Happy Thursday To You!
The gym was alive yesterday when I went in to train.
A new Exercise Coach class began yesterday with Chris Maund, the first Certified CHEK Practitioner to complete all his training with me, who is their instructor for the course.
Chris really knows how to deliver the essentials well and keeps the students in line. Some of them told me they took the course just to have him as their instructor, which is great to hear.
I love it when my instructors develop their own reputation based on their unique methods of teaching and expressing their wisdom.
Yesterday, I moved back into some heavier lifting. When teaching courses, I’ve got little time to train so I generally switch to a circuit-training format to save time.
One thing you learn with aging is how important heavy training is to maintaining muscle mass.
In the six days of teaching HLC 3, I lost between 2 and 3 pounds, which will come back quickly with some high intensity training.
I began reinvigorating my neuro-hormnal system yesterday with some moderately heavy lunges by doing four sets of six reps per leg with 185.
I coupled the lunges with single arm, free standing bent over rows at 80 pounds for eight reps a side and followed that with some heavy wood chops for 4 reps a side.
That got the juices flowing!.
Aside from writing my blog and getting some training in, I wrote an article titled, 50, Fit and Free! yesterday. I’ll be submitting it to Ultra Fit magazine for an upcoming issue.
My lecture from the CHEK Conference by the same title should be available either on line via our on-line e-learning platform or DVD sometime in the near future.
If you’d like to be notified of that program’s release, feel free to email the C.H.E.K Institute through the web site and request notification.
I finished my day by going home to do some tai-chi and meditate with the setting sun. That is always a lovely way to wind down so I can sleep well in preparation for the new day.
If you have a hard time sleeping at night, try switching to a dinner sized lunch and eating a small dinner in the evening. That will take a lot of digestive load off your organs and leave more energy for regeneration of the body-mind at large.
You will probably notice that you wake up with tighter skin and better muscle definition as well, which for some is motivation enough to explore different ways of eating.
Only when we explore and don’t get caught in fixed routines do we ever come to know the needs of our own body-mind and how to best care for ourselves.
MUSCLE & FITNESS ARTICLE RELEASED!
Several months ago, M&F writer Mike Carlson came to visit me at the institute and interviewed me for several hours.
Later, he and a team of photographers came and watched as I did a circuit workout consisting of a variety of the training tools I enjoy using.
The article was originally slated for the August issue, but, as circumstances go, just came out in the November, 2011 issue.
When Mike interviewed me, he was honest about his concerns of being able to present my living philosophy authentically due to the magnitude of what I share.
He was also concerned that much of what he wanted to share may end up being edited out due to editors and their underlying motives.
I simply shared that I trusted that he would do his best.
Mike shared an interesting comment with me. He said that though he’s heard a lot of anit-Paul Chek talk in the industry over the years, it was clear to him that my approach was sound and logical; he iterated that it seems that most of the nay-Sayers are not well educated as to what I really teach.
He was willing to do his best to present my approach accurately.
In my life, there have been many articles written about me and my approach. Unfortunately, most such articles end up being twisted discombobulations of what I really said and teach.
Mike has done an excellent job of encapsulating my living philosophy in a small number of words covering only 4 pages with lots of realistic photo expressions of my persona.
As is to be expected, some of the editing down resulted in statements that may be misunderstood, yet all the CHEK Practitioners will know what I really teach when they read the article.
One such minor misunderstanding of the context of one of my comments was related to cardiovascular training.
I shared with Mike Carlson that prior to 1921 (according to an article I read on the WestonAPrice.org site), there were no recorded heart attacks.
The article was discussing a doctor who had an idea for what is now known as the electrocardiogram. At that time, the doctors he was conversing with told him that there wasn’t much need of such a device because heart attacks weren’t that common.
My comment wasn’t intended to imply that “there had never been any cases of heart attack;” it was only to imply that prior to 1921, there were no recorded cases of heart attack via the use of objective equipment, such as the electrocardiogram.
Though some may want to “correct me” on the published statement because of the way it may come across, the underlying truth of what I was saying is accurate regardless.
