The Parasympathetic Life: a combined theory of everything that really matters

There is one particular principle that has helped me understand what's going on with my life and health more than any other, and that's the notion of the sympathetic-parasympathetic spectrum. This one organizing principle can help you understand everything you need to know about how to live a healthy life.

Your body is an amazingly complex system of interconnected processes, chemical, neurological, and mechanical, that can all shift in different directions. Thousands of hormones, nervous systems, and other biological happenings that can be turned up or down in an overwhelming array of combinations.

However, very few of these systems are really independent. You can get a rise in, for example, insulin, by tasting some sugar. But that rise in insulin will never come by itself. That insulin surge will affect many other systems in your body in many complex ways.

You could spend a lifetime trying to unpack all these connections, and that would be interesting, but you might not have time or energy or aptitude for doing so. Luckily, a lot of these systems are organized in some ways that are not terribly difficult to grasp.

Now of course everything in this post is going to be a simplification. But it's a useful simplification, and most of the time most of these systems behave more or less the way I'm going to describe. So while this way of thinking about your body won't capture every possible condition or disease state, it will provide a really great beginning to understanding how your body works.

Instead of trying to figure out the ins and outs of every single hormone and biomarker separately, we're going to put them in two rough categories: sympathetic and parasympathetic.

Put simply, the sympathetic system is the one that gets activated in fight-or-flight situations. When you're anxious, under stress, or under threat, a whole bunch of neurological and hormonal things happen to help you survive the immediate danger. They're all complex and unique flowers, but for the sake of this post we're going to lump them together.

The parasympathetic a system is the other side of the coin. It's the set of hormones and nervous impulses that are firing and elevated when you're relaxed and safe.

It's not a case of all one or all the other. Your adrenaline levels don't drop to zero when you're relaxed, for example. Think of these things as lying on a spectrum. At any given point in time you're either towards the parasympathetic (relaxed and happy) end OR towards the sympathetic (scared and anxious) end or somewhere in the middle. No single hormone or organ is going to give a complete picture of how sympathetic or parasympathetic you are, so we're going to be using some inexact language to describe this spectrum.

It's not a case where you're supposed to be always on one end of that spectrum or the other. It's normal and healthy to get sympathetic sometimes. But, and this is NOT an idea original to me, we evolved to spend most of our time on the parasympathetic end (chillin'), and dip into the sympathetic end only for brief (and probably intense) periods when we were in danger - for example, when being chased by a wild animal. The sympathetic state isn't exactly bad for you, but it's all about sacrificing long term well being for short term survival capacity. In fact, the only way to increase your overall capacity - to get stronger and more fit - is really to push yourself into sympathetic states for controlled periods of time.

The danger comes when we spend too much of our lives in a chronic sympathetic state. When you're stressed all the time there aren't enough chances for your body to recover and rebuild and heal, and that's bad in all sorts of ways.

Here's a second part of this principle that is really, really important: the way your body puts you towards sympathetic or parasympathetic is dumb. REALLY DUMB. As in not sensitive to context AT ALL.

What I mean is, your body tends to lump all the inputs and outputs of these systems together. So, for example, having high blood sugar (sympathetic response) is a GOOD response to suddenly seeing a hungry bear (a sympathetic stimulus), because you want a lot of glucose swarming around for you to use while running from the bear. But it's a TERRIBLE response to seeing your angry boss - there's nothing useful about that glucose in that situation unless you're inclined to get into a fistfight with your boss. And that extra sugar could be doing all kinds of damage, especially if your boss is always angry with you and your blood sugar is regularly elevated.

So if we want to maximize health and well being we have to manipulate our body's response. Simply put: your body, left on its own, is remarkable, but in many ways does not handle modern life very well.

In order to do that, we have to be aware of what makes us more sympathetic, what makes us more parasympathetic, and when we want them.

What pushes us towards the sympathetic state?

This is an incomplete list, but a lot of things can push us towards either end of the spectrum. I don't think any of these will be surprising, but there's something I find very interesting about putting the list together and looking at the whole thing.

