Let The Outdoors Be Your Friend

    

      It's a whole other connection to your body when you train outdoors. Now granted some of you (like me) live in a state where all 4 seasons occur and in the winter time, it can get pretty damn cold. This is where you learn to adapt and value the awareness of the various conditions that give to the weather. I love to train outside especially in the summer time, it does get super-hot sometimes but that's how you learn your awareness, unless you're working outside, don't be out training in the hundred degree weather for three hours unless you have a shit load of water and breathe with efficiency. The feeling of fresh air sinking into your body that reconnects your roots of those that came before you and the value of getting that Vitamin D which I will get into a bit here.

 
    To really get the connection of exercising outdoors is to do it on nice green grass. The feeling of the earth on your feet when you walk on nice, soft and loving grass. Not a lot of people have that luxury and I understand especially those in California right now where practically brown is the new green so do what's possible, do it on the beach if you want if that's your next option. Grass however gives you that sense of love and connection with the earth and I'm not talking that astro-turf or whatever that stuff is, find real grass even lay in it for a few minutes and your mood begins to change and you don't know why. When I go to parks that have grass, I move in any way I can and let my whole body get the feeling of it and I have a deeper connection than I would if I trained indoors.

 
    Now onto the Vitamin D. The best place to get it is in the sun where it shines on your body, giving you a radiant glow of energy, hormone increase and nourishing the skin. Some people can't take the sun too well like those with pale skin and that's understandable so find vitamins or supplements that give powerful vitamin D complexities. When you're balancing your hormones (not including pregnant women, they can't control that it's just not possible) you're giving your body a gift of building natural strength, metabolism, bone strength, your joints and it helps with recovery. What you eat is important and it's awesome to keep up with your fruits and veggies but eat according to your needs because not everyone can eat the same amount of food and drink the same amount of liquids. I'm a big man over 250 lb. and I can eat quite a bit so if I'm out of my own balance and certain people don't realize that, I become someone I don't want to be so I need to nourish my body the way it's meant for me. Granted fasting is a great way to let the body repair itself and have a great deal of hormones bouncing out of you because you're setting them free; however, you must learn the balance of fasting because if you go too long without being aware of it your body will turn on you so a good 24-36hr fast once a week is great if you want to drop weight but keep up with your liquids.

 
    This is a sensitive subject when it comes being burnt from the sun when you've been in it too long and it's too hot out. I'll go on record and say yes I don't use sunscreen for a lot of reasons and one being it doesn't really do that well for you and the chemicals in that crap can make you burn even worse (sounds like a contradiction). When I was in Lake Tahoe earlier this month, I'd go down to the lake, lay my towel and my shirt & shoes on the dock, climb a few rocks, jump in the water and just swim for as long as I can. Yes I did get a little burnt but only in a couple places as oppose to the whole damn body. I learned valuable lessons when my whole body would be burnt from head to toe so I had to be aware of what my body was getting so instinctively I stayed in the water and this helped a lot. But what if you're outside training without being in water, well; you pour a little water on you from time to time, not a bucket or anything and where very light colored clothing like sky blue shirts or white shorts for example because for the most part, black clothing gives the sun a chance to tell you "don't mess with nature dumbass" and you'll feel it. Some people can handle the sun wearing black clothing but others not so much. Don't get so burnt you start to peel skin, it's not fun, it hurts like hell and you can barely move your body. Be aware of how you use the sun and have it work for you, not against you because the sun does give life but it can also make it a living hell if you're not careful.

 
Happy Thor's Day everyone. Be safe, have fun and be awesome.

Training Ideas For A Sunburn

Recently I went to a lake here in hot Coeur D’Alene via Hayden, ID and had a blast, went swimming, bent some nails, chilled out on the dock and hung out with a friend but that very night I had a sunburn that looked so f’cking red, it looked like I was spray painted. It was pretty bad and whenever I get sunburned, I feel stiff and my muscles ache like crazy. The next morning, my body ached like crazy and couldn’t sleep most of the night anyway.

 Although I looked like I was torched, I didn’t give up on exercising. Yes the burn felt like crap but that wasn’t going to stop me from doing the things I love. Now it’s not always easy to train on a sunburn and you tend to dry up faster than usual, this is where water becomes your most dearest friend. Although I didn’t train with the same level of intensity, I decided to change things around and this is where your mental training is taken to the test. I have found that because my aching joints and muscles, I have to be extra consistent in training those areas especially being burnt on the whole back, shoulders and arms; you want to keep them from getting stiff even though it does hurt a little.

 Loosening up your joints is essential and you want to stretch the muscles as best as possible without overdoing it and water is a key because you have to keep yourself cool, poor it over your body and also drink it to keep hydrated. Sweating is also a good idea as well. Sometimes you might need to keep yourself indoors because a sunburn can be bad enough to where if you go outside without proper lotion or sunblock you’re going to feel worse. I realize you might have jobs working outside so the best advice I can give is drink plenty of water, keep your joints and muscles mobile and where clothing that helps keep you cool.

 You want to keep tabs on the areas of the sunburn because if you don’t you’re going to regret it later, trust me I’ve done enough times to understand it’s better being safe than being stupid. Your body heat can also be a cooling system and one of my favorite forms of dealing with a sunburn is to take cold showers, use very little hot water to clean yourself off with soap and shampoo but after that, start turning the water down to almost as cold as possible. You can stay in cold water longer in a sense because the heat of that sunburn is already overwhelming. Turn the cold down every few seconds to a minute so your body can get use to it being cold and do plenty of deep breathing, this can be a very relaxing meditative method. I love cold showers and I do them often because of its health benefits.

 Training indoors while you’re home can help aid in your sunburn as you can use a few fans to keep yourself cool and train so you can sweat to help clear out your pours. My type of training for a certain time being until the burn becomes a little less painful is to  do plenty of flexibility work and believe it or not Muscle Control. I have found Muscle Control to be a very good form of training for this type of thing because when you flex and relax the muscles, blood flows throughout the body and helps the skin radiate that glow and eventually, helps your system repair itself thus possibly healing the sunburn quicker and generate stronger cells to keep the skin healthy. Peeling is just apart of the process kind of like a phoenix rising from the ashes, your skin dies and new skin is ready to come out of the woodworks.

 Keep your body and skin healthy plus keep your muscles and joints mobile so if this should ever happen to you, you will have a few tools at your disposal and also do some research on natural lotions and sunblock to find what can work to help heal faster and more efficient, most sunblock and lotions these days don’t do much. Keep having a kick ass summer and stay strong and healthy.