11.11.06
Posted in Health And Fitness at 10:28 pm by khaled
Stretch #1
1) Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor
2) Place your bands on the back of your thighs and pull your legs toward your chest
3) Pull until a gentle stretch is felt
4) Hold for 15 seconds
5) Return to the starting position
6) Repeat 10 more times
Stretch #2
1) Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor
2) Keeping your back flat on the floor, rotate your hips to the left,
lowering your legs down to the floor until a gentle stretch is felt
3) Hold for 15 seconds
4) Return to the starting position
5) Repeat 10 more times
6) Keeping your back flat on the floor, this time rotate your hips to
the right, lowering your legs down to the floor until a gentle stretch
is felt
7) Hold for 15 seconds
8) Return to the starting position
9) Repeat 10 more times
Stretch #3
1) Lie on your stomach
2) Prop yourself up on your elbows extending your back
3) Start straightening your elbows, further extending your back
4) Continue straightening your elbows until a gentle stretch is felt
5) Hold for 15 seconds
6) Return to the starting position
7) Repeat 10 more times
Low Back Pain Exercise Guide
Regular exercises to restore the strength of your back and a
gradual return to everyday activities are important for your full
recovery. Your orthopaedic surgeon and physical therapist may recommend
that you exercise 10 to 30 minutes a day one to three times a day
during your early recovery. They may suggest some of the following
exercises. This guide can help you better understand your exercise and
activity program, supervised by your therapist and orthopaedic surgeon.
Initial Exercise Program
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Ankle Pumps - Lie on your back. Move ankles up and down.
Repeat 10 times. |
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Heel Slides - Lie on your back. Slowly bend and straighten knee.
Repeat 10 times. |
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Abdominal Contraction - Lie on your back with knees bent and hands resting
below ribs. Tighten abdominal muscles to squeeze ribs down toward back.
Be sure not to hold breath. Hold 5 seconds. Relax. Repeat 10 times. |
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Wall Squats - Stand with back leaning against wall. Walk feet 12 inches in
front of body. Keep abdominal muscles tight while slowly bending both knees
45 degrees. Hold 5 seconds. Slowly return to upright position. Repeat 10 times. |
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Heel Raises - Stand with weight even on both feet. Slowly raise heels up and
down. Repeat 10 times. |
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Straight Leg Raises - Lie on your back with one leg straight and one knee
bent. Tighten abdominal muscles to stabilize low back. Slowly lift leg straight up
about 6 to 12 inches and hold 1 to 5 seconds. Lower leg slowly. Repeat 10 times. |
Intermediate Exercise Program
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Single Knee to Chest Stretch - Lie on your back with both knees bent.
Holdthigh behind knee and bring one knee up to chest. Hold 20 seconds.
Relax.Repeat 5 times on each side. |
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Hamstring Stretch - Lie on your back with legs bent. Hold one thigh behind
knee. Slowly straighten knee until a stretch is felt in back of thigh. Hold
20 seconds. Relax. Repeat 5 times on each side. |
Lumbar Stabilization Exercises With Swiss Ball - Abdominal
muscles must remain contracted during each exercise. See “Abdominal
Contraction” exercise from initial exercise program. Perform each
exercise for 60 seconds. The further the ball is from your body, the
harder the exercise.
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Lie on your back with knees bent and calves resting on ball.
1. Slowly raise arm over head and lower arm, alternating right and left sides.
2. Slowly straighten one knee and relax, alternating right and left sides.
3. Slowly straighten one knee and raise opposite arm over head.Alternate
opposite arms and legs.
4. Slowly “walk” ball forward and backward with legs. |
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Sitting on ball with hips and knees bent 90 degrees and feet
resting on floor.
1. Slowly raise arm over head and lower arm, alternating right and left sides.
2. Slowly raise and lower heel, alternating right and left sides.
3. Slowly raise one heel and raise opposite arm over head. Alternate opposite
arm and heel.
4. Marching: Slowly raise one foot 2 inches from floor, alternating right
and left sides. |
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Standing with ball between your low back and wall.
1. Slowly bend knees 45 to 90 degrees. Hold 5 seconds. Straighten knees.
2. Slowly bend knees 45 to 90 degrees while raising both arms over head. |
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Lie on your stomach over ball.
1. Slowly raise alternate arms over head.
2. Slowly raise alternate legs 2 to 4 inches off of floor.
3. Combine 1 and 2, alternating opposite arms and legs.
4. Bend one knee. Slowly lift this leg up, alternating right and left legs.
Be careful not to arch your low back! |
Advanced Exercise Program
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Hip Flexor Stretch - Lie on your back near edge of bed, holding knees to
chest. Slowly lower one leg down, keeping knee bent, until a stretch is felt
across top of the hip/thigh. Hold 20 seconds. Relax. Repeat 5 times on each side. |
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Piriformis Stretch - Lie on back with both knees bent. Cross one leg on top
of the other. Pull opposite knee to chest until a stretch is felt in the buttock/hip
area. Hold 20 seconds. Relax. Repeat 5 times each side. |
| Lumbar Stabilization Exercises With Swiss Ball
Lie on stomach over ball.
1. “Walk” hands out in front of ball until ball is under legs. Reverse
to starting position.
2. “Walk” hands out in front of ball until ball is under legs and slowly
raise alternating arms over head.
3. “Walk” hands out in front of ball and slowly perform push-ups.