• Stress - anxiety about life, jobs, relationships, hardship, and also any kind of life change (good or bad), worrying about one's responsibilities.
• Intense exercise (The more intense, and longer the duration, the deeper into sympathetic state it drives you).
• Sleep deprivation (and possibly getting too much sleep).
• Sleeping at the wrong time (sleep/wake cycles out of sync with the sun, like night shift workers).
• Caloric deprivation (not eating enough) or nutritional deficiencies (not eating enough of something in particular).
• Pain (for example, from some chronic injury, like a bad back).
• Social isolation (no friends).
• Infection/illness.
• Excessive stimulant consumption (caffeine, crystal meth, etc.)
• Certain kinds of music (think speed metal).

What pushes us towards the parasympathetic state?

• Socializing.
• Meditation.
• Sufficient food/nutrient intake.
• Low level physical activity - stretching, long slow walks, especially in nature.
• Laughter.
• Moderate intellectual stimulation.
• Low to moderate alcohol consumption.
• Sufficient rest.
• Other kinds of music (whatever they play in elevators).

These are not complete lists, obviously, and the impact of each of these is probably going to vary from person to person. Some people turn into happy noodles after an hour of yoga, others just feel uncomfortable. You have to figure out for yourself which activities work best for pushing you in one direction or the other if you want to control your own parasympathetic state.

Why is it important to be more or less parasympathetic? Well....

What are the effects of being more sympathetic?

• Higher heart rate.
• Higher performance (run faster, jump higher).
• Higher blood sugar; poor blood sugar regulation.
• Compromised immunity (don't fight infections well).
• Poor recovery from workouts.
• Fat accumulation and systemic inflammation.
• Better concentration.
• Less creativity/ poor higher level thinking.
• Poor digestion.
• Stimulate adaptions (muscle growth, increases in endurance, etc.).
• More regular heart beat (more like a metronome).

What are the effects of being more parasympathetic?

• Lower heart rate.
• Better recovery from workouts.
• Improved blood sugar control and resistance to fat accumulation/ease of losing fat.
• Improved digestion.
• Reduced physical performance (not as strong, fast, explosive).
• More creativity.
• Better healing.
• Adapt, assuming there has been a stimulus (see the section above).
• Less regular heartbeat (less like a metronome).

Let me sum up:

It's good to be deeply parasympathetic, most of the time. It's good to be deeply sympathetic ONLY for brief periods of time - long enough to stimulate the adaptions that make you more fit. It's bad to be sympathetic all the time.

What does this have to do with fat loss?

Fat loss is one (not the only) example of an arena where the importance of understanding the sympathetic-parasympathetic axis is important.

First, think about the things that we 'know' contribute to fat loss. Lots of exercise, stimulant consumption, caloric deprivation, fasting. These things are not really controversial on their own.

Now look at which 'way' along the sympathetic spectrum those things push us. All towards the sympathetic side of the spectrum. Now look at the effects of being chronically sympathetic.

Funny, huh?

Most of the things that contribute to fat loss also tend to push us into a sympathetic state, which itself has many effects which prevent fat loss.

Read that again. Caloric deprivation and high intensity exercise will help you create a caloric deficit and burn fat, but also contribute to pushing you into a sympathetic state where inflammation goes up, insulin regulation gets worse, and fat loss is slowed.

Is the point that fat loss is impossible? Of course not. But if you're already on the sympathetic side of the spectrum, if you're already stressed, tired, drinking too much, socializing too little, and not managing personal stress, and you ADD fasting and high intensity interval training to the mix, you MIGHT not get the fat loss results you think you will. 

On the other hand, if you're young (relatively few responsibilities/stresses), healthy, with a rich social life, you're probably deep into the parasympathetic end of things. Then, if you want to get in shape, and you add Crossfit and intermittent fasting and low carb, you might end up getting great results. You might become a personal trainer, showing off your six pack abs, and whipping your forty year old clients to feel crappy about themselves for not being as successful as you are. The fact is, though, that they're probably not lazy or cheating on their diets - they might be stricter than you are. But their lives leave them less capacity to absorb stressors without tumbling into the sympathetic end of the physiological spectrum and destroying any chance they have of making progress.