In the subsection titled WATER IS LIFE, the editing produced a partially correct statement regarding my recommendations for water.
Where the article states that I recommend drinking 16 oz. of water before each meal with a pinch of sea salt, I actually said I suggest drinking two glasses of water approximately twenty minutes before each meal and that if the water is naked (lacking mineral content from source or by way of filtration), adding a pinch of high quality sea salt will restore mineral content.
Later in the same section, where I’m quoted as saying that even small levels of dehydration can cause significant physiological disorders, I actually quoted from the book by F. Batmanghelidj M.D. (which is excellent by the way!).
[amazon-product align=”left”]0970245882[/amazon-product]
Dr. Batmanghelidj states that “even 1% dehydration of the central nervous system can cause significant psychological disorders.”
Again, even though this is a slight misinterpretation of my actual words, it doesn’t result in an incorrect statement as it is written.
Many would do well to both filter water and add sea salt to increase mineral content. Minerals are essential regulators of cell and hormonal physiology and sea salt has a wide variety of beneficial minerals, trace minerals, and ocean elements that help the body in many ways.
Under the section called FACT CHEK on page 108, where I’m quoted about my beliefs on the use of weight belts, this too has been edited from my original statements.
I stated that weight belts should not be used by anyone unless they have a weight bearing injury to the spine (such as a disc herniation or nerve root compression).
As most of my students have heard me say many times, “if activating the inner unit causes pain, or an increase in pain, a medical grade corset should be used for the healing period, but removed when at home or in safe, controlled environments so the spine can move naturally and pump fluids to the injured tissues.”
Yet again, the statement as printed still bears merit, for I would NOT choose to provide an injured client with a “weight belt”, (which is a medically designed corset). Your inner unit is far more complex in construction than a weight belt.
In the same section where I’m quoted as saying, “The body has a very hard time handling any hydrogenated or processed oils in the diet, regardless weather they’re mono- or polysaturated!”
I actually stated that any hydrogenated oils are dangerous to the body whether they are saturated, mono, or polyunsaturated oils.
A minor difference, but I wanted to share what I actually stated, and regularly do state based on my own personal and professional experiences with oils for cooking, or in food products.
In this section, there is commentary about my concerns regarding natural fiber clothing. They are correct. That said, I’m wearing my good old DeSotto shorts I got from one of my past clients, Emilio DeSotto, a professional triathlete turned garment manufacturer.
I’m wearing these most often when I’m training because as yet, I can’t find a pair of natural fiber shorts that fit my body. Because of the size of my butt, when I wear shorts that are the right size for my 30-inch waist, my butt over-fills the shorts and causes the shorts to pull backward, resulting on pressure in my crotch.
This is quite irritating as I train and I’m constantly tugging at my shorts to make room for my little fella and his jewels.
That said, I do teach the 80-20 rule and my use of these unnatural fiber shorts constitutes about three hours a week of my life, well within the range of my own 80-20 suggestion for healthy living.
My last clarification is regarding the article’s statement that I’ve put up a 180 pound dumbbell with one arm . . .
What I actually stated was that I’ve come extremely close to putting up my 180 pound dumbbell but couldn’t lock my arm out and have ended up dropping it several times.
I showed the photo crew the imprints of it on my Olympic platform, where it has left it’s own beautiful footprint several times.
I have put the 160 pound dumbbell up over my head with both left and right arms numerous times.
Due to my neck injury where I blew my C6 disc out doing a lifting stunt where I put a person up over my head about six years ago now, I didn’t feel it wise to put that big dumbbell up for them during the photo shoot so I believe I put up the 125 pounder for them, which is what’s shown in the magazine.
I could still put that big 160 up if it weren’t for the fact that it may take six months to recover from it!
One-thing injuries are very good for is highlighting the ego and giving us an opportunity to become wiser. I’ve learned a LOT from my neck injury about how much of my lifting was feeding my ego’s needs for attention!.but I love to learn so all is well.
Apparently, the article featuring me in is ONLY the US edition of November’s issue of Muscle and Fitness. I’ve already got word that the story about me was missing from European issues. It may or many not be in this issue in other countries as well.
