Blog Marco

How to run properly, good running technique is important, especially to avoid any injuries - such as a Shin Splint. Aim to learn to run with good technique will help you run faster, more efficiently with less stress on your body.

• Look Straight Ahead and Not at your Feet
• Land MidFoot, not on your toes or heel (Are you a Toe Runner or a Heel Striker?)

Landing on your toes will make your calves get tight and you'll fatigue quickly and may develop shin pain. Landing on your heels wastes energy as you have overstrided and you're braking. It is best to land in the middle of your foot then rolling through the motion to the front of your toes.

• Run with your Hands Swinging by your Waist - where they may brush your waist while your run

Beginners, especially when they get tired, will hold their hands by their chest. This will get you more tired and you'll find that you'll start to feel tightness and tension in your shoulders and neck.

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Submitted by Marco on Sun, 13/06/2010 - 8:45pm.

I've started walking and running at the gym and I've noticed a pain around the shin area of my leg after running a couple of minutes. After some research on Wikpedia, I've found that this shin muscle has a name: the muscles located in the anterior shin or the front of the shin is called the tibialis anterior.

According to MadetoRun:

When either running or jumping athletes will sometimes over-stride and forcibly plant on the heel of the foot. This causes a whip like reaction with the distal end of the foot in which the toes are stretched forward and downward (following heel strike), placing significant stress on the muscles and ligaments that regulate your toes, which happen to run up your ankle all the way to your shin. Repeating this motion continues to stress the muscles and ligaments of the shin and can rapidly develop into a debilitating overuse injury. Basically, with a heavy heel strike you are giving the tibialis anterior a bit of whiplash.

According to this report, having a siesta, or an afternoon nap not only refreshes you, but it can make you smarter by "improve the brain's ability to learn by clearing out cluttered memory space". I love taking afternoon naps, especially on a Sunday afternoon... maybe I should schedule it as a daily task? I tend to nod off towards the afternoon anyway, so if having a siesta in the afternoon could improve my performance - why not? (I work for myself anyway so I can do this easily!).

People who nodded off for an hour after lunch performed better in learning tests than those who stayed awake all afternoon, the scientists found.

A study of students revealed that their brains were refreshed by napping only if they entered what is called stage 2 non-REM sleep, which takes place between deep sleep and the dream state known as REM, or rapid-eye-movement, sleep.

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Submitted by Marco on Tue, 23/02/2010 - 5:58pm.

Being an entrepreneur and starting your own business leads you down a path to being unemployable. There are two types of being unemployable: either that you are a bum and don't have any skills, or you own a business which provides you an income stream and you are the master of your own domain.

Entrepreneurs are unemployable because they love what they do. They have a passion for their work, they are dedicated to their cause and their goals and don't count the hours of their work. We think in terms of how much work we can do in one day and wish that there were more hours in the day to work.

Entrepreneurial individuals also are massive control freaks. We like to get our own way and we want control over what we've worked hard to build. We are also super independent but have a can-do attitude, We tend to jump into things, not really knowing what we are getting ourselves into, but we are determined enough to find out what needs to be done to get to where we want to get to.

According to Charles Darwin's theory of Survival of the Fittest (aka Natural Selection) means the better adapted for immediate, local environment survive and not in the best physical shape - Otherwise you would have thought the strongest and the leanest would suvive because they can run away from dangerous animals and be able to hunt effectively.

If you believe Darwinian theory, there are fat people because they survived the times of famine in the past. There are genes out there where people are more prone to weight gain. These people would definitely survive a famine and would be "the fittest" during those times. Random fact: Older women who have get pregnant tend to have chubby kids. Random theory: It's easy to put on weight because fat cells can easily be added when you over eat. But the body can't kill off fat cells. So they can shrink and always be there. So when you over eat again, you'll get fat.

I was watching an old episode of The Outer Limits (S02E11 - The Refuge 1996) which quoted the line "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" at the end. After some quick research I found that the quote was actually quoted by poet William Butler Yeats to some "Old Play". It is in dreams that we can imagine and create new realities - where unlimited possibilities lie. However it is responsibility which pulls those dreams from imagination to reality.

We are all responsible. Response-Able. Able to respond to choices - responsible for both failures and successes. Responsible for the decisions that we make individually, which ideas and dreams you decided to exercise and which ones you decided not to.

I was listening to Dr Karl on triple J podcast from early December 2009 when he started talking philosophical saying how "Life has a Low Signal to Noise Ratio." He goes on to explain the analogy with an old vinyl record where you can hear the noise in the background. And then a cassette has less noise and compared to a CD, there is little noise - so this means this has a good signal to noise ratio. He says that life doesn't have a good signal to noise ratio. He says that, "if you are walking down the street and you see the person - the one that is meant for you, the clouds do not open up and the voice of God says, hey You, go that's the person... but no, that doesn't happen - it doesn't rise above the noise...." Hmmmm...

The local newspaper rag had a short report about the five traits that determine the coolness factor for an individual. They include: self-belief and confidence, defying convention, understated achievement, caring for others and connectivity.

How to become Cool

steveuci says: It's not so much that you should stop trying, but that you need to put yourself in a position where it comes naturally.

Step 1 is, I believe you gotta get into the mindset of putting yourself into other people's shoes and really understand what's going on in other people's heads.

Step 2, work on your communication skills to be able to put any thought you or someone else may have into words.

Step 3, refine your self-confidence and outward posture, so that when someone looks at you and passes judgment, they aren't thinking "psssh, she hasn't got a clue." This hooks into communication skills as well, because communicating something in a confident (not arrogant, not know-it-all, just... understanding, intelligent, and humble) manner is a big part of self-confidence. Pretend as though someone you admire is watching your every move.