Bottom line here: Sometimes more is less. If you're already stressed, you might have more success on your 'diet' by making sure you start getting more sleep and having a good laugh every day and meditating, instead of just doing more exercise and cutting out more calories.

Can we measure, with an actual number, how sympathetic we are?

Yes, we can.

You probably already have a pretty good idea where you are on the spectrum. If you want something to quantify it, use your heart rate variability (HRV). This isn't the same as saying your heart rate is high or low - HRV is a measure of how much the beats of your heart vary. The more sympathetic you are, the more regular (less variation) there will be in the time between your heart beats.

You can measure HRV in a number of ways. including BioForce and the S Health app on a Samsung phone.

What's important isn't so much having a good score as learning what makes your score get better (less stressed) or worse (more stressed) and learning how to change your lifestyle accordingly. Some people get driven way sympathetic by a little alcohol consumption; others don't.

Get a BioForce and start tracking your HRV. See what kinds of things make it go up and down. If you can, make adjustments so your score gets higher. You'll be healthier and fitter for it!

What's the real take home here?

There's a couple of key points lurking in this.

First, understanding where you stand on the sympathetic -parasympathetic spectrum might really help you understand why you're not recovering from workouts, getting sick, or losing weight the way you think you should be.

Second, understanding this spectrum might help you pick lifestyle changes that will help you achieve your goals but might not have seemed intuitive. When people aren't recovering from workouts, they might think to try to eat more protein or stretch more. They might not realize that going out with friends or meditating might do just as much to improve their ability to recover (by pushing them towards the parasympathetic).

Meditation just might do just as much for your physical abilities as another workout.

Aim for a parasympathetic life (punctuated by short, intense, sympathetic bursts). You'll be healthier, happier, and a better karateka.

Osu.

SVT FAQ: common questions about aerobic base buildling

The title of this post is a lie; I haven't gotten any questions about SVT, but these are questions I think people might have after reading that post.

Is SVT enough to meet all my endurance training needs?

No! Sadly, low intensity work like SVT by itself won't make you fighting fit. It will contribute to a small degree to your fighting fitness (your ability to do higher intensity work) without wrecking you, and it will make you more fit for everyday life (push you into a more parasympathetic state). By itself it won't be enough to get you through a vigorous sparring session. For that you need to add in some high intensity work of some sort (like, for example, sparring session!).

How do I know if I need more SVT (if I need to build my 'aerobic base')?

Joel Jameson recommends tracking your resting heart rate (RHR) to see how much SVT type training you need and can benefit from. Roughly speaking, take your heart rate while relaxed, preferably lying down, and totally calm. If you hit a number below 60 you're probably good. If you can get it lower, that's great (there's probably a minimum value that provides benefits - I don't know what that number is; I'd guess that if you get below 50 there's no value in trying to get it lower). 

If your RHR is over 70 you can definitely benefit from more SVT. More importantly, do whatever you can fit in, and once your RHR stops dropping, see how much you can back off while maintaining that lower number. 

How much SVT can I do per week?

Unlike higher intensity training you should be able to do SVT pretty often. When I do the interval style training (squat kicks and so forth) I get some delayed onset muscle soreness, enough that I can't do those sessions more than every other day, but I'll fit in sessions on the treadmill in between them. I've done 2 sessions per day (50+ minutes each) and not wrecked myself. I'd say that available time is a bigger obstacle than neurological limitations - much different than high intensity work, where (especially if you're older) you probably can't do Tabata style HIIT every day even if you have the time to do so without wrecking your nervous system and making yourself useless.

Can I fit SVT into a martial arts class?

I think you could. I imagine a scenario where everybody straps on a heart rate monitor for class just as casually as they would their gi or obi, then follows a customized program depending on their intensity goals for the session.

It would be relatively easy to structure a skills based class (where you're focusing on learning new patterns, sharpening techniques, maybe doing some low impact self defense work) to keep people's heart rates in the target zone. Maybe give each student the freedom to drop down and knock out a set of pushups or squats whenever their heart rate dips too low.

Having said that, I have never heard of a traditional martial arts class working like that. Maybe one day!

Will SVT get me shredded?

No.

