My time of late has been sucked away by "real" writing assignments that help feed and clothe my children, so I've been negligent of this space--my apologies. Good news, though, is that my time spent away from MPF has given me all kinds of new insights into the fitness world...I've spoken with chaps like Pavel Tsatsouline, a "stretching genius" named Bob Cooley,  bio-mechanics expert Tom Longo, Professor of Kinesiology Stacy Ingraham, and world-class Ironman Triathlete Gina Kehr. All super-smart folks. My head is spinning from the influx of great information from these folks...one of the wonderful side benefits of writing about fitness for a living.

One great concept that I've been ruminating on lately is something called "concommitance." This is Bob Cooley's word. In the acting world, you learn early on that you can often 'summon up' some kind of emotional state simply by doing something physical: get mad by slamming your fist on the table, for example. Or find tears by allowing your body to 'melt' completely...sounds ridiculous, but it works. I remember being asked once, 'How do you fake-cry onstage?' And the answer is that if it's happening, it's happening. I'm not sure I fully believe the notion that the body can't distinguish between a real and imagined event, but the line is paper-thin.

To the point: the body and the emotions aren't as isolated as we typically think. In fact, they're one thing. A physical change occasions an psycho-emotional one, if I may be so psycho-babbly.

My mood can get way out of whack if I don't work out for a few days, and when I finally do return to exercise, I'm practically euphoric. This is, in part, a demonstration of my extreme weirdness in relation to exercise (although I start to wonder whether people who profess to 'hate' exercise--like Oprah!--just don't get this influx of positive hormones), and I've often thought, Well, this isn't how I really feel. But Cooley--and other researchers, I might add--have suggested that they ARE the same thing. Anti-depressants work on the same principle, albeit in a somewhat more artificial way: change the body and the mind changes.

I guess I point this out (and I don't think this is the first time I've mentioned this) because people--myself included--get down, fall into depression, allow whatever difficult circumstance that is currently plaguing them to grind them into a fine powder, at various times in their lives. I remember hearing someone say, "Sometimes the distance between despair and tranquility can be bridged by a walk around the lake." Or words to that effect, probably better and more succinctly stated. But the point holds: external movement begets internal, subtle movement.

Again, this is sounding psychobabbly, but I actually think that it's the opposite: the danger of psychology is that it can start to seem way too complicated: you need to address this or that problem relationship in your life. You need to completely re-wire how you feel about your family in order to change it one iota. And then how do you start? It can become a way of avoiding REALLY confronting a problem. Whereas simply moving the body is immediate and profound and completely doable.

When a problem arises perhaps the immediate solution shouldn't be "Can We Talk?" but "Can We Walk?"

Have a great weekend--

A

"I really think you should just...get on the Stairmaster for awhile."