I used to eat spam and eggs with rice for breakfast (well I still do but maybe once or twice a week) but now I've switched to the healthy diet of oatmeal breakfast. Above in the photo are the ingredients I use. I started off with 2 minute microwave oats with premixed flavourings, which evolved to rolled oats and honey.

And now I've mixed up this rather elaborate mix of oatmeal which recently I added some Kashi 7 whole grain honey puffs which I brought home from USA (Long grain brown rice, whole oats, whole barley, whole triticale, whole rye, whole buckwheat, sesame seed).

Oatmeal for Breakfast Ingredients and Recipe

Serves one person

• Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats (1/2 cup)
• Sunsol Fruity Muesli (mix of dried fruits and oats) (1/2 cup)
• Purified Alkaline Water (1 1/2 cups)
• Teaspoon of Breakfast Toppers (Dried fruit)
• Mix all into pot, heat until simmering, mix. You'll know when it's done once all the water has been absorbed by the oats. Throw the mix into a bowl.
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Submitted by Marco on Thu, 17/12/2009 - 1:13pm.

Have you ever had a bad smell cause you a headache or even a migraine? Well it did for me today. I was waiting in line at the post office today when a woman walked by with the most awful stench I've ever smelled. It's worse than the worst fart. It was worse than smelling gas or petrol vapours at the petrol station. The smell was so smelly I would classify it worse than rotten eggs, rotting fish or even driving by a decomposing garbage dump. Have a shower woman! (Or at least use deodorant)

The smell emanating from this woman was so powerful that even though she only spent about 10 seconds in the vicinity, the smell hung around for a long time. It made me gag and I noticed the other people waiting in the line rolling their eyes, coughing and covering their noses.

It's instances like this that make me a believer of aromatherapy. Therapy from smells. Bad smells can make you feel sick - even giving you headaches. Good smells from different oils can influence mood. Or so the theory says.

Today I'm writing about safe ab exercises: I usually don't write much about sports, exercise or fitness on this blog (other than tae kwon do, rockclimbing, cycling and running) so its about time I write about something... I was reading an article on the New York Times Blogs about exercising your abs. The question posed by the article was "Is Your Ab Workout Hurting Your Back?" I remember doing sit-ups in the past and it absolutely hurt my back. Rather than being peer pressured into doing them I chose to sit out of it. The traditional sit-up exercise may be good for the abdominal muscles but dangerous for the back. The article states the dilemma: "But there’s growing dissent among sports scientists about whether all of this attention to the deep abdominal muscles actually gives you a more powerful core and a stronger back and whether it’s evensafe."

Thankfully I've recovered quite quickly from my flu (even more thankful that it wasn't of the swine variety). What is phlegm? Thick, sticky, stringy mucus secreted by the mucous membrane of the respiratory tract, as during a cold or other respiratory infection. What does clear phlegm mean? What does cloudy white phlegm mean? What does yellow phlegm mean? What does green phlegm mean?

Phlegm Colour

Here are the meanings to certain phlegm colours:

• Clear or White Phlegm = healthy; inital stage of common flu has clear phlegm and can be most infectious
• Yellow Phlegm = A sign that your immune system is responding to the attack. It may be a sign of a bacterial infection - hence doctors may prescribe an antibiotic.
• Greenish Phlegm is a sign of infection. Rusty spots may indicate pnuemonia or internal bleedings.
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Submitted by Marco on Thu, 21/05/2009 - 11:05am.

As I succumb to and try to recover from another bout of the influenza virus (no not the swine type - I hope) I wonder: why does the flu tend to come in winter season?

People used to think that catching the flu had something to do with our chill-compromised immune systems. Or the extra germs circulating from so many people being indoors together. But this influenza myth is not true. Flu tends to come in the winter season because the cold and dry conditions help the virus to be stable and stay in the air longer - the droplet particles which contain the virus take longer to evaporate and remain airborne for more extended periods in winter. NPR has an interesting sound bite about where the flu comes from.

I was surfing around and I stumbled on a bunch of Tae Kwon Do (TKD) videos on YouTube. Some comments to some of the videos said that the moves in one step sparring are robotic, not fluid and therefore unrealistic. The commenter also said that "You would never survive in a real fight if you relied on those moves as your defense." And another: "Not good. The practioners are WAY too far apart to make this effective training. In sparring or, God forbid, a real fight, the person will try to attack from too far a distance or have no experience in defending a real attack." When I used to train in TKD - I had the same thoughts in my mind, and so did the other students. We used to joke around about how funny and unrealistic the movements are. But in reality, this exercise trains your overall technique and discipline. One step sparring is done repetitively - and eventually it becomes second nature. So if ever the moment arises that you need to execute a move, you wouldn't even think it - you'll just act out the best move for that circumstance.

With all the news about the swine flu virus ravaging over the world plastered everywhere, I wonder what the difference is between an endemic, epidemic and a pandemic. (By the way, the photo has a random influenza virus illustrated in brown and the cilia from your lungs in blue)

An endemic is an infectious communicable disease (such as colds, influenza, measles, mumps, tuberculosis, pneumonia, smallpox) that exists permanently in a particular region or population. An epidemic occurs when this disease attack "a lot of" people at about the same time and may spread through one or several communities. A pandemic occurs when an epidemic spreads across the world.

The World Health Organisation has raised the pandemic alert level from phase four to phase five, signalling that a pandemic is "imminent". Here are the six different "pandemic influenza phases" defined by the WHO:

Phase 1: A virus circulates among animals but with no cases reported of infections in humans.

Phase 2: An animal flu virus is known to have caused infection in humans, and therefore considered a potential pandemic threat.