For those that want to get this issue and read it, as well as the great spread they did on Arnold Schwarzenegger, you can probably purchase it on-line at the Muscle and Fitness web site.
Overall, I’m grateful to Mike Carlson and photographer Eric Williams for what is probably the best article ever written on my and my living philosophy.
Considering the degree of encapsulation, it really gets some of my key philosophical ideas on training and living naturally across very well. THANKS MIKE AND ERIC!
ON PROBABLE SELVES
Random thoughts drift through the scenery of the creation. The energies are swirling and it is a time for staying very solidly in the heart and holding the vision for the person you wish to express and in fact are.
The radiating energy across the spectrum of your multiple existences is very strong. All parts of you are resonating to a new chord, which is picking up voices as it swells to a great harmony.
The impact is swirling through and across lives; brightly illuminated and radiating everywhere.
As always, there is an apparent lag in your perception, so, at on level, you are not aware of the brightness above.
However, as you continue your exercises, remember that every past, future, and probably “you” is also doing exactly the same and in total synchronism with the total “You”. For of course, “now” spreads through eternities.
Reference: Dancing in the Mirror – inspirations on Peace and Joy by Bryan Walton (p. 41).
[amazon-product align=”left”]0973437901[/amazon-product]
Commentary:
This is a beautiful book of short inspirations that can be enjoyed as quick, morning reading to get you inspired for you day.
It is important to remember that if GOD is God, then God is the sum and center of everything. The angel of you is in service to the devil in you (and I), yet, because all life exists only within the construct of your own perception, all IS, and is within you.
There is no need to look outside yourself to find the angel that may remedy your problems, or the problems of the world.
Through awareness of what each of us truly is, and exemplifies, we come to understand that the center, the still-point of all thoughts, words and deeds is located in the now.
The “now” is a mystery. It is ever-present as our experience in any moment, now. It is the perpetual gift of our life as an experience in time.
Yet, like the truth of who and what you are, the “now” is also eternal. Whenever we are fully present in the now, past and future cease to exist; if they are still there, you are not in the “now”.
The now is as an axle upon which time revolves; though the wheels of your car roll on and on, the axle doesn’t move.
It does nothing, yet allows you to experience the journey and the moving scenery as you travel to and from your chosen destinations.
There is no place to look for, to go to find God.
God is Consciousness and every now that can be perceived is at once, the perception of all that God is.
Without consciousness, there would be no value to the now. Without our apparent misgivings, there would be no motive to evolve, to become more conscious of what we truly are.
If God were a beautiful rug, merely hung on a wall and adorned but never walked on, then God would have no functionality.
If we had no experience of ourselves in relationship to others, there would be no one to label this or that as good or evil. Good and evil are as light and shadow.
Without light and shadow, there could be no art, no exploration, no trail, no destination, no sense of possibility.
This Beautiful rug would be hung on a meaningless wall to be looked at and appreciated by no one. If hung on a wall, it would not be a rug. It would be a tapestry.
God is the weaver and the floor and the ones who walk in the rug, and the ones who like it and the ones who criticize it.
God is the dirt and dust that settles between the fibers, without which, God’s creation would have no utility.
Today, see you can choose to see the beautiful rug, the weave of creation.
You can choose to clean it, and appreciate it.
You can criticize it and even use a piece of it in the bottom of your cat’s litter box; the cat is God too and may love the new addition to its box.
It is testament to God’s Unconditional Love that the weave of creation is here for all of us to experience in and as existence.
It is the creative genius of Consciousness that never says no, even when you criticize what you don’t understand.
All the judgments, good, bad, or otherwise, create time. What we give life to in our mind’s eye is what colors and flavors our experience in time.
We each own the responsibility for the perceptions and experiences of the God we experience, or don’t experience in time. When we are in the “now”, there is no time.
All polarity is gone and you merge with God as One.
Once you’ve been there once and returned, you’ve met yourself.
You’ve met the Grand Weaver, the critic and the lover alike.
You’ve met the cat and it’s litter box too!
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