Look, you'll burn calories doing SVT. I suspect (not sure) that a lot of SVT will actually help certain people lose some bodyfat - specifically people who are overly stressed, inflamed from elevated systemic cortisol levels, and in need of something to relax them. It's the same principle as people losing bodyfat while on vacation or on a cruise despite eating more calories - the shift towards a parasympathetic state reduces inflammation and can help drop some pounds. 

But over the long term working at a heart rate of 120-140 is simply not going to burn as many calories as higher intensity workouts.

SVT does have the advantage of being easy to do for longer periods of time. I can't do high intensity work for an hour a day, but I can do SVT for that long. So you can get some extra fat burning in with SVT above your higher intensity work.

Who would benefit most from SVT?

I suspect I'm in the target group of people who get the most out of this type of training - I tend to be very sedentary, but when I work out at all, I work pretty hard (high intensity). As a result, I've always had a relatively high resting heart rate, even though I can push my max heart rate really high. I've always been the kind of person who is regularly tired and lower in energy but fairly capable of handling a hard martial arts class or a lot of high intensity sparring.

If you tend to do a lot of lower intensity sports type stuff - if you're the type who spends significant time each week casually riding a bike, playing some recreational sport, or taking the occasional easier martial arts class - you might already have a sufficiently developed stroke volume to the point where SVT just won't help you (it still probably won't hurt!)

Looking over my own life I almost never get my heart rate elevated but not too elevated. SVT seems to have really helped me. 

What are the disadvantages of doing SVT?

Well, that's the great part - there aren't many. Work in this intensity range just won't cut into your reserves all that much.

Now, if you only have a few hours a week for exercise, SVT might not give you the most bang for your buck. If your RHR is around 60 you'll probably get more out of working harder than out of doing SVT. But if your RHR is above 70 and you're tired all the time, try SVT and see if it helps.

I suspect it will.

Do you have any more fun acronyms to share?

I do! I have a weakness for acronyms. They're coming.

Haven't you said before that lower intensity training was useless?

Yes, I have! I was wrong.

This is a journey. I'm trying to figure out the smartest way to train for a traditional amateur martial artist . I don't know everything. I've made tons of mistakes. I might come back 6 months or a year from now and say that SVT is a bad (or just less than optimal) because I will have learned something new about some aspect of adaptions to training. But then I'll write another blog post and explain the process that got me there.

In conclusion...

If you have any questions, please ask. If you have any experiences to share, please do! But remember, the best workout is the one you'll do. If you try some style of training and hate it, try something different. Your best chance for long term progress is doing something you enjoy.

Osu!

SVT: Stroke Volume Training (endurance training basics)

I am not one to talk about training and diet plans as if they're going to revolutionize your life. A lot of adherents of various plans (paleo, HIIT, whatever) will claim that if you stick to their scheme, you'll feel better, have tons of energy, etc. If you look through my posts you're not going to see many of those claims, because, frankly, I've never really felt that any workout plans made my everyday energy levels increase or improved my at-rest well being.

Until now.

A short history of endurance training (please skip if you don't care about fitness history)

Not too long ago it was conventional wisdom that if one wanted to have great endurance (or 'cardio' in the bronacular) in most sports the thing to do was a lot of long, steady, low intensity exercise. Think of boxers going out for long steady jogs (aka road work) or field sport athletes taking endless laps around the field.

Then came poor Professor Tabata, author of some widely misunderstood and misinterpreted papers on high intensity interval training and the man who unwittingly lent his name to a workout protocol that has often been hailed as the be-all and end-all of endurance training.

Basically, Tabata showed that by working very, very hard (much harder than they could keep up for even a minute), cyclists could make the same improvements to VO2 Max by working 4 minutes a day (8 sets of 20 seconds of work, with 10 second breaks in between) as cyclists doing much more traditional training (30+ minutes at a time of lower intensity but constant work).

The fitness community jumped all over this notion. The idea that you could work harder, but shorter, seemed both like cheating and was hugely attractive to our "suffering brings results" gym culture. 'Tabata' intervals are hard. And they really do work, especially over a short period of time. The fact that the first burst of improvement tapered off after a couple of months, and that high intensity training was hugely stressful to the body, was largely ignored. In fact, in some ways the entire Crossfit industry became a system of increasing intensity at the cost of all else.

