Welcome back to the BSNV blog!  

I am a huge fan of using the things I already have for multiple uses.  Homemade workout equipment is no exception.  I do have basic  strength equipment, like an olympic bar with plates, dumbells, bands, and a TRX, etc.   But this time at home has inspired me to share a few of my favorite options of improvised home fitness.  So I challenged myself to use materials I have in the garage to make equipment that is versatile, easy to make, and effective!  My aim is to go beyond the conventional substitutions, like soup cans, milk jugs, or similar!  This week, I am going over the RUCK PLATE!   Watch my video, and read on below!

A ruck plate is flat and heavy (as the name implies!),  it is typically used to add weight to a backpack for a military exercise, called a RUCK (click here fore more info).  Soldiers are trained to carry their heavy gear long distances in their "rucksack", often over rugged terrain, and while doing other exercises.  Rucking is gaining popularity in mainstream fitness, with many events (GORUCK, for example), and social ruck groups who meet up and organize their own.  

But beyond rucking, it makes an extremely versatile fitness tool!

1. It turns your backpack into a dumbell, barbell, and weighted vest!
2. It can help you burn more calories during your next hike, and can be used for exercises along the way.  Since it is flat, it distributes the weight very comfortably.   
3. Adds resistance to all bodyweight exercises,  TRX, even yoga or pilates, while freeing up your hands and arms. 
   
   Here is how I made mine.  I include some mods if you don't have similar materials.

Materials: 

1. A backpack!  Ideal if it has a padded laptop sleeve, but an older one with a divider also works great.  I have both (see pics below under "fitting to backpack").  Also ideal if the pack has a waist belt to further secure and distribute the load.
2. Scrap plywood.  Anything 1/4 inch thick or more is perfect.  I had 3/4 inch, but would've preferred 1/4 inch
3. The flattest, heaviest thing you can find that helps meet the weight you desire.  Mine is 20 lbs.  I happened to have these 10 lb plates, so they worked perfectly.  Look around the house for something that would fit that bill.  Even if you have to fill multiple ziplock bags with sand or similar, that can be taped or glued to the board
4. A strong glue, suitable for wood and metal.  OR Duct Tape!
5. A medium sized towel

Process

1. Measure your pack for fitment.  I determined the perfect size for mine is 9.5 x 18.5 inches (see pics), but they are pretty standard size packs, so chances are good this size will work for yours.
2. Cut the board to size. Sand the edges and round the corners until smooth to the touch
3. I decided to use a router to remove 1/4 inch from the middle, just to help recess the plates in a little bit and to decrease overall thickness.
4. Apply a healthy bead of glue around the perimeter of each weight, about an inch in from the edge (sorry, no picture of that)
5. OR, if you do not want to rout the middle out, or glue it down (as in, you don't want to sacrifice your weights to the ruck plate, and want to keep using them as weights) simply wrap them in duct tape, as pictured

So what materials do you have that can create something close to this?  Leave a comment with your idea!

Watch for more ideas for improvised home exercise equipment, right here on the BSNV blog!  Until next time...

Hi everyone,  welcome back to the blog.  It is week 5 of Health From Home!  So far, most of our education has been geared towards our own health, and ways to optimize and balance our work lives with measures to maintain health and fitness.  But what often goes overlooked (or, underlooked - is that a word?  Well, it is now) is the physical health of youth that may be quarantined along with us!  This post is dedicated to those with kids in the house, and how parents can find effective yet fun ways to keep the kids active at home.

It's not an ideal reality,  but today's youth are slower and weaker than previous generations.  During this time of quarantine, it is essential that kids at home are getting an appropriate outlet for physical activity - 60 minutes per day, ideally.  But included in that physical activity, should be some kind of regimented exercise, with strength training included.   Home-school physical education or recess shouldn't be ignored, but it CAN be fun for parents and kids alike to sneak in some exercise.

The benefits of youth strength training and exercise are very well documented.  In 2018, the Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee summarized a decade of research on the impact of physical activity on all demographics, across body types, medical conditions, race/ethnicity, age and gender.  All are summarized here.  Youth findings are summarized here.   If you have a concern with a pre-existing condition, and are unsure about the efficacy or safety of exercise for a child, start by reading through this research, and chat with your doctor about a plan.   There are no two ways about it  - we absolutely have to find a way to keep the kids active!

My video, with my son, adapting exercise to a few common games

No one can look at the picture above and not be a little unsettled by it.  Imagine not being able to drive, read,  recognize a loved one's face, or perform routine daily tasks. It is similar to the field of vision experienced by those with macular degeneration - the inability to focus on the middle, and most important field of vision.  Quite debilitating. 

​I use this image as a metaphor - crude and imperfect as it is - to suggest what we are effectively doing when focusing and dwelling on everything except what is front and center.  The gray blotch represents the PRESENT and most important areas of our immediate life.  Notice the outer field of vision is crystal clear,  yet not much help to the immediate situation!   

Our focus this week is on INSPIRATION, and I am challenging you to be inspired by the present.  During this time of quarantine and uncertainty we're bombarded with news and information at a fast and furious pace,  which unfortunately,  tends to fuel stress and anxiety.  I encourage you to take this opportunity to re-center your focus on the present.  It is easy to let the mind wander into future uncertainties, and dwell on past circumstances.  In fact, the anxious and stressed out mind can easily be described as a time-travelling mind.  It's a mind that is trying it's best to define and make sense of everything outside of our sphere of importance and influence. It's a mind consumed trying to make life's peripherals crystal clear, with a blurred out middle.  It leaves less time to be happy and content with all things, front and center, and helps define and how to react to the here-and-now.

