze is sweeping and incisive, always with the underlying message that moving is powerful and important, and perhaps the most joyful, freeing, and efficient form of activism there is.

The book tells the story of how we never evolved to exercise - to do voluntary physical activity for the sake of health. Using his own research and experiences throughout the world, the author recounts how and why humans evolved to walk, run, dig, and do other necessary and rewarding physical activities while avoiding needless exertion. Drawing on insights from biology and anthropology, the author suggests how we can make exercise more enjoyable, rather that shaming and blaming people for avoiding it

Every day we are bombarded with new exercise and nutrition programs we are told guarantee weight loss and improved health and fitness. Rarely do these gimmicks work because often the latest fad diet, usually in combination with the latest fad exercise regimen, is rarely based on scientific evidence. As a result, you either don't see results, or you cannot sustain what is likely an unhealthy, boring diet and unsuitable fitness program. Eat, Move, Sleep, Repeat is very different. As a Healthy Lifestyle Guidebook, it provides a scientific, evidence-based rationale for selecting certain diets and forms of physical activity that will help you • achieve effective body fat and body weight loss; • develop a personalized weight loss plan; • follow a healthy balanced diet; • improve sleep quality; • avoid common illnesses; • keep senses and organs healthy; and • determine what exercise suits your lifestyle best. Meant for every fitness goal, fitness level, and occupation, Eat, Move, Sleep, Repeat provides a program using evidence-based guidelines on how to establish a healthy lifestyle that will promote better quality of life with reduced risk of chronic disease and extended longevity. Live long and healthy with Eat, Move, Sleep, Repeat!