For a long while a lot of fitness enthusiasts and strength coaches thought that anybody other than an endurance athlete doing slow, steady cardio was hindering their athletic performance.

Then came the great Joel Jamieson (whose work I highly recommend). Joel, basing his training philosophy on studies imported from former Eastern Block countries, pointed out that many athletes do, in fact, need some steady state, low intensity training to maximize their cardiovascular endurance. Road work was back!

Theory (of an Aerobic Base)

I intend to, at some point, write at greater length about energy systems. I won't do that here.

Put simply, you have 3 energy systems, and of those, the aerobic system provides energy at the slowest rate but for the longest time. That is, you can get a lot more energy much more quickly out of the anaerobic alactic system, but it runs out in 10 seconds. You can get less, but still a ton of energy in a hurry out of your lactic system, but it runs out in a minute or so. Your aerobic system is slow (low power) but lasts much, much longer.

Which means that if your sport lasts only 10 seconds or less, you can work on just your anaerobic alactic energy system. But very few sports last only 10 seconds - even those that seem to often call for repeated bursts of 10 second outputs. American football is a great example - plays usually last 10 seconds or less, but over a game many players have to repeat that performance dozens or scores of times.

And how does the anaerobic alactic (or lactic) systems get recharged after a bout of exertion? That's right, aerobic energy!

Now a lot of different things go into developing your aerobic system fully, but one of them that is pretty important is cardiac output.

Cadiac output is simply how much blood your heart can pump through your body in any unit of time. Oxygen is carried through the blood; the more blood your heart can move, the more fit you'll be.

What determines your cardiac output? Well, without getting too math-ey you can think of it as two things: 1) how much blood your heart pumps with each beat, or stroke volume, times; 2) how fast your heart can beat. Get a heart that moves move blood with each beat, get greater output. Get a heart that beats faster, get greater output. So there are 2 limiting factors: Stroke Volume and Maximum Heart Rate.

So far that's fairly uncontroversial. The next part is a little more... theoretical, or at least less well documented in the literature. To increase your aerobic fitness you'd like to be able to, among some other things, increase both Stroke Volume and Maximum Heart Rate. That would maximize the ability of your body to deliver blood (and oxygen) to working tissues.

Maximum Heart Rate seems to be helped along by working at higher intensities. You're not gong to get a heart that can pump at 190 bpm for long periods of time by taking leisurely strolls on the beach.

What Jamieson and Soviet researchers assert (but which isn't treated as common knowledge in the Western medical community as far as I can find) is that Stroke Volume can be increased with training, but only when the training is done in a very narrow and specific range of heart rates.

Basically, the heart has to be stressed (forced to beat faster than it would while you, say, sit on the couch, or go for a leisurely walk), but if it beats too fast (like it does in high intensity training), then it doesn't fill fully and have a chance to stretch and increase its volume.

Put simply: to increase Stroke Volume, you have to work for a substantial period of time (more than 45 minutes) while keep your heart rate between 120 and 140 beats per minute. This is NOT what you get from High Intensity Interval Training - that protocol either keeps your heart rate above the top of that range for most of the time or brings it above, then drops it below, and so forth and so on.

We're not looking for an average between 120 and 140, we're looking to stay within 120 and 140 for extended periods of time.

Practice (of building your Stroke Volume)

What You'll Need

1. A Heart Rate Monitor. There is simply no way to do this right without constant monitoring. Ball parking your heart rate is simply not going to keep it in the range you need (which is really pretty narrow).

I highly, highly recommend something that gives you a continual readout of your heart rate, not the kind of setup where you can hold your finger(s) over a sensor or button for several seconds and get a reading. That's simply not efficient. I like this one very much, it's what I use and it certainly does the job without being too pricey, but there may be better ones available.

Total cost: $75.

2. A Timer of some sort. This is sort of optional - you could estimate the time, but I find this much easier to do if I have something that counts down intervals and either flashes or dings or something when it hits a predetermined time. I generally do this in front of a computer and use this free webpage as my timer.