Removing ALL anxieties and stresses may not be possible,  but what IS possible is INTENTIONAL focus on other things.   In wellness, we refer to this intentional effort as MINDFULNESS!   

Welcome to week 3 in our Work From Home series.   We are dedicating this week to applying the principle of "More with Less" in our lives.  We are constantly on the hunt for ways to do more with our time, money, and resources.  But sometimes it easy to get side tracked and miss out on opportunities to try new things, and meet our goals.  Especially when they are inherently TOUGH.  So, in that light I would like to touch on  a couple of topics about positive psychology.   Be sure to check out all of our other resources covered this week on our Health at Home page!

​Have you ever found yourself pre-occupied with intrusive thoughts about that home/work/school project,  training program, a book or series, or game, that you have started?   That preoccupation with unfinished work is the Zeigarnik Effect (ZE) on full display!   More specifically,  it is the tendency to remember incomplete or interrupted tasks more easily than tasks that have been completed.    The effect was first observed by Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik in the early 1900's,  who noticed that waiters in a café could recall the orders they had not yet delivered better than those they had.  She then went on to research this psychological effect, which is summarized in her work "On Finished and Unfinished Work".   In these experiments, she found that a group of participants recalled interrupted tasks 90% better than the tasks they completed, and a second group of participants recalled interrupted tasks twice as well as completed tasks.  Children too!

We are exploited constantly with this phenomena, with catchy news headlines, binge-worthy Netflix series,  interrelated quests in gaming, click-bate, etc.   But in what ways can we harness the ZE for our personal use, and what can we learn to avoid?

1. Overcoming procrastination.   Starting a task long before it's due date is an excellent strategy.  We can count on the cognitive tension of the ZE to pull us back in to working on it until it's done.   This operates in conjunction with:
2. Increased productivity, especially for those who struggle with multi-tasking (which has been shown not to even be a thing, but you know what I mean by it).  It helps to compartmentalize sub-tasks and set reasonable limits for each.  This helps make better use of time, and a better finished result, without the overwhelming cognitive overload and feelings of frustration!  More with Less!
3. Processing information. when learning or reviewing a lot of information,  studying should be done with many breaks, instead of one long session.  The mind can better process info this way because it tends to remember the beginning and end of a defined session.  This is especially applicable to students!
4. For mental health's sake,  be realistic with expectations for the task before getting started!  Beware of some of the negative outcomes of the ZE.  If an individual leaves important tasks incomplete, the intrusive thoughts that result can fuel stress, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, and mental and emotional depletion (sourced here).   Individuals prone to this outcome should be aware of these effects. But on the other hand,  the mental well-being of these individuals (and everyone else too!) can be helped by difficult task completion by giving a sense of accomplishment, while boosting self-esteem and self-confidence.  This means we should, where possible, be careful and reasonable in deciding what to get started on,  and weigh the likelihood of not finishing, BEFORE starting!   There should be a careful balance of skill set, motivation, payoff, difficulty, and available time and resources. Unfinished business will linger on in the mind.  Make sure you use it's powers for good!

​​
The ZE, though well supported,  does not do a great job taking into account personal motivation,  or the perception of how difficult a task is.   This is a perfect opportunity to introduce the other aspect of positive psychology:
​

Refer to Victor Frankl's quote at the top of this post.  It suggests that we gain happiness when we are working towards a long-term, meaningful goal, to where time seems to stand still!   That is where the psychological term known as "flow" comes in.  

Psychological Flow captures the positive mental state of being completely absorbed, focused, and involved in your activities at a certain point in time, as well as deriving enjoyment from being engaged in that activity. (sourced here) It is known, simply, as being "in the zone", doing things that are self-rewarding.   You know you have experienced this when you are performing a task, and you all of a sudden look at the clock and realize you've lost total track of time.  It is often doing something you enjoy, and that gives you happiness.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was credited with popularizing the term flow.   This is an excerpt from Wired magazine article "Go with The Flow":   "Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost".   In other words,  we should fill our lives with as much flow as possible.

Here are the key factors to triggering flow (according to Csikszentmihalyi 's studies)

1. Challenge-skill balance - see chart below
2. Action-awareness merging - 
3. Clear goals  
4. Unambiguous feedback;
5. Concentration on the task at hand;
6. A sense of control;
7. Loss of self-consciousness;
8. Transformation of time; and
9. Autotelic experience.

​Here is a chart detailing the ideal conditions for entering the flow state, from Csikszentmihalyi’s (1998) book Finding Flow 

.   Key lessons learned from Flow Theory:

• We should strive to spend as much time in the flow state as possible, because it produces HAPPINESS!
• Flow state is achieved when the perceived challenge and skill level are HIGH (that is to say, properly matched)
• MUST be goal-oriented.  But choosing the RIGHT goal is key!  See the chart above
• Have immediate feedback  
• Flow is a MUCH more effective than willpower to reach a goal.  Willpower ultimately fails, and breeds negative thoughts and attitude towards our efforts and self-esteem.  Instead of setting a goal that requires willpower (let's say,  weight loss), substitute with another goal (learn to cook 15 different delicious vegetable based meals)
• High-flow activities are work! But work that pays off.  It is the difficult nature of the task that produces happiness and satisfaction.
• Finally, feeling good about the self, excited, proud, sociable, active as well as being in the conditions for flow experience are the strongest predictors of trait happiness (long-term happiness).

​For more information on this,  I encourage you to watch Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Ted Talk Flow, the secret to happiness.  

We can employ these two areas of positive psychology to engage more meaning into our lives.  GET STARTED working FLOW into your life.   DO MORE with LESS!

Until next time!

​