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Aerobic Exercises - Maintain spine in neutral position while stabilizing with abdominal muscles to protect the low back during aerobic exercise. 1. Stationary bike for 20 to 30 minutes. 2. Treadmill for 20 to 30 minutes.
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11.06.06
Posted in Health And Fitness at 10:45 pm by khaled
My goal is to be at a weight of 190 lbs by May 1st 2007. I want this goal for the following reasons:
- I want to be healthy, without any pain in my joints or problems with my digestive system.
- I want to be athletic, fit and able to engage in a variety of sports and outdoor activities
- I want to be attractive and confident in my body
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11.05.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:43 pm by khaled
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Thinking like a Genius
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The first and last thing
demanded of genius
is the love of truth
Goethe
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“Even if you’re not a genius, you can use the same
strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative
mind and better manage your future.”
The following eight strategies encourage you to think
productively, rather than reproductively, in order to arrive at solutions
to problems. “These strategies are common to the thinking styles of
creative geniuses in science, art, and industry throughout history.”
1. Look at problems in many different ways, and
find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has
publicized!)
Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge
about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure
it in many different ways. He felt that the first way he looked at a
problem was too biased. Often, the problem itself is reconstructed and
becomes a new one.
2. Visualize!
When Einstein thought through a problem, he always
found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many different ways
as possible, including using diagrams. He visualized solutions, and
believed that words and numbers as such did not play a significant
role in his thinking process.
3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of
genius is productivity.
Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He guaranteed
productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. In a
study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean Keith Simonton of
the University of California at Davis found that the most respected
scientists produced not only great works, but also many “bad” ones.
They weren’t afraid to fail, or to produce mediocre in order to arrive
at excellence.
4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and
recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no
matter how incongruent or unusual.
The laws of heredity on which the modern science of
genetics is based came from the Austrian monk Grego Mendel, who
combined mathematics and biology to create a new science.
5. Form relationships; make connections between
dissimilar subjects.
Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a
bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the
connection that sound travels in waves. Samuel Morse invented relay
stations for telegraphic signals when observing relay stations for
horses.
6. Think in opposites.
Physicist Niels Bohr believed, that if you held
opposites together, then you suspend your thought, and your mind moves
to a new level. His ability to imagine light as both a particle and a
wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity.
Suspending thought (logic) may allow your mind to create a new form.
7. Think metaphorically.
Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, and
believed that the individual who had the capacity to perceive
resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them
together was a person of special gifts.
8. Prepare yourself for chance.
Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end
up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative
accident. Failure can be productive only if we do not focus on it as
an unproductive result. Instead: analyze the process, its components,
and how you can change them, to arrive at other results. Do not ask
the question “Why have I failed?”, but rather “What have I done?”
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Posted in Uncategorized at 2:23 am by khaled
I’ve been sad and unhappy with my life before. I’ve also reached points in my life where I was deeply depressed. Today I feel something different. I feel despair. I feel like I’ve given up on life. And while I sometimes feel sad and other times I feel angry, the general feeling that I have is that of a man drowning and not wanting to do anything about it. Why I feel tihs way I’m not sure. Is it because I feel powerless and unable to change things. Is it because I don’t feel like my life is important enough to fight for. I really don’t know.
The other day as I was driving and started to think about this, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of not being able to breathe. I felt like I was suffocating. I wanted to take the car and slam it against the divider on the freeway and just get it over with. I think this is the first time in my life when I actually felt this way.
At the root of all of this is my inability to deal with my mother’s personality. She has brought both Manal and I to a point where we are starting to resent her. It’s actually kind of strange, she feels an uncontrolled need to care for us to the point of smothering, and we, because of how guilty we feel towards her, are unable to go out and live our own lives lest we displease her. While both parties are well intentioned, I have a feeling that if we keep going in this direction we will reach a point were we will resent one another deeply.
I feel like if we don’t put some distance between us and her today then we will end up with a chasm in the future that cannot be bridged. Things will end up miserably.
This conversation needs to happen soon. I need to have it with her tomorrow. I’m going to wake up, get her into my room and talk to her. I’m going to tell her plainly that we need some breathing room. I’m going to tell her that she is somthering us; that it is insane for her to call us all the time, asking us where we are and when we are going to be home; that if I ever leave the house in the morning without her seeing me that she has to call seventeen times until she gets me; that she can’t have me live my life the way she wants it; that me not doing what she tells me isn’t because I hate her or I want to hurt her but because I need to be happy and I don’t want to end up unhappy because of her. I’m going to tell her that Manal isn’t going to end up sad, alone and miserable if this doesn’t change; that Manal is riddled with guilt, that every time she’s out of the house she is worried that you’re alone; that Manal doesn’t know how to have a normal life, to be social to have friends; that one of the reasons that she is overweight is that she doesn’t have the constant social pressure of trying to look good, who does she have to look good for? I’m going to tell her that she needs to get a life, not just for her own sake but for ours; as long as she sits at home miserable we are going to feel guilty; she needs hobbies, friends, activities, whatever; I’m going to tell her that I know that it is difficult that she is without a husband and that she feels akward in social situations, but she needs to get over that; that I’ve had to grow up without a father and that I feel like I’ve lost out by not having somebody to balance out her attitudes and to give me guidance, but I’m going to have to deal with that and I want to start today and so should she; I’m also going to tell her that for the longest time I wanted to move closer to my work but I’ve felt sick with guilt because in her mind she’ll only imagine me abandoning her and that made me feel guilty, but that it’s over now and that I’m going to do it.
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