Total cost: $0

3. [OPTIONAL} Resistance: some bands or very light dumbells. I like using 1 lb. dumbells for this workout (yes, I'm serious). As long as you can work hard enough to get your heart rate into the target zone you don't necessarily need equipment. You can get these at a store like Five Below, Amazon, or really any Target or sporting good store.

Total cost: $5.

What are the Options

The typical way to get your Stroke Volume work in (or, as it is typically called, building your aerobic base), is to do something of fairly constant intensity for a long time. Jogging is the classic example (though jogging only 'works' if you're reasonably fit - if you're out of shape, even an easy jog will jump your heart rate well over 140 and prevent it from being effective as Stroke Volume Training).

I will sometimes hop on a treadmill and walk at an incline for my SVT. You would have to wear a heart rate monitor and find the right speed/ incline combination to get the heart rate you want. DO NOT aim for 140; aim for 130, and try to keep it around the middle of the range. More is not better. Staying in the higher range will not make this more effective.

What I like to do instead, in my ever present desire to kill as many birds with one stone as possible, is to do a kind of interval training that keeps my heart rate in the target range. And since I'm working at a fairly low intensity, the work doesn't get too fatiguing (no burning in the muscles) and I can stay reasonably fresh throughout. That means I can practice actual kicks and punches instead of, say, burpees. The work just isn't hard enough to bring me to the point where the techniques start getting slow or sloppy. There's no 'burn' to ruin performance.

How To Do Interval SVT

1. Set your timer to count down 15 seconds and repeat.
2. Do a brief stretching/warmup routine.
3. Strap on your heart rate monitor.
4. Do your 'work set'. Once you've been working for at least 2 minutes (8 sets total) check your heart rate. If it's below 120, plan do a more intense work set next time. If it's above 140, plan do an easier work set next time.
5. Repeat for at least 50 minutes (for some reason 50 minutes 'works' for me - I get to shower after and still total under an hour of time, and 50 minutes works out to 200 reps, which resonates with me because I'm a very digital person. By all means do more if you want). Make small adjustments to your work set every 15 to 30 seconds to keep your heart rate between 120 and 140.

What's the Work Set?

Here's the tricky part: you need a few options to layer so you can get your heart rate up and down as needed. Do some sort of movement and some sort of technique or techniques. The work SHOULD NOT take up all 15 seconds of your interval. Your aim is to do some hard, snappy work, maybe 3-5 seconds worth, then have time to stand still, catch your breath, check your heart rate, and wait for the timer to go off again. Then repeat. 200 times. I watch Netflix while doing this.

I like to layer things like this:

1. Every rep I do some sort of squat kick. I usually do these very wide - I step out to the side in a very wide horse stance, then pop back up as explosively as I can and throw a kick (usually mae geri or mawashi geri) with the trailing leg. So I might step to the right, pop up and throw a left kick, then a single punch with the left hand. Next rep I step the other way and kick and punch with the other hand. If I'm feeling stiff I'll start with 4-12 'sets' of knee kicks, building up range as I go, instead of trying a max height roundhouse kick right away.

2. I find mawashi geri brings my heart rate up, mae geri brings it slightly down, so I'll mix in sets of one or the other if my heart rate is creeping up on 140 or down below 125.

3. I often need a little extra to get my heart rate up, so I'll add in a jab - cross punch combination after each kick. If my heart rate creeps up towards 140 I'll stop these, then add them back in as it drops.

4. I do all my punches with a 1 lb dumbbells in each hand. The use of weighted implements is controversial, and worth discussing in another post, but I believe it's good for my technique. Feel free to skip them. I DO NOT recommend going very heavy with the dumbbells for reasons I'll discuss another time.

5. I'll switch out hooks and uppercuts for the jab-cross as I feel like it, for added variety.

If a squat/front kick/punch gets your heart rate too high, skip the punch. If the squat/kick gets your heart rate too high, just step to the side and kick, or just squat, or alternate those two. If the squat/kick/punch/extra punches repeated every 15 seconds isn't enough to get your heart rate above 120, make sure you're really putting power and speed into every technique. If your'e really working as intensely as you can with each rep, you can try bringing the rest down (so repeat your work set every 10 or 12 seconds).

If you'd rather focus on forwards movement instead of lateral, do a forward/backward lunge instead of a sidestep as your movement base.

The important part is to learn, via constant feedback from your heart rate monitor, which combinations push your heart rate higher and which get them lower, and have a few options in mind with each round.

My Hypothesis

I have never had a workout seem to improve my overall well being as much as this one. I mean, I've been in decent shape, where I was able to spar without getting slow or tired, do lots of kata, etc., but this workout has me needing less sleep and feeling fresher when I'm NOT working out, and that's unusual for me.

My hypothesis is this: the SVT is actually improving the stroke volume of my heart, or at least improving the efficiency of my cardiovascular system in some way. That means that when I'm at rest, and my oxygen demands are fairly stable, my heart doesn't have to work as hard (beat as fast) to supply the blood I need.

Where before SVT every time my oxygen demands rose my heart rate had to go up quite a bit to fulfill them, now my heart rate doesn't have to rise as high. That means that all the hormonal and nervous systems that raise heart rate when its needed don't have to work as hard or excite my system as much. My sympathetic nervous system isn't firing as intensely to keep me alive. And that is effectively reducing my physiological stress.

My hypothesis might be wrong, of course. Regardless, I'm getting in some quality reps of my techniques, and I feel good during and after the workout. Unlike Tabata style HIIT this won't leave you feeling wrecked and shattered afterwards.


Please give this a try and let me know what you think in comments!

Osu.

Goin' to Go En

My style (Seido Karate) turns 40 this year(!), and they're throwing a huge event to celebrate. Huge as in 7 days of tournaments, workshops, demonstrations, and more than a little socializing as people from all over the world gather. [Quick reminder: I do not speak for the style; anything expressed in this blog is my opinion and not necessarily representative of the style in any way]

As is the pattern in my life I haven't been training much - I've been splitting my time between two states, and between the travel and the irregular schedule it's very hard to commit to taking any classes (let alone teaching!) If I know I can only make 2 classes in a two month session, plunking down $100 to register is a bitter pill to swallow. Also, I'm probably a little lazy.

Anyway, I was very reluctant to go to the celebration. There are expenses involved, both financial and temporal. Also, frankly, I'm somewhat embarrassed by my level of skill and knowledge at this point (after not practicing kata for almost a year I can barely remember the patterns - they'll come back more quickly than learning them the first time, but if you ran me through my nidan syllabus right now you'd think I had barely ever trained).

So I was at an impromptu meeting with local black belts and much of the talk was about Go En (the official name of the anniversary event). Ironically, the deadline for registering was the next day. And I realized that I was actually going to be in the right state to go, and that I have enough vacation time to take a couple of days off for the event and not jeopardize my ability to see my kids this summer.

I was still reluctant, then my good friend Sensei Scott said something very wise, something I've said myself (in different words) but that I apparently need to be reminded of periodically. I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said that events like these (also promotions, tournaments, demos) are how we stay enthusiastic for karate.

I'm sure it will be a blast, and I'm sure that any embarrassment I feel over forgetting something basic is going to be vastly overshadowed by the joy at seeing old (sometimes very old, I've been involved in Seido off and on since 1988) friends. And much like the last event I went to, a summer camp, I have a feeling I'll remember it more than fondly for years to come.

I could look at this event as a chance to take some classes, do some training, attend some workshops, and improve my karate. And I'm sure some of that will happen. But seeing people, and seeing historic events unfold, are far more valuable than any sparring tip I'm going to pick up in a workshop.

Two bottom lines here:

First, try to remember that karate is in large part a social endeavor. Those after-training bar crawls your dojo mates go through are part of karate, not extras. Those things will enhance your life (and health) just as much as getting fit or mastering a complex sequence of movements or learning to defend yourself. You can progress in skill by training in isolation, but you'll be missing out on a vital component of your training.

Second, if you're at Go En, look me up, say hi and pick an argument about something (or agree with me about something, surprise me!) I'll be the guy who looks like the photos I post occasionally in this blog.